by
Scott D Parker
Yes, another Bouchercon post. But in my defense, this is my
first con so I’m all excited.
Last week, I wrote about my first impressions of the convention
itself. Today I’m focusing on the panels that I attended. I’m not sure which
person or group determines the subject of the panels, but they did an excellent
job. There were so many panels to choose from, and the ones I liked best work
on at the same time (natch) so I had to make difficult choices.
First up was “Of All the Ladies I Know.” The subtitle of
this panel was “Corsets and Crime.” What this panel ended up being was how
these authors—all women save the moderator—wrote historical fiction from a
female author’s point of view. The big name that I already knew was Laurie
King, author of the Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell stories. One of the
reasons why I write my stories set in the past is echoed by a quote from CS
Harris: “Historical fiction eliminates technology and gadgets and relies on the
wits and brains of the protagonist.” When moderator Andrew Grant asked why many
of them picked a male lead character, most of the women had come to the same
conclusion, because women just couldn’t do what a man could do at the time
their stories were set. One particular note about dialogue was made by King: If
something is factually correct but would kick the reader out of the story, she
changes the word.
“Murder by Numbers: Ellery Queen, Their Works, and the Magazine”
was a great panel. James Lincoln Warren was the moderator and the panelists
included not only the current editor and book reviewer for the magazine, but Otto
Penzler and Shelly Dickson Carr, the granddaughter of John Dickson Carr. This
panel started with a history of Ellery Queen, the character and author. Next it
touched on the magazine, its genesis and how it’s doing today. What fascinated
me most was the behind-the-scenes details provided by Janet Hutchings and Steve
Steinbock of how the magazine operates.
“On the Nickel: PI” focused on private eye fiction. The
biggest name on this panel was JA Jance. One of my characters is a private
investigator so I wanted to see how veteran authors covered the subject matter.
One of the biggest revelations was the difference between a private eye in real
life and a private eye in detective fiction. No matter the medium, when dealing
with fictional private eyes, they seem to always be in conflict with the
police. More than one writer on this panel concluded that a good PI works with
the cops and the cops accept the PIs because, in the end, they’re all going for
the same thing. Good private investigators work with the cops, and that becomes
their bread-and-butter cases. That would certainly make PI fiction more
difficult to write.
Another great panel was “Golden Years: the Golden Age of Mystery.”
Martin Edwards was the moderator and Do Some Damage’s very own Claire Booth was
among the panelists. I had to chuckle when I looked around the audience wondered
by how much I brought down the average age. Martin was very well prepared for
this panel and even sent out questions ahead of time to give the panelists time
to think about their answers. An idea that never occurred to me was that the
torch of the traditional mystery has been carried on by cozy mysteries. It makes
sense. Martin dug deep into the topic, trying to figure out why Golden Age mysteries
fell out of fashion but also why the authors on the panels still wrote them.
When asked what they had learned from Golden Age fiction, Claire was the first
to respond. “Structure.” Moreover, she liked the idea of playing fair with the
readers—every author repeated this comment—yet still keeping them guessing. All
of the panelists concluded that entertaining readers was most important when
writing. What I particularly enjoyed were the responses from the audience when
the panelist named their favorite unknown Golden Age authors.
Perhaps the most surprising panel that I attended was “Bleeding
Love: Romantic Suspense.” Allison Brennan was the moderator and hers was the
only name I knew ahead of time even though I have not read any of her books. I
like the opening question: what is romantic suspense? The panelist concurred
that is a dual ending, namely a Happily Ever After ending and the Bad Guy getting
caught. The hardest part, Anne Cleeland said, was having to get the love
interests to fall in love quickly. This was the only panel at which I asked the
question. I asked if the TV show “Castle” could be considered romantic
suspense. I thought the answer was yes, and every panelist concurred. My big
takeaway from this panel was from Allison herself, saying that you could do
almost anything you want in romantic suspense as long as you have an HEA
ending. In fact, she said that if you figure out the setup, the book all but
writes itself.
Naturally I attended the “Once in a Lifetime: How Did I Get
Here?” panel because it featured some Do Some Damage writers, namely Russell McLean
and Jay Stringer. I had met Russell once in Houston, but I had never met Jay. The
panel was as entertaining as you would expect it to be and it was fun to hear the
stories of how these authors became authors and all the interesting jobs they
had before they were able to quit their day jobs and write full-time. I
especially liked Jay’s commentary on the difference between a “writer” and “an
author.” If you look at the photograph, you’ll see Jay, far right, wearing a
hat. He took off the hat and said “this is a writer.” Then, putting the hat
back on his head, he spoke in a more professorial style: “And this is an
author.”
Side note: that leaves only Steve Weddle as the only DSDer I
haven’t met. BTW, did you read his column on Thursday? Brilliant.
So, yeah, I had a great time in New Orleans. I even managed
to dictate some new chapters on the commute back to Houston. I expect this will
be the last post on this subject for a time, but you never know.
One of the people I met was Susan Simpson. She’s from
Alabama, and she helps run KillerBooks. For all you mystery fans out there, I
have to say this is a nicely curated site devoted exclusively to mystery
fiction. If you haven’t had a chance, you should head over there and take a
look.
