The Post-Launch Blues

By Alex Segura

Great pre-pub buzz.

Good momentum.

Everything’s clicking.

Strong pre-orders on this one.

You hear these things sometimes. Maybe I do more than most, working as a publicist by day. As an author, these phrases are like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Especially after months or years spent toiling away at a novel. Finally! Someone read it! Someone even likes it!

It’s a validation, in a way, of the hard work you put in. If your publisher is on their game, it’s also a testament to them and their ability to get the word out and make sure the right people have copies of your book. Of course, the story comes first. If your book doesn’t work or isn’t the best it can be, these things don’t happen. But let’s assume we all know what we’re doing and you’ve written a good book. The early reviews are strong. The blurbs are in. The launch party went great. You’re riding high.

All good, right?

Well, let’s fast forward to a few months after release. The shine is off the apple. A handful of “pub days” have sped by. Your book isn’t the new kid in school. The review cycle has wound down and your emails to your people no longer sound like that of an excited kid on Christmas - “Look at this great review!” - but more akin to an ex hoping to rekindle a one-sided affair…”Hey, how’s it going…?”

It’s a question that’s plagued authors for a good long while: how do you keep interest alive after your book’s come out? I don’t claim to have any answers, aside from my own experience on the other side of the fence, promoting books myself. I will say, it’s become even harder now that we’re in a 24-hour news cycle and riddled with distractions galore. Why think about a book that came out in February when it’s June and Rooney Mara and Jake Gyllenhaal took a walk together in NYC? Everyone’s talking about that OJ documentary - who cares about your book?

There’s no definite answer, but there are a few options. The easiest one, and the one that speaks to our skill sets as writers is simple: write the next one. There’s only so much you, the author, can control in terms of the “greater conversation.” The initial promotional lap is exhausting, brain-melting and feels like a job unto itself. I don’t know about you, but I got very little writing done while promoting my second Pete Fernandez book, Down the Darkest Street. Actually, that’s not true - I did a lot of writing. But it wasn’t actual novel work. There were guest blogs, interviews, reviews, promotional tweets and Facebook posts...you get it. It’s all part of the game, right? But to my point: there will come a time where that well dries up. The train has passed you by and your only real choice is to pick up your tools and get to work on the next one. It’s frightening (“I don’t want to give up on my book!”) but also liberating - this is what we want to be doing, the writing. Even for someone well versed in the PR game like me, the publicity rounds can be a little soul-draining. It’s nice to hop back in the saddle and just tell stories.

The other thing you can do, which I’ve touched on before, is to talk about books. Specifically, not your books. Talk about the novel you’re reading. Talk about the author you’re enjoying. Spread the word. Karma is a vague, subjective thing - but it works for me. It’s nice to get out of my own headspace and just praise the book I’m enjoying or looking forward to. It’s not as direct as, say, pleading for Amazon reviews - but it sure tastes better.

This is where I press play on Elton John’s “The Circle of Life” and ask you, fellow writer, to share what you do in this situation. How do you handle the post-launch blues?

Help a Writer Out

By Alex Segura

Launching a book is stressful. We all know this. I don’t even want to get into how it’s stressful because I’m in the thick of it.

But there's something you can do in situations like these to alleviate the stress. And, if you'll allow me to get a bit New Age-y here, Ill tell you: help another writer. I've found that helping another author is the guaranteed best way to get my mind off whatever's jamming me up in my own head and it puts whatever I'm dealing with in the right perspective.

I try to be mindful of this concept, especially on social media. It’s probably because I do publicity for a living, but I’m always thinking about spreading the word on books or authors. Word of mouth trumps a lot of traditional means of generating “buzz,” because it, well, is buzz.

So, when you’re stressing out about that middling Goodreads review or waiting impatiently for your agent/editor/collaborator to email you back about that Major Thing, take a minute and do a few of these things for another author. I guarantee you’ll feel better.

Leave a review. Did you enjoy their book? Why not cobble together 3-4 sentences and let it be known somewhere? Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your blog - whatever. Believe it or not, these things move the needle, and help customers decide if they’re going to shell out cash for someone’s book.

Plug, plug, plug. Let people know you’re reading something and (hopefully) enjoying it. I usually mention a book a few times if I’m liking it. Sometimes, it even starts a discussion with people who feel the same way. It gets the social media conversation going, and that helps the author. It could be something as simple as posting a photo of a book you just bought or taking part in #fridayreads - anything that mentions an author you’re a fan of helps.

Be a reader. Publicity is part of any book launch. You’ll have to do interviews, guest blogs, live-tweets, AMAs, you name it. But if given the opportunity, you can diverge from your default answers and tip your hat to authors you admire or books you’re immersed in. All writers (well, all good ones) are readers - and they’ll appreciate you mentioning their work. Plus, it might turn a few new people onto their books.

Team up. Solo events can be a little daunting. They’re an important part of the promotional process, but every once in a while, it doesn’t hurt to pool your fans with a fellow writer and do a joint event. This way, you not only open yourself up to potentially new fans, but also return the favor. Noir at the Bars are a good, multi-author example of this, as are panels at conventions. But it can also just be a two-author event at a bookstore. Anything to help cross-pollinate.

This isn’t meant to sound like a concentrated plan. You should do this stuff naturally and if the mood strikes. You don’t want it to seem forced. Be honest - talk about the books you like, the books that inspired you to do what you do as a writer and the books you want to read. Getting people chatting about books is never a bad thing, and if it gets your mind off your own book stress, all the better.

A conversation with Neely Tucker

By Alex Segura

You should be reading Neely Tucker.

Whenever someone asks me for a crime fiction author suggestion, one that might be flying a little under the radar, Neely comes to mind. He writes great mysteries and makes it seem easy - an impressive feat.

Tucker’s Sully Carter books - The Ways of the Dead and Murder, D.C., out now, with a third, Only the Hunted Run, on the way - paint a realistic, compelling and eye-opening picture of the nation’s capital through the eyes of a flawed and all-too-human protagonist. It has the ingredients of some of of my favorite private detective series - think Lippman, Pelecanos, Connelly and Lehane - with a flair and rhythm all its own. Carter’s petulant, smart, thick-headed and brave. He’s a guy you can root for and curse at in the space of a few pages. Tucker’s prose is vibrant but compact, befitting a journalist of his pedigree. The only downside to his novels? I usually read them in a few days and have to wait for the next one.

I was first introduced to Tucker through mutual journalism friends and finally had the pleasure of meeting him in person at Miami Book Fair last year. Trust me when I say you won’t regret picking up his books.

Thanks to Neely for swinging by and chatting. This interview was edited for space and clarity. A version of this interview will show up in my newsletter this week, too - you can sign up for that here.

Neely, thanks for taking the time to chat. Can you give readers a quick introduction to you and your work?

Sure. By day, I'm a reporter on the Washington Post's national desk, currently assigned to the 2016 Presidential campaign. By night, I'm a novelist and non-fiction author. I've been a journalist for thirty years,  sixteen of them at the Post, eight of them abroad. Worked in sixty plus countries or territories in Europe, Africa, the Mid-East, lots of it in conflict situations. Published four books (three fiction) and a chapter in another. Three kids. Wife. Dog. Grill. Football. Bourbon. Seventh-generation Mississippian now living just outside D.C.

What was the inspiration for the Sully Carter books? What made you want to shift to writing fiction after your success in newspapers and nonfiction?

When I came back to the U.S. in 2000,  the Post assigned me to the courthouse as a way of getting to know the city. There was a fascinating case of the last serial killer to work in D.C., a guy named Darryl Turner. He killed prostitutes in a rough part of town. Got away with it for years. That was the inspiration for the novel. In the first draft, Sully  was just one of several primary characters involved the case. He was a reporter who'd come home from covering the Bosnian war, damaged psychologically and physically. He was an amalgamation of things that I and a lot of other reporters had been through. My agent thought he was the strongest character in the draft, and, besides, he had the possibility of being the narrator of a series. So I rewrote it from his point of view.

As to the switch....I wanted to be a novelist since I was a kid. I grew up outside of a tiny little town in Mississippi and loved to read and write stories. I don't know why. My parents were very conservative but they'd let me read just about anything in the town library. So I was reading "Lord of the Rings" and Hemingway and Stephen King and the Hardy Boys and Faulkner and "The Exorcist" and Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote and Eudora Welty, even when a lot of it was WAY over my head.

I got interested in journalism only halfway through college. Willie Morris, the first actual writer I ever met, said that since I wanted to travel as well as write, there was always a newspaper where ever you wanted to go, and then you could meet interesting people all the time and never have to get a real job. Plus, you need to learn how to write sentences, and newspapers can teach you that. I may be the only person who  took career advice from an inebriated southern writer at a Saturday night baseball game and didn't wind up in a holding cell.  

And the advice paid off! 

Like some of my favorite detective series, the Sully novels feature a strong sense of history and place. I know you’re not a native of DC, but what made you want to set the first few books there? And why was it important to give Sully a journalism background?

Practicality, mostly. I wanted the books grounded in reality, but I also wanted them to have a natural way of taking place in a national spotlight. Ergo: Gritty crime in D.C. that gets tangled up, one way or another, with the "ruling class" of federal D.C. In the first book, the teenage daughter of a powerful D.C. appellate judge who might be the next Supreme Court nominee - hello, today's headlines! - is killed in a bad part of town. Like that.

As far as the sense of place....thank you. I think reporting from so many different places around the planet gives you a pretty good idea for what's distinctive about a place, and how to dive into that. 

The second book in particular, was steeped in D.C. history - some fictional, most real. What was the research for that like? Do you find that aspect of writing fiction - the research and organization of data - easier to handle with your background as a journalist?

Murder, D.C. is about the death of the scion of one of the city's wealthiest black families. He's killed in a waterfront park that's long been a haven for drugs. Which, as it happens,is on the site of a former slave-holding pen before the Civil War. The park is wholly invented, but not that much -- the nation's biggest slave-selling auction house was just across the Potomac in Virginia, a distance of about half a mile.

I would argue that the background as a journalist both helps and hurts the research. It helps in that you know how to find what you're looking for and how to synthesize large amounts of information. It hurts in that you tend to rely on that too much.

In fiction, readers don't care if you describe the interrogation room exactly as it is. It only matters you describe is so authoritatively that they believe it. I once profiled Richard Price, who is famous for doing tons of research. He'd go out riding with cops and hanging out in bars and take all these notes and then....never look at it. Never opened a notebook while writing. He said his job was to understand the plausible and then lie responsibly. I thought that was brilliant. (Even in "Clockers," perhaps his most famous book, the title is not actually slang for a street dealer. He just made it up, but now everybody thinks that it was real. The Oxford English Dictionary even called him about it.)

That's a great Price story - and such a relevant point about fiction. It's all about making someone believe your story. My own novels feature a washed up journalist in Pete Fernandez. Sully’s career is much more successful, though they both seem to suffer from similar problems - drinking and a dangerous curiosity being the most obvious. How important was it for you to have a protagonist who wasn’t a seasoned detective, per se?

Very. Sully needed to be a reporter in order to bring in the mysterious workings of the media (some good, some not so much) in these high-profile murder cases. That was something I wanted to write about. Also, so that  he could be a surrogate for the reader. He's not a cop or detective. He doesn't have subpoena power. He can't make people talk to him. He doesn't get to analyze fingerprints or DNA or shell casings. He is bound by a fairly strict ethical code. So he's just this guy on the street, behind the yellow tape,  trying to figure out a violent crime. Of course, everybody's lying to him about their role in it, or might be, or they might be telling the truth as they know it, but they might be factually mistaken. He has to figure out who's telling the truth, then publish the public narrative of the crime...but if he gets it wrong, he gets fired. Or worse. High stakes all around.  

Your third Sully book is on the way. What can you tell us about it?

Only the Hunted Run, is based on the very real assault on the Capitol Building by a schizophrenic named Russell Weston. In 1997, he made it into the building and killed two security guards. In "Hunted," a killer makes it much further into the Capitol and eventually winds up at St. Elizabeths (no apostrophe), the gothic-era  mental hospital on a hill in Southeast DC. Happily, in real life, it really does overlook the rest of the city, which it also does in "Hunted." (Take that metaphor as far as you wish.) Sully is in the Capitol when the shooting starts. Like all the Sully books, it's sort of a crime story about the American Dream gone really, really wrong.

I can't wait to read it. Now, I have to ask this, because his books played a huge part in my own decision to write crime fiction, and I see a lot of echoes of his work in your own - are you a fan of George Pelecanos’s work? The D.C. you portray isn’t identical to his, nor would I expect it to be, but you touch on a lot of the same issues afflicting the city. Mainly things like the dangerous racial divide and the stark contrast between the political elites and the nameless poor that are sometimes just a mile apart. Can you talk about that a bit?

George and I are both greatly influenced by the late great Elmore Leonard, particularly the dialogue. I think what you're seeing in both of us is the ghost of Dutch. I worked in Detroit and got to know him. We were friends for twenty years. You learned from Dutch just by being around him. Lovely, lovely man.  I've only met George once, but we've talked several times by phone and e-mail. He's great. We share a lot of the same likes and dislikes, and I really admire his writing. I stopped reading him, though, as soon as I started my books in the city. I didn't want to be unconsciously influenced in how I was doing my stories set on the same turf. You've got to do your own thing. But, man, I'd love to work with him on a script or something. How fab would that be?

Sign me up. I see the Leonard influence, too - that makes a lot of sense. What an amazing person to learn from.

Are there any books or movies that you’ve been enjoying lately?

I've got two jobs and three kids. I'm way behind on everything. The wife and I just watched all five seasons of "Game of Thrones" in about three weeks. It was awesome. Just read All the Light We Cannot See, which I really liked. Read So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell's classic. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. Into the Heart of the Sea. At the moment, I'm picking through stories in The Annotated Lovecraft. As a journalist, I should be thrilled that "Spotlight" won the Academy Award for Best Picture....but I would have voted for "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Pulling the pin

By Alex Segura

I have a hard time giving up on things. Books especially. Letting go isn’t my strong suit.

This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but it can be particularly difficult for two of my most-read genres: crime and comic books. Both often require a multi-book commitment, because they're written in series form.

So, this leads me to my question: when do you give up on a book or series? What’s your breaking point? What are the exceptions to the rule? OK, that was a few questions - but humor me here.

I sometimes want to be like the cool kids and toss a book across the room whenever it stops grabbing me. Life’s too short, I’ve got better things to read and so on. It sounds easy, right? It’s not for me. I know too much about how the sausage is made - I know how much effort goes into writing even a mediocre book. I try to give each one I read as fair a shake as I can. On the other hand, my time (like yours) is precious - so why waste it on a bad book?

I’m all over the place when it comes to this. I’ve powered through a 10-book detective series even though the last three books were mediocre, at best. I've stuck with books in the hopes that they'd get better only to toss them aside when they fell flat in the end. It varies.

I experienced this feeling of book ennui recently. I was reading an acclaimed, bestselling novel outside my usual genre and it just wasn't resonating with me. I was well into the book and found myself wondering, “What is the point of this book? Do I even care about these characters?”

Turns out, I did. I kept reading and really enjoyed how the book ended. The third act - which was not The Best Thing Ever, but good enough to almost make up for the sluggish start - propelled me toward more books by the author, which I subsequently enjoyed.

So, my answer is simple: there isn’t an answer. There are a ton of factors that go into whether I finish a book. Most of the time I do. I usually pick books I end up liking. However, if something doesn’t grab me and there isn’t enough to keep me interested (even in the earlier example, I at least liked some of the characters and world-building), then I chuck it and start something else. Hell, even my mood can affect whether I stick with a book. If I’ve started a crime novel after dozens of similar books, I might feel burnt out and want to read something completely different. I’ve stopped reading mid-series only to come back years later, in a different mindset, and finish. It’s hard to predict, but I’ve learned to just listen to my gut.

Life is too short to read bad books. But sometimes you don’t realize it as quickly as you should.

What are your warning signs that it might be time to bail on the book you’re reading? How much time do you give a book to right itself before you move on?

The books I'm looking forward to this year

By Alex Segura

I did this as a combo post last year - meaning, I listed my 2014 besties with my most anticipated for 2015. This year, I figured I'd split them in two. Not sure why, but here we are.

I've read a handful of these already - and they did not let me down. I very much enjoyed the new Ian Rankin, Rob Hart, Dave White and Reed Farrel Coleman novels - definitely check those out.

One note - I tried to include Scott Adlerberg's latest, Graveyard Love, but Riffle wouldn't let me. I've also read that one and loved it. You will, too.

So, here they are. The books I'm most excited about this year, so far. It's gonna be a good  year for books...

Dave White talks BAD BEAT with Rob Hart and Alex Segura

By Alex Segura

What happens when you get two crime writers talking about comic books? They start brainstorming crossovers of their own. At least that’s what happened earlier this year when I got a bite with fellow novelist (and Polis Books author) Rob Hart. Aside from being friends, we were also fans of each other’s work. I dug Rob’s debut Ash McKenna novel, New Yorked, and Rob said a few nice things about my first Pete Fernandez book, Silent City.

The idea seemed almost too good to be true: a story that featured both our series stars, set before both debuts and timed to hit in advance of the Polis reissue of Silent City and Rob’s second Ash novel, City of Rose. We ran the idea by Polis head honcho Jason Pinter and we were set. The theoretical story would also feature teases for both Silent City and New Yorked, serving as a teaser trailer for our debuts.

Now we just had to write the damn thing. A little crime caper that would eventually become Bad Beat.

Collaboration is always where things get interesting. Everyone, in theory, likes the idea of working with another creative person. But the fact is, writing is a solitary and personal thing, at least when it comes to novels and prose. Luckily, Rob and I both come from a journalistic background. I’ve also written a bunch of comics - we were used to getting feedback and adapting to hit a larger goal. We’re also both kind of workaholics. The ideas flowed easily and the writing happened fast, creating a final product that was unique and gave a fair share of screen time to both Ash and Pete, allowing readers a peek into their lives before New Yorked and Silent City. Most importantly, aside from making the work good, was that the story counted - it’s an essential and important chapter in Ash and Pete’s lives - and made for a tasty appetizer to fans that might be interested in reading their ongoing adventures.

Bad Beat is a dark, dirty short pulled from the New Jersey gutters that features backroom deals, old friends, kidnapping and the dark side of college football - all told through the prism of Ash and Pete’s first meeting. I guess “first” implies there’ll be more…

We wrangled fellow Polis author Dave White (pre-order An Empty Hell!) to serve as DSD’s own James Lipton for a quick interview with Rob and I. Hope you enjoy.





Dave: So, how did the idea for Bad Beat come around?

Alex: It was pretty organic. Rob and I had dinner and were talking shop, which veered into comic books. We both grew up reading comics and I work in the industry, too. We were going on about how cool crossovers were, and we wondered aloud why that didn't happen much with mysteries. Then we started theorizing about having our characters interact and it grew from there. We pitched Jason Pinter, our publisher at Polis Books, on the idea and away we went.

Rob: I sort of assumed it wouldn't happen! Alex and I are both pretty busy with our day jobs, and most things sound good over a couple of drinks (I'm sure I had a couple of drinks). But it turned out, we're pretty simpatico on a lot of things, in terms of process, and keeping our egos in check. That helped keep things moving.



Having already read Silent City and New Yorked, it strikes me that Ash McKenna and Pete Fernandez are very different protagonists.  Did their differences help or hinder the story coming together?

Rob: The difference between Ash and Pete is what makes it work. If they were too similar, there wouldn't be anything for them to do. It'd be two tough guys posturing the whole time, or two quieter guys unwilling to make a bold move. Ash likes to hit things. Pete likes to think things through. They compliment each other well.

Alex: I think it helped. They provide contrast to each other. We'll get into the timeline of it all later, but when you see Pete in this story, he's very different. Kind of proto-Pete in relation to Silent City and its sequel, Down the Darkest Street. So, having Ash, who's more of a bruiser and less emo than Pete really helped propel the story, and hopefully it worked the other way, too. I had a fun time writing Ash - and it really did have the same feel as those older Marvel comics, where the heroes meet, disagree/fight, then join forces against a common enemy. Plus football.



Where in the chronology of your two books does Bad Beat come into play?  Was it more difficult getting into your characters' mindsets at that point in their lives?

Alex: The story happens before our first novels - Silent City for me, New Yorked for Rob. So, it serves as a prequel. You meet Pete before he moves back to Miami - and you get a sense for how bad things have gotten for him.

I liked zooming out a bit and writing an earlier version of Pete - I wrote a short story that ran in Crimespree Magazine called "Quarters for the Meter" that happened shortly after Pete returned, involving Pete, his best friend Mike and a robbery, but it was fun to really explore the world he lived in prior to Silent City. I felt like there was a lot of room to play that I hadn't expected.

Rob: Writing Ash before New Yorked was fun. Because New Yorked was about him accepting things about himself--he needed to grow up, he needed to be less of an idiot. So I got to go back to him as an immature idiot, which was a good bit of fun.



Rob, in the announcement interview on LitReactor, you talked a bit about having concerns with third person, which you eventually overcame. Were there any moments where you two really had to discuss and compromise on a story point?  How did you deal with it?

Rob: I don't think we had any big objections. We're both former journalists, so we're both used to getting edited. I think early on we promised each other there'd be no egos--the story has to win. A few times we had to look at whether something was working, but we were never far from a solution.

Alex: The only disagreement I remember was so minor it’s not really even worth a mention. The whole process was painless, which I didn’t expect - not because it was Rob, but because collaborating is like being roommates with someone, in a weird way - you get a peek under the hood that you wouldn’t normally get as friends or colleagues. But it was totally fine, and elevated both of us a bit, I think.



Both of you really get into a strong sense of place in your books.  Is the setting in Bad Beat different for either of you?  Was switching locales tricky?  

Alex: It definitely involved more research. But even writing about Miami, I find I have to double-check stuff to make sure I'm not completely off, or writing from memories that are no longer relevant. The fact that we were writing a story set in Jersey, near Rutgers, makes me wonder if Jackson Donne was around at all. Sequel, perhaps?

Rob: I had fun writing about Jersey because Jersey is the worst and it was important for me to convey that. I hope I did!

Okay, lightning round.  Rob, your second Ash McKenna book is City of Rose, and Alex, you have two books out in the next few months in Silent City and Down the Darkest Street.  Give me the elevator pitches for both, and how (if at all) they tie into Bad Beat.

Alex: In Silent City, we meet down-on-his-luck journalist Pete Fernandez. His fiancé’s ditched him, his father's died and he's on the brink of unemployment. He's also drinking himself sick. When a colleague asks him to help find his missing daughter, Pete's dragged into a dark, unexplored corner of the Miami underworld that involves an urban legend known as the Silent Death - one that turns out to be much deadlier than anyone anticipated. Down the Darkest Street jumps forward, and we find Pete trying to get his life in order after the tragic events of Silent City. But just as Pete starts to create some semblance of an existence together, he finds himself forced to investigate a series of grisly murders - pitting Pete against true darkness when he's most vulnerable. Bad Beat really gets the ball rolling for both of these books and serves as a nice primer for both characters, I think. It's really smart marketing by Polis - you can pick up the story and then read the first two chapters of Silent City and New Yorked - a perfect teaser to get tapped into these two PI series.

Rob: In City of Rose, Ash has moved to Portland. He's working as a bouncer in a vegan strip club. One of the dancers tries to hire him--her daughter has gone missing. He refuses to take the job, because he's in a place where he's trying to avoid his past habits. Later that evening a guy in a chicken mask throws him in a trunk, holds a gun to his head, and tells him to stay away from the girls. That just serves to piss him off. So he takes the job and then things get bad. Because it's Ash, and he's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.

He does meet with a journalist and I was going to work in a joke about Pete and like a dummy I forgot and it's already gone to press. Sorry, Alex. :(

Alex: Dammit, Rob. I did manage to tweak something in Silent City to reference Ash - so there’s that.



Please write a 70,000 word essay on how awesome Dave White is.

Alex: No. But Dave, lemme ask you - if you could cross Jackson Donne with any other writer's protagonist, who would it be?

Rob: Yeah. Just don't say Bryon. No one needs that.

I always thought Donne would get a lot out of a long sit down with Spenser.  Kind of a "Shut up and figure out your shit" talk from an east coast master.  As a more contemporary team-up?  Donne would fall right in line with Todd Robinson's Boo and Junior, who'd essentially run roughshod over Donne so he'd have no choice but to get caught up in whatever hi jinx they'd gotten themselves into this time.  Donne follows and then tries to catch up and take the lead at the end.

Alex: Dude - I was totally setting you up to say Ash and Pete. Sigh.

Favorites and Thanks

By Alex Segura

Somehow, I ended up teaching a LitReactor class. If you’re reading this early enough, you can probably still sign up. It starts today and covers how to pitch a comic book. Should be fun.

While crafting my first lecture - yes, I can lecture - I got to thinking about the idea of learning, and how as writers, we should never really stop. I was also thinking about gratitude a lot, too. Thanksgiving had just ended and I’d just flaked on two DSD posts. So, I was thankful for all the great things in my life, one of them being Steve Weddle for his patience and understanding.

So, what’s my point? My point is that I’m thankful for a lot of books and things I’ve learned from them. With that in mind, here’s a list of what got me jazzed about reading and writing this year - with a few older books tacked on that deserve special mention.

Not a shocker that most of them are crime novels, politics or music-related. Those are my jams. I read a ton of comics, too, but that's a whole list unto itself. Maybe later this month.

In terms of next year - I'm very much looking forward to the new Megan Abbott, Duane Swierczynski, Reed Farrel Coleman, Charlie Jane Anders and more. I'll pop that list up here early next year.

What were your favorite books of the year? Which books are you most looking forward to? Share below!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break and got some much-needed down time.

Talking P.I. Series with Alex Segura, Part II

By Kristi Belcamino

Thanks so much for coming back to read Part II.

I have to tell you a little secret - Alex Segura is one of the most supportive crime fiction writers around. And he's a super great guy. 

When my editor and agent told me to go seek blurbs from fellow mystery writers, Alex was the first one I turned to and he was incredibly gracious and supportive and I'm very lucky to count him as a friend. (That's the secret part, you all already know what a great guy he is.)

And besides all that, he's a great writer. I love reading about his protagonist, Pete. If you haven't yet met him, I recommend you check him out, as well.

Here is the rest of our conversation. 

Cheers!

ALEX: What are some of the series you like to read, or that influenced your series work?

KRISTI: When my first book came out my editor said “Fans of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series will enjoy this book” So of course I went out and read everything by Lippman I could get my hands on.

Also definitely, Edna Buchanan’s Britt Montero series.

And now I’m obsessed, flat out crazy about Chelsea Cain’s Archie and Gretchen series. I am a huge fan girl of Cain. I first heard about her in Jon Jordan’s bedroom at Crimespree Castle. (I just sort of want to  leave that there, but I”ll explain!)

I was in his room with Todd Robinson and I think Jeremy Lynch and Jon and my husband and Jon was showing us his flat out mind-blowing collection of books and all those guys started talking about Chelsea Cain with this awe and reverence and I thought, “Who the hell IS this woman.”

It took me about a year to pick her one of her books for the first time after that and as soon as I read it, I was starstruck. Gaga. Fangirl. I love, love, love all her books.

ALEX: Isn’t it awesome to discover a “new” writer and be able to dive into their entire run? I love that. I am a huge fan of all of Lippman’s work, particularly the Tess novels. They were a big influence on my own writing - the ability to show a flawed, human protagonist who didn’t fall into some of the more overused tropes that have become repetitive in detective fiction. I think Tess feels very real, and i wanted the same thing for Pete - if not the same traits and life. I wouldn’t have written a word if I hadn’t read George Pelecanos’s A Firing Offense, the first in his three-book Nick Stefanos series. Now there was a flawed hero! And he had NO desire to be a detective, he just kept getting into trouble. Just as it began to feel like it’d become routine, Pelecanos ended the series and moved onto something else, which I respected a lot. The Dennis Lehane Pat and Angie books also really loom large for me. I liked how he portrayed a dysfunctional and sometimes romantic friendship, how vivid the Boston setting was and how nasty his villains could be. The books just felt creepy and dirty and they didn’t resolve cleanly. I’m really interested in the gray areas of life, and in books that don’t fix everything in time for the peaceful epilogue, and Pelecanos and Lehane are both masters of that. I also have to point to the Lawrence Block Scudder books - what a trip. Scudder feels like such a NY landmark by now, but those first few books were totally different than the last few - you’re on this epic journey with Block as he creates this entire world of people and places. I visited the diner Scudder hangs out in a lot just for fun a few years back - I don’t do fanboy stuff like that often, but I really wanted to experience it. It almost felt like I was hanging out somewhere an old friend visited. All these series share protagonists that aren’t detectives per se - and if they are, they’re not your typical fedora-wearing tough guys looking for a lost dame, you know? I think we have enough of those stories done remarkably well, so I’m always curious about the ones that come from a little left of center.

KRISTI: You sparked a thought here - I am not really doing this in my standalone, but in my series books, I also really wanted to write an Italian-American protagonist. I wanted to write somebody who I related to on that level. There have been a few really great characters like this. Nobody as badass as Jackie Collin’s Lucky Santagelo, but also Adriana Trigiani’s Big Stone Gap books showed Italian-American life. For me, in my series, it was important to have that background and culture and close family ties and big Sundaydinners for Gabriella Giovanni. And like her, I have two Italian-American brothers who are very protective of me and I think people might think it’s a little bit of a caricature. But there is a level of family loyalty in this culture. Not totally Godfather stuff, but I’ve had family members offer to go to bat for me on a level that might seem a little scary. I did go into that a little bit more in my fourth book and I really enjoyed it. It’s hard to walk that fine line between showing those unique cultural aspects and coming off like a cartoon world.

ALEX: I’m so glad you brought this up, because it’s a part of the Pete series too - in a slightly different way. If you read Silent City, you realize that Pete is Cuban-American. He was born in Miami to Cuban parents. But it’s not something that’s hammered home throughout the book - by design. I really wanted to show someone who had this heritage, was defined by this heritage, but was also an individual with quirks and a unique perspective, you know? It was challenging, because you don’t want to seem like you’re shirking his culture, but I knew a lot of people like Pete and I wanted to show that - a Cuban-American guy who does regular things (and some crazy, not-regular things!). I think that says a lot in its own way. It’s funny, because your answer got me to thinking about character descriptions - I try to go pretty light on them, for a variety of reasons. As a reader, I hate getting bogged down by long, descriptive ‘graphs explaining what someone looks like, what they’re wearing and so on, unless it’s relevant to the story. If it isn’t, skip it, I say. So, with Pete and his friends, I kept it pretty light - you know Pete is of average build with brown hair and he sometimes has stubble. But that’s it. I leave the rest to the reader to tinker with in their head as they go on this trip with me. I don’t think I even go into his friends’ backgrounds in much detail, though they are very vivid in my mind, because I want it to be a collaboration with the reader to a point. I like envisioning characters in my head when I read and get really gummed up when the descriptions weigh things down.

That’s a bit of a rant, but I hope my point is clear! I think it’s important to show not only where the characters are going and facing, but where they come from. Pete’s dad is a big part of Silent City and the whole series, and his Cuban heritage, while not front and center in Book 1, is a major part down the line. The past is always relevant to the present.

KRISTI: Nice! I TOTALLY agree with the character description philosophy, although my style is to put a bit more in than you - I like to read about the clothes a woman is wearing! : ) But not too much. I want the reader to come up with her or his own idea of what a character looks like which is why I am still - 15 months after my first book was published - chapped about my cover which has a giant face of a woman on it. It just kills me. What a wake up call to me that I would truly have no say over my covers. I’m still holding out hope that they can be repackaged one day - that carrot was dangled before me once -- but not sure how to make that happen.

Do you like your covers? You probably wouldn’t say if you didn’t, right? I guess at first I wouldn’t either but after BOLO books wrote about how he wouldn’t read my books at first because of the covers,I  I sent his blog post to my editor - they are pretty clear about how I feel about the covers! ; ) HA!

ALEX: I love my covers, actually - and I’ve been extremely lucky so far. Polis has been very proactive and engaged in terms of running stuff by me and explaining why things look a certain way. It also helps that they get the book, want to create a consistent series design and know the market. I couldn’t be happier with the first two Pete covers. Really curious to see the next one. In terms of covers in general, I do LOVE them, but I can’t say they make or break a purchase for me. They can definitely help - I think Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt books have stunningly simple and iconic covers - but I would have bought those books anyway, you know? I think a great cover can be additive and a terrible cover can hurt your casual buys, definitely. I know people who won’t buy a book if they think the cover is off, which isn’t me, but that’s the way it is. I see the cover as a teaser trailer for what’s coming - either a key scene, moment or even feeling. It’s a really hard thing to do well, and I’m not a designer, so I’m always in awe of great covers and the people that make them.

I get what you mean about your first cover, though, especially if you want people to create their own mental picture of Gabriella - I think I’d be frustrated if that happened to me, too, because you want to keep some mystery in the reading experience.

I think this is a good spot to close out - thanks again, Kristi! This was an informative conversation!

KRISTI: Sure! This was fun. Great idea, Alex.

Talking P.I. Series with Kristi Belcamino, Part I of II

By Alex Segura

“How do you write a successful detective series?” Well, first off - I don’t know the answer to that. But it is a question I’ve pondered for a while. I don’t mean successful in the financial sense - though that’s always cool and welcome - but in the critical one. What makes a good one?

Is it about the evolution of the protagonist? I’m not sure, because you see successful examples on both sides of the spectrum - from the never-changing cypher of Lew Archer to the constantly-evolving Moe Prager. Is it about a finite series vs. a long-running one? Again, pick a side, because both have winners - Nick Stefanos lasted three books and Matt Scudder went well past 10.

In an effort to explore the concept, I reached out to friend and fellow crime novelist (and DSD contributor!) Kristi Belcamino. She just published her fourth Gabriella Giovanni mystery, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn - the latest in what I think is a great, engrossing series. Heck, I blurbed one of the books. I feel like Gabriella and Pete have a lot in common, so it’d be interesting to talk a bit of shop when it comes to writing series characters and the craft in general. Thanks to Kristi for chatting.

Kristi, thanks for agreeing to this interview! I feel like we’re both in similar spots in our writing careers - and we both handle series characters. So, it’d make for a fun chat. How did Gabriella come to be? Do you remember it as a specific moment?

Initially, I sat down to write Blessed are the Dead as nonfiction. But I quickly realized the book wouldn’t hold together unless they had convicted the guy who kidnapped and killed the girls. At the time, he was only a suspect. So I decided to write the book as fiction. Of course I have always been a huge fan of Edna Buchanan, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for The Miami Herald and had loved both her nonfiction and fiction, so writing about a crime reporter protagonist had been a dream of mine for years. What ended up happening was as Gabriella Giovanni came to life she became my alter ego - the person I might have been in another life.

So, no specific moment, but I loved reading about crime fiction reporters and so it made sense to want to write my own.

I didn’t have a specific moment, either. So I feel relieved. It’s funny you mention Edna Buchanan, because she was an influence of mine. I wanted to really capture the seedy, dark side of Miami and I knew her work, of course, from my time at The Miami Herald. I also wanted to show the realities of working in a newsroom and how unglamourous it can be. But Pete didn’t appear fully formed for me. He came about because I wanted to write about a character that felt real to me, and maybe didn’t have everything lined up yet. A lot of the detective fiction I first started reading had protagonists who were, I guess for lack of a better term, fully formed? They were good at what they did. I was interested in telling an origin story about a flawed hero who may not even want to be a detective. I also thought that a newspaper setting would be helpful in terms of moving the story along and, more selfishly, because I knew that space and it made it easier to let that pour out than to research a whole new profession. I also wanted to follow someone who I could see - Pete is very much the kind of person I hung out with in college or worked with at the paper, so I had a very clear sense of him early on, even if I didn’t know I’d be writing about him for numerous books.

I think that’s what makes Pete so lovable. He isn’t perfect and we can all relate to him and like him and totally want to hang out with him and be friends. I would’ve totally wanted to hang out with him if we worked together at the paper.

For me, I chose to write about a reporter and her career as my love letter to the heyday of newspaper reporting. Those were the days when I’d come into work and they’d tell me I’d have to be on a plane in an hour and where I spent numerous nights at the fancy restaurant buying cops rounds of drinks -- it was a very exciting time to be a journalist. The newsroom was the most exciting world I could imagine. When I became a stay-at-home mom during the frigid Minnesota winters, it was a way for me to live vicariously in San Francisco, living this exciting life again. I wanted to capture that special newsroom energy on paper. Until I had a kid, I never dreamed for a moment I would ever stop being a reporter. Now, a decade later, I’m back  - in fact, as soon as we are done here, I’m off to the night cop shift at the Pioneer Press. And let me tell you, those exciting days are over. I get a small glimpse of them every once in a while, but the newsroom is a graveyard of abandoned desks and, with the internet, there is no such thing as a scoop anymore. The reporters from the competing newspaper and I are pals. Horror!

I can relate to that a lot. I was a reporter for a short time - an internship for the Sun Sentinel that got extended for a handful of months. I did a lot of copyediting and website “producing” while at The Herald, too, so I spent a lot of time in newsrooms. But I imagine that the scene is completely different now. I feel like the romanticized version of being a reporter that’s in my head is gone now. I remember rushing out to cover a relatively boring community event in west Broward only to have the mayor collapse. So, there I was, a 19 or 20 year old intern, having to scramble to cover it. It was intense - but really fulfilling. The mayor ended up being fine and my story made the local front. I miss that rush, because there’s nothing like it. I’m not even sure it exists at newspapers anymore. So, yeah, part of the writing of Silent City was trying to recapture that feeling, but also showing the mundane side of it, too. Pete isn’t a reporter when we meet him in Silent City, but he has been, which I could relate to, having shifted from writing to editing. When I first started writing Silent City, I had just moved to NY for a PR job, so I was dealing with that transition and I think a lot of my longing for newspapers (and Miami homesickness) came out in the writing.

In your series, do you try to show a lot of growth or change from book to book? That’s something I think about a lot, and mostly because I think it’s important to show evolution. Though, some of the most beloved series are pretty static, in terms of what happens to the lead.

I agree. It is important and I did think about it a lot for all four books. I tried to show change and growth within each book but also through the four books. I think it worked. A reviewer wrote that I’m not afraid to take risks to do this. And one thing that needed to happen to show that growth was I did not keep the characters the same age in the same year, etc. There is time that passes between each book. When this fourth book begins, more than five years have passed. At this point, if I continue with the series, I’m obviously going to have to be more careful about that and think about how I want time to pass. And I am planning more books, but not sure how many. Right now I’m in love with a standalone I’m writing and then will go write book five. What about you, Alex? What are your plans? Riding the series out for as long as you feel it, or do you have other projects you are itching to write?

I just finished a first pass at 3 and I’m well into 4, which is kind of nutty because when I first started out on this trip, I figured I’d write three Pete books and move on to something else. But somehow he got stuck in my brain and I kept getting more ideas. I try really hard to show growth and the passage of time from book to book. I don’t know if that helps the books, because it does mean you should read them in order. But I also try to make each book as self-sufficient as possible, so it hopefully evens out. In Down the Darkest Street, the second Pete book, you find his status quo has completely changed from where we left off - some time has passed. But it’s also not totally out of left field, either. He’s evolved, his life has moved on. I also really feel like it’s important to show the wear and tear we put these people through. There’s a character from the first book who I kind of put through the wringer and then bring back for the second book, and it’s clear they’ve been through hell. I try to show that as realistically as possible. I think that also means that at a certain point, the series has to end - I don’t think anyone would handle these kind of things going on forever. I have to tip my hat to Reed Farrel Coleman’s Moe Prager books for being a great example of the evolving protagonist - from book to book, you see time jump months or even years forward, and part of the fun is figuring out where Moe stands and what’s going on with him. That was a big influence on me, as were the Scudder books. I find those kind of books interesting, which is why I try to reflect that in my novels. Book 3, not to spoil anything, is also a big departure because by the end of Book 2, you’re not really sure how things can proceed. Which I think is great, because it opens up a ton of story potential. I like torturing my characters and seeing how they react. But yeah, to get back to the original question - I’m much more interested in having the characters evolve and learn than just showing them taking on the “next case.” It’s more cable TV than Law & Order for me.

That is great. I love that you see it that way and think that is the best way to go. And what a great way to end a series book when you know there is another to write -- just not sure where it is going. The reader has to pick up the next book to find out. Also, I need to read some Moe. Gary at Once Upon a Crime said Coleman’s Moe is his favorite fictional protagonist. What an endorsement! His favorite! Also I love that you torture your characters and put them through hell without an ounce of guilt! Kidding. We need to do that to them!

Totally. It makes it interesting. Do you map out the entire series? I can’t say that I do. I’m working on the fourth and your fourth is already out in the world - but I never would have guessed this is what I was going to be writing about. I see each book as a season of a show, and while I kind of know where each season is going, they organically come together to create the over-arching story. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and thought “Well, by book 10 Pete is going to be a grandpa detective living in Boca Raton!” Though, that sounds vaguely interesting now.

Ha!

I had loosely mapped out three books from the beginning. When my agent was shopping Blessed are the Dead, she wanted synopsis for three books to shop it as a series. When I realized I was writing four books, I had to stick another book in the middle, if that makes sense?

I feel like the series could be totally wrapped up now but I am very very lucky that most reviews left are asking for the next book so I think that will need to happen.

Right now, I’m about one-third of the way through a standalone and what I’ve found is that IT IS HARD. I can crank out series books quickly and it seems to work because most people have been saying my latest book is my best (does that sound like bragging, I don’t mean it to, I just mean that writing fast doesn’t mean writing a shitty book), but with this new stand alone, it is the hardest thing I’ve ever written.

The first book I wrote, Blessed are the Dead, took about four months to write and an ENTIRE YEAR to revise as a I taught myself how to write. The next three books took about four months each and I attribute that to already being intimate with that world and those characters.

This standalone is a whole new ball game. Someone told me recently that in a way I can look at all four books in my series as BOOK ONE and that this stand alone is actually my sophomore book. Which is scary, but it really feels like that.

That’s a really interesting way to look at it. I don’t think it’s bragging at all to say your latest is your best - that’s the hope, right? If everything is clicking, I can write pretty fast, but I do a lot of heavy lifting in revision. I don’t think I’m unique in that regard, but it means a longer runway for each book. I had two books in mind when I started writing Silent City - the debut and another, darker book that explored some of the themes that aren’t fully resolved in book 1. I figured I’d add another book to wrap it all up. When my agent started shopping the books, like your situation, she asked for a synopsis for a potential book 3, and that was the first time I got to thinking about it beyond a title - Dangerous Ends. It all sounds very ominous, right? But once I finished book 3 I felt like there was more to say, and I wanted to explore the new status quo I’d created, so I think the trick is to keep it interesting for yourself and hopefully that translates to the readership. I can’t imagine writing a standalone just yet, but we’ll see where I’m at after a few more Pete books. I’m having too much fun with him and keeping him on his toes.

AKA torturing him!

Haha, yes! 

Come back on Sunday for Part II of the discussion!