Tag Archives: Crime Writers of Canada

How I Tricked Myself Into Writing a Novel

Writing in a room of my own on Chesterman Beach.

For most of my life I’ve wanted to write Something Grand: something with an impressive word count. A novel. Ideally a well-written, enjoyable-to-read novel that would sell a million copies, get five stars on GoodReads and qualify me as the Great Canadian Writer of my generation.

Yet, despite collecting shelves of dusty, half-filled notebooks, despite a degree in English literature and creative writing, despite investing in some very beautiful ink pens, I could never write more than 4,000 words per project.

I just didn’t have a Story to tell.

But then some wise people in my life said some wise things, and I read some helpful phrases in the (many, many) writing books I’d collected, and magic happened: I wrote a 92,384-word story.

For those of you who feel that same LONGING to create a Grand Something, here is how I tricked myself into writing a novel. Maybe these tricks will help you too:

Step 1: Find your story

Write What You Read

In early 2017, after decades of me angst-ing about NOT yet writing a novel and thereby fulfilling My Writerly Destiny, my mom pointed out I only read mystery books; the only Netflix shows I watch are mystery series.

MOM: “Why don’t you try writing a mystery?”

Her suggestion reminded me of two quotes I’d scribbled down:

“If we didn’t have to worry about being published and being judged, how many more of us might write a novel just for the joy of making one?”

– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

“If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

– Toni Morrison, from her speech at a meeting of the Ohio Arts Council

I was inspired, so I began contemplating murders.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at mysteries where the murderer, once exposed, is revealed as insane: I wanted a murder that was justified. A murderer with whom we could empathize. A logical, necessary death.

Eventually, I imagined a murder scenario that made sense to me, with characters and motives and subplots and themes I was excited to explore. I wanted to write a murder mystery set in the farmers’ market world, which I knew very well, and was excited to expose the “seedy underbelly” of market politics, the contrast between the customers’ wholesome market experience and the farmers’ harried reality.

Finding Myself as a Genre Writer

One of the reasons I’d struggled so much to write a Grand Something in my twenties was because I thought only “literary fiction” was real literature. It was Art, while genre fiction (mysteries, westerns, fantasy, thrillers, romance) was for the less-discerning masses.

At university, we didn’t read or talk about genre fiction unless a (misguided, determined) student submitted those stories to a workshop, or a (rebel) professor (e.g. W.D. Valgardson) added those books to our course reading list (e.g. First Blood).

It was a big step for me to “come out” and accept myself as a mystery writer. Even now I wince and avoid mentioning my chosen genre in conversations, because I carry the shame from my post-secondary days.

Which is just silly.

Step 2: Flesh it out

So: finally I had a story to tell, in a genre I’d been reading (researching!) since my Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew adolescence.

Here is a magical thing about genre fiction: there is an inherent structure to follow. If I wanted a murder to take place, I would need to set the scene, cause the death, show the discovery of the body, show the subsequent investigation, drop in some clues, include some “red herrings” (false clues), kill another character to muddy the waters, create a dramatic crisis, and give a conclusion where Everything Is Revealed. I charted these scenes out using post-it notes on poster board and finally felt confident that I had a big enough story to fill a novel.

This reminded me of another bit o’ wisdom I’d read:

“Writing is about getting something down, not about thinking something up.”

– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

All I had to do was write out the scenes of my story. That didn’t seem too hard.

Step 3: Write the first draft

This confidence nosedived when I learned: a modern murder mystery novel needs to be around 92,000 words, to make a traditional publisher happy. I had never written that many words for a single project before. Once again, I was intimidated and overwhelmed by the sheer number of words.

I shared my fears with Brock, and he did the math:

92,000 words divided by 365 days = 252 words per day.

BROCK: “Can you write 252 words a day for a year?”

ME: “Yes. Easily.”

And so I began to write. I made myself write at least 252 words every day: I wouldn’t let myself go to bed until I met my daily quota. Often, I wrote more. And I found that, if I got my required words written first thing in the morning, I felt calm and fulfilled for the rest of the day.

I coasted along to the 45,000 word mark, loving the writing process. (Mmmm first draft bliss.)

Life vs. Art

When Brock’s cancer progressed to the point where he needed more of my time and attention, I took a break from the book. It was a conscious decision: I knew the story would be waiting for me when I was ready and able to go back to work. I knew I had limited time left with my sweetie.

That break continued through Brock’s death, the next few months of packing and preparing for our planned move, the move itself, and then the Christmas holidays.

“I Need Help.”

By January 2018, I was ready to finish the second half of my manuscript. But I needed help. I needed someone to push me and check in with me, as Brock had done. So I signed up for OneRoom, an online coaching program.

I told my novel-writing coach, Erica Wright, that my goal was to submit my manuscript to three competitions in the fall. She worked backward, did the math, and announced I needed to write 1,000 words a week, with a first draft deadline of July.

FIRST GUT RESPONSE: “YIKES!”

SECOND GUT RESPONSE: “Hell yes.”

I was now motivated to keep writing, and devised a plan to make that possible. Whenever my four-year-old son was in preschool, I would drive to the nearest cafe and write the entire time.

I LOVE the word count pie chart feature in Scrivener.

I used a writing program called Scrivener to manage my increasingly bulky manuscript: the program tracked my word count progress with a delightful pie chart. Having this visual representation of my progress kept me motivated and gave me milestones to celebrate.

I completed my first full draft a little after my deadline, and submitted it to the three writing contests.

Step 4: Revise & polish

The next challenge — and one I’m still facing daily — is tweaking and revising my first draft to make it a strong, readable, polished final version.

My 92,000ish-word first draft was massive. I found it overwhelming to work with and didn’t know where to start with the revision stage.

I deflected this challenge by sending it to other writers for their input. The first chapter went to a reader via Sisters in Crime‘s Mystery Agent service. I emailed the full draft to three different readers. One was Erica, whom I paid to give me detailed comments and suggestions for improvement.

While I waited for these “beta readers'” feedback, I tried to make my 300+ page manuscript more manageable. I summarized the scenes on pieces of paper and glued them in order into a scrapbook. I made big-picture notes to move scene #4, delete scene #13, rewrite scene #32, etc. When my readers’ comments came back, I made notes on or under each scene.

Now all I have to do is refer to my scrapbook as I progress through the book, incorporating the edits scene by scene.

Staying Motivated

In April, during my rewriting stage, I learned the first draft of my novel had made the shortlist for the Crime Writers of Canada’s Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award: my mystery manuscript is one of the five best unpublished mysteries by a first-time author in Canada.

This was fantastic, mind-exploding news … and completely demotivating. Why should I struggle to polish my book if it was already good enough for publication?

Luckily, I didn’t win the award. Now I’m driven to make my story the best it can be.

While I’m still not done the second draft of my book, I know I’ll finish it this summer, and am motivated by my next goal: submitting it to my list of dream agents and publishers, with a lovely “Arthur Ellis Award shortlist” credential on my cover letter.

In other words …

If you dream of writing a novel or a Grand Something, perhaps these lessons I’ve learned will help you too. In short:

  1. Know Thyself. I needed concrete goals, deadlines, some sort of coach, and milestone rewards. I needed to plot my story out in advance, while other writers (“pantsers”) prefer to create as they go. What approach works best for you? What carrots and sticks do you need?
  2. Inspire the Rider; Clear the Path for the Elephant. It’s great that you WANT to write down your story, but you need to clear the path for yourself too: arrange child care, make a writing space, schedule writing time on your calendar, or do whatever you have to do to make it POSSIBLE to write. (For more on the Rider/Elephant analogy, read Switch, by Chip & Dan Heath.)
  3. Let Yourself Be a Writer. Indulge those stationary fetishes, invest in writer-friendly software like Scrivener, and read inspirational writer books like The Right to Write.

Just write, dammit

Once we find our story, make the time to write, and actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), there is often a moment of self-doubt.

SELF: “What if this is shit?”

Here’s one last bite of wisdom that helped me through that anxiety:

“OK, Universe. You take care of the quality. I’ll take care of the quantity.”

– Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

Take a breath. Remember your story. Write it down.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you have a Grand Dream? What carrots and sticks work for you? What advice has inspired you? Please comment, share this post online or read more posts on this website.

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Shmoozing with Criminal Minds

It’s the highlight of my year so far: my book One for the Raven made the top-five shortlist for the 2019 Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award, which recognizes the “best unpublished first mystery novel” written by a Canadian or permanent resident. Thank you, Crime Writers of Canada.

So … what does that mean?

For one thing, I got to go to a fancy party in Toronto.

The 2019 Arthur Ellis Awards Gala

Two airplanes and three trains took us to Toronto’s Arts & Letters Club on Thursday, May 23. My arm candy included my bestie Quinn (who happened to be attending a work thing in Toronto that week) and my mom, who is a huge mystery fan and challenged me to write my first mystery novel.

Our goals for the evening included:

  1. Take as many photos with professional mystery writers as possible. No shame.
  2. Get my copy of Still Life signed by Louise Penny, who was a nominee for Best Crime Novel. (I made myself have low expectations for this goal: Facebook said my idol had flown to New York on the Monday. Her attendance was unlikely.)
  3. Eat, drink and be merry.

Photos of Heather with Professional Mystery Writers

Here are some of my souvenirs from the evening:

Me, Tim Wynne-Jones and my mama, Virginia Walker. Tim made my mom cry once: she was listening to one of his short stories on CBC Radio while driving, and she had to pull over because she couldn’t see through her tears. He apologized at the event.
Every good party needs a Newfoundlander, and we had two: Helen C. Escott and her son, Daniel. Daniel offered to (finally) screech me in, but we couldn’t find a fish or any screech. Helen’s book Operation Wormwood made the shortlist for Best First Crime Novel. Her upcoming book (Operation Vanished) sounds amazing too.
Linwood Barclay is another of mom’s favourite authors. His book Escape won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile / Young Adult Crime Book. It sounds like the perfect book for Isaac’s bookshelf.
The winner of the Best First Crime Novel was A.J. Devlin, a fellow B.C. writer, for his novel Cobra Clutch. He let me touch his arm for good luck.

Sadly, Louise Penny was not in attendance. That bucket list goal of meeting her and saying “thank you for helping me find my genre” remains unchecked for now.

Nonetheless, we did manage to eat, drink and be merry.

What’s Next?

I didn’t win in my category — Liv McFarlane took home the trophy and $500 from Dundurn Press for her book, The Scarlet Cross. But Dundurn Press will consider all five shortlisted manuscripts for publication, and that’s pretty darn exciting. Congratulations to my fellow newbie shortlisted folks: Darrow Woods, Jim Bottomley, Don Macdonald and the incredible Liv McFarlane.

The big lesson I learned from our whirlwind Toronto adventure was that I’m still a baby in this genre. Most of the writers I met have agents, editors and publishers.

I’m super proud that the first draft of my mystery made the shortlist. It will be even better once I finally finish the second draft. If Dundurn doesn’t offer me publication, I’ll have a strong manuscript and resume to lure another publisher.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

When I started reading Louise Penny’s books, I found my genre. University writing courses had taught me that “literary” writing (not “genre” fiction) was the “best” writing. But my favourite books to read are mysteries, and Louise Penny showed me that “literary mysteries” could succeed.

I’m too sensitive to read gory mysteries or thrillers: I prefer Agatha Christie dramas and Sherlock Holmes puzzles. While some of the books we celebrated at the awards gala aren’t books I’d read, I’m happy for the authors and proud to see mystery writers applauding and celebrating one another.

I want to (continue to) be part of this tribe of crime writers. And someday I want to win an Arthur Ellis trophy: a macabre noosed figure, with a rope on the back that makes the limbs dance when pulled.

the Arthur Ellis trophy

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