Welcome to Biting-Edge, a blog shared by authors and vampire experts, Mario Acevedo and Jeanne Stein. We’ll cover urban fantasy, vampires, pop culture, and all things Joss Whedon. Unlike other fantasy blogs, we don’t insist on body cavity searches (unless you ask politely). Snarkiness is most welcome...though we won't promise not to bite back!
Sunday, May 05, 2013
The many shades of mystery
Mario here:
What I'm reading: Money Shot by Christa Faust.
Jeanne is away at RT 2013 doing something scandalous. Not sure what except that it involves the, you know, wink, wink.
When I'm around other writers and the conversation turns toward our favorite and most influential authors, I get a little embarrassed in that I'm often not familiar with many of the names mentioned. Since I've been published in Urban Fantasy, i.e., speculative fiction, people tend to assume I'm well read in horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But apparently I'm not. Sure I recognize Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Issac Asimov. Starship Troopers remains one of my favorite books. And I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. I deliberately stayed clear of horror so I never developed an appreciation for Stephen King. When I wanted to read about people doing nasty things to one another, I turned to history, especially the Nazis.
I credit my dad for enlightening me to books beyond what I'd get from the library or the local used bookstore. His hand-me-down pulpy, thrillers included James Clavell, Leon Uris, Frederick Forsyth, Michael Crichton. But there was another author whose books I devoured. John D. MacDonald. My best friend Ron Zapien and I traded copies back and forth from wherever we could lift them. Travis McGee became my hero and I dreamed of an invitation to a gin-and-tonic blowout on his houseboat, the Busted Flush. The titles alone take me back to lazy afternoons sprawled on the sofa. A Tan and Sandy Silence. The Quick Red Fox. One Fearful Yellow Eye.
Besides my fiction homework for the week, it's with added pleasure that I'm going through The Red Hot Type Writer: The Life and Times of John D. MacDonald by Hugh Merrill. MacDonald's reputation looms huge over the mystery genre with seventy novels and over five hundred short stories published in his career (on a typewriter! He's the Paul Bunyan of scribes!) To more ardent MacDonald aficionados, this biography is a rehash of what they already know. But to me, most of what's on the pages is new. One telling shortcoming is the absence of photographs. I would've appreciated seeing MacDonald with his wife, his days as an insurance salesman pounding out queries and receiving rejection letters, as an Army officer in India during WWII, drinking parties with his fellow hacks, of the novelist MacKinlay Kantor who goaded MacDonald into penning his breakout book The Executioners (later adapted into the movie Cape Fear).
A big lesson and inspiration was MacDonald's discipline to both writing and the development of his craft. He would write almost daily from 8am to noon, a lunch break, and hit the keys again 1-5pm. Then relax, usually with a drink. Years later he reflected, "It wasn't until my habits were firmly embedded that I discovered that writers tended to work a couple of hours and then brooded about it for the rest of the day."
So crack that whip. It's time to work, you slackers.
Mario here:
What I'm reading: Money Shot by Christa Faust.Jeanne is away at RT 2013 doing something scandalous. Not sure what except that it involves the, you know, wink, wink.
When I'm around other writers and the conversation turns toward our favorite and most influential authors, I get a little embarrassed in that I'm often not familiar with many of the names mentioned. Since I've been published in Urban Fantasy, i.e., speculative fiction, people tend to assume I'm well read in horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But apparently I'm not. Sure I recognize Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Issac Asimov. Starship Troopers remains one of my favorite books. And I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. I deliberately stayed clear of horror so I never developed an appreciation for Stephen King. When I wanted to read about people doing nasty things to one another, I turned to history, especially the Nazis.
I credit my dad for enlightening me to books beyond what I'd get from the library or the local used bookstore. His hand-me-down pulpy, thrillers included James Clavell, Leon Uris, Frederick Forsyth, Michael Crichton. But there was another author whose books I devoured. John D. MacDonald. My best friend Ron Zapien and I traded copies back and forth from wherever we could lift them. Travis McGee became my hero and I dreamed of an invitation to a gin-and-tonic blowout on his houseboat, the Busted Flush. The titles alone take me back to lazy afternoons sprawled on the sofa. A Tan and Sandy Silence. The Quick Red Fox. One Fearful Yellow Eye.
Besides my fiction homework for the week, it's with added pleasure that I'm going through The Red Hot Type Writer: The Life and Times of John D. MacDonald by Hugh Merrill. MacDonald's reputation looms huge over the mystery genre with seventy novels and over five hundred short stories published in his career (on a typewriter! He's the Paul Bunyan of scribes!) To more ardent MacDonald aficionados, this biography is a rehash of what they already know. But to me, most of what's on the pages is new. One telling shortcoming is the absence of photographs. I would've appreciated seeing MacDonald with his wife, his days as an insurance salesman pounding out queries and receiving rejection letters, as an Army officer in India during WWII, drinking parties with his fellow hacks, of the novelist MacKinlay Kantor who goaded MacDonald into penning his breakout book The Executioners (later adapted into the movie Cape Fear).A big lesson and inspiration was MacDonald's discipline to both writing and the development of his craft. He would write almost daily from 8am to noon, a lunch break, and hit the keys again 1-5pm. Then relax, usually with a drink. Years later he reflected, "It wasn't until my habits were firmly embedded that I discovered that writers tended to work a couple of hours and then brooded about it for the rest of the day."
So crack that whip. It's time to work, you slackers.
Labels: Christa Faust, Hugh Merrill, John D. MacDonald, Travis McGee
¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 8:14 PM 5 comments
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Show me your pile
Mario here:
What I'm reading: Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald.
I speak to a lot of newbeis about writing. Mostly about craft. Some about storytelling. We have discussions about technique versus craft. What I've learned is that there is no one way to tell a story. Some people get hidebound over style and throw ugly conniptions about POV shifts and exposition as if these were the most foul of human trespasses. I've come to appreciate there is a difference between writing and storytelling. Some authors are very good writers yet mediocre storytellers, and as a result, in a novel, they lose their readers. Other authors are fantastic storytellers yet middling writers. Their prose doesn't dazzle. But roll out a good story and readers will overlook a lot.
One drawback to being a writer is that I've had to retrain myself as reader. It was too easy to read a book through my critiquer goggles and get so nit picky that I missed the richness of the story. This doesn't mean I finish every book that I start. If I put a book down, it's seldom because of style but because the story lacks coherence (i.e., a plot).
One bit of advice hasn't changed in my years as a writing instructor. And that is: Read. A lot.
Read bunches in your genre and bunches out of your genre. I'm amazed when I asked a wannbe to list their favorite books and they reply that they're too busy to read. Or they want to pen a (fill-in-the-blank--mystery, thriller, historical) and haven't bothered to read one. Last year I challenged myself to read a book a week and so far, I'm on the money. Here is my TBR pile, in no particular order that the books will be consumed. Four are nonfiction, the rest novels.
If life was truly fair, then local writer Manuel Ramos would be in the end caps at Costco with Michael Connelly and CJ Box. The Denver Post gives Ramos a bit of his due in this chingaton review of Desperado.
Mario here:
What I'm reading: Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald.
I speak to a lot of newbeis about writing. Mostly about craft. Some about storytelling. We have discussions about technique versus craft. What I've learned is that there is no one way to tell a story. Some people get hidebound over style and throw ugly conniptions about POV shifts and exposition as if these were the most foul of human trespasses. I've come to appreciate there is a difference between writing and storytelling. Some authors are very good writers yet mediocre storytellers, and as a result, in a novel, they lose their readers. Other authors are fantastic storytellers yet middling writers. Their prose doesn't dazzle. But roll out a good story and readers will overlook a lot.
One drawback to being a writer is that I've had to retrain myself as reader. It was too easy to read a book through my critiquer goggles and get so nit picky that I missed the richness of the story. This doesn't mean I finish every book that I start. If I put a book down, it's seldom because of style but because the story lacks coherence (i.e., a plot).
One bit of advice hasn't changed in my years as a writing instructor. And that is: Read. A lot.
Read bunches in your genre and bunches out of your genre. I'm amazed when I asked a wannbe to list their favorite books and they reply that they're too busy to read. Or they want to pen a (fill-in-the-blank--mystery, thriller, historical) and haven't bothered to read one. Last year I challenged myself to read a book a week and so far, I'm on the money. Here is my TBR pile, in no particular order that the books will be consumed. Four are nonfiction, the rest novels.
If life was truly fair, then local writer Manuel Ramos would be in the end caps at Costco with Michael Connelly and CJ Box. The Denver Post gives Ramos a bit of his due in this chingaton review of Desperado.
Labels: Cape Fear, Desperado, John D. MacDonald, Manuel Ramos, the Highlands, the North Side
¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 7:50 PM 4 comments
