In the fall of 1991, deep wreck diver John Chatterton found a German U-boat under 230 feet of water off the New Jersey coast where no U-boat had ever been recorded sunk. According to all the history books, it simply couldn’t be there. It took Chatterton and fellow diver Richie Kohler six years, multiple dives…
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 7. Backstory. Every single character gets one, including the guy who shows up once to deliver the mail. It can be as little as a sentence or as much as a subplot running through the entire narrative. The supporting cast is what…
In Blue Latitudes journalist Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook, beginning with a week working as a member of the crew on board a replica of Cook’s ship Endeavor. I’d always thought of Cook as this stereotypical British officer, all his buttons properly polished and looking down a very long nose at…
Read more Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 6. Decide early on if you’re writing a series or a stand-alone.* Don’t introduce that great character only to kill him off at the end of the first book of a 22-book (and counting) series. Don’t ask me how I know. *Realize…
Read more 6. Decide early on if you’re writing a series or a stand-alone.*
It’s easy to see how this book, or rather the character of Alexander Hamilton inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write Hamilton, although the constraints of a musical means some of the best stories get left behind. Like the one about Benedict Arnold, who has already turned his coat when Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette show up…
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 5. Never neglect setting.* It’s key to everything that follows. What does it look like, smell like, sound like, feel like? What effect does the setting have on the characters, and why? Once you figure out setting, you can figure out who…
Retired sniper Bob Lee Swagger gets a call from journalist friend Kathy Reilly, who is writing a story on a Russian female sniper in World War II called the White Witch. The scene shifts to World War II and the sniper herself, along with her boss and her target. As her story unfolds in alternate…
Read more Highly recommended, especially if you want a good cardiovascular workout.
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 4. Make your protagonist a hero, if not in his own eyes then in everyone else’s. A hero is better than you and me; that’s why they are heroes and why they deserve their own novel and you and I don’t. How?…
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 3. Put your protagonist at risk. Physically, mentally, emotionally, any or all. Liam Campbell jumped out of an airplane (on purpose), was nearly flattened by a herd of walrus, and has been shot at and missed far too many times. We won’t…
The first-class police procedural is a rare thing indeed today, in both meanings of the word. This debut effort by Frederick Weisel qualifies right across the board. A young woman’s body is found by a lake in Santa Rosa, California, and Eddie Mahler’s Violent Crimes team responds to the scene. Eddie suspects she was murdered…
