P.M. Castle

Colorado Author

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More blessings than I can count

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It’s easy to maintain an attitude of gratitude with my proverbial cornucopia overflowing with ample food, good health and the love of those I cherish most. I’m doubly fortunate, though, as a retired newspaper journalist turned mystery novelist. I write every day. Flex my creative muscles. Best of all, I continue to pursue my lifelong passion to tell compelling stories.

In this season of thanksgiving, here are a few of the many blessings I count as a novelist:

  1. The English language and its more than 170,000 words. That’s a lexicon large and varied enough to supply the right word for every occasion without settling for the almost right word. It’s a distinction Mark Twain compared to the difference between lightning and lightning bug.
  2. Writing that conveys in clear and convincing fashion exactly what you want to convey. The vivid description that immerses readers in a scene. Authentic dialogue that not only propels stories forward, but also reveals character. What Ernest Hemingway described as “the truest sentence you know.”
  3. The good idea that materializes out of thin air and twists your story in a way you never expected. As a pantser — someone who eschews planning and writes instead by the seat of his pants — I discover how my plot unfolds the same time as my characters. I’m invariably surprised and supremely grateful for something more interesting than anything I could have devised ahead of time.
  4. A good editor with a keen eye for details, a deep understanding of what makes stories good and a collaborative approach. I’m blessed beyond measure to work with a skillful and experienced editor who makes my writing better than I ever thought possible. She’s both muse and mentor in providing inspiration and guidance.
  5. The camaraderie of writers who’ve been there, done that and understand the persistence required to write fiction. I meet weekly with an eclectic group of writers as talented as they are supportive. They criticize, but always in constructive ways. There’s an implicit admission we all struggle, but also the assurance we struggle together.
  6. Beta readers who provide valuable feedback on manuscripts before they’re published. My mystery novels feature an amateur sleuth in a history professor. Imagine how fortunate I am, then, to know a real history professor willing to share his time and expertise to read my pages and tell me what I’m doing right and wrong.
  7. Novels that offer proof of what’s possible, set examples to emulate and provide motivation to keep working on my craft. That makes me grateful to Ray Bradbury, C.J. Box and Robert McCammon. That’s not to mention Mark Stevens and Kevin Wolf.
  8. Google and other internet resources that make research easy and provide quick answers to strange questions at the push of a few buttons. I’m sure I’m not the only mystery novelist who wonders how fast corpses decompose in cold water or what poisonous mushrooms grow in Colorado.

I’d love to add to my list literary agents who respond promptly to queries. While I’m at it, how about a three-book deal with a big-five publisher that includes a six-figure advance?

For now, though, I’ve got more than enough for which to be thankful and maintain my attitude of gratitude.

 

Because I have to …

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Why write?

The answers are as numerous and unique as writers.

My answer for more than 40 years was simple: I like to eat. I wrote for a total of seven newspapers in that span to earn money to buy food. Not to mention pay for housing, beer and other necessities. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my jobs. I was paid to talk with interesting people and tell interesting stories. Thousands of them over the course of my career. But I never could have done so without also paying the bills.

During the past decade, my answer became more complicated. In addition to news stories, I wrote two novels. The first installments in a mystery series set in the rugged northwest corner of Colorado. And now that I’m a recovering journalist — retired, that is — I write mostly fiction. I’m blessed to no longer write as a means of subsistence, but for other reasons.

The fun of it, for starters. Joy springs from choosing exactly the right words, arranging them in elegant sentences and conveying ideas in compelling fashion. Writing fiction is a bit like describing the movies playing in my head and hoping readers see what I see. The more detailed and vivid the descriptions, the more likely they’ll want to follow along.

It’s no less enjoyable to discover where creativity leads. As a pantser — someone who avoids planning and writes instead by the seat of his pants — I get to tag along with the characters in my novels and find out what they do as the plot unfolds. I’m almost always surprised. And grateful, because it’s usually something more interesting than anything I could have devised ahead of time. Believe it or not, the process works that way.

More than anything, I write to bring my characters to life and share their stories. I want readers to join my small town newspaper editor and my history professor on their adventures. To endure their setbacks. To celebrate their victories. To foster a deep personal interest in their well-being.

Author Judy Blume emphasizes this internal compulsion and emotional connection in her advice to writers: “The best books come from someplace deep inside. You don’t write because you want to, but because you have to. Become emotionally involved. If you don’t care about your characters, your readers won’t either.”

But that also induces my recurring fear. If I don’t introduce the characters from my novels to the world, they’ll die when I die, unknown and unappreciated figments of my imagination. I worry they’ll gather around my deathbed and press for an explanation.

Why write? Because I have to.

After every dark and stormy night, a bluebird day

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Bluebird day.

Anyone who’s spent enough time in Colorado knows about that remarkable experience. A sunny day savored beneath a cloudless sky painted with a palette of blues ranging from cyan to cerulean.

Skiers and snowboarders especially prize the bluebird days that follow snowy nights, a deep blue sky above and glittering white landscape below. The contrast is no less vivid on a crisp fall day in the high country, where yellow aspen leaves quake in the breeze and tumble like gold coins from the blue heavens.

Bluebird days occur in Colorado because of a combination of weather and geography. Low-pressure systems that push storms west to east often precede high-pressure systems that bring air so still and dry it takes on a crystalline clarity. Mountain elevations intensify the illumination of the sun. At least that’s the scientific explanation.

I believe there’s a psychological component as well. Bluebird days induce euphoria. An eagerness to accept challenges, push limits and seize opportunities before they’re squandered. To realize successes.

Then there are the metaphorical aspects of bluebird days. And, at long last, my point as a novelist: Bluebird days constitute an important metaphor in mystery writing.

What’s the opposite of a bright and clear day? A dark and stormy night — part of the opening lines made famous by first Edward Bulwer-Lytton and then Madeleine L’Engle. Don’t forget Snoopy, the cartoon strip beagle who typed his novels atop his doghouse.

Most mysteries don’t begin on dark and stormy nights, but dead bodies often appear on opening pages. Corpses — and, by extension, foreboding evil — provide a reliable hook that yanks readers into stories at the onset. Detectives, private investigators and librarians — sleuths of all sorts — then go about the process of figuring out who done it and bring the villains to justice. In that process, sleuths invariably endure life-changing difficulties even as the stakes mount.

What follows every metaphorical dark and stormy night? That supreme ordeal? A metaphorical bluebird day. A resolution. Challenges accepted, limits pushed, opportunities seized and successes realized.

I write what I contend are bluebird day mysteries set in the rugged mountains of Colorado. My mysteries include plenty of dark and stormy nights in deadly shootings, mine cave-ins and other catastrophes. Villains commit heinous crimes motivated by greed, envy and revenge. My sleuths — a relentless small town journalist and brilliant history professor — endure their own difficulties. But in the midst of their desperate searches for truth and treasure, they discover meaning. Good triumphs over evil and love conquers all. Bluebird days prevail.

I hope my bluebird day mysteries offer readers an escape from what’s too often the stresses and tedium of life — bad days at work and mind-numbing scrolling through screens. I offer a chance instead to sit, relax and savor a compelling story told well.

In other words, an experience as enjoyable and satisfying as a bluebird day in Colorado.

Every story begins with two words

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As a mystery novelist, I often contemplate the writing process. Which is in itself a damned perplexing mystery.

Where do ideas come from? How do writers turn their ideas into short stories, novels, scripts and screenplays? There’s a more practical question, too: Is there some shortcut to avoid what’s otherwise a long slog?

Take it from me, it’s an occupational hazard. Everyone who takes writing the least bit seriously does it. We ask other writers about it as if it’s a pick-up line in a bar: So, what’s your process? We read books on the subject, hopeful we’ll glean something — anything — that improves our own processes. Or at least makes them less vexing.

Here’s the problem. The writing process is different for every writer, as unique as their fingerprints. What succeeds magnificently for one writer fails miserably for another.

Yet, there’s no shortage of general advice from writers about the writing process.

Anne Lamont emphasizes persistence over perfection. How do you tackle an overwhelming project — one involving birds, for example? One step at a time. Bird by bird. In other words: Butts in chairs and hands on keyboards. And don’t worry too much about what Lamont describes unapologetically as “shitty” first drafts. They become better second drafts.

Then again, a quote attributed to sportswriter Red Smith described the process this way: “Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter, open a vein and bleed.”

Even a novelist as successful and prolific as Stephen King admits he doesn’t understand the writing process. King recalled in the afterword of one of his recent collections of short stories how his tales sometime rush into his mind fully formed. “Why this process works, or how it works, is a complete mystery to me.”

I’m no more an authority on writing than anyone else. I believe nonetheless every story, every novel, every fabrication of fiction begins with the same two words arranged as a question: What if? Not literally, of course. But as the origin of the premise.

King answers a lot of what if questions in his novels. What if vampires invade a small New England town? What if a rabid St. Bernard traps a mother and her young son in a stalled car? What if someone travels back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK?

I consider in my novels what happens if a workaholic reporter laid off at a Denver newspaper settles for a job as editor of a small town weekly in the remote northwest corner of Colorado. What if that man meets a brilliant and beautiful history professor searching for a cache of loot hidden by the outlaw Butch Cassidy? What if, two years later, the same couple is scuba diving in a mountain lake in search of treasure and finds instead a ghastly corpse tied to a rock?

What if constitutes only the start of stories. It’s up to writers to explain what follows. Why their characters react the way they do and how they change as a result.

Some writers — call them “plotters” — carefully plan their next steps. They craft outlines, arrange notecards and compile detailed information about their characters and settings. You could call me a “pantser,” someone who writes by the seat of his pants. I prefer the term “discovery writer.” In proceeding without a plan, I’m free to discover where my characters lead me as the plot unfolds. I’m not only surprised by what they do, but also grateful since it’s usually more compelling than anything I could have imagined.

But that’s a story for another time. One that undoubtedly begins with two words. What if?

Backstories make for compelling stories

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I love a good backstory. How about you?

Backstories reveal past experiences and events. All those details that bring characters in books and movies to life and explain why they do what they do.

What turns Bruce Wayne into Batman? The haunting memory of his parents’ murder. Harry Potter’s background as an orphan who discovers magical abilities affects the ways he responds to the challenges he faces. Childhood trauma, aristocratic heritage and powerful intellect combine to create the monstrous — and fascinating — Hannibal Lecter.

Backstories turn two-dimensional cutouts rendered in bland physical descriptions into three-dimensional individuals with vibrant personalities. And faults. The more the better. Backstories create characters to which readers relate because they empathize with their needs, problems and aspirations. Most important, readers care about these characters and what happens to them.

Compelling plots might entice readers to turn pages. But if readers don’t care about the characters or what happens to them, what’s the point? The real story isn’t so much about what happens to characters, but how characters react and change based on their experiences.

Like any good thing — chocolate cake comes to mind — backstories are best served a little at a time. There’s a temptation to tell readers everything about the hero right off the bat. There’s also a temptation to devour a whole cake as an appetizer. The pleasure in reading and eating comes in savoring the experience, especially surprises. The alternative is a tiresome information dump or bellyache.

It’s essential to establish backstory near the beginning to foster a basic understanding of what a character wants, what’s at stake and what stands in the way. Then add more backstory to provide depth and context.

Don’t tell a backstory, show it. An event — a sight, sound or smell — triggers memories. Habits like hoarding or cracking knuckles signal deprivation, anxiety and other emotions rooted in the past. The way characters talk — accents, dialects and the words they choose — reflect their background, education and personality.

Don’t show backstory for the sake of showing backstory, though. Show only what’s relevant to what characters think and do. Events, actions and dialogue should unveil backstory gradually even as characters develop.

I wrote a murder mystery featuring a small town newspaper editor as sleuth. I wanted to add a treasure hunt as well as a love story. I invented a second protagonist in a brilliant history professor.

Their backstories? My editor was laid off from his job as a reporter at a big city daily and is desperate to resurrect his career. My professor has searched for years for a cache of stolen loot hidden by the outlaw Butch Cassidy. My characters seperately avoided romantic relationships to focus on work. Together, they’re looking not only for truth and treasure, but also redemption and the meaning missing in their lives.

Here’s what else backstory can do. The professor reveals in my first novel a failed engagement to a paleontologist that left her embittered. That kernel of information serves as a springboard into my second novel in the series. That and the fact the professor learned as a teen-ager how to scuba dive. What follows is the discovery of a ghastly corpse roped to a rock at the bottom of a mountain lake, a plot to illegally unearth dinosaur fossils from public land and a search for gold bars stolen a century ago in a stagecoach robbery.

I strive to offer readers unique characters that bring distinctive skills — and shortcomings — to life-and-death conflicts. Then inspire readers to care what happens. Backstories remain an essential part of the effort.

I love a good backstory. How about you?