Mystery Writing

Recession a boon for books?

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According to the Telegraph in London, some publishers see opportunity in these dark financial times.

Publishing is not immune to tough times. This week Random House announced 5 per cent redundancies. Agents are shaking their heads over the reduced advances. Paper costs have risen. Books are being delayed from 2009 to 2010 to stretch budgets. Booksellers are cautious about almost anything without a TV tie-in. But publishers aren't, like ITV, dependent on advertisers. And readers are addicts. They will not stop reading to stare at the telly. Indeed, publishing can benefit from recession.

"At staff presentations, if people are looking gloomy," says John Makinson, chief executive of Penguin, "I tell them that the 1930s were the golden age of publishing in Britain. Many major publishing houses started then and Allen Lane, who launched paperbacks for sixpence, vastly expanded the market.

"Book sales correlate well with the market for takeaway pizzas," says Makinson. The idea – born out by industry-wide figures showing a rise in sales since this time last year – is that staying in is the new going out. Paperbacks cost less than a cinema ticket and provide many more hours of amusement.

Night and Day

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NIGHT AND DAY, the new Jesse Stone novel, is so slight, you almost expect the words to evaporate from the white pages. I noticed the white because there's so much of it. I doubt there has ever been so much white space in a book before. The story is barely a sketch with a plot so thin it's practically non-existent. There isn't even a murder in the book…or a real mystery, as such. If anything, it's more of a vignette about Jesse, because the crimes, such as they are, aren't mysterious, involving, or interesting on their own. They aren't even felonies. The story doesn't even feel long or substantial enough to qualify as a novel, so think of it as a extended short story padded with lots of re-stating of information we already know and pages of rapid-fire banter, some of it clever, most of it quite familiar and tired (especially if you've read the Spenser novels). Which all leaves enough white space on the pages to write your own novel in the margins.

It was a pleasant diversion for a couple of hours, certainly not the worst Jesse Stone book (or the worst Parker), but far from the best. It was interesting, though, to contrast the book with the new, and wholly original, Jesse Stone movie that aired the other night. The movie was far better than any Stone novel in the last few years. Selleck and his team have the Parker voice down and managed to craft a much more interesting plot that felt true to the spirit of the early Stone novels. Parker remarked in a recent interview that he doesn't do any rewriting. It shows. 

Mystery Money For You

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The Mystery Writers of America is awarding $500 scholarships for aspiring writers to attend conferences and short-term writing programs. The details are below and you need not be an MWA member to apply for the grants:  

2009 Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing
INFORMATION: http://www.mysterywriters.org/?q=AwardsPrograms-McCloy
APPLICATION FORM:  http://www.mysterywriters.org/files/2009_McCloy_application.pdf
What Is It?
The Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing seeks to nurture talent in mystery writing—in fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, and screenwriting.
Who May Apply?
The scholarship is open to U.S. citizens or permanent residents only. Membership in Mystery Writers of America is not required to apply.
How May the Scholarship Be Used?
The scholarship may be used to offset tuition and fees for U.S. writing workshops, writing seminars, or university/college-level writing programs.
The scholarship committe would like to emphasize to potential applicants that scholarship funds may be used for short-term writing workshops, conferences, and seminars, and not solely for university/college-level writing courses.
What Is the Scholarship Amount?
MWA will present two scholarships for up to $500 each in summer/fall 2009.
What do I need to submit?
>  Scholarship application form
>  Copy of official description of writing workshop, seminar or class printed by the institution/sponsor of writing program
>  FIVE COPIES of a mystery writing sample (e.g., 3 chapters from a novel with a synopsis, 
    3 short stories, 3 pieces of short nonfiction work, 1 screenplay, or 1 play script)
>  Two letters of recommendation (usually from teachers who can speak to the applicant’s writing ability)
>  FIVE COPIES of a short (300- to 500-word) essay on the applicant’s interest in mystery writing 
The scholarship committee may also require a syllabus or other documentation from the writing program to be attended.
Submission Address:
Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship Committee
PO Box 16319
Saint Paul MN 55116-0319
Application Deadline:
All applications must be postmarked by February 28, 2009. No late applications or emailed applications will be accepted.
Questions?
Contact the Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship Committee at the address above or e-mail mccloy-mwa@lycos.com. No phone calls, please.

Lazy Days and Beloved Characters

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I finished writing my latest MONK novel the other day and I felt like lazing around. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and after writing a book I didn’t feel much like reading one. So I vegged out on television…some new, some old.

The “new” were the latest episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.
The BATTLESTAR episode was, astonishingly, one hour of pure exposition…mightily well-written, grandiose and flowery exposition, but exposition all the same….the dreaded “Irving the Explainer” taken to new, galactic heights by three Cylon-the-Explainers. Only a serialized series on it’s last episode or two that doesn’t give a damn anymore about drawing new viewers would dare film an episode like that and call it entertainment (though Marc Bernardin at Entertainment Weekly thought it was so “revelatory” that it “melted my Goddamn face off.”)
The TERMINATOR episode was merely dull and totally uninvolving, relying heavily on the over-used trick of having the hero (or in this case, heroine) talk to an imaginary character. Alan Ball should be shot for doing it so effectively on SIX FEET UNDER because now every TV series has to do it. Nobody seems to have noticed that it became a cliche three years ago and is now slipping into unintentional parody. At least the folks on GREY’S ANATOMY have raised the stakes by having the heroine fuck the character who isn’t there…oh, wait, I take it back, GALACTICA did that two seasons ago when it still had a sense of humor to go along with all of its dread and misery. The folks at TERMINATOR have forgotten what made the TERMINATOR movies so much fun…and have gotten mired in dreary angst…probably because angst is cheaper to shoot than Terminators destroying things. The John Connor character has become a morose, whiny, Excedrin headache come-to-life…but the two lady Terminators? They’re great.
The “old”  TV that I watched was a private eye marathon that I staged for myself with episodes of HARRY O starring David Janssen, THE OUTSIDER starring Darren McGavin and THE ROCKFORD FILES starring James Garner.HarryO
THE OUTSIDER and ROCKFORD were, essentially, the same show, about a down-and-out ex-con turned private eye in L.A. Roy Huggins created THE OUTSIDER and co-created ROCKFORD with Steve Cannell, who brought more humor to the concept.  I liked all three of them very much ..not so much for the plotting, which was often weak and predictable, but for the mood and the terrific anti-private eyes at the heart of those series (and the brilliant lead actors who played them). Nobody did world-weary heroes and lovable losers like McGavin, Janssen and Garner.  It’s hard to pick a favorite among these three great series, but if I had to, I guess it would be HARRY O.
Janssen is a pleasure to watch as beach-bum Harry Orwell, riding around San Diego on the bus, tie loose around his collar, a permanently pained expression on his tan, lined face. What a terrific character. Both Rockford and Ross were tougher than they looked, but not Harry. He wasn’t tough at all. Just bone-tired and lonely…and too caring for his own good. He couldn’t even run after a bad guy or a damsel in distress, not with that damn bullet permanently stuck in his aching back. What other private eye but Harry would turn down a willing Linda Evans by saying “I can’t make love unless I’m in love…just a little.” Ross and Rockford would have bedded her in a second…out of desperation and opportunity if nothing else. Not Harry.
Sure, the plotting in HARRY O was often lousy, but the show captured, better than any other before or since, the pure pleasure of reading a great PI novel. The show wasn’t as complex as a Ross MacDonald or even John D. MacDonald novel, but it aimed for that kind of emotional and psychological complexity…even when it pandered with a drooling psychokiller plot (starting with it’s pilot, “Smile Jenny, You’re Dead”).
Terminator
Watching HARRY O, ROCKFORD and THE OUTSIDER, I realized what those old shows had over those two, recent episodes of GALACTICA and TERMINATOR. Character. Keep in mind, GALACTICA and TERMINATOR are two of my favorite shows (well, they were). But, at the risk of sounding like an old coot blogging from his bungalow at the Motion Picture Home, I think that too often shows today confuse angst with character, dread with depth, misery with complexity. A character doesn’t have to be in endless spasms of self-loathing, denial, heart-break and agony to be someone worth watching or caring about. That’s cheap and easy “complexity” for a writer, it’s writing a character rather than creating one…and it’s a beating for the audience. Characters are more than the sum of their pain, anguish and loss…and their capacity for cruelty to themselves and others.  It’s not superficial or weak writing to explore more subtle conflicts…and to season them with humor, compassion, vulnerability, and some joy. There are people I love very much who are going through very hard times…and yet they haven’t lost their sense of humor or their ability to find joy in their lives, even in their darkest moments. If anything, it’s that capacity for humor and joy that is seeing them through it.
I love (or, I should say, loved) GALACTICA and TERMINATOR…but Captain Adama and Starbuck, Sarah Connor and John Connor….in the end, they aren’t memorable characters. They feel like writerly constructs. Pain masquerading as character. They don’t live and breath the way Lt. Columbo, Tony Soprano, Archie Bunker, Adrian Monk, Al Swearingen, Mr. Spock, Mary Richards, Matt Dillon, George Costanza, or even Dexter Morgan do, to name a few. Because despite all of the dark, angst-ridden conflicts that the writers have created for them, the characters on GALACTICA and TERMINATOR are incessantly one-note: Miserable. And too often than not, they leave the viewer feeling the same way.

25 Writers Who Have Influenced Me

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Author Raymond Benson started this meme on Facebook and it's quickly catching on. My list, of novelists and screenwriters, in no particular order is:

Gleason
1. Gregory MacDonald 

2. Ian Fleming 

3. Robert B. Parker 

4. John Irving 

5. Larry McMurtry 

6. Frederick Manfred 

7. Stephen J. Cannell 

8. Roy Huggins 

9. Ross MacDonald 

10. Richard Maibaum 

11. Harry Whittington 

12. John D. MacDonald 

13. Elmore Leonard 

14. Richard S. Prather 

15. Ed McBain 

16. E.F Wallengren 

17. Michael Gleason 

18. Ross H. Spencer 

19. Stephen King 

20. A.B. Guthrie 

21. Blake Edwards 

22. William Goldman 6a00d8341c669c53ef00e54f35dc608833

23. Norman Lear 

24. Neil Simon 

25. Carl Hiaasen

Of course, immediately after compiling the list, I started thinking of people I left out… like Charles Willeford, Donald Hamilton, "Franklin W. Dixon," "Carolyn Keene," the guy who wrote "Encyclopedia Brown," the guy(s) who wrote "The Three Investigators," Steven Bochco, Leslie Charteris, Levinson & Link, Robert Ludlum, James Crumley, Trevanian, and Rod Serling…but I only had 25. (Pictured: Michael Gleason and Robert B. Parker & I).

Mr. Monk est flatté

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French journalist & critic Thierry Attard raves about MR. MONK IS MISERABLE in a lengthy and detailed review. He says, in part:

Mr. Monk is Miserable, his latest Monk tie-in novel, is a perfect sample of the art of this master storyteller. Should you be a fan of the Monk tv series or not, as the show itself regularly flirts with the self-conscious formulaic Tony Shalhoub one-man show. But the talent of Lee Goldberg is to build totally original novels with familiar figures. His reinventions of Adrian Monk's frustrations and anxieties are so wonderfully and joyfully crafted that many of his readers already wish an adaptation of his new Monk Book for the television series. 

[…]Mr. Monk is Miserable is a wonderful and fun book with an intrigue devised like a clockwork mechanism. Lee Goldberg's vision of Paris and of the French is sharply realistic.

[…]It's a mystery story with a difference, and all the wit (there are shades of Mark Twain in Paris with Monk's exploration of the City of Light), the humor and the writing skills of a master novelist.

Merci Beaucoup, Thierry!

The Mail I Get

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I got an email today asking me about the 1988 ABC TV series MURPHY’S LAW, which starred George Segal as an insurance investigator and Maggie Han as his much-younger girlfriend. The email said, in part:

“I am a big fan of Murphy’s Law, and I am not sure anyone else can answer my question! What happened in the unaired episode? (I believe it was called “All’s Wrong That Ends Wrong”.) And while I have you, were there plans for where the series would
go, had it continued? […] Did you enjoy the series? What was it like working for Michael Gleason and Leonard Stern? There is so little written about the show, I would love to know any of your recollections.”

The series was based on the TRACE and DIGGER novels by Warren Murphy. Michael Gleason, the creator and showrunner of REMINGTON STEELE, was the executive producer and Ernie Wallengren was the supervising producer. Each episode was titled after one of the Murphy’s Laws from the books published by Price Stern & Sloan (a company co-founded by Leonard Stern, one of our producers).

Gleason protege Lee David Zlotoff (who created MacGYVER) wrote and produced the 90-minute pilot which, as I recall, neither ABC nor New World Pictures Television was too happy with. So they brought in Michael, who re-cut it, shot some new scenes, and dropped the melancholy Mike Post theme in favor of a song by Al Jarreau. The idea was to make the show more light-hearted, though there definitely were some on-going dramatic elements regarding Murphy’s battle with alcoholism and his efforts to win visitation rights with his young daughter from his estranged wife, played by Kim Lankford.

I have enormous affection for MURPHY’S LAW because working on it had a lasting impact on me personally and professionally. It was the first staff job that Bill Rabkin and I had ever had…and it came right after the longest writers strike in the history of the TV industry. We wanted the job so bad and it was astonishing to us that we actually got it.We were working on the CBS/Radford lot and sharing a floor with the staff of THIRTYSOMETHING, which was pretty cool, too.

I was a huge admirer of Michael Gleason’s and, frankly, couldn’t believe we were actually working for him. He was so charming, creative, funny and friendly…he couldn’t have made it easier or more exciting for us… but even so, I was intimidated to actually have achieved my dream, and so afraid of failing, that for the first day or two after we got the green-light to write our script I suffered complete writer’s block, which broke only because Bill was there to walk me through it. We wrote two scenes together, line by line, and it was so much fun that I got so caught up in the writing that I forgot to be afraid.

I could go on and on about the show but the best thing about it was that Michael Gleason and Ernie Wallengren were wonderful writers and producers and very nice people. They taught us everything they knew, let us into casting, editing, music spotting and every other aspect of production…and gave us far more responsibility than we had any right to have. They also became more than our bosses…they became very close friends who we would work with again and again over the years. Series regular Kim Lankford introduced her cousin Carrie (or was it her niece?) to Bill, who promptly fell in love and married her…and they are still together today.

To answer your specific questions…we worked closely with Michael Gleason and consider him our mentor. We owe our careers to him and Ernie. We met Leonard Stern many times, but he wasn’t actively involved in the writing or producing of the series.

By the time we shot the 13th episode, we knew we’d been canceled and were going through the motions. The final episode, at New World’s insistence, was designed as a spin-off starring Joan Severance as a thief-turned-insurance investigator. Two versions were cut — one as a MURPHY’S LAW episode, the other as a pilot that largely cut our cast out of the action. I don’t know who had the brilliant idea of trying to sell a spin-off from a canceled show but, needless to say, it went nowhere. At the end of the episode, Murphy wins his long battle for unsupervised visitation rights with his daughter and the final shot is the two of them embracing on an airport runway.  The episode never aired…but I have a copy.

As far as I know, the show has never been in syndication and the only episode ever released to home video was the pilot…

Here’s the main title sequence…

The Return of Character?

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The New York Times has an interesting take on the departure of  Gil Grissom (William Petersen) from CSI tonight…and what it says about the current state of TV mysteries.

Grissom has found a successor,Dr. Raymond Langston (Laurence Fishburne), a pathologist and college professor who seems to share Grissom’s slavish work ethic and kindly reticence. But Langston is not his only successor. Simon Baker, who plays Patrick Jane on “The Mentalist,” the new CBS hit, is a greater threat to the Grissom legacy. More than any other show, “The Mentalist” signals that intuition is the big new thing, while forensic science and nerdy, obsessive lab workersGrissom, the lead investigator on the show, makes a forlorn plea for his life’s work in his last episode. “People lie,” Grissom tells Langston. “The only thing we can count on is the evidence.”
Nowadays it’s the evidence that fibs.

Perhaps we are finally seeing the end of cold, forensics-driven procedural, where a team of science-spouting professionals in designer clothes track one serial killer after another.  But I would argue that it's not the success of "The Mentalist" that is driving the change…rather the continued popularity and durability of cable shows like "The Closer," "Saving Grace," "Monk," "Psych," and "Burn Notice" (not to mention that they are also less costly to produce than a glitzy procedural).

The new formula, which seems to take a nod from "Monk,"  is the eccentric detective and his no-nonsense female partner…as seen today in "The Mentalist," "Life,"  "Fringe," and "The 11th Hour."  And there's more to come. ABC's upcoming "Castle" teams up an eccentric mystery novelist with a no-nonsense female cop. I don't know yet if  the eccentric detective who can spot lies in Fox's "Life to Me" is also teamed up with a no-nonsense lady cop…but I would be surprised if he isn't.

Even with the over-reliance on that formula, I'm glad to see character making a comeback and forensics fading a bit in importance.  Character is a lot more fun to watch..and to write.

Making My Dreams Come True

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Every time I do a signing with Steve Cannell, it's reliving a dream. I grew up admiring him and his writing on shows like THE ROCKFORD FILES and THE A-TEAM…and I dreamed of working for him someday. He had the career that I wanted…and the talent, too. I didn't think that working with him was a real possibility but I knew I could learn from him anyway. 

While I was in high school, I covered the television business for The Contra Costa Times (in Walnut Creek, CA) and came up with lots of excuses to do phone interviews with him, never once revealing that I was only 16-years-old or that I had any desire to be a TV writer. I know he liked the articles that I wrote because he told me so…and, more importantly, he never failed to return a call and was always available for a quote if I needed one.

I was still freelancing for the newspaper…and for a number of other publications…when I went down to Los Angeles to attend UCLA. I called him for an article about TENSPEED AND BROWNSHOE (or was it GREATEST AMERICAN HERO?) and I must have mentioned that I'd moved to L.A. because he invited me to his office at Samuel Goldwyn Studios. I was terrified. I was sure that once he saw I was a kid, he'd think I was a fraud and never talk to me again. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to actually meet him.

He did look shocked when I walked in the door, and I think for a moment he was afraid I was going to pitch him for a script, but I started off with a tough question about his decision to go into business for himself and the interview went great after that. Whatever awkwardness either one of us felt quickly evaporated and we talked for a couple of hours.  (I know now, after talking with him about that day, that I proved to him with that question that I was a serious journalist and not someone who'd been running a long scam to get into his office). It was a wide-ranging interview about the business, about the risks he was taking leaving Universal, and it was one of the best interviews I'd ever done. In fact, it was one of the clips that got me a job as a reporter for Newsweek. 

I interviewed him many more times over the years for various articles for a bunch of publications (the best was a huge profile in the trade magazine Electronic Media, now know as Television Week). I eventually gave up reporting and, through a lucky break, become a TV writer with William Rabkin. We sold a few freelance scripts and then got offered our first staff job… on HUNTER, a Stephen J. Cannell Production. It was fate.

Unfortunately, by that point, Steve had a  "hands off" relationship with the show, which was then being run by Fred Dryer and Marv Kupfer. Even so, I'll never forget the fantastic feeling the first day I walked into the Stephen J. Cannell productions building as one of the writers instead of a reporter.  It was amazing.  A day or two later, I ran into Steve in the hallway.  He thought I was there for an interview and he started to apologize for forgotting the appointment…I was thrilled to tell him that no, I wasn't there for an interview…I was working for him.  He smile and gave me a hug. 

Sadly, because of the situation at HUNTER, I didn't actually work with Steve at all…I only bumped into him now and then. The job also didn't last long …. we ended up quitting and getting hired onto BAYWATCH…but that's another story. 

The HUNTER experience didn't tarnish my relationship with Steve at all. We saw each other at industry events and he was always amazingly friendly. And as it turned out, a few years later I was back at Cannell again as a supervising producer on the syndicated series COBRA and, much to my pleasure, I actually got to work closely with him this time.  He also used to pop into my office to share bits and pieces of a novel he was working on….which became THE PLAN.

We've remained friends ever since  – and have signed together and spoken on panels with each other many times in many cities over the years. (Bill & I even had the amazing thrill of hiring him as an actor in a script we wrote for DIAGNOSIS MURDER…he played a burned-out TV producer of action shows…who becomes an actor!). But every time we get together, I am reminded how lucky I am to have  achieved one of my dreams and to be able to count Steve among my friends. I hope the thrill never dies. 

What brings all of this to mind? I'll be signing and talking TV writing with Steve Cannell…and with Bill Rabkin…on January 24th. The info is below.

Saturday, January 24 at 3:00 p.m.
HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD!
STEPHEN J. CANNELL, LEE GOLDBERG and WILLIAM RABKIN discuss and sign their books
It's an all-star event at The Mystery Bookstore, as we welcome not one but three writers who have made their marks as TV screenwriters as well as novelists. 
 
Stephen J. Cannell, creator of "The A Team" among other shows, will discuss and sign ON THE GRIND (St. Martin's, $25.95), his ninth Shane Scully adventure; as the book begins, Scully is not only fired from the LAPD, but also kicked out by his wife.  The reason for both is a movie actress, Tiffany Roberts, who'd been looking for a hit man to kill her husband.  As Scully starts a new job with Haven Park, the most corrupt police department in California, we learn more about his connection to Tiffany Roberts.
 
Veteran screenwriter Lee Goldberg will discuss and sign his seventh Monk novel, MR. MONK IS MISERABLE (NAL hardcover, $21.95), based on the award-winning TV series.  Everyone's favorite obsessive-compulsive detective lands in Paris, which is bad enough, but then winds up in a sewer museum – where he finds a fresh skull.
 
Goldberg's longtime writing partner, William Rabkin, will discuss and sign PSYCH: The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read (Signet paperback original, $6.99), the first novel based on the hit USA Network series.  Phony psychic/real detective Shawn Spencer agrees to lend his psychic powers to his old high school rival, Dallas Steele; Dallas wants Shawn to pick some investments for him.  The investments turn out to be busts, but when Dallas winds up murdered, Shawn's detective talents are essential.
 
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