New Review for the Shut Mouth Society

JackBoston.com has reviewed the Shut Mouth Society.  Read the full review here:

The Shut Mouth Society was a great and unexpectedly satisfying read. I’ve read several (not all) of Jim Best’s Steve Dancy novels and enjoyed them, but this novel is considerably more sophisticated and, well, interesting. Kind of like Russian Kachinka dolls, its setting is contemporary but within that it’s a historical novel. Like any historical novel, fact is married to fiction, and in this book it all works well together: the story carries the day and you don’t really know or need to care if every single thing is factual.

Time, the Magic Elixir—Set Your Novel Aside for a Spell

Partial Outline for Tempest at Dawn

I believe novels are like wine, they need to age in a metaphorical cask for just the right amount of time. The chart on this page was a timeline I developed for Tempest at Dawn, my novelization of the Constitutional Convention. This chart reflected what happened during May, 1787, the first month of the Constitutional Convention. (Each number has extensive hidden notes.) I also develop separate charts for each of the following three months, plus similar charts for before and after the convention. My table for the cast of the story retained an unbelievable amount of data on all fifty-five delegates plus a dozen or so outsiders. I had spent three years studying the convention and the framers. It was a daunting task and I wanted to squeeze everything into my novel. To quote Pretty Woman, “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”

The real story of our nation's founding.

My original draft was over 240,000 words. My agent harangued me to cut, cut, cut. By the time he agreed to shop the book, it was about 175,000 words. Despite his enthusiasm, it didn’t sell, and I threw the manuscript into a drawer (actually a computer file folder) for several years. After I had successfully self-published a western series and The Shut Mouth Society, I decided to take another look at Tempest. I felt I had captured the story, but diffused the drama with too much detail. Now I went after the manuscript with hedge clippers instead of scissors. After that, professional editing and proofreading got the final published manuscript down to 140,000 words. Still a big book, but now it moved with an energized pace.

Time was the medicine that cured the ills of Tempestat Dawn. I got far enough away to lighten my emotional attachment to the project. Writing a book is consuming, but intensity can also cloud judgment. 

After your final draft is done, set it aside for a bit and let your book mellow. Does it need to be years? Absolutely not. When I finish a novel, I go on a trip. Get some real distance between me and the book. I prefer going surfing or taking a road trip with friends. Something that feels like a reward. It can be as short as a week, and is seldom more than a month. For me, travel shortens the time I need to be truly objective about the final draft.  Every writer is different, so this may not be the best way for you to clear your head. I only know that I do solid revisions after getting mentally and physically away from the book for a spell.

One last thing: it’s not easy to abandon your book. There’s excitement on completion and an anxiousness to get it out there because it’s your best work to date. Probably true, but it can always be better. Give it a little time and look at it again with fresh eyes. (I also have a couple of trusted people read and comment on the book while I’m gallivanting around.) Try it once and see if it works for you. Like I said, every writer is different.

Historical Fiction—Doing it Right

I write historical fiction. I chose this genre because I enjoy the research and a historical novel can last forever. My first book was a nonfiction computer technology book that was obsolete before Wiley could get it on bookshelves. After that experience, I vowed never again to write a book that had a three nanosecond shelf life.

(The Shut Mouth Society is a contemporary thriller, but it still has a strong historical theme around Abraham Lincoln.)

I enjoy history. History is the big, ongoing story about how we developed as a world and as a nation. History is a gazillion stories about people who lead, hindered, or stood around as stuff happened. Every one of them has potential to be an interesting story.

In nonfiction, events should be factually accurate. Historical fiction, on the other hand, can go places where nonfiction dare not tread, but it should stay true to the tenor of events. Although historical fiction may be free of the rigors of documentation, it remains subject to the precepts of storytelling. That means historical fiction, like all fiction, must have a beginning, middle, and end and remain interesting throughout. That’s always a tough assignment, but especially difficult when telling about real events.

A few months ago, Chuck Sambuchino wrote “How to Write Historical Fiction: 7 Tips on Accuracy and Authenticity.” I agree with all seven, but would add an eighth: don’t let research interfere with telling the story. This is not original with me, of course. It is usually stated: don’t let your research show. It’s tempting to drop a factoid into a storyline. Interesting tidbits can add spice and intrigue. They may do just that, but unless the information moves the story forward, it should be cut. The prime directive of storytelling is to never take the reader out of the story. A fascinating sidebar does exactly that. In fact, the more fascinating, the more likely it will distract the reader away from the story. Good writers should cut everything extraneous to the storyline.

Adhering to an accurate timeline can also ruin a story. Tempest at Dawn is my novelization of the Constitutional Convention. In my first draft, I presented speeches in their proper historical order. My book was as disjoined as the actual convention. When someone gave a speech, it took days for an opponent to craft a rebuttal. All kinds of other subjects were discussed in between. By remaining faithful to the actual sequence of events, the critical elements of pacing and tension were lost. I decided to write a historical novel about the convention to bring life to the characters and intrigue. Exactness was defeating my purpose.

There are many top quality history books on the Constitutional Convention, so I decided to tell a rousing story that was true but not completely accurate. In my first major rewrite, I adjusted the convention sequence so speeches were immediately followed by rebuttals. Since I only included the controversial or emotional speeches, the book suddenly took on energy. I also discover that the adjusted timeline made alternate opinions more easily understood.

I resolved the ethical question with a Historical Note at the end of the book that explained I had reordered speeches for clarity. A simple solution to keep the story moving.

Murder Made Simple

In 1944, Raymond Chandler wrote an essay for The Atlantic Monthly titled, "The Simple Art of Murder." It was reprinted in 1950 in book form by Houghton Mifflin along with eight of Chandler's early stories.

Chandler was highly opinionated about art, fiction, and detective stories. There are some nifty tips in here for aspiring and accomplished mystery writers.

Here are a few snippets. 

Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic ... Jane Austen’s chronicles of highly inhibited people against a background of rural gentility seem real enough psychologically. There is plenty of that kind of social and emotional hypocrisy around today.

The murder novel has also a depressing way of minding its own business, solving its own problems and answering its own questions.

Nor is it any part of my thesis to maintain that it is a vital and significant form of art. There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.

Yet the detective story, even in its most conventional form, is difficult to write well. Good specimens of the art are much rarer than good serious novels. Rather second-rate items outlast most of the high velocity fiction, and a great many that should never have been born simply refuse to die at all. They are as durable as the statues in public parks and just about that dull.

"really important books" get dusty on the reprint counter, while Death Wears Yellow Garters is put out in editions of fifty or one hundred thousand copies.

At the end of "The Simple Art of Murder," Chandler gives a great definition of a hero that I abridged in an earlier post titled: What makes an appealing hero?

Link to the full article

Link to my Pinterest page on Raymond Chandler

Judging a Book by Its Cover

February, 27, 1860

The Shut Mouth Society is a contemporary thriller about a conspiracy that goes back to Abraham Lincoln. The novel was published in 2008, which happened to be the Lincoln Bicentennial. It opens with Lincoln's Copper Union address on February 27, 1860, prior to his nomination for president. On the same day, he had a photograph taken by Mathew Brady. (Lincoln claimed the Copper Union address and Brady photograph made him president.) A book cover that used this photograph would tie into both the novel's introduction and the Bicentennial. My designer came up with a unique close-up cropping that really showed Lincoln’s intelligence and determination. I thought it couldn’t miss.

Big miss. Sales were lackluster and customer reviews on Amazon and Goodreads were mediocre to scathing. Sales were hurt by an avalanche of nonfiction books released to take advantage of the bicentennial, and early buyers of The Shut Mouth Society assumed it was another book about Lincoln. A few even bought it because they assumed it was nonfiction. Although the story did include extensive Lincoln history, the novel was a modern-day chase thriller in which the protagonists desperately try to unravel a one hundred and fifty year old conspiracy.

I could have given up on the book, but The Shut Mouth Society was a finalist for Best Novel in the Glyph Awards, and it had received excellent reviews in the general press. We decided to try another cover design. You can see both of them side by side below. 

The new cover worked miracles. Sales increased dramatically and customer reviews were effusive. At the time of this writing, the book has 161 Amazon reviews for 4.3 stars, and 491 ratings on Goodreads for 3.7 stars. I’m pleased with the Goodreads numbers because the newer rankings had to overcome dismal early returns. 

Nothing changed but the book cover.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because we’re in the final throe of designing a book cover for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale. We had many concept mock-ups, but I rejected many of them because despite being nice graphically, they didn’t fit the story. I learned my lesson. Covers build reader expectations. This is why genre covers look alike. They’re designed to appeal to an audience that will appreciate the book. So don't believe the cliché that people should never judge a book by its cover. People do. 

Insist on a well-designed cover that fits your storyline.

You might want to look at Flavorwire’s “20 Embarrassingly Bad Book Covers for Classic Novels.” Many of these are a hoot.