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IN THIS BONUS SECTION:
1. REFERENCE BOOKS FOR WRITERS written by Sisters in Crime Members (2017 update now in process, below)
2. Unpublished Blog 9-5-16: My memories of Phyllis Schlafley & the ERA
3. FOR ALL WRITERS: VOICE LESSONS
4. FOR ALL UNPUBLISHED MYSTERY WRITERS: TWO SCHOLARSHIPS A YEAR FROM MWA
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1. REFERENCE BOOKS FOR WRITERS written by Sisters in Crime Members (2017 update now in process, below)
To view the 2016 list, go to http://sistersincrime.org/?page=119
This is the official list of reference books for writers
written by members of Sisters in Crime International. Rev. 1-1-17.
INVESTIGATION
Police Procedure & Investigation: A (Howdunit) Guide for Writers
AUTHOR: Lee Lofland
PUBLISHER: Writer’s Digest Books, 2007
FORMAT 1: trade paper, 384 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-1-58297
FORMAT 2: Kindle ebook
HONORS: finalist for Macavity Award
URL: www.leelofland.com
LAW
Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately about Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure
AUTHOR: Leslie Budewitz
PUBLISHER: Linden Publishing, 2011
FORMAT: trade paper, 220 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-1-610350-19-8
HONORS: Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book; finalist for Anthony Award; finalist for Macavity Award; finalist for National Indie Excellence Award
URL: www.lawandfiction.com
MARKETING
Breaking & Entering: The Road to Success, 3rd edition
EDITOR: L. C. Hayden (Anthology: 27 authors)
PUBLISHER: Sisters in Crime, 2010
FORMAT 1: trade paper, 140 pp
URL: www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/breaking-and-entering/8558738
FORMAT 2: electronic/pdf
URL: lulu.com/content/e-book/breaking-and-entering/8582166
Shameless Promotion for Brazen Hussies, 3rd edition
EDITOR: Roberta Isleib (Anthology: 26 authors)
PUBLISHER: Sisters in Crime, 2011
FORMAT 1: trade paper, 154 pp
URL: www.lulu.com/product/paperback/shameless-promotion-for-brazen-hussies/14847372
FORMAT 2: electronic/pdf
URL: lulu.com/product/ebook/shameless-promotion-for-brazen-hussies/14848330
REVISING
Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D. O. A.
AUTHOR: Chris Roerden
PUBLISHER: Bella Rosa Books, 2006
FORMAT: trade paper, 304 pp, indexed, annotated
ISBN: 978-1-933523-13-2
HONORS: Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book; finalist for Anthony Award; finalist for Macavity Award; Writer’s Digest Book Club selection
URL: www.writersinfo.info; www.bellarosabooks.com
Don’t Sabotage Your Submission: Insider Information from a Career Book Editor to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D. O. A.
(expanded all-genre version of Don’t Murder Your Mystery)
AUTHOR: Chris Roerden
PUBLISHER: Bella Rosa Books, 2008
FORMAT: trade paper, 312 pp, indexed, annotated
ISBN: 978-1-933523-31-6
HONORS: Benjamin Franklin Award for Literary Criticism; finalist for ForeWord Review Writing Book of the Year; Royal Palm Award for Best Educational / Instructional Book; Royal Palm Award for Book of the Year
URL: www.writersinfo.info; www.bellarosabooks.com
WRITER’S LIFE
Sara Paretsky: Writing in an Age of Silence
AUTHOR: Sara Paretsky
PUBLISHER: Verso, 2007
FORMAT 1: hard cover, 192 pp, annotated
ISBN: 978-1-84467-122-9
FORMAT 2: trade paper
reprint, 138 pp 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84467-377-3
FORMAT 3: Kindle ebook
URL: www.saraparetsky.com
Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path: The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment
AUTHOR: Nancy Pickard (with Lynn Lott)
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books, 2003
FORMAT: trade paper, 237 pp
ISBN: 978-0-345451-10-1
URL: nancypickard.com
Writer to Writer
AUTHOR: Lynette Hall Hampton
PUBLISHER: Alabaster Book Publisher, 2004
FORMAT: trade paper, 192 pp
ISBN: 978-097250-311-2
URL: lynettehallhampton.net
Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer’s Journey
EDITOR: Hank Phillippi Ryan (Anthology: 59 authors)
PUBLISHER: Sisters in Crime / Henery Press
FORMAT 1: hard cover
ISBN: 978-1-94196-222-0
FORMAT 2: trade paper, 173 pp
ISBN: 978-194196-219-0
FORMAT 3: ebook
ISBN: 978-194196-220-6
HONORS: Agatha Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award
WRITING & SELLING
Everything Guide to Writing a Novel: From Completing the First Draft to Landing a Book Contract
AUTHOR: Joyce Lavene and Jim Lavene
PUBLISHER: Adams Media, 2004
FORMAT: 9x8 paper, 320 pp, indexed
ISBN: 1-593-371-32-2
URL: joyceandjimlavene.com
Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel: All the Tools You Need to Write and Sell Your First Novel
AUTHOR: Hallie Ephron
PUBLISHER: Adams Media, 2010
FORMAT: trade paper, 304 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-1-44051-063-2
URL: www.hallieephron.com
Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘em Dead with Style
AUTHOR: Hallie Ephron
PUBLISHER: Writer’s Digest Books, 2005
FORMAT: trade paper, 256 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-158297-376-0
HONORS: finalist for Edgar Award for Critical/Biographical
URL: www.hallieephron.com
WRITING HISTORICAL MYSTERIES
How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past
AUTHOR: Kathy Lynn Emerson
PUBLISHER: Perseverance Press, 2008
FORMAT: trade paper, 224 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-1-880284-92-6
HONORS: Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book
URL: kathylynnemerson.com
Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England
AUTHOR: Kathy Lynn Emerson
PUBLISHER: Writer's Digest Books, 2006; revised, expanded, 2010
FORMAT 1: hard cover, 272 pp, indexed
ISBN: 978-0-898797-52-7
FORMAT 2: Kindle ebook
URL: kathylynnemerson.com
WRITING TRADITIONAL MYSTERIES
Writing the Cozy Mystery
AUTHOR: Nancy J. Cohen
PUBLISHER: Orange Grove Press, 2014
FORMAT 1: trade paper, 48 pp
ISBN: 978-0-9914655-1-4
FORMAT 2: Kindle ebook
ISBN: 978-0-9914655-0-7
URL: nancyjcohen.com
(Note: after identifying corrections and additions to this list, send the information to Chris Roerden, croerden@aol.com)
2. Unpublished Blog 9-5-16: My memories of Phyllis Schlafley & the ERA: Sunday, Sept. 5, 2016:
The death today of Phyllis Schlafly, occurring so close to the anticipated election of our first woman president, fills me with ever greater hope for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Athough Schlafley's most significant lifetime achievement was to successfully oppose adding to the US Constitution a mere 24 words, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” her opposition did more than anything else could have to bring millions of new supporters to the cause of women’s rights. During the two years that I served as Wisconsin State president of the National Organization for Women, our statewide membership grew from several hundred to over 3,000.
So it felt like a small world indeed to sit in the visitor’s gallery the morning of October 6, 1978, for the Senate’s historic vote to extend the deadline for ratification of the ERA, and discover that Phyllis Schlafly occupied the seat directly in front of the seat to my right — close enough to reach forward to tweak the single loose curl peeking from the otherwise perfect hairstyle of this famed enemy of women’s rights. Giving into that urge was--fortunately or unfortunately--not possible.
That morning 38 years ago next month, Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin (who founded Earth Day in 1970 along with my friend, nature publisher Nancy Field) had escorted me, together with Judy Goldsmith, NOW’s Executive VP (to become NOW President 4 years later) and Susan Luecke (another activist), from his Washington, DC, office to the Senate hearing room via the connecting underground. Before the present subway system was installed, we climbed onto the shuttle train of small open cars, similar to the Disneyland ride through “It’s a Small World.”
Sen. Nelson guided his three constituents as far as the door to what was then (maybe still?) referred to as the "Senate Wives Gallery." There, we three received firm instructions to sit silently, because any sort of demonstration was prohibited. "Demonstration" included applauding, although how we were to stifle laughing was never explained. We were also not allowed to take photos or write, take notes, or knit--the latter undoubtedly a favorite pasttime of actual wives of Senators in the past. Today,of course, all tpes of electronic devices are prohibited as well.
Along with each visitor I was handed a small card printed in tiny letters listing the names and states of all the Senators. The only method of keeping track of who voted for or against the extension was by using a fingernail to make surreptitious indentations on the card. I envisioned past generations of Senators’ wives aching to reach into their bulging handbags for idle knitting needles.
Extending the deadline for ratification passed that historic day, but due to Schlafly’s continuing organizing efforts the ERA failed to gain the needed three states. We worked so hard to get 3 more states to sign on to 35 that had already ratified the amendment to reach the 38 required to equal 3/4ths of all the states.
Throughout the mid-seventies and early eighties, wherever I was invited to speak — forums, radio, TV, local chapters of the League of Women Voters, BPW, AAUW and many NOW chapters, as well as at the NOW state conferences of Michigan and South Carolina — I was often confronted by members of the Eagle Forum, a national organization Schlafly founded in 1972 that continues today. (I also had the privilege of delivering the opening welcome to Gloria Steinem at the Illinois NOW state conference, held in the neighboring lake country of Wisconsin because of the national boycott of unratified states, which included Illinois.)
But I learned much from all those anti-ERA confrontations and challenges. In March 1978, opposition from Schlafly’s Eagle Forum empowered me to reserve the large City Hall Council Chambers in Brookfield, the suburb of Milwaukee where I lived at the time, and invite the head of Wisconsin’s Eagle Forum to debate me on the ERA. She accepted, along with two other officers of Schlafly’s group. For our side I’d gotten Judy Goldsmith, my predecessor as Wisconsin NOW State Coordinator, and Virginia Finn, a prominent Milwaukee Catholic and strong ERA advocate.
[photo of pro-ERA debators, March 1978]
For moderater I invited Bunny Raasch of WITI-TV, Milwaukee’s first female news anchor.
[photo of Chris introducing Bunny Raasch, March 1978]
Incidentally, in 1972-73 before women were hired by the networks as more than secretaries, I took part in picketing a major TV affiliate in Syracuse, NY, that refused to hire women as on-air broadcasters. The same for Sears in Syracuse, part of a nationwide NOW effort to get Sears to promote women to the higher-paying sales items, such as appliances.
Our public ERA Debate was so popular and heartwarming, drawing an overflow audience of all ages that perched on window sills and tables and stood in the aisles, that I organized a second debate for the same City Hall location later the same year, in October 1978, this time on a woman’s right to choose legal abortion. (As for my own illegal abortion in 1969, that’s another story entirely, willingly shared when requested.)
[photo: Chris with Betty Friedan and Gene Boyer, founders of NOW; 1981]
Shortly after the start of that second public debate, an opponent snuck out, I later learned, went to a nearby church, and returned with a group of pro-birth advocates, who rushed to fill the few remaining spaces in the audience. Every time a point was made, supporters for the respective side shouted approval. Despite the infusion of latecomers, shouts from our side came from the voices of the majority present.
That same year the Milwaukee’s Young Lawyer’s Association invited me to debate State Senator Monroe Swan, an outspoken ERA opponent, on live TV. The highlight moment occurred in response to Swan’s repeated denial of Congressional testimony. So I took the phone-book–sized Congressional Record from my lap, said “Here’s where it was said,” and dropped it loudly on the table between us. The studio audience roared.
I recall that after some other televised event, as the audience of pro and anti-ERA advocates filed from the studio to the lobby, a young white male wearing an ERA t-shirt, began asking around for a ride home. One Eagle Forum member called out that she’d give him a ride: she’d tie him to her car and let him run.
My other vivid memory of the lack of humanity demonstrated by members of the Eagle Forum took place one of the many times I led a group of ERA proponents to support our efforts in Illinois. Over the course of 10 years of volunteer work in the 70s and 80s, I had spent much time in Chicago registering voters, sometimes working alongside Molly Yard, especially in preparation for the initial candidacy of Carol Moseley-Braun, the first and to date only female US Senator from Illinois, the only female African-American Senator, and the first woman to defeat an incumbent US Senator in an election [source: Wikipedia]. At least twice I demonstrated in the Illinois state capital, Springfield, once with Sonja Johnson.
[photo: national pro-ERA march on Springfield, IL]
Early one morning in Springfield, our large, multi-state delegation, climbed several flights of marble stairs to the topmost visitors gallery to wait for the opening of the Illinois State Legislature. Having spent the night at the homes of Illinois NOW members, we were among the earliest arrivals. We waited in an orderly line on the winding staircase, each wide step packed by several of us crowded together. When the hour struck and the doors opened, a horde of bodies suddenly raced past us to grab the best seats in the gallery. Their ambush slammed dozens of us aside and knocked most of us into each other and the adjacent wall.
In the late 70s, I was twice elected from the Great Lakes Region to the National Nominating Committee. Ellie Smeal sent me to do field organizing in South Carolina and Indiana, and in 1978 Judy Goldsmith appointed me Coordinator of the Ratified Great Lakes States to work for Illinois’ ratification, one of the three additional states still needed for ratification. To fill Judy’s vacancy on the National NOW Board when she stepped up to its presidency, my name was proposed, though I knew nothing of this until later. Apparently I’d won the majority of votes but missed the needed plurality by one. After many tries at revoting, the state reps proposed breaking their deadlock by drawing straws. I lost when my state rep drew the short straw.
“321 NOW” was our popular ERA chant, and I had set up Wisconsin NOW's official postal box as 321 in Elm Grove, a small enough Wisconsin community near my home in neighboring Brookfield to have an assortment of box numbers available to choose from. And for many years in the 70s and 80s, my car sported the license plate ERA NOW.
[photo: "321 NOW" license plate, 1978-86]
We never did get three more states to ratify the ERA. The night before the final vote, despite firm assurances by many specific legislators across the country that they were with us, Schlafly and her ERA opponents nevertheless persuaded enough of the legislators to betray their word at the last moment. First proposed in 1923 by Alice Paul, the ERA has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since 1982. A bill is currently alive to remove the ratification deadline ex post facto and make the ERA part of the Constitution as soon as the required three more states ratify.
Maybe times have changed? Maybe there are enough supporters in only three states among the 15 unratified: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and — surely Virginia. What do you think? Join me in getting re-involved. www.equalrightsamendment.org
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Chris Roerden has been a book editor for 50+ years, is the mother of 2 feminist sons and grandma of 3 grandsons, and has been a community volunteer since 1964. She has ghostwritten 5 nonfiction books and authored 6, including On To The Second Decade: NOW 10th Conference Anniversary (the 1977 commemorative and accompanying poster) and two national award-winners for writers, Don’t Murder Your Mystery and Don’t Sabotage Your Submission. In addition she developed 2 feminist games, notably Oops’n’Options written as a NOW fundraiser, reviewed in Ms magazine, and purchased by a number of women’s support centers in at least 3 countries and by the US military for officer training at Rickenbacker AFB. The military had been motivated to acquire the game because of the high cost of having to settle so many sexual harassment suits. The Air Force officer and NOW member who led Rickenbacker's officer training said the officers "really got into the game" because, with its 128 playing cards each describing a situation faced by a woman or a girl, these highly competitive men had to do a great deal of hard, strategic thinking to win.
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* FOR ALL WRITERS:
Voice Lessons
©2014 by Chris Roerden
Here are my suggestions for developing your writer’s voice. Entirely optional, of course, as is any comment from any editor—unless a contract hangs on your compliance. (But that’s a separate decision-making process I hope comes your way.)
The longer you’re in this crazy business called publishing, the more you’ll run into the phenomenon of Conflicting Editorial Advice. Don’t let contradictory feedback from others get to you. Editors mean well; our opinions are the result of long experience in observing what appears to work best.
Writing is an art, not a science. Ultimately, you are The Decider—of what makes the most sense to you after you try each suggestion, and of how to get the results you discover are most effective in the context of your own story.
1. Begin by finishing the draft manuscript you’ll use for practicing voice. Go ahead and use clichés, repetitions, misspellings, and whatever else comes quickly to mind so you simply get it all down and keep moving ahead. Finishing a first draft, and being able to write “The End,” is excellent practice in itself.
2. Then put the whole thing in a desk drawer for a week or more while you write something else, thereby making the ms seem fresher when you become ready to revise it—like cleansing your palate during wine tasting.
3. One way of revising is to start on p 1 and work through to the end, cleaning up whatever you spot as you go. Another method is to focus on only one major element at a time, such as plot, then continuing to return to the start again and again to track only one character at a time all the way through. Whenever you get sick of reading your ms one more time, you might start at the final scene and work forward. Or give the whole thing another rest in the desk drawer for another week.
4. After repeated revising, inevitably you’ll decide to pack off your ms to an agent or editor. (Note that however many times you've revised it, whenever we receive a ms it’s still a "first draft.") So stop right there. Remind yourself of your intention to use this ms to practice voice. So wherever you may have stopped in your process—in the middle of a revision cycle, after it or before—begin practicing voice with a scene you like.
5. Examine one sentence or paragraph at a time, trying various ways of rephrasing it so the words and images become more concise and precise.
6. For example, experiment with rearranging your compound and complex sentences and paragraphs, and transposing subordinate and dependent clauses, so you discover how your strongest images, words, or effects make their greatest impact at the more powerful endings:
His eyes seemed to penetrate her soul as he looked at her. (Bleh, weak.)
As he looked at her, his eyes seemed to penetrate her soul. (Better.)
He looked into her eyes, seeming to penetrate her soul. (Even better.)
7. Replace nearly every occurrence of “just” with only, merely, simply…or nothing at all. Limit “just” to time concepts, such as: “He just arrived.” Place modifiers directly before the words they actually modify. Compare: “I only want to read good books” vs. “I want to read only good books.”
8. Get rid of all or most adverbs, and replace verbs with more specific, energetic choices.
9. Change walking, standing up, and sitting down to action beats (my Don't books Clue #17) to advance the plot or reveal a speaker’s character, attitude, or reactions.
10. Kill clichés, repetition, redundancy, wordiness, finally, and suddenly. (See my Clues #14, 20, 21, 24, and reread either of my two Don’t books to learn what else to scrub—and why.)
11. Next, search for specific habits that an editor might have pointed out to you or that you suspect need revisiting, such as the word “as.” Type those two letters into your search feature, click “whole word,” and skip past "as" when used in a comparison. Instead, look for issues of “false simultaneity”—two actions that are made to appear as if they occur at the same moment or for the same duration, but in reality do or could not. (Besides, “as” is a greatly overused construction that’s usually weak.) Let’s say you wrote: “As she walked along the beach she heard a voice.” Experiment with different phrasings, and choose what’s most effective in the context of the particular scene:
She walked along the beach. She heard a voice.” (Yuk, too choppy.)
She walked along the beach and a voice shouted to her. (Better.)
She walked along the beach. “Stop right there,” shouted a voice. (Even better.)
Practice is doing something often enough to implant a habit. Because “everyone writes,” every writer (including moi) is burdened by one or more old, ineffective habits that could be replaced—and, for more successful commercial publication, should be. Getting rid of old habits, especially replacing them with new, more effective skills, requires practice. (Not too different from practicing ballroom dancing or shooting hoops.) By searching during revision only for precisely the "right" word and for the single most effective phrasing, you’ll achieve stronger, more effective writing habits. You'll enable the best characteristics of your own unique voice to shine through.
By continually practicing rewriting you will continually develop your voice. Most authors agree that rewriting is where the real "art" of the writer takes place. Without continuing to rework your writing, Truman Capote might say about it (as he famously said of the work of beat poet Jack Kerouac), “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”
Because each revision you make is what you deliberately choose to make over all other alternatives, you could end up with the same phrasing you wrote initially. But if you don’t repeatedly practice making those revisions you’ll never know whether what you ultimately submit is really the best you can do—or, equally as valuable, what ineffective writing you might have previously accepted as "good enough." I don’t suggest you strive to become a perfectionist, but what Antoine de Saint Exupéry said is nevertheless true: that “perfection is achieved not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Voice is not found in what you add. Your own unique voice has always existed; it's merely smothered by poor ineffective habits. Which we all begin with. Eventually your voice will develop by continuing to practice revising. In the process of experimenting as I describe above, you will also sharpen your sense of hearing.
How does the ability to hear voice develop? Through the most basic, essential practice of all: by a lifetime of reading. Read widely. Read in your genre, read out of it. Read what’s good, read what’s trash. Read your favorite authors again and again to see how they create the effects that make them your favorites. And read your own writing aloud, in a closed room and into a tape recorder, taking notes while playing back your words. The only way to build your own sense of what voice “sounds like” is by reading as much as possible from the earliest age possible, until you instinctively recoil from awkward phrasing, odd rhythms, and repetitions—developing instead a taste for the sound of a unique, fresh, original voice.
The most common words offered with rejected manuscripts—when agents and editors take the time to write any comment on the 95+ percent of the manuscripts they reject—are: “We are looking for a fresh, new voice.” Few authors have well-developed fresh, new voices; most get there intentionally, through practice revising the unique voices each of us does start with.
Visit Chris Roerden’s website, www.writersinfo.info, to download free all of Part I of
Don’t Sabotage Your Submission (Benjamin Franklin Award for Literary Criticism) and its genre-specific edition Don’t Murder Your Mystery (Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book).
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