Throwing Together a Quick Plot

Kate Burns

On Thursday, I have been asked, as a 'real author', to speak to my daughter's grade 3 class on the subject of how to take an idea and turn it into a real story.

Good question! But, like the class already asked, how?

Well, let's throw together a quick plot.

We'll start with a little Trouble.

Every good story starts, of course, with trouble. Not little trouble -- losing your car keys, or forgetting to let the dog out -- but Trouble. Like, say, if you lost your car keys in a bad part of town and found yourself running for your life as two rival street gangs open fire on either side of you. While delivering (stolen) diamonds for your abusive boss. That kind of Trouble.

The snowflake method is good for plotting. It's a good one for that nagging 'what happened next' question.

Basically, you write out a beginning situation: Martha gets up at four o'clock every morning to start her day's work in her parents' bakery. She slaves all day, quitting at dusk only to drag herself home and fall into bed, exhausted. Her chances of meeting a man with her head in the oven are slim to none.

And an end situation: Martha emerges as a heroine, having solved the mystery of the arsons in the neighbourhood. The blue-eyed fire investigator she sleuthed with has proposed to her, and she finds the confidence to break out on her own as a special events caterer.

An inciting incident: Four o'clock in the morning. Locks her keys in the car and is stuck outside in the alley behind the bakery. While waiting for a locksmith, Martha sees someone running out of the alley. She smells smoke, then all hell breaks loose as the tenement building next door explodes into flame.

With a dangerous complication: He sees her, too.

With some serious trouble in the middle: Martha is nearly cooked when her ovens malfunction. Is it a freak accident? Gross negligence that could cost her parents the business? Or an attempt on Martha's life?

Some serious sleuthing: She comes across a clue to ovenly sabotage, a motive, along with a few possible suspects.One of whom just started working there.

One Red Herring: The bakery's new cashier lives rent-free in a nearby warehouse, and is an anarchist. He believes home is wherever a person squats and would defend it with knife, gun or burn it to the ground before anyone else got to it. He's attractive, if a little high-strung.

An obstacle: The anarchist cashier likes Martha. A lot. She goes out with him a couple of times, only to discover that although he doesn't believe in ownership for property, he's pretty possessive regarding women.

And a twist: A little google is a dangerous thing: Martha comes to suspect the fire investigator of being an arsonist himself!

Or three: Trouble is, she's falling in love with him. And the cashier can see it, too. Whenever the investigator is around, she can't seem to shake loose her anarchist barnacle.

Weave in a Subplot: Martha's parents are not only not supportive of all the crazy things she's been doing, it looks like they may actually try to have her committed. It turns out her mother went through a 'crazy' phase in her own youth, only to have her dreams dashed and her heart broken by tragedy. She has been shielding her daughter from the same fate, by hiding her away in the family business.

And how about a title? Even just a working title: The Scent of Fresh Murder

Poof! A story! And all I did was start with a beginning situation, ask myself (or my muse) a few questions, and answer them according to some plot points I know I'll need.

And that is where I think I'll take those kids.

Stay tuned Thursday for what questions to ask while building a plot.

Happy Writing!
Kate Burns

The Most Boring Thing

Kate Burns

Here's an exercise to keep your writing muscles limber.

Find the most boring thing that happened to you today... or, perhaps, the most boring thing you did. Now, write a paragraph about it. Here's the catch: when you are finished, it should be the most nail-bitingly suspenseful piece of writing ever.


I turned my boss's really boring commute into this:

Two Hours Late

Tallie's nails tick-tick-ticked on the steering wheel. The dash clock blinked its seconds, but minutes snuck forward while her eyes were on the road. It's still ok, she thought. Still closer to nine than ten. Tallie punched the radio on. That woman was still droning on about art in the community. "Ugh." She slapped it off.

Any other day. Any other day, it would have been fine to be late. She looked out the window to her right. Would it be faster off here? No. The lineup of cars with their exhaust mingling with the sleet ran all the way back behind the exit she'd just passed. Tallie breathed out slowly, let her head sink down onto her hands.

If only it were Monday. Why did it have to be a Tuesday? Nothing good ever happened on a Tuesday. She wondered if the lawyers knew that. Hers was a good one, a real detail guy, Dad said. He'd have noticed, surely.

If it was Monday, she'd just be on her way to work. She'd be late, but she wouldn't be rushing. Could never rush. Tallie hoped she could still go to work after this was over.

Tuesday. Seven months, twelve days ago. First Tuesday in April. Late for work, driving too fast. The light. Yellow, then red. Pushing it. The white Honda. The driver, a woman. Her face, surprised...

The car behind her honked, startling Tallie. She looked at the clock. Nine fifty two. Then she knew. The woman was already there, waiting. Waiting to see if Tallie had any sense of remorse. The woman would be at the hearing, right now, Para Transpo driver smoking in the hall, waiting to take her back to her own busy schedule: physio, group, crafts.

So would the judge.

Happy Writing!
Kate Burns

Capital Crime Writers

Kate Burns

I apologize in advance for the shortness of this post; as I write this, I am getting ready to go the the Ottawa Public Library, for the first meeting of Capital Crime Writers, a wonderful group of published authors, mystery fans and aspiring mystery writers. I wasn't going to go, as work is getting very busy, and family life never pauses... however, this is my treat for myself.

I've lurked at a couple of meetings, but tonight I'm going to join, to reap the full benefits of membership. I'm assuming that will be increased networking, tips for my particular market here in Ottawa, Canada, and the sheer joy of talking to a bunch of people who can understand what I am going through!

Dope that I am, I forgot to grab a copy of my book (The Ophelia Trap), on my way out the door this morning. So I've stolen my boss's copy (Thanks, Eric!).

Now, in short, is the thing I want to share... join a group! Writing is so solitary, and if you are a writer with a full time job (98% of you, right?), you are undoubtedly surrounded all the live long day by people who do not understand what it is you are doing with this (crazy?) hobby. You need to seek out others of your kind. Reading blogs (as fab as this one is, I can't lie) is not enough. You have to get out there.

And, I'm late. Happy Writing!! (and talking about writing, networking for writing, meeting new writers, and so on...)

Kate Burns

iTrapped: Does Technology Kill Suspense?

Kate Burns

This is not bragging: I can solve quite a few mysteries in as little as ten minutes.

When a name pops up in the news, a shocking amount of information is already available about that person, especially if it is the first time that name has been dragged into public view.

Like the names of the mother, father, fiancé, workplace, home phone number, address, hangouts of the young man arrested for a drunk driving collision that killed three people.

Using Facebook, Google, Canada 411's reverse lookup feature, and Maps, it's easy to lock and load on an identity in the tiny space between a dude seeing his name in print, and calling his mom from the holding tank to have her take down his Facebook page.

And that's not all. Also not bragging: In an urban setting at least, it might be rather difficult to lose me.

Assuming you have a smartphone somewhere on your person (6 out of 8 people did this morning on my bus, I counted), and have some basic logic skills and full battery power, you could call, GPS or bluff your way out of pretty much anything, or nearly anywhere.

So. Am I a mentally unstable morally outraged vigilante stalker? Wrong question.

Actually, how do I, as a writer, get my heroine into grave difficulty, and how do I tease out suspense when any character could walk up to a computer and blow the whole plot wide open? How could she languish in a kidnap situation or chase the bad guys all over town, if all of the tools formerly possessed only by police are clutched in her left hand?

Some of the devices we brave new writers use involve taking technology right out of the equation. Power failures, low battery, downed cell network, rural locations and having your smartphone fall into a lake are all plausible means of getting this pesky novel-ender out of the way. And there are a million creative ways to introduce these obstacles.

Perhaps your hero or heroine is technologically addled. What's the Google, dear? But, as time and technology march forth, so too do our characters. Miss Marple herself would be scouring Facebook, I'm certain of it. Some seniors I know not only have no problem on the web, they have a lot of time to spend there and could run circles around me with knowledge gleaned from running knitting blogs and recipe circles.

In fact, very soon most of these literary machinations will be clichéd. That threshold may have already been reached. Remember when he's calling from inside the house could make the hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up? Writing that now would produce more groans than shivers. That's the last thing I'd want to do to my readers, who trust me to lead them by the hand into the darkness.

So, for me, one solution seems to be to fully integrate technology into the plot.

Let's talk about the world we live in for a moment: the technological world. Finding, gathering and compiling information used to be time-consuming and difficult. Now, it's trivially easy. Yet how misleading that easily obtained data could be.

Information is neutral, therefore it is still subject to human interpretation. And that can make for some wonderful, dangerous mistakes for a character to make.

There is also that other critical element in mystery writing: the mystery of why. That is, once you have the who, the what, the when and the how, the motive, or the why, is the real heart of any mystery. Any madman can put a elaborate electronic trap out. But no amount of technical hoo-ha can ever replace the fragile complexities of human behaviour -- and that will always be what readers turn the page to devour.

Now, when I say to use technology in your writing, I don't mean for you to plunk your hero at a screen and let them 'World of Warcraft' his way to a solved crime. Nothing is as dissatisfying as a hero whose butt has never left the home office chair, or who never faces real world danger. No. Our world is infused with technology, it runs through the bloodstream of human consciousness. Therefore, our characters must run the gamut of it.

Technology has every potential, like setting or weather, of almost achieving a level of a character in itself.

Writers need to behave like the technology itself. And to write one step ahead of it.

Your readers need to know they can depend upon a main character who's smart enough and quick enough to get by in this world. One who solves her mystery with moxy and ingenuity, who is human enough to be fooled by a red herring, but agile enough to recover, reinterpret the facts and use her unique insights to get to the bottom of it all.

Insightful writing, all.
Kate Burns

How James Taylor Helps Me Write

Kate Burns

I caught my husband online again. It happens every few days, actually. Whenever he's got a little private time, no one is home yet, work done... and I come home, calling out. Instead of an answer, drifting up from the basement come the strains of...

The Seventies.

Specifically, the amazing songwriting-driven performances of Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Dan Fogelberg and James Taylor.

As I come down the stairs to greet Dave, he is already filling my head with new facts. Did I know that James Taylor had been committed? That Fire and Rain was partially a lament for a friend, Suzanne? And so on...

I sat and listened, and it put me in mind of tonight's post. Have a look at these lyrics.


Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to


I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again


Won't you look down upon me, jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way


Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again


Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground


Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now


Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now

Note the cadence. Note how each line is strictly structured to follow a music and poetry formula, how each word has been carefully chosen to either conceal or reveal exactly what James wants you to know at any particular point in the song.

Here's an exercise: Look up one of these amazing songwriters' efforts. Or, find a favourite song of yours. Read the lyrics, as a poem.

Your novel, though longer, should have all of the elements of a great songwriter's work: cadence, a sparing reveal of information, a twist (subtle or not), and above all, make every word count. When you write, tell as interesting a story as you can, in as few words as possible.

Thanks, Dave. I don't know why you don't just look at the pretty ladies on the internet like other dudes, but I am glad you find what you find.

Kate Burns

Cleaning Up

Kate Burns

Well, it's back to work time. Not yet back to school time for my daughter (seriously, who wants to be a teacher? I do!), but definitely back to the salt mines for me. Today, instead of doing one more social to-do, I took a large part of the afternoon to get some organization back into my home.

This gets me thinking about the new novel that I am working on. I am 5000 words in, and 'first draft plotted', so to speak, but the post-Christmas reintroduction to routine is a great time to jump-start the work on the novel, clean out the cobwebs of wrapping paper and last-minute gifts, and give myself the gift of steady, organized progress.

As a segue into my work, I am going to take some sage advice and reread what I have written so far, to get into the headspace. Then I am going to schedule -- gently and without breaking myself -- time every weekend to write. I will set a goal of a certain number of words, and build in time to reread what I have written the previous week.

With a full time job, a husband and an eight year old daughter, and several other projects looming in the January-to-March timeframe (including but not limited to: backstage work for a cabaret, a large family reunion that I am helping to host, co-authoring a short story with another author), I need to be both bloody-minded and practical.

I think it's a good idea to set not only some short term goals (word counts, etc.), but some medium and longer term goals as well. I want to do a 'quarterly edit' on the novel -- every 20,000 words, do a read-through and rewrite for continuity, character, spelling and grammar.

I am going to host a writer's retreat. End of February, five women needed. Weekend goal is to write 10,000-20,000 words. $70/writer, great location. Should be fun!

I have not made any New Year's Resolutions this year. But I am going to make progress. I am going to work hard.

It will take resolve.

Happy (and productive!) Writing,
Kate Burns

Play Clue: the Juicy Bit

Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Lead Pipe. Do you remember Clue?
I'd like to play a game of Clue, sort of. But let's just do the juicy bit: the murder.

Person, place, weapon. If you are writing mystery, those three elements are an integral part of the plot and story. Even if you are writing the mystery as high-concept, at some point, someone is going to die at the hands of someone else.

I think now is a good time to explore the sister arts of shuffling someone prematurely off this mortal coil and deceiving the authorities. After prolonged exposure to family over the holidays, writers' thoughts must inevitably turn to murder... at least on paper.

So, tell me how you would 'kill' some of your 'favourite' relatives. Pseudonyms are encouraged to protect sweet old aunties who surf blogs from slicing you out of the will!

Rules are, it should be a relative (in honour of the Christmas season); details on how you would deceive the authorities are required; and, finally, give us a great setting!

Comment, and we will vote for the most creative, evil, funny or just plain shocking dispatch & cover.

Winner will receive a free copy of The Ophelia Trap, in a format of your choosing (up to and including a signed paperback). Why? Because I am out of chocolates and wrapping paper, that's why.

Voting will depend upon participation, as will date of announcement of the winner.

Miss Peacock
Kate Burns

There's No Place Like Home

Kate Burns

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!

Today, I listened to some holiday tunes. Today being Boxing Day, I have, for most of my life, referred to them in my head as 'leftover carols'. Like the turkey dinner, the tunes are nostalgic and sweet the day after. With the fresh edge of anticipation removed, there's no dressing for eating leftovers... I love the way a piping hot turkey dinner mellows into a sloppy toasted sandwich eaten slowly away from all family while wearing slippers and jammie pants. There's no dressing for dinner, no standing on ceremony.

One of the songs that caught my ear today was "There's No Place Like Home (For The Holidays)". It got me thinking about home. To me, home is like that leftover turkey in the fridge. All the decorations have been admired, now there's a mess of tumbled gifts and wrapping to set off the look. It's humble, it's familiar. In the great gentle letdown after Christmas celebrations, it's even... boring.

We often think of home as boring, don't we? Asked to describe your living room, I'll bet 90% of you would simply say, 'it's a mess.' It's much easier to describe someone else's living room. Other living rooms are exotic. Designer. Chic. Homey. Home? Mess. How many of us, if we go for an evening walk, can resist peaking into our neighbours' windows (from a non-stalkery socially acceptable admiring distance, of course)?

In writing, there is a tendency to do that as well. It's tempting to set your novel in a place like Monaco, New York, London... those places sound interesting. And they are interesting.

But so is your location. Your home, your town, your neck of the woods. To your reader, your setting is like sneaking a peek through someone else's living room... and their kitchen, their woods, their customs, and their skeleton closets.

So, dear writers... if you are googling New York or Egypt and attempting to write 'from' there, make sure that it is integral to your plot and characters, and don't lose sight of that piece of overlooked exotica...

Home.

Happy writing!
Kate Burns

PS: No Wikipedia articles were harmed in the formation of this random thought jumble.

For Openers: An Interactive Muscle Stretcher

Come here. Closer. Clooooser.... yes. Perfect. Now, who would like to play a game? I want to see the wildest, most intriguing, most tantalizing opener you can think of! In the comments, please.
And leave your twitter name; I will tweet these tomorrow.

One rule: Make it up, right now. Don't use an old one.

I'll start.

It was after midnight. She'd dozed off on the couch again, and the gun had slipped to the carpet. One of these days she was going to shoot her nose off in her sleep, she thought briefly, and smiled. Then she sat bolt upright and silenced her stray thoughts. The television was on, and it was watching her again. Without taking her eyes off it, she surreptitiously reached down for the revolver.


Kate Burns

An Ode to A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a story written with not only a clear theme in mind, but stands out as a masterwork born of deeply held personal beliefs and a strong political agenda.

A Christmas Carol, the classic tale of the redemption of the misanthropic Ebenezer Scrooge by the Three Ghosts of Christmas, has never been out of print. It has been adapted to film, opera, stage, and is a staple of the culture of Christmas to this very day. You cannot turn on a television without seeing one of its many manifestations, and countless writers of drama have riffed on the three ghosts with their heartwarming -- and heartwarning -- message.

The times in which Charles Dickens lived were dichotomous. The Victorian Age held the promise of modernity -- technology and manufacturing were leaping ahead, providing every convenience to the privileged classes. People at this time were experiencing a resurgence in affection for some of the forgotten traditions of Christmas, even while new fads were taking hold, such as the Christmas card, and, thanks to Prince Albert's German heritage, the Christmas tree.
Meanwhile, out of sight, people of the working class struggled in worse circumstances than ever before. Starvation, disease, debtor's prisons, a class divide as wide and as deep as despair itself.

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased.

Dickens' own situation, in which he found himself working as nearly an indentured servant to pay off family debt, led him to write about the terrible living and working conditions of the working class. His work detailing the desperation of the poor seeking legal redress through a labyrinth that seemed gamed helped to enlighten the public on the machinations and byzantine bureaucracy of the British legal system. This need to communicate a social reform view culminated in the manifesto that was A Christmas Carol. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge personified what Dickens saw as a dangerous prevailing attitude toward the poor, one of willful blindness combined with a posture of sitting in judgement rather than helping. From the Wikipedia article: "Dickens asks, in effect, for people to recognise the plight of those whom the Industrial Revolution has displaced and driven into poverty, and the obligation of society to provide for them humanely."

Deftly working in the atmosphere of the age, in which a reader may very nearly taste the plum pudding, and smell the goose cooking (in more ways than one), Charles Dickens swept open the curtain upon a dreadful tableau, much as the Ghost of Christmas Present revealed the two unwanted children of Man, Ignorance and Want.
I don't know exactly what I'm trying to communicate myself, with this post. I'm up to my eyeballs in wrapping paper and cookie icing, and I swear, I swear, there is dough in my hair. But I do know this: In the same way that a thematic political statement may contain a compelling narrative, so may a compelling narrative contain a very visible theme. (Try that, vampire mystery writers tying their novel to themes of teenage alienation.) And that once there was a writer out there, perhaps the most heard of his and many generations, who, when considering what 'theme' he could apply to his works, not only did not flinch, but strode boldly ahead to create one of the most powerful messages to humanity ever.
Wasn't that fun? Now -- don't shrink -- go write something big.
Kate Burns

Balance: Part Two — Finding Balance Within Your Writing

Ok. So you carve out some time for yourself, grab some inspiration out of thin air, have a blinding bolt of supercharged energy flow right through you and your keyboard, and blaze along at a furious pace, racking up word count the way a race car eats up track.
Suddenly, four chapters later, you realize all of those words have to do with the backstory of the waitress serving the main characters... a minor character who will fade back into the scenery, and whose presence is not integral to the plot. And you blew five thousand words on her irrelevant childhood.

It's clear that you've lost your Balance.
Now, this is not a disaster by any stretch, however much you may lament what could be perceived as wasted opportunity. If it's first draft, copy what you wrote and save it. Chances are, what you wrote may be needed somewhere else in the story; like a costume, it may fit another character! Waste not, want not, I always say. It's been my experience that if you wrote it at all, some part of your muse wants it to be there. You just need to find a place for it.

But what to do when going back through your novel for a second and third draft pass? You need your scenes to balance.
I like to keep a checklist. Besides grammar and structure, a good series of things to look for as you revise would be:

Does the scene:

Move the plot along? Reveal or change something about your characters? Change the mood?

Change anything at all?
This may seem obvious, but every scene is about change. Something has to change for your characters (or for your reader), for it to be a complete scene. If your hero walks into a diner, orders lunch and learns nothing about himself, the mystery, or anything else, if nothing is revealed to the reader that changes any of the same things, then the scene is not over. A scene is never over until something changes.

Does it speak in the 'voice' of your novel?
Remember that, although different scenes from different points of view can have different voices or styles, they should be consistent with each other. Villain with villain, setting with setting, etc.

Does it carry too much detail? Too little? That waitress detail, if she's a 'throwaway character', may be a bit much.

And finally, how does your scene play with other scenes? If you take a big step back, and look at all of your scenes all at once, do you see a pattern? Unless you are deliberately writing chaotically, you will likely see a pattern... a cadence. Villain, crime, heroine. Or crime, colour, hero. Do an experiment. Take a look, from fuzzy eyes, far away, and see if you can pick out the patterns that naturally occur in your writing.

I think that balance is a second-and-beyond draft exercise, but it's important to consider, at least, even while you are writing that whirlwind first draft.

Happy writing!
Kate Burns

Balance: Part One — Finding Balance for Your Writing

Right about now, I'll bet a lot of you are thinking about balance. The Christmas Season is upon us, and although I know there are some of you men out there panicking, I can only speak true in this post about the woman's perspective. Some of us right now are downright bonkers.
It is this time of year that I start thinking about next year's Christmas shopping. Not in the way you're thinking, either. A dialogue starts. "Next year," I mutter to myself, "it's going to be different. Next year I'll start in August."

Of course, that never happens. Year after year, I lurch myself and my badly wounded credit card toward the 25th, knowing that it will never change for me, only I for it. Somehow we always make it through.
After Christmas, with hospital-grade amounts of Turkey and wine sedative effects, I always sit and plan my useless plans for the next year. It is at Christmas that my most valiant attempts at work-life balance are tested severely.

So, how on earth do we balance our lives with our writing? Home life, work life, sleep, precious all, take precedence only too often.How do we carve out some meaningful time?

Schedule it. Make one chunk of one day of one week yours for just writing. Turn off the phone, and send kids to a friends or out with Mom or Dad. Which leads me to...

Ask for help. And don't expect people to guess that you need it, because they won't. Standing there with a Martha Stewart frozen grin on your face while kicking the garbage bags behind a convenient closet door won't give them a clue, either. In your native tongue, ask.

Set realistic goals. Sure, it would be great to push that story out the door in time for the Big Kindle Rush post-Christmas. But is racing to finish going to compromise your story? If so, then you may want to work on it a bit longer. I guess a subset of this would be...

Be honest with yourself. This one is hard. I do this all the time. Sure, I'll take that one hour between the last load of laundry and making the cookies and starting Sunday dinner to yank some literary brilliance out of my hind end... Yeah, right. That one hour is usually spent hiding in the bathroom reading a two month old Reader's Digest while fending off cookie inquiries by small children. (And I don't care what you say, nobody's boss is more demanding than a kid wanting to stir batter.) However, this brings me to...

Push yourself. A little, anyway. Stretching yourself hurts at first (two posts a week? Becky, really???), but once you get going, you'll be surprised at what you can actually accomplish. Hmm... I think I have an hour free... wonder what I can do with it...?

Tell me about your balancing acts. How do you do it, fabulous authors?

Stay tuned: In Thursday's post, Balance: Part Two — Finding the Balance Within Your Writing.

Happy Writing!
Kate Burns

Quest for Fire: Finding and Nourishing Your Creative Spark

Anybody remember the movie Quest for Fire?

Quest for Fire was a low-budget Canadian movie. Ron Perlman and Rae Dawn Chong headed an ensemble cast of cavemen -- er, people -- who, in the dawn of (our) creation, do not know how to actually create fire. They use fire, but instead of baking it from scratch, they use what they find in nature: lightning strikes, forest fires, and other naturally occurring phenomena to 'capture' the spark they need to supply their cooking, heating and safety needs. Their tribe had one rule: never let the fire go out. And if by some disaster it did go out, a team was sent to 'gather' more.

A fire tender was appointed to guard the tiny flame they could coax out of nature. This fire tender had to endure sleeplessness, cold, rain and mortal danger to keep this little-understood thing alive.

When that flame returned to the home caves, its keepers were treated as heroes.

How does that translate to the world of writing? Or painting, or drawing, for that matter?

Creative sparks occur all around us. A scene in a movie, a piece of wisdom from a friend. The way your husband tripped over the kids' shoes in the front hall. A turn of phrase, a glint of light in amber-coloured eyes. That peculiar thing your best friend does with her head when she's in the middle of telling you a story. The fabulously gory method of murder that blasted you in the brain, hot on the heels of a traffic near-miss.

It is these small idea fires that can ignite true creative energy. Those sparks, with hard work and a lot of time and attention, become bonfires of brilliance, forming the heart and soul of a written work.

Tell me: how do you find these bits? Where do you find them? What are your favourite places to open yourself to ideas? To sparks?

Now tell me: how do you hold onto them? Is it a notepad? A tape recorder? Do you simply thwap your spouse on the arm and exhort them to remind you of your own brilliance?

How do you go further than that? How can you, the most enlightened and least caveman-like of modern humans, call forth creative fire... from nothing at all?

Can it even be done?

Kate Burns
The Ophelia Trap

The Unexpected Pairing

Kate Burns


I'm late!! I'm late!! My apologies for the tardiness of this post. It seems that I e-slept in.

When I was eight years old, my dad was posted to Winnipeg. That meant we were moving, again. We had spent two years in Aylmer, and I had made a lot of friends. But being a military brat, I was used to being uprooted.

What I didn't expect was that my parents would decide to give away our cat, Herman. To the Humane Society. In 1977, it was only too common: the drive across the country was long, and public censure hadn't really formed against the practice of abandoning a pet. I'm sure my parents thought they were doing the right thing. However, regardless of hindsight and recognizing that it was a difficult thing for them to do, it was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my childhood.

To this day, I can close my eyes and I am a child again in the wood-paneled Toyota station wagon, crying and begging, as we dropped my best little buddy off to an uncertain future. My dad, grim-faced and unyielding in the front seat. My mom trying, and failing, to comfort me. My dusty little black Persian cat in my arms, struggling and clueless to his situation. I would never see him again. The song that played on the radio, one I'd never heard before, one I could never forget and that has stayed associated with loss.

The song? The Hustle.

Yes, The Hustle. Famous disco song (Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony). People dance to it. It's a happy song. Full of bright flutey sounds and a aural backdrop of singers going "oooo..."

That is a song which brings me nearly to tears every time I hear it, a reaction in direct contrast to its intent.

So, why am I telling you this? Because that the sort of contrast I want to put into my writing.

There are many common and related techniques (irony, oxymoron, contrast, juxtaposition) to this kind of unexpected pairing. Wiki any one of them, and you will find countless examples and explanations.

It is this contradictory combination that can elevate a scene, or a whole novel, to a riveting read.

This can be a visual, sensory or even temporal juxtaposition. Its use may range from a discordant note in a small scene, designed to slightly discomfort the reader (and believe me, they don't always know what's bothering them, and if it's done right, all they know is they have to keep reading, because something's going to happen, they just know it) all the way up to something as all-encompassing as a predestination paradox, where everything in the story leads inexorably to a conclusion the main character wants most to avoid.

From the visual:
Pink balloons slowly drifting over a scene of carnage.

To the sensory:
The smell of cotton candy mixed with blood.

The tinkling of the calliope (circus music), which continues to play after a fatal gunshot, because no one is left to turn it off.

To character:
Killer clown.

To theme or plot:
A hero or heroine who is deathly afraid of/enamoured of something, only to be saved/done in by that very thing. That's the predestination paradox. (Think Oedipus Rex.)

Tell us some of your favourite ways to introduce tension using justaposition or other techniques!

Does Everyone Have a Novel in Them?

Kate Burns, Co-Author

I'm thrilled to be here writing for Mystery Writers Unite. This is one of the most prolific and interesting new blogs on writing and the new world of publishing, and Ms. Illson-Skinner has honored me with the invitation to be a regular contributor. It goes without saying that any mistakes, opinions, and leaps of logic I make are heretofore my own and do not necessarily reflect on this site or its Host.

While contemplating my first article for this blog, I mulled over how to introduce myself, and thought about all of the tales I could tell about my journey in the new world of independent publishing. No one knows me. I could tell any tale I want!

However, in the interest of that not biting me in the keester later, I will opt for the truth. The truth, followed by a question.

Five years ago, I was not a writer. Far from it. I have a full time career doing work that I love -- Graphic Design -- and several hobbies to address any residual creative energy I have left over. I'm also a mom and step-mom. "Energy left over" is an abstract concept at the best of times.

I knit, crochet, decorate cakes, bake weird concoctions and force my family to eat them. I get ideas -- strange ones. Let's have a pirate treasure hunt at camp in honor of Pirates of the Caribbean Three. Not One or Two, idea didn't hit me then, but Three, hoo-boy, you couldn't get that idea out of my head. I slept, ate, drank, and drew plans for a big wild dollar store charged scavenger hunt the likes of which would be talked about by those little urchins for years to come.

So, five years ago, if you had asked me if I felt like outlining, writing, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, synopsizing, blurbing, entering contests, sending query letters, studying the publishing industry, designing cover art, titling, self-publishing, and promoting a novel, I would have looked at you the way I look at my toddler. Cute, but I don't get the babbling, kid.

But over a glass of wine one Saturday evening, during a rare quiet moment, I looked out the window. The snow fell, as it had been falling for weeks, and dinner ticked over in the slow cooker. For the first time, I noticed how clearly I could see the apartment building we had worked so hard to get out of… and an idea began to form. Over the next few weeks, the idea sucked in everything: news, fears, atmosphere… even the falling snow. And, without passing 'short story', or even 'novella', it stopped at NOVEL.

By the time my husband Dave asked me what I was up to, I was in it deep.

When people find out you are writing a novel, particularly if you haven't tortured over writing since Grade Six, the reactions are startling. In my case, it was almost as if I had announced I was taking up Rocket Science for the Backyard Hobbyist. You writers out there know what I'm talking about. Reactions range from excited to dismissive, with a smattering of eye-roll thrown in, in case you don't understand exactly what boundaries you are violating. After all, who writes novels?… is the unspoken question… the unspoken answer is, of course, Novelists.

Ah, Novelists.

Novelists are creatures sprung fully formed as Tormented Writers, wise from birth, lurking mysteriously at parties. Where they are born, no one knows, though one presumes that family and friend alike knew from the outset that they were Novelists.

The truth, though, is that the Novelist… is us. All of us. Anyone who wants to tell a story.

Hm. Pardon that. That's not exactly true. The Novelist is anyone who wants to outline, write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, synopsize, blurb, enter into a contest, query, publish, choose or design a cover, title, and promote a story.

(Maybe it's not such a surprise that my friends looked at me like I grew another head.)

The best reactions come when you reach a major milestone.

"How's your 'novel'?"
"Finished."
"Oh! So... are you published?"
"Yes. The Ophelia Trap comes out this month."
"..."

That reaction should be very satisfying. Except for one thing. Now that I am a Novelist, on the other side of the magical door, I find that everything looks much the same over here. Except now I can see another door, another threshold to cross. I want to write a series. And my family and friends don't cast funny glances my way anymore. Now they look at me with expectation. So... I'd better keep writing.

The rest, as they say, is history. History still being written, word by word, following ideas that have been released from an invisible cage.

As promised, the question: Is there a novel in each of us? And a bonus question: If there is a novel inside of you, what are you willing to do to let it out?

Comment like crazy, please. We love the conversation here at Mystery Writers Unite. And when you get a chance, check out The Ophelia Trap.

Author Interview ~ Kate Burns

Happy Friday!!

What a special day at Mystery Writers Unite as I share with you an interview that was conducted with the local author of  The Ophelia Trap, Kate Burns.


Karin: I see your book ( The Ophelia Trap) is climbing the charts on iTunes.

Kate: Well, it’s not climbing anymore! It’s now stabilized to falling, but we will see how that turns out. It is selling and that is really good. And it was awfully fun to write.

Karin: Can you give us an idea of what the book is about?

Kate: The Ophelia Trap is about the ultimate victim. The name of the book is taken from Shakespeare’s ultimate victim. The trap could be one that was laid for her or one she lays for somebody else and  -- without giving too much away -- there is a little bit of both in there. It’s also about the taking back of one's own identity. When I was writing this book, September 11th had already happened, and it was sort of fresh in my mind.

I thought about the jumpers; these people who were trapped in the buildings... either with fire and jet fuel behind them or the thick smoke above them. And what lay ahead of them was this clear blue open sky and very few choices.

One of the last choices they had, the only ones left really, was the manner of their death, and how they chose the manner of their death was their very last exercise in control. The plot points in my novel and the theme ties in very closely to that – when you have no choices, what choices you have left become your most important choices.

Karin: It could be your last choice.

Kate: Exactly, and one could argue that your last choice is your most important choice. It’s the man that chooses to drive his car off a bridge rather than into oncoming traffic. He made a choice to sacrifice his life and save the lives of others on the road in a terrible moment when it seemed as if there is no time to make a choice. Like that line out of the Edmond Fitzgerald, “When the winds turn the moments to hours"… there is a space in those final seconds where human beings explore the very depths of what they are capable of doing, thinking, feeling, changing, deciding on and accepting.” So, unless you get a bullet through the brain; every human being has a chance, even if it is only a fraction of second long, to accept fate and to make a choice about it too. There is a lot of that in the first book.

Karin: Tell us about some of the conflicts in the novel.

Kate: In this novel, Julia’s antagonist, not the villain, but her antagonist, is essentially her husband, who doesn’t want her doing what she does and is in some ways the opposite of who she is. She has to find a way to work beyond that and by the end of the novel her husband no longer feels the same.

Karin: That reminds me, it seems that the place where the story transpired had a big part to play in The Ophelia Trap and your book really connected to it.

Kate:  I think if all writers went back and wrote again what we wrote before, we might do something different.  I might have played up the contrast between Aylmer and the bigger city across the river a bit more. I didn’t do that because I really wanted to concentrate on that small town feel.  Even though Aylmer is technically a city, it’s this border town – this town of English and French, and there is a natural contrast there. There is a complementary thing going on, not always but generally working and having that as a setting allowed me to explore a little bit of the fish out of water thing. Our city girl has moved there and married a small town guy and is settling into this life and finds out that in a small town your past can be a lot closer then you think it is.

Karin: Tell us about your new novel...

Kate: In this novel there are several conflicts set up – we have two worlds against each other the world of fine art and the world of commercial art and the world of the finer end of the market and the destitute end of the market, the sinner and the saved. I’m exploring juxtapositions between commercial and fine, rich and poor and city and country and all of those get to land very nicely. But Julia and Matt have to work as more of a team this time around. Their lives depend on it.

Karin: And once more, the setting is very integral.

Kate: This novel gives me the chance to take a tour around the Gatineau region, where there are so many fascinating and almost hidden parts to our region and to this beautiful area. The Byward Market has a beauty all its own, and the Gatineau hills have a beauty all of their own. Each of those settings has its own particular danger, too.

This weekend, Kate Burns will be signing copies of  The Ophelia Trap at the Art on the Ridge event being held in Luskville, Quebec on October 15th and 16th, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (see details below) .

If you can't make the event you can purchase either the paperback version of the book here: The Ophelia Trap or the electronic (e-book) version here: The Ophelia Trap.

Hope to see some locals at the event!!

Becky