Investigating the Investigators

Questions about how complaints against police officers are investigated? Please join Mystery Writers Ink for a discussion of the Calgary Police Commission how it operates and complaints against officers.

The Mystery Writers Ink speaker for February is Brian Edy, a member of the Calgary Police Commission. The task of the Police Commission is to provide independent civilian oversight and governance of the Calgary Police Service to ensure a safe community." Brian, a Calgary lawyer, is the chairperson of the sub-committee on citizen's complaints.

 

Thursday, January 10th

From 7 - 9 p.m.
Owl's Nest Books in Britannia Plaza

Elbow Drive and 49th Avenue SW, Calgary
(Note: the doors open at 6:45p.m.)

About Mystery Writers Ink

MWI supports aspiring and emerging mystery writers in Calgary. Annual membership is $25.00.

Drop-in fee of $5.00 for non-members.

For more information, please contact: info@mysterywritersink.com

Tax Tips for Writers

On January 13^th, Sandra Fitzpatrick gave a presentation on Canadian income tax law for writers to Mystery Writers Ink. Sandra Fitzpatrick has been doing taxes professionally since 2006; she shared with us some important tips about organizing your tax information and tracking your income and expenses.

Income

Sandra recommends that writers keep track of their income on a monthly basis. An Excel spreadsheet is one of the best methods to track income. Keep a record of the date that you received income, the source of the income, the total amount and the amount of GST collected. Writers should issue a receipt for income and record the receipt number in the spreadsheet.

Expenses

Keep track of your expenses on a monthly basis as well. Set up another Excel spreadsheet to track expenses.

You need to be able to prove to the Canada Revenue Agency that you have a real business and that you are trying to show a profit, so for each expense that you claim; you should have a receipt to support it. On the receipt, write the reason for the expense, if it is not obvious.

A credit card statement is not a sufficient receipt. For example, if you pay for gas at a service station, then you need to be able to show that what you paid for was gas for your car, not a newspaper, coffee or snacks that tempt you as you pay for the gas.

Some expenses that writers can claim are:

• Two writer's conventions per year (keep track of editor and agent appointments)
  
• Research expenses, including travel
  
• Meals – 50% of the bill including the tip and GST
  
• Courses taken to further your business
  
• Office supplies
  
• Magazine subscriptions for research purposes
  
• Guidebooks and maps for research purposes
  
• Books on writing
  
• Office equipment where you may have to claim Capital Cost Allowance (ask your accountant)
  

Car Expenses

The easiest way to claim your car expenses is to keep track of your mileage. CRA sets a rate per kilometre that you can claim as an expense. (About $.50 per kilometre) Check the CRA website as the rate changes from time to time.

Home Office Expenses

Home office expenses, unlike other expenses, can be deducted only against your writing income. If you have a home office, then keep track of your mortgage interest or rent, taxes and utilities. If your home office is 10% of the area of your home, then you can claim home office expenses of 10% of house expenses. If your home office expenses are more than your writing income, you can carry the unclaimed amount over to future years to be claimed in the year when you get that big advance.

If your business is successful, in April, you will have to pay your taxes. One method to make certain you have the cash on hand is to save 25% – 33% of every check you receive. At the end of the year, after you pay your income tax, you can either save or spend the rest.

Record Keeping

Find a filing system that works for you. If CRA ever knocks at your door, you will have to be able to produce your records to confirm your income and your expenses. You will have to be able to show that the there was a good business reason to pay the expenses that you claim in your income tax return.

GST

If you make more than $30,000 per year, you need to collect and pay GST to CRA. You will need to apply for a GST number. It is easiest to pay GST annually. Every time you collect GST, transfer it to your savings account, so at year-end, you have the money to pay the tax. Otherwise, you may be paying penalties and interest.

 

WRITING THE MYSTERY SHORT STORY

WRITING THE MYSTERY SHORT STORY

By Kate Thornton

Back when I first started writing, many years ago, I assumed because I thought I was a writer, I was a novelist. I just started writing, throwing in everything I could think of to tell my heartbreaking tales of timeless wonder, deathless prose and obvious genius. Heck, I didn't even really know what a short story was when I started writing.

I ended up with lots and lots of words, but still they were inadequate in conveying the grand ideas I thought I had.

Something was wrong. Well, plenty was wrong, but mostly I was trying to tell stories in too many words - way too many words. Fortunately, I discovered that I wasn't really trying to write novels, I was trying to write short stories. Once I realized that my ideas were better suited to a short form, I got better with practice. Maybe the things I learned about short stories can help you.

What is a short story?

All short stories share some similar basic characteristics. They all have a beginning, a middle and an ending. If your piece does not have all three, you may have a delightful slice-of-life or vignette, but without the basic form, you don't have a short story.

Your beginning is very important. You have only a few words in which to capture your reader and make him want to continue reading. You need a "grabber," an opening sentence that gets your reader's attention immediately.

There are lots of opening lines so memorable that we know them by heart. Go for an opening that won't let your reader stop, a specific event or idea that makes them want to find out what is going to happen.

The middle is where you expand on your idea, describe your setting or characters and get the reader to want to know more. It's where you tell the story. It's where the mystery or crime happens, where we get to know the good guys and bad guys. Ideally, a short story will have one central idea or plot line and no more than three main characters.

The end - especially in a mystery story - is where you hit your reader hard with what happened. It's the place where they either say, "Wow! I didn't see that coming!" or "Yes, that's exactly it!" Twist stories are designed to surprise the reader with an ending that is unexpected but satisfying.

Where do you get your ideas?

I get them from everywhere. I read, eavesdrop on conversations, skim the newspaper, mis-hear what people say on television and play the what-if game. What if that guy in line at the supermarket buried his wife in the basement. What if that person the cops are looking for is your husband. What if you heard someone planning a crime. You get the idea!

One thing that really helps me is my Idea File. Every time I think of an idea that might be of use, I stash it in my idea file. Then, when I'm staring at The Blank Screen of Death, I can rummage through my file until something starts to grow.

Getting the story written

I think there is nothing like the BIC method: Behind In Chair. Sit down and do it - get out that idea file and start writing. Don't worry about perfection, just tell the story to yourself and write it as you go. There will be plenty of time to edit once you have the basics down. And you can always write that killer opening line after you write the rest of the story.

What to do with a finished story

1. Revise. It's never really done, is it?

2. Get a sound critique.

3. Submit.

Revise. Write the story, then go back and rewrite it until it makes sense. Then rewrite it until it sounds good. Then go back and rewrite it until it sounds great. You might have to rewrite a dozen times to get it the way you know it can be.

Get a sound critique. Kiss your mom, but listen to your Sisters. As much as your mom loves your work, remember, it's probably you she loves and your work only by extension.

Sisters in Crime, however, is an example of a good writing group - there are many chapters worldwide and an internet-based chapter for those who do not have a local live chapter. The Short Mystery Fiction Society is an online group devoted to mystery short stories, and offers a wonderful list of markets, as does Absolute Write, a forum for writers of all genres.

These groups have writers who will let you have the benefit of their expertise. Take advantage of sound feedback and good advice.

Submit. Your story needs to find readers, so you must find venues for it and begin the submission process. You will discover paying and non-paying markets, anthologies, ezines, print magazines, even your church bulletin and garden club newsletter. And don't forget non-fiction venues - you may find one that will publish fiction.

Here are a couple of excellent market listings for mystery short fiction:

http://www.shortmystery.net/markets.html

http://www.mysterywriters.org/?q=ApprovedPubList

Remember to become familiar with places in which you wish to publish and read each venue's submission guidelines carefully - the guidelines will tell you exactly what that market will publish (subject matter, length, etc.) and the exact format they want, too. Also listed in the guidelines will be pay and rights information.

Rejection - we all get it. So send your story somewhere else. Then work on your next story while you're waiting to hear. Keep writing, revising and submitting. And let us know when you get published!

KATE THORNTON lives near Los Angeles and has over 100 short stories in print. She writes mostly mysteries and science fiction, teaches a short story workshop and has a new book of short fiction out, INHUMAN CONDITION Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Bloody Words Progress Report #2

BLOODY WORDS 2011 June 3-5, 2011 Victoria, BC

Bloody Words, Canada's foremost mystery conference for readers and writers, comes to the West Coast for the first time! Join us in Victoria, BC, June 3-5, 2011.

Guests of Honour:

International Guest of Honour: Tess Gerritsen, medical doctor-turned-author of 3 series (romantic suspense, medical thrillers, and the police procedurals made into the TV series Rizzoli and Iles)

Canadian Guest of Honour: Michael Slade, acclaimed author of the Specialx series and other crime/horror novels. Enjoy a blood-chilling 1940s radio play at Michael Slade's Shock Theatre (open to all conference attendees) and his Ghost Walk to some of Victoria's haunted sites (pre-registration required; details to be announced).

Special Guest of Honour: William Deverell, author of award-winning legal thrillers and creator of Street Legal. Deverell will be presented with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of his contributions to Canadian crime writing.

Registration Deadline

Registrations for Bloody Words 2011 already exceed half of our available banquet space, if you haven't signed up yet, REGISTER NOW.

Agent Interviews: Available slots are filling up fast. Act now.

Bony Pete Short Story Contest: Monday Magazine, Victoria's alternative newspaper, will publish the winning entry online, with a lead-in from the print edition. Entries must be postmarked no later than March 1, 2011. complete guidelines.

Manuscript Evaluations: Submissions must be postmarked by April 15, 2011. See the website for details.

Notes to Published Authors:

1. Programming Deadline: Programming is already underway. To be guaranteed consideration, you must register byMarch 1.

2. Bios and pix: If you wish to be on the program, please send a bio of 50-100 words and a black and white head shot (300 dpi, jpg or tiff ) to pam.barnsley@gmail.com NOW. Deadline is March 15.

3. Bumpf: Send 250 books, bookmarks, postcards, pens, other promotional items that will fit easily into goodie bags (no flat sheets) to Kay Stewart, #206-71 Gorge Road West, Victoria, BC V9A 1L9, postmarked no later than May 1. Material sent later may not make it into the bags.

4. Ads: Encourage your publisher to take out an ad in the program book or do it yourself byMarch 31. For information, email John Thornburn, Advertising Director, at chaosconsultants@shaw.ca.

5. Books: Dead Write Books, our conference dealer, will bring in books of published authors who are on the program. Self-published authors can arrange for Dead Write to handle your books. For queries, email whitedwarf@deadwrite.com.

Hotel Reservations: The conference block at Hotel Grand Pacific is already fully booked. However, the hotel will continue to accept BloodyWords bookings at the conference rate ($179 per night, single or double, plus tax) as long as non-harbourside rooms are available. Don't forget to mention BloodyWords when you make your reservation.

Arthur Ellis Awards Banquet June 2: the Hotel Grand Pacific. Come early and see the show. For information, consult the Crime Writers of Canada website: www.crimewriterscanada.com. For banquet tickets, email arthur_ellis_banquet@crimewriterscanada.com beginning April 1.

Kay Stewart and Lou Allin, Co-Chairs

Guest Lou Allin - Moonscape to Paradise?

Moonscape to Paradise and Back?

Canada is known for its sea-to-sea-to-sea pristine, jaw-dropping scenery, but one place has been a national joke since World War One: the moonscape around Sudbury, the Nickel Capital. At the opposite end of the country, both geographically and environmentally, is Paradise, aka Vancouver Island. They're more alike than you'd think.

I knew nothing about Sudbury in 1977 when I jumped at a job offer at the college. Surveying the core mining operations in Coniston and Copper Cliff, I saw the blackrock as vast as Manhattan which had earned it world-class shame for hosting the training astronauts on its barren hills. Lumbering, act one, had started in the 1880s. Discovery of nickel meant that the next decades brought open-pit roasting and then fifty years of acid rain. With no trees or ground cover, soil melted off the bare land, and the rocks darkened. Clear blue lakes became too acid to sustain life. Then in 1972, the Superstack (1247 feet high) was built to scrub the air pollution. Taking their cue, the entire community, business, students, government and private citizens began a monumental re-greening extending into the twenty-first century. Thanks to a cocktail of "rye (grass) on the rocks" and twenty million hardy pine seedlings, when I left in 2006, that moonscape was green again. For its unprecedented comeback, the city received an award from the Earthsummit in Rio.

As a mystery author emissary, I did my part in the Belle Palmer series to convey the chronicle, warts and all. Every book traced the long and worthy journey, even to the last, Memories are Murder, which involved the relocation of elk after an absence of eighty years. I knew I had succeeded when readers from across Canada told me that they wanted to visit.

I moved to the other end of the country to Vancouver Island. "Welcome to Paradise," everyone said. Expecting to marvel at the temperate-rainforest wilderness, I found a country under siege.
Those who keep to the streets of Victoria and ferry across the picturesque straits don't realize the dirty secret that is clear-cutting. Not that the island hasn't been logged several times in most areas over the last hundred and fifty years. Now the timber companies now have found ways to transmute that scarred land to pure gold. In a recent backroom deal, they convinced the government to let them turn their cutting leases into real estate at a million an acre.

By the time islanders woke up, considerable damage was done. A few places were saved, such as the Potholes area in Sooke. However, the surfing territory around Jordan River and back into the hills may be dotted with hundreds of vacation cabins. The government squirms in the ironic position of having to buy back land from the timber companies who were to have served as stewards, not self-servers. Clayaquot Sound, once a clarion call for activism, is one again threatened with mining as well as logging. Where I live west of Victoria, hundreds of logging trucks speed by weekly, loaded with timber barely twenty years old as well as spindly pulpwood. Raw logs sail to China, hardly a value-added proposition.

Douglas firs and the holy mother cedar are among the largest trees on the planet. Blessed by rainfall, they have found the optimal growing conditions. Why can't a tree over five feet in diameter, around when Columbus sailed, be left in threatened Avatar Grove for future generations who don't want to visit a tree museum? Imported tourists could be a far more lucrative and moral way to conserve our precious resources. Trees have become our ivory and chainsaws our poachers.

Sadly, most people never see this destruction unless they travel inland or fly over. The entire island is a poisonous patchwork quilt. My Holly Martin mysteries, And on the Surface Die and She Felt No Pain, rely heavily on setting and reveal the devastation a few metres beyond the narrowing margins. Is squandering a heritage a lesser crime than murder?


As century farms become condos, one giant housing development threatens, from Tofino to Port Hardy to Campbell River. Where the magical island once was self-sufficient, now it's on life support. Stop the ferries for one week, and we all would subsist on blackberries, eggs, and apples. The island used to provide 95% of its food. Now ships arrive in flotillas from South America with tasteless grapes and unripe avocados, burning diesel to pollute the air.

The island has lost its vision, or perhaps a hundred years ago it didn't need one. Groups such as The Land Conservancy and Dogwood Initiative are trying to stem the tide and marshal public opinion. Will this evil path be reversed in time or will Vancouver Island become another moonscape, paradise lost because of those who loved it to death?

Join Mystery Writers Ink for an Evening of Plotting

Mystery Writers Ink is delighted to host an exercise in "Plotting the Perfect Murder – Who Slew Santa?"

In this festive season, please join us to share some snacks while we have some fun, get to know each other better and explore the craft of plotting.

In "Plotting the Perfect Murder – Who Slew Santa," we will discuss plotting for a mystery story. We will look at the crime, character development, motivation and subplots. How can we weave them all together to create a page turning mystery? This is a group discussion, so bring your questions and please come prepared to do some plotting.

Thursday, December 9 

From 7 - 9 p.m.
Owl's Nest Books in Britannia Plaza

Elbow Drive and 49th Avenue SW, Calgary
(Note: the doors open at 6:45p.m.)

There will be great Ink-themed prizes and please feel free to bring some seasonal treats for our snack table.

About Mystery Writers Ink

MWI supports aspiring and emerging mystery writers in Calgary. Annual membership is $25.00.

Drop-in fee of $5.00 for non-members.

For more information, please contact:

info@mysterywritersink.com

Barbara Fradkin on the Supporting Cast

Creating and Maintaining a Supporting Cast


Ten years ago I blundered into this mystery business without a whit of foresight or experience. I had published a few short stories, but when Inspector Green first hit the bookstores in 2000, I had no idea I was creating a series.

As a reader, I was never a slave to series. I rarely read them in order, and generally sampled only a few from each writer. I love British detective novels, but there are too many other wonderful books out there for me to read all the Rebus or Dalgleish books, no matter now much I loved them.

So I didn't know a thing about how to set up a series. How to create a memorable and enduring main character, and even more important, how to surround him with a cast of characters that grew and changed as they followed him from book to book. I wrote Inspector Green as a character I would like to meet - creative, iconoclastic, intelligent, passionate and single-minded when he was on the hunt. As a result, he was a tactless superior, an unreliable husband, and a willfully deaf subordinate, but definitely someone you'd want solving your murder.

I gave him a sergeant who made up for all his flaws. Sergeant Brian Sullivan was patient, pragmatic, and fatherly with rookie cops and grieving families alike. I gave him a wife who put up with his short-comings (barely, at times) because she knew, deep down he was a good man. I rounded out the supporting cast with a boss, a few other subordinates, and a baby to make him human.

I recently launched the eighth in the series, BEAUTIFUL LIE THE DEAD. Over eight books, all these characters have grown. So have I! Mike Green is a far more complex and layered character than my initial creation. Each case has touched him and changed him, moving him forward on his quest for balance and maturity. One of the joys of writing a series is this chance to live with a character, to let him grow and to deepen and enrich his life. I think I have been lucky with Mike Green, for readers seem to enjoy this journey as well. They eagerly await the next book, wondering what he will confront this time, whether his wife will throw him out and whether he and his teenage daughter will mend their fractured bond. Readers react passionately to his transgressions, and their reactions help me to understand how he comes across. This is important to a series author. I don't mind if the reader wants to slap him upside the head for forgetting his wife. But I do mind if they want to throw the book against the wall or abandon the series, for that means the Inspector Green in my heart is not coming to life on the page.

Even more surprising to me, however, has been the power that supporting characters play in the success of a series. Again, I blundered into this discovery purely by serendipity, as readers began to voice their opinions. Different readers have their favourites, but there is always some continuing character that captures the hearts and loyalties of readers. Minor continuing characters provide novelty, opportunities for fresh conflict, and an element of unpredictability which keeps tensions high. Everyone knows that Green will live to solve another crime. But will Brian Sullivan? Will Sue Peters recover? Has Superintendent Jules truly crossed the line?

If the author listens too closely, these loyalties can have a paralyzing effect. Once I idly mused that I was thinking of shaking up Green's life with a major personal crisis. One reader immediately wagged a warning finger. "Don't you dare kill off his father!" Given that his father is edging towards ninety and has been in fragile health throughout the series, I have to face that sometime. But now I worry. Killing off Sid Green will be traumatic enough for me and Green. But for my readers too? Will they give up on the series without their favourite character to revisit?

Recently, several readers have told me they were upset about Brian Sullivan's crisis. Others worried that I was going to write Green's teenage daughter out of the series. I never know what I'm going to do ahead of time. In fact, new characters usually come into the series on the spur of the moment, to serve a purpose to that plot, and they stay around because I enjoy them. Little did I know that readers would care about them too. Or that they'd be an integral part of the appeal and success of the series. Authors, agents and publishers devote a lot of effort to creating an appealing and enduring series lead, but little to the supporting cast who make up the back story and emotional depth of the series.

To keep a series fresh, the drama high and the author entertained, new characters have to burst on the scene and old ones have to fade away. Most of us weigh how each new character will complement the existing characters, creating new contrasts, tensions and intrigue. Maybe we need to give equal thought to how to get rid of them, lest our books become populated with dozens of secondary characters with nothing to do. Getting rid of boring, annoying or inconsequential characters is easy, but those much-loved ones are a different story. We authors write them out or kill them off at our peril.

Ultimately it is our series and our story to tell, but it helps to consider the supporting characters that stir such a passionate following. To ponder what about them is so compelling and what they contribute to the power of the series. The gaping hole will have to be filled somehow, not by a similar character, but perhaps by a character who provides the same emotional context or fills the same need.

I'd love to hear people's experience with this. Any authors who've wrestled with dispatching popular characters? Readers who've been horrified to find their favourite dead at the end of a book?




Barbara Fradkin is a psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. Her gritty, psychological detective series featuring Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green has won two Arthur Ellis Best Novel Awards for Fifth Son and Honour Among Men. The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead,, has just been released by Napoleon & Company.