How The Light Gets In by Connie Berry

We are all broken. That's how the light gets in.

The famous quote by Ernest Hemingway is all over the internet. The problem is he never said it.

Leonard Cohen sang it in the song "Anthem": 

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Misquoting isn't difficult to do. An inaccurate quote is posted online and then reposted and retweeted thousands of times with no one the wiser. And it's not only social media. The U.S. Postal Service misquoted Maya Angelou on a stamp. The quote attributed to Angelou was actually penned by Joan Walsh Anglund:

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Not surprisingly, the Post Office decided not to reprint the stamp.

Okay—got that off my chest.

My real interest in the quote involves the way authors portray light in their writing—literally how the light gets in. Most writers know they should provide sensory details like sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But how about light?

I learned so much the summer I took an informal master's class from the late Ohio author Nancy Pinard. I've written about it, here and elsewhere. What I've never mentioned is a comment she made about light. "In every scene," she said, "establish the source of the light  as quickly as you can." That source could be the sun overhead on a bright day or the silvery light from a full moon; it could be light streaming through an open window; it could be soft lamplight or the clinical white light of an operating theater or the warm glow of a log fire. As Pinard was quick to point out, the concept wasn't original to her. I wish I'd paid more attention to her attribution.

Regardless of the source, I took her admonition to heart. Here's an excerpt from an early scene in my debut mystery, A Dream of Death: 

                I turned up the collar of my jacket and dashed toward the hotel. The temperature had dropped, and the rain had turned to icy pellets bouncing off the gravel path. Another storm was on the way.

               As I neared the house, pathway lighting gave way to flickering gas lamps that washed the façade with liquid gold. Candle flames danced in the windows. Plug-ins, I supposed, but they looked authentic. With a little imagination, it could be 1810.            

       

 Here's an interior scene from my forthcoming mystery, The Art of Betrayal:

             I found Lady Barbara and Vivian in the private sitting room with its white marble fireplace and faded wallpaper in a vintage design of urns and flowers. Morning sunlight streamed through the deep-set windows, picking out the frayed cushion on the arm chair and the missing fringe on the carpet.

"Providing the light source," Pinard said, "helps the reader form a mental picture." But that's not all it does. Like other physical details, establishing the source and direction of the light can reflect, advance, and reveal setting, character, and plot.

In the scene from A Dream of Death, for example, the flickering gas lamps and candle flames help establish the rich Scottish history that figures prominently in the setting and plotline.

In the scene from The Art of Betrayal, the daylight streaming into Lady Barbara's sitting room shows the reader that her Elizabethan mansion, Finchley Hall, is crumbling around her—another major plot point—and revealing Lady Barbara's passion to uphold her family honor, even under dire financial circumstances.

But how does a writer get things right? If you've already established that a certain room faces east, you can't have light streaming in at three or four p.m., can you? And if a scene is set at nighttime in winter, you should probably mention your character flipping on the lights when he enters a room.

In one of the later scenes in A Dream of Death, the protagonist, Kate, explores a deep ravine, searching for a missing person. I needed the light to be rapidly diminishing, with deep shadows obscuring the landscape. Great, but when does that happen in the Highlands of Scotland in early November? How could I find out?

If the internet gets lots of things wrong, it also gets some things right. One of the most helpful websites, especially for a writer who sets a novel in a foreign latitude and time zone, is www.timeanddate.com. Not only does this fact-filled website provide calendars, time zones, a world clock, weather information, and phases of the moon, it also gives the times of sunrise and sunset for any location in the world. By plugging in my location in the Inner Hebrides and setting the date for November 1, 2020, I learned that the sun would rise at 7:20 a.m. that day and set at 4:31 p.m.

Okay, that's helpful, but what does sunset really mean? Would the light have diminished enough by 4:31 p.m. to serve my purpose? Fortunately the information was right there for me, giving not only the time of sunset that day but also the times of civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight.

For those unfamiliar with those terms (like me):

Civil Twilight means that period of time after sunset when everything is still clearly visible but you might put on your car headlights to make sure other drivers see you.

Nautical Twilight is when the sky is too dark to see objects in the distance, but we can make out the horizon and trees due to the remaining brightness in the night sky. We begin to see stars in the night sky. 

Astronomical Twilight is the darkest phase of twilight and (unless the moon is full) the best time to see the stars.

For the purposes of my novel, I needed the time to be precisely at the outset of nautical twilight—about 6:00 p.m. on the first of November, I learned. That required a change in my timeline, which I was able to accomplish. Whew!

In your writing, how does the light get in?

What helps you form a mental picture as you read?

Indie Self-Publishing: 2020 Market Update

I’ve independently self-published four books and I’m preparing a fifth release for Love Power, my new Crescent City New Orleans Mystery in October, 2020. Since I made the decision to self-publish over a decade ago, I thought now would be a good time to share the experience of my initial decision with an update on the self-publishing marketplace for anyone considering the indie path.

Backstory – Why did I self-publish?

After I finished writing The Nature of the Grave I followed the traditional publishing route by querying agents, submitting my manuscript to publisher’s slush piles and drafting the next book in my Nantucket Mystery series. Everyone told me that the publishing process could take years. Then I attended a writer’s conference and for the first time I heard a discussion about digital eBooks and how they would revolutionize the way readers bought books and change the author royalty structure. That got my attention.

I’d worked for ten years as a commercial financial typesetter, so I already knew how to put a book together using fonts, point size, and pagination. Now, with my mystery series manuscript in hand I also had the content.

As I listened to the presentation it dawned on me: I can access readers through the retail distribution channels on my own. Yes, I would need to hire a professional editor and a graphic designer for my covers, but I liked maintaining that level of control. I needed to market and promote my books myself, but from what I was hearing writers were already maintaining their own websites and online communities as a necessary consideration even before being offered a publishing house contract (e.g., show me your numbers before we make you an offer). If I was going to do all of the legwork, what did I need an agent or a publishing house for?

Caveat: At that time, I had more than one established contracted writer warn me that once I was branded a self-published indie author I would be committing writing career suicide, and that going forward no publisher would be interested in handling my work. This was a genuine business risk that needed to be considered since most conferences were sponsored by the big publishing houses. There was some initial difficulty getting conference panel assignments and/or my books into the sale room, but most booksellers were (and are) willing to work with my books on consignment. Thankfully, with more writers transitioning to ‘hybrid author’ status (e.g., having both traditional publishing house contracts and self-publishing some titles) this conference author access hurdle has resolved itself.

Market Update – NEW 2020 Indie Publishing Choices

The one guarantee with the indie publishing experience is that the technology will have evolved since the last time you used it. Creating digital and POD pub files a decade ago was laborious but relatively simple. You added styles to a stripped-out Word document, created a print specific PDF, slapped a cover on it and loaded your book onto Amazon and Smashwords. 

The current digital eBook world has been revolutionized. Now there are three main self-publishing choices:

• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) remains the major eBook player, generating nearly 70% of eBook sales. However, digital distribution is restricted to Kindle devices only. A trade paperback print on demand (POD) feature is built into KDP which makes it convenient to cover both the digital eBook and trade paperback options.
  
• Smashwords is the largest distributor of eBooks to iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and to library directories. Smashwords also offers an audiobook creation and distribution option.
  
• New to me this go-round is Draft2Digital (D2D), a super easy self-publishing aggregator with a global reach to digital storefront retailers including Amazon, Apple, B&N, Kobo and libraries. POD and audiobook options are available.

What did I do this time?

Following my old school notes, I produced Love Power on Amazon KDP as an eBook (Kindle/Mobi) and as a trade paperback POD including a professionally designed cover. One roadblock with Amazon is that only the eBook version is available for pre-order (grrrr!) but Amazon is reportedly developing a pre-order option for trade paperbacks. In the meantime, I can order paperback Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) for reviewers who prefer that format. 

I used D2D for my ePub file, and it only took minutes to format. I'm going to research using D2D's Findaway Voice Partner to produce audiobooks.

The surprising takeaway was the need to offer readers a digital audiobook option. In 2019, for first time, US audiobook sales eclipsed eBook sales. The most popular audiobook genre continues to be Mysteries/Thrillers/Suspense. In 2019, most people listened to audiobooks in their cars. In 2020, research shows that most people are listening to audio books in their homes and listening for longer periods of time.

What will I do next year?

As I gaze into my great crystal ball, I suspect that I'll be using D2D as an aggregator for all of my files (Kindle/Mobi, ePub, trade paperback POD and possibly audiobook) next time.

What has been your experience with print, digital eBook and/or audiobook options? Which version(s) do you prefer?

Why We Love Series by Marilyn Levinson

I love writing mystery series. I enjoy focusing each book around a sleuth who develops and grows with each escapade, a large supporting cast of characters, and a familiar setting. Mystery readers love series, too. In fact, I've felt a stab of guilt each time a reader asked why I hadn't continued a series I'd begun a few years ago, a series I hope to return to when I have more time. ("More time" requires the attention of another blog.)

I know the appeal of series as a reader. Ever since the pandemic began, I've been listening to Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mysteries. I'd read three or four some years ago, and decided that now would be a good time to listen to the rest in order. Maisie is an appealing protagonist, as her millions of fans will attest. We are familiar with her humble beginnings, her education and experiences as a nurse, a psychologist and an investigator from World War One to World War Two.

Characters in a series often loom larger than life. Who isn't familiar with Dame Agatha's Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot? In fact, Poirot's obituary appeared in The New York Times.
Then there's Elizabeth Peter's marvelous Amelia Peabody series. I love the way Amelia's family grows with each book.

Superman, Batman, and Spiderman--to name a few—are often viewed as our nation's heroes and are known throughout the world. They appeared first in comics and later on in films.

I love watching series on TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime, and release a sigh of sadness each time the series comes to an end. Think of the emotional outpour regarding Downton Abbey. MASH. I've watched twenty-one seasons of "Silent Witness," about forensic pathologists in the UK. Like "Midsomer Murders," another favorite, I'm glad to say it's still going strong.

What are some of your favorite series—in books, TV or film?