Bad Medicine is What I Need: Author Caroline Fardig Makes her Writing Dreams Come True

I am delighted to welcome Caroline Fardig to my blog to mark the release of her third book, Bad Medicine! Caroline and I swapped emails a few weeks ago to talk about her journey from self-published writer to author with an agent and a book coming out with Random House …

Building a Mystery

I have a love/hate relationship with Agatha Christie. She was the first adult mystery writer I became hooked on, after going through the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series and the Trixie Belden series in elementary school (don’t even ask about Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. Do. Not. Ask.) After I overcame the outrage and disgust of Roger Ackroyd, I became a huge Miss Marple fan. Then I read all the Hercule Poirot books. Then everything else. Where does the hate come in? Miss Christie had this annoying habit – in most of her books, anyway – of keeping clues very close to the chest. Poirot or Miss Marple would come to investigate something, or Miss Marple was invited to an estate party out in the country (and I loved those estate parties. Except for everyone getting killed off, they sounded great!). People would start dying. Then at the end of the book, the detective would announce all the info she had gathered on the guests, and who was the murderer. This info was generally not shared with Dear Reader, meaning Dear Reader did not have the same opportunity to solve the mystery that the detective did.

Somewhere down the line, someone realized that readers want an equal shot at figuring out Who Dunnit, so this formula was changed. Readers took their spot over the detective’s (and this includes amateur as well as professional) shoulder and were privy to everything the detective learned. This turned the act of reading into a game… could the reader figure out Who Dunnit before the detective?

I must prefer this style of mystery than the former. However, with nearly forty years of mystery reading behind me, I am getting pretty tough to fool. Generally there’s a line that the writer tries to slip in casually (in a recent book, it was something about a man thinking a teenage girl was older) that sets off alarm bells for me, and most of the time, I’m right. I was right about the husband gaslighting the wife (He had a strong, clear motive that the writer tried to casually drop in.). I was right about the ex-boyfriend (He had no motive but I could figure out what happened in the back story). I was right about the missing girl’s father (He was the one with the eye for very young girls). I was right about the man pretending to be his cousin (He was an already established creep, and the writer took pains at keeping two characters apart until the big reveal).

I like being right, but at the same time, it worries me as a writer. If I can unravel these clues so easily, are the readers of my mystery going to be able to do the same thing? What is the balance between being fair to the reader and giving her enough information to solve the mystery, and going overboard and basically giving away the store? What's the secret to fooling the reader?

If you’re a mystery reader and can recommend books that left you stumped, please do so in the comments!

Go Set A Watchman: First Draft Frenzy

Today is the day many readers and historians have been looking forward to for months: The publication of Harper Lee’s sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman. The hype has been so overwhelming that advanced sales have approached Harry Potter-like levels.

Watchman has been a controversial project since it was announced. Mockingbird was famously Lee’s only book, although the world waited anxiously for years for her to produce another. Now 89 and living in an assisted living home in Alabama, Lee was in the news for the first time in several years in 2013 when she sued her agent for duping her into signing over the copyright to Mockingbird. A year later, it was announced that Watchman had been found in a safe deposit box and would be published. Then controversy arose over whether Lee really wanted this book – which was not a true sequel to Mockingbird, but a first draft of the story – to be published. Some say she was feeble in her old age and had been duped; other reports said she was eager for publication and angry about the earlier reports that she did not want it published.

Although Watchman has been referred to as a sequel to Mockingbird because the characters are older, it is not a true sequel. It was the first draft of Mockingbird, and Lee spent years – with the help of a strong editor, Tay Hohoff , who was intrigued by the glimpses of Jean Louise’s childhood and told Lee to set her novel during that time period – revising the novel from Watchman to Mockingbird.

A few days before Watchman’s official publication, the New York Times broke embargo rules and published a story saying that Watchman featured an old, bitter, racist Atticus Finch, who attended KKK meetings and spoke in favor of segregation. America was stunned at the clay feet of this literary hero. Hearts were broken. Many tried to make sense of the change. Al Sharpton said, “Finch reflects the reality of finding out that a lot of those we thought were on our side harbored some personal different feelings.” Others talked about how it’s not uncommon for people who are liberal in their youth to become more conservative as they grow older.

Everyone seems to be missing the point: THIS IS A FIRST DRAFT.

After Mockingbird, Atticus did not become a bitter, racist old man. There is no after Mockingbird. Watchman is not a sequel to Mockingbird. Nothing in Watchman is canon. Mockingbird is canon. Watchman is a discarded first draft.

Assuming the stories are true about Lee being excited for the first draft’s publication, they’re not surprising. Most writers have a soft spot for the first finished draft of a novel. Who knows how many years she labored over it before turning it to Hohoff? But I am shocked at how publications, public figures and fans are reacting, with hearts broken over Atticus’ feet of clay. Over years, Lee rewrote and rewrote this manuscript to develop Atticus into the hero he became. And he is still that hero. Watchman is nothing more than an early glimpse at the very beginnings of that character. A curiosity, definitely, but nowhere near the final word on what this man became.

A sequel to Mockingbird can still be written in the minds of its fans, who might see Finch becoming an advisor to LBJ on civil rights laws as Jean Louis works as a young federal attorney in Washington D.C.
To sum, I quote the USA Today review, which refuses to give into the hysteria: If you think of Watchman as a young writer's laboratory, however, it provides valuable insight into the generous, complex mind of one of America's most important authors.

And for this reason, and this reason alone, I think Watchman deserved to be published. But not as a sequel to Mockingbird, but as an early draft – a lesson for writers to compare and contrast the early and later drafts of one of American’s literary masterpieces. So as a writer eager to learn, I will be reading it. But as a fan of Mockingbird, I won't consider its plot points or characterizations to have any lasting meaning.

Evaluating a Manuscript: The Four Elements that Matter the Most

I’ve been a reader for a literary agent for over two years now, and a reviewer at Chick Lit Central for more than three. During this period, I’ve probably read close to 500 books and manuscripts for evaluation. At the same time, I’ve sent out queries on three books, which makes me think there’s some kind of firewall in my brain that allows me to evaluate other people’s work and suggest solutions to problems but won’t let me do that for my own.

Every book and manuscript has problems. Some are very minor; some are major. Even books with problems get well reviewed and recommended. So what’s the difference between a book that a reader bumps up the ladder, even though it needs changes, and a book that gets passed on? For me, I’ve narrowed it down to four major areas. If there’s enough good stuff in the most important areas, the problems in the others may seem fixable.

Those areas are:

Concept. The most obvious make-or-break point is right here. No matter how well written your query or pages are, if the agent doesn’t care for the concept, she’ll pass on reading the book. As a reader, I don’t get to choose which books to read. I assume if the agent has requested the manuscript, she’s already decided the concept is a marketable one. Still, everyone who reads books has specific types of stories she has a sweet spot for. For some, it’s as precise as “single girl devoted to dogs.” I am personally drawn to stories about women and children of any age. I also love stories with a mystery from the past that is solved in the present. If your concept is marketable and hits the agent’s sweet spot, that’s a huge mark in your favor.

Plot. While concept is the general story idea, plot is how that idea is executed. When I evaluate plot, I look at the standard beginning-middle-end structure. Is the pacing appropriate for the genre? Are the twists surprising, yet come directly from the conflict? Is there conflict? Does the writer seem to know what she’s doing with the structure? Plot doesn’t have to be perfect if other important elements are there. If there’s a sense that the writer has a handle on plot, it’s not a death sentence if one or two specific plot twists don’t work. That’s a problem that can be fixed. What can’t be fixed? A writer that drops plot to focus on things like back story (flashback after flashback that shed no light on present day action) or other tangents. A manuscript like that will receive a pass.

Character. There’s a huge debate in literary circles about the importance of a protagonist’s likeability, especially when it comes to female protagonists. Yet mega bestsellers have featured unlikeable female protagonists, most recently The Girl on the Train. What gives? Books like Train and Gone Girl are high-concept (their plots can be described in one sentence) with strong, twisty, mystery plots. While character is still important, it’s not quite as important as the execution and resolution of the mystery. I don’t have to want to have lunch with the protagonist, but I do need to find him intriguing and to want him to achieve his goal or learn his lesson, whichever is appropriate. If the character is unlikeable, stereotypical, stupid, lazy, or unappealing for any other reason, then the concept and plot have to be A+ to overcome that. And the other characters who populate the book have to have something going for them, too. I recently read and passed on a book with multiple characters, almost all of whom were awful people for specific and different reasons. I loved the narrative voice and descriptions, but with characters so terrible, it was too much to overcome.

Voice. I cannot overstate how important narrative voice is to the success of a manuscript. Voice is one of those things that is seen as immutable. If it doesn’t work, there’s little the writer can do but keeping writing and hope the next manuscript is better. Voice is so personal -- not just for the writer, but it’s in the reader’s head, telling the story. It has to fit the genre, and, for first person and third person limited points-of-view, the main character. Voice shows the writer’s command of language. It encompasses dialogue, scene work, description, and narration. Occasionally, a writer’s voice is inappropriate for the age group; sometimes I run across an adult story written in a voice more suitable for YA or even MG. Because voice is the glue holding everything else together, it’s hard to imagine a story where plot and character work, but voice does not. A manuscript with an awkward voice is not going to progress.

That’s why it’s so important that writers keep writing. Concepts may be weak; plots may have holes, but a writer’s voice only gets better the more time she spends getting the words down.

There’s nothing more important than a strong concept and compelling narrative voice. While plot issues can be fixed and character faults rewritten, concept and voice are immutable. If your writing is getting passed on over and over again, look in these two areas for the reasons why.

Goodbye, Tony Geary

Last week, the media was ablaze with news about Tony Geary’s last day of taping at General Hospital. This week, it was announced that his last air date would be July 27th. I’m a well-known GH fan, so a lot of people posted these articles to my Facebook page, expecting that I’d be sad. I’m not. Truthfully, I think Tony should have left a long time ago. His character did a lot to destroy soaps as we knew them, and the daytime soap industry all together.

Ah, the golden age of soaps. It was the late 70s/early 80s; there were a ton of them on TV and they all featured wonderful stories. Just a few: As the World Turns and that dynamic Lisa Hughes. Another World’s Rachel. All My Children’s Erica, of course. One Life to Live had Viki and a few of her personalities. Remember Edge of Night’s Raven? What about Kate and Siobhan Ryan from Ryan’s Hope? The Young and the Restless had the Brooks sisters. Guiding Light featured the Bauer family and that crazy love story with Holly and Roger. And General Hospital was built around the women at the hospital, like Jessie Brewer, Dr. Lesley Webber and her wild daughter Laura, and Lesley’s romantic rival, Monica.

(A quick digression: Is it any surprise that girls hooked on these shows grew up to be women with trailblazing careers? Erica showed us you could be anything you wanted to be, even a model when you were five feet tall and from Pine Valley. Viki ran a newspaper. Kate Ryan was a reporter. And Lesley and Monica were doctors – Monica was a cardiac surgeon! I didn’t know until years after I’d started watching how unusual it was for a woman to specialize in heart surgery. About the sexism that kept them down. Yeah, Lesley accused Monica of going into that specialty so she could follow Rick around all day long, but there was never a hint that she wasn’t good enough because she was a woman.)

Soap operas were shows by women, about women, and for women.

And then came along Luke Spencer. Does anyone remember this scene? (sorry, it’s not the greatest copy and the sound track doesn’t match up with the video, but pay attention Luke’s dialogue!) Incredibly controversial, yes, but an amazing portrayal of a man obsessed with a woman he can’t have. So amazing that the audience rooted for Luke and Laura to be together, and producer Gloria Monty scrapped plans to kill off Luke and eventually had the couple run off together. It turned General Hospital from the number one daytime soap to a national phenomenon.

But, it was still a story soap viewers had seen and loved before. A wounded man – a smalltime hood – is changed by the love of a good woman. When Luke first left the show in 1983, he was the hero of the city. In fact, they elected him mayor.

And then Luke and Laura returned in 1995. And it was the biggest mistake General Hospital could have made. It’s the mistake that began the downfall of the entire industry.

As every soap fan knows, no soap couple can stay together. Either one of them leaves the show (which is what broke up Luke and Laura in early 1982, when Genie Francis left), or the writers need something for them to do. Soap couples exist to break up. Sometimes it’s through no fault of their own – amnesia, kidnapping, an evil vixen who drugs the man and forces him to impregnate her. But for Luke and Laura, their problems were intrinsic. The man who wanted nothing more than to be good enough for Laura Webber Baldwin was suddenly bored at their home life (like running a diner in Canada was so incredibly stimulating). And it turned out Laura had had a child with Stavros Cassadine when she was imprisoned on Cassadine Island, and never told Luke. But the worst was when Tony Geary casually told the soap press that Luke cheated on Laura with prostitutes. It was nothing personal, he assured us. But Luke had grown up in a brothel and he was comfortable around those women so naturally he had to sleep with them. And then Luke teamed up with Sonny Corinthos to break Frank Smith out of jail, and General Hospital went on a downward spiral that it never recovered from. Rather than a show about women, it became about men – dark, angry, criminal men. And it destroyed the biggest soap opera supercouple of all time because it didn’t know what to do with them.

As the years passed, Laura came and went, and Luke became darker and darker. Although I stopped watching the show a long time ago and don’t know all the details, I believe it recently changed one of the foundations of Luke’s back story. He had had a lousy childhood that got even worse when his mother died of a burst appendix, and his father took one look at her body, grabbed a beer bottle and left. That was changed into Luke killing at least one if not both of his parents. And maybe a split personality and other stuff. Meanwhile, Sonny and his boy wonder Jason became the dark princes of Port Charles, turning the show into a starring vehicle about mobsters and the women they abuse.

General Hospital evolved from being a show about women, by women and for women, to a show by men about men. Is it still for women? Judging from the ratings, which go up and down depending on the storylines featuring female characters, I’d say no. Although as one of only four soaps still on the air, GH has received ratings bumps when others have been canceled, rumors still swirl about its imminent demise.

And can the cancellation of other soaps be blamed on the darkness that has infected General Hospital? I don’t know. I stopped following them closely years ago. But One Life to Live became the Todd Manning story (Todd was best known for raping Marty), and All My Children featured a chilling storyline around the rape of its beloved heroine, Bianca. While neither of these shows glorified the criminals as General Hospital did, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that viewers just got tired of all the darkness.

An early 80s promo for ABC soaps once sang: “Love, love, hurray for love! Who was ever too blasé for love?” In those years, ABC knew that love was the backbone of its soaps, and that people tuned in for strong women and satisfying love stories. Where do they go now? Primetime. Yes, primetime couples face the same dangers as daytime couples do: namely, contracts that require the killing off of half of a rooting couple. (RIP, Will and Alicia; Derek and Meredith.) But these serialized shows have made a name for themselves (Shondaland, anyone?) by featuring strong working women, complicated love stories and tangled plot lines. They are soaps, only requiring a weekly commitment rather than a daily one. No wonder the daytime shows are down to their last few viewers.

So goodbye, Tony Geary. As much as I enjoyed Luke in the early 1980s, I am not sorry to see this character go. I wish his departure would bring back the halcyon days of love stories by, about, and for women, but I’m afraid those days in daytime are gone for good. In the meantime, what does everyone think about Meredith’s new love interest on Grey’s Anatomy?

My new book: THE TIES THAT BLEED

I am incredibly proud and enormously relieved to announce that today, Evernight Publishing has released my urban fantasy novel THE TIES THAT BLEED. The Amazon link for the ebook is here: (the paperback will be out in a month or so.)

Diana Rowan has more kills than any other vampire assassin in the FBI. Except she hasn't staked a vamp in ten years. Now Diana's married to a doctor and mom to eight-year-old Katie. And while she's still with the Bureau, she spends her time in the classroom, teaching the next generation of vampire assassins how to track, stake, and decapitate bloodsuckers. Then Ian, the fang who nearly killed her, returns from the grave. To keep her family safe, Diana has to go on the hunt once more. With time running out, she is forced to turn to another vampire for help: Gerard, who created Ian. Who was once Diana's lover. And who’ll do anything to get her back.

Dear reader, I’ve been working on this project for thirteen years!

In 2002, before anyone had ever heard of Twilight, Buffy was all the rage, and I was also a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, as well as the Geena Davis movie The Long Kiss Goodnight. I was writing screenplays at the time, and I found myself obsessed with the idea of a character – a mom with a dark past, someone who was at war with the darkness inside herself. The script that finally emerged from these elements was BLOODLINES, which took me about a year and a half to write and got me some attention. It was a semi-finalist at Austin and won a contest called Screamfest. I got plenty of reads from producers and managers, but while many people loved the script, everyone seemed to think the vampire craze was over.

And then Twilight hit, and the vampire craze really was over!

I put Bloodlines on a metaphorical shelf and wrote a few more horror scripts. Then a few years ago I turned to novels. After I wrote KEEPING SCORE, and while I was still trying to get an agent for it, I decided that I’d self-publish a novelized version of Bloodlines. I inputted my screenplay into Word and did the first draft of turning it into a novel.

It was 32,000 words, or about 120 pages. About half of what it needed to be to be considered novel-length. So while I was marketing KEEPING SCORE, which I eventually ended up self-publishing, I was also doing the painstaking work of making a story twice as long as it had been. I lengthened scenes, added characters and flashbacks, and explained things I’d only hinted at. (Of course the irony is I selfpubbed the book I wanted to publish traditionally, and I found a popular indie publisher for the book I was going to self-publish.)

What did that entail? Here’s the first scene from the screenplay. In the book, it’s the start of chapter two.

EXT. BACKYARD - NIGHT
A full moon bathes DIANA ROWAN in white light. Diana's in
her mid-30s, with a strong, exotic beauty that can't be
placed. She drives the shovel into the earth again and again.

KATIE, 8, her face streaked with dirt and tears, sits on the
muddy ground next to Diana. She strokes the fur of a dead
dog.

Diana kneels next to Katie.

KATIE
Why did Brownie have to die?

Diana hesitates. Gazes up at the moon like she sees things
no one else can.

DIANA
Brownie lived a good life. It was
his time.

KATIE
It wasn't my time! I want him back!

DIANA
He can't come back. It's over.

Diana kisses the top of Katie's head.

DIANA
When we're at church tomorrow, you
can ask God to take care of him.

She straightens up.

DIANA
Why don't you go inside. Have Daddy
give you some ice cream.

Katie nods. She gives the dog a final hug, then hurries off.

Diana waits a moment. Then breaks the shovel handle in two.
Diana kneels next to the dog.

DIANA
I know this isn't fair... and probably
not even necessary... but I can't
take any chances where my family is
concerned.

She drives the jagged end of the wooden shovel handle into
the dog's chest.

And here’s the novelization:

My daughter is too young to have to learn about death.

Yet here we are. It’s nearly 8:30 on a Saturday night, and we are burying her dog in our backyard.
Her father should be doing this. He’s a doctor. He deals with life and death every day. But he’s at the hospital. As usual.
I bury the shovel into the hard earth. It’s October in Virginia, and we haven’t had a freeze yet, but the ground is solid and compact. Still, it’s not really an issue for me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Katie stroke Brownie’s fur. Her tears fall on his muzzle.
I want to kill the person who made my daughter cry.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “He wasn’t old. He didn’t get hit by a car. Why did he have to die?”
I take a deep breath. One of these days, my daughter will realize that I always breathe deeply before I lie to her.
“He was sick, sweetie. He was sick, and we didn’t know it until it was too late.”
She looks at me, brown eyes full of accusations. You didn’t know, Mom. It’s your fault. But she doesn’t say it.
“Did Brownie go to heaven?”
The Catholic Church says that animals don’t have souls. But the Catholic Church lies to its followers as much as I lie to my family.
I nod. “At mass tomorrow, you can ask God to take care of him.”
My cell phone beeps with a text from Robert. He’s almost home.

“Daddy will be here any minute,” I tell Katie. “Why don’t you make some ice cream sundaes? You know Daddy loves eating ice cream with you.”
“I want to see it. I want to see you put Brownie in the ground.”
I drop the shovel and put both hands on my daughter’s shoulders. “No, you don’t.”
She glares at me again. Eight years old and more like a teenager every day. I wonder if she’ll be like I was as a teen. She’s already more stubborn and cynical than I was then. It will probably be worse.
Finally, she shakes me off and stomps into the house.
I wait until I know she’s in the kitchen. The kitchen is at the front of our house.
I break the shovel handle over my knee. It splinters, nice and sharp.
I was the one who found Brownie. At first I thought he was asleep. The back yard isn’t the most comfortable spot, but dogs can sleep anywhere. He looked so peaceful. But when I nudged him with my foot, his head fell back at a strange angle and his tongue lolled out.
Robert was supposed to let him in that night, but he’d forgotten. I wanted a necropsy, but my husband said no. He didn’t see the point. Said that Brownie must have been sick. Brushed off my concerns about a deliberate poisoning. Maybe he just felt guilty.
It could mean nothing. Or could it mean trouble. Trouble that could come in any form. I can’t afford to brush it aside.
I kneel next to Brownie. Even though I know he can’t hear me, it makes me feel better to whisper in his ear. “I know this isn’t fair… and probably not even necessary… but I can’t take any chances where my family is concerned.”
I drive the shovel’s jagged edge deep into my dog’s chest.
Nothing happens.
Whoever killed him didn’t do anything else. But the thought isn’t comforting.
I avoid the sight of Brownie’s ruined chest as I claw out the rest of the hole with the broken shovel. Training tells me at least six feet down, but I stop at three. Whatever else is down there, I don’t want to see it. It’s been a while, but I’ve seen enough.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you love the book. And who knows, if I sell enough copies, maybe I write a sequel!

Don’t Stay Tuned! Episodic Writing is Good for TV Shows but Not Your Novel

I’ve been a reader for a literary agency for over two years, and I go through about six manuscripts a month. I’m closing in on 150 reports, and sadly very few of them recommend the project. Most are passes; a small percentage advise sending the writer a “revise and resubmit” letter, and maybe five have been “offer representation.” (I write at least five pages describing the manuscript so that the agent I read for can draw her own conclusions.) “Revise and resubmit” usually means the story doesn’t work, but the writing was so good, I’d want to see another draft. I often give notes about specific changes the writer can make to tighten the story.

Sometimes the manuscript is so close and the fixes are so obvious and easy, I wish the writer somehow could have contacted me so I could have worked with her (it is usually a her) to make it as strong as possible before querying. (And I do offer affordable developmental editing services! Contact me for details!) Usually, though, there’s something fundamentally wrong with how the story is designed that the writer needs to do a complete page one rewrite for the book to succeed. And often that “something” is the writer’s failure to tell one complete, cohesive story. In other words, it’s episodic.

“Episodic” doesn’t sound bad, but it will doom the book. It violates the three act structure requirement and leaves readers wondering what the story is about. Readers end up muddling through, as the story lacks the tension and pacing that are created when a protagonist has a specific goal and is taking concrete steps to reach it. A pace that’s appropriate to the story and tension in scenes keep readers turning pages.
How do you know if the story you’re working on episodic? Usually after the first few chapters, the reader should have a general sense of the story’s ending. It’s either yes or no. Yes, Dorothy will get home to Kansas. No, Scarlet will not end up with Ashley.

It’s the difference between “A woman goes on a series of dates with inappropriate men” and “A woman goes on a series of dates with inappropriate men in order to find the perfect escort to her sister’s wedding.”

Sometimes in women’s fiction, the protagonist has a goal that isn’t necessarily specified or under her direct control. Examples of these types of stories would be a woman whose husband leaves her, or her daughter gets cancer, or her father develops Alzheimer’s. These novels do not suffer from episodic disease. Rather, the protagonist’s goal is to get life back to the way it used to be before the crisis, or to work out a new normal. The reader intrinsically understands this, even if the protagonist doesn’t spell out her wishes.

Having an episodic novel is usually the kiss of death when it comes to traditional publishing. If you’re not sure whether your book is episodic or not, post a few sentences about it in the comments and I’ll let you know what I think.