FRONTLIST FEATURES: What Doesn't Kill Her by Max Allan Collins

Of all the members of Top Suspense, Max Allan Collins has to be the most prolific. (Just take a look at this). He’s ALWAYS got a new book coming out— frankly, the rest of us envy his productivity, but that’s another story.  So it’s not surprising that Max has a new novel coming out September 17.

WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER tells the story of Jordan Rivera, who was an ordinary kid with an ordinary family – until a vicious killer took it all away from her, sparing her and leaving her broken. The murders destroyed something inside Jordan and she spent ten long, silent years in an institution. Catching a glimpse of a news report about another ordinary family slain, Jordan breaks her silence. Now she’s out, and she molds herself—body and mind—into an instrument of justice.  While a young detective pursues the case on his own, Jordan teams up with members of her Victims Support Group, people like her, damaged by violent crime. They have their own stories of pain, heartache, and vengeance denied. With their help, Jordan will track down the killer before he can ravage any more lives. Her own life depends on it.

When we asked Max why this story, here’s what he said: “For my first novel with Thomas & Mercer, I wanted to step away from the historical and private eye genres I’m best known for, and do a straight thriller. I also wanted to get away from the procedural nature of the CSI, CRIMINAL MINDS and BONES novels that Matt Clemens and I have done featuring super-star forensics teams, including our own J.C. Harrow novels. The notion fascinated me of real people, members of a Victims of Violent Crimes support group, teaming up to use their own various everyday skills to track down a killer. Also, I’d been toying with doing an American variation on the strong damaged female protagonist of GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, and this seemed a perfect opportunity.”

Reviewers agree.

"What Doesn't Kill Her is a kick-ass thrill ride from page one. This is the American answer to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." – John Gilstrap, author of High Treason and Damage Control

 “Another winner from a fine writer.”  Not the Baseball Pitcher

"Collins weaves a compelling story with strong characters: Jordan, several members of her victims support group, and Mark Pryor, a high school crush recently made detective who pursues the case on his own time. Jordan is torn between her desire to destroy the killer on her own and identifying with the other victims, accepting their help. There are lots of interesting twists to keep the story moving briskly." Karen Musser Nortman"

You can find WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER at Amazon in ebook and print. Audio too. And while you’re at it, check out a couple of other works in the pipeline: EARLY CRIMES (Perfect Crime), which collects three early pieces by Max -- a short story, a novella, and a previously unpublished novel. And ASK NOT, a new Nate Heller thriller, the third in his JFK trilogy, will be out in October. It deals with the statistics-defying number of witness deaths that followed the assassination.

See? Prolific. And Amazing. 

Six Reasons to Write Short Stories

By Libby Hellmann

One of the reasons I love being part of Top Suspense is that all twelve of us write short stories as well as novels. I believe short stories are an essential part of an author's tool kit. In fact, I believe they can only make us better writers. So, in keeping with our emphasis on craft, I offer this post which was also on my individual blog recently, SAY THE WORD.

A writer’s journey often takes them to unexpected places. I know mine has. Like many beginning writers, I decided I could write a novel fresh out of the gate. So I did. Funny—no one wanted it. At the time I was irritated. Why not? I’d just spent four months working on what I thought was going to be a NY Times Best Seller.

The answer? I didn’t know what I didn’t know: that I hadn’t learned the craft of fiction, that I was getting in the way of my characters, that the plot was unbelievable, at times even (horrors!) trite. I joined a writers’ group, and slowly my process started to gel. In fact, sixteen years later I’m still in the same group.

Nonetheless, writing my first short story, “The Day Miriam Hirsch Disappeared,” was pretty much an accident. My son was about to be a Bar Mitzvah, and one of his gifts was a pictorial history book called The Jews of Chicago. As I flipped through it, some of the photos grabbed me. They were taken in Lawndale during the Thirties, which, at the time, was a thriving Jewish community in Chicago.


After staring at them for days, I ended up writing a short story set in that time and place. I had no idea it would win two contests, and would turn out to be the prequel to my Ellie Foreman series, which itself is the prequel to my Georgia Davis series. (BTW, Miriam is forever free on Amazon, Apple, and Kobo.)

Since that time I’ve written over 20 short stories. I’m hooked on them, and I’d like you to be as well. Short stories are magic—and they’re great for your career. Here are 6 reasons why.

#1: They’re short.

People say it’s tougher to write short than long. Don’t believe them. The best thing about short stories is that they’re short. I like to say that a novel is like a marriage, but short stories are like an affair. I can get in and out of one in 6 weeks. During those 6 weeks, I’m full of passion, awareness, and energy. Then it’s over, but unlike an affair, I have something tangible to show for it.

#2 They deepen your craft.

Short stories help you master the elements of craft. Every word counts, and that includes setting, character description, and action. In fact, the entire narrative (and dialogue) has to be crisp, concise, and meaningful. If you can do it well in short form, there’s no reason you can’t expand it to a novel.

#3 Experimentation

My favorite reason to write short stories is to explore new characters, plot lines, voices, even genres. Often in the middle of writing a novel, I’ll get an itch of an idea that won’t leave me alone. Writing a short story lets me scratch that itch. Plus, it gives me a break from my novel, and I come back to it refreshed. The first hard-boiled piece I wrote was a short story, and several times I’ve tried out historical time periods that I later expanded to a novel. “The Whole World is Watching”, for example eventually developed into Set The Night on Fire. And who knows? I'm even thinking of writing a historical short story that has no mystery at all.

#4 Name recognition

I published 2 short stories before my first novel came out. When it did, readers had seen my name around, and I like to think they realized I was taking my writing seriously. That recognition gave me an advantage when An Eye For Murder was released.

#5. Filling in the series/Starting a new one

Most novelists publish a new book once a year, but what happens to your characters inbetween? Short stories are a great way to fill in. I wrote several Georgia and Ellie stories just to remind my readers they were still around.

They’re also a wonderful way to answer questions for your readers. The Murder of Katie Boyle explains how Ellie and Georgia first met, and War Secrets, which will be out in an MWA anthology next year, answers one of the questions I deliberately left hanging in A Bitter Veil. Plus, you never know when a story (like Miriam) will propel your career onto an entirely unexpected path.

#6. Recycle Ability (that should be one word, don’t you think?)

Most short story contracts bind you for one or two years, but after that, the story is yours to do with what you wish. I’ve offered reprints to other anthologies, bundled them into collections, and have seen audios produced. In fact, a short story is the gift that keeps on giving… indefinitely.

Enough reasons? Start writing.

In case you’d like to investigate further, you can find 15 of Libby’s short stories in NICE GIRL DOES NOIR here and here, and on Audible.


And, of course, Top Suspense has published two short story anthologies, as well as a fabulous and outrageous round robin story.

Burl Barer comments:

I love reading short stories, and I love writing short stories. I find them great fun, and it gives an author the opportunity to explore different forms and voices - yes, it is akin to having an affair or a fling, yet with honest affection.

INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE: Clichés -- Love 'em or Leave 'em?

Today INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE talks about clichés. Are they okay sometimes? For example, in dialogue? Or are they the result of lazy writing? Can you live with one or two, or should you root them out? Here’s what we think.


LIBBY: When I began writing my prose was full of clichés. I actually sought them out. I mean, clichés are ideas that everyone understands and can relate to, right? We live in a world of them, particularly on TV and radio. So why not incorporate them into my writing so that readers will really “get” what I’m trying to say?

It took my writing group months to pound it into my head that wasn’t the case. Since then, in fact, I've learned clichés have the opposite effect. But it’s subtle. Instead of bringing the reader closer to an understanding of a situation or character, clichés – because they’re so widely used – tend to deaden emotion and distance us from what we’re reading. Clichés also reinforce stereotypes and stereotypical behavior. How many times can someone be “over the top” or “red as a beet” before we yawn and lose interest?

Now I try to root them out in every paragraph. But it’s tough… even after 15 years, those little buggers still pop up.

MAX: Cliches can be a conundrum, because whether a phrase or a plot turn, every cliche bears an element of truth at its core...repetition of a seeming truth is the diamond that becomes coal, over time.

In terms of phrases, clichés should be rooted out because of their over-use and the laziness they imply on the part of the writer. A trickier question is whether to root them out of dialogue, or even a first-person narrative, since the character you're writing about might quite naturally use a cliché in speech or, for that matter, when writing a memoir...after all, our first-person characters aren't often intended to be professional writers, simply somebody with a story to tell. Sometimes avoiding the cliché in dialogue or first-person narrative screws up the tone and/or betrays the characterization. It's tricky.

A clichéd scene often grows out of the conventions of genre storytelling. Conventions, unlike clichés, are often unavoidable. In crime fiction, particularly the traditional variety I prefer, conventions are part of the fabric and even of the fun. The rogue cop is going to get called into his superior's office for a bawling out. A private eye is going to have a client walk into his office, and that client may be a beautiful woman...or the female P.I. may have a handsome male client walk into her office. The latter is at least an attempt to turn the convention on its head, and that's how you avoid a clichéd treatment of a scene that is inherently conventional. In other words, treat the conventional scene in at least a somewhat unconventional way. In some cases, it's as easy as providing an interesting location. Maybe the P.I. meets the prospective client, at that client's request, in some unusual location -- even a bar or the client's home is better than the office approach. Maybe the rogue cop gets bawled out by his superior on an answer machine, and the cop says, "Blah blah blah," and fast-forwards/erases it. Again, could be a change of location -- the police shooting range, maybe, or the break room where the superior sits down and seems to be having a little friendly breaking of the bread before he hands the rogue cop his ass or his badge.

You can always try acknowledging the cliché. In one of my stories (I don't remember which), I wrote something to the effect of, "Sooner or later, when you're a private eye, a beautiful client is going to walk into your office and there's nothing you can do about it." On the other hand, my mentor at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, the great mainstream writer Richard Yates, pointed out to that when I wrote "he broke the bottle off on the counter of the bar like a tough guy in a B movie," that didn't make it any less like a B movie. Too much self-awareness can make a writer too cute, and frankly that's at least as bad as being clichéd.

DAVE: In Jim Thompson's classic noir novel, The Killer Inside Me, Lou Ford uses clichés to strike at people and to make them squirm and fidget. 'It's not the heat, it's humidity.' 'Another thing about the weather. Everyone talks about it, but no one does anything.' 'Every cloud has a silver lining.' And so on and so on, until the poor hapless sap he's needling is dying to get away from him. That's the thing with clichés--whether it's in our plots, characters, or writing, they're annoying as hell. So as writers how do we avoid them? Vigilance. It's so easy to naturally fall into clichéd writing if you're not looking for it, and the only way to keep them out of our writing is to be always looking for them, especially when you're proofing your work.

BILL: Clichés are a dime a dozen, and a try to avoid them like the plague. When I was asked how to do that, I knew I had to think of something good. So I put my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone, and my ear to the ground. (There are times when that semester I spent in contortionist school really comes in handy.) Here’s what I came up with.

If you’re going to avoid clichés, you have to know what they are. That requires reading books and watching movies. After a while, you learn that it’s really nothing new to have the villain tie up the protagonist and say, “I am going to set this bomb to explode in one hour, and then I’ll be leaving you. First, however, I’m going to explain to you in detail my entire fiendish scheme.”

While you’re watching movies, you’ll learn that some clichés are purely visual and won’t work too well when you’re writing a book. For example, it’s not nearly as exciting to write about how your protagonist avoided being killed by the explosion of a ten megaton bomb by running really fast and jumping really high at just the right moment. Looks cool on film, though.

Some clichés are just too good to give up. Like the psycho sidekick in the private-eye novel. Did Robert B. Parker create that one with Hawk? Plenty of people since then have given their detectives psycho sidekicks, and with great success. You probably know who I’m talking about.

By now you know what I’m talking about. You probably did from the very first. If something comes up again and again in the books you read and the movies you watch, you don’t want to do that thing. You want something new and fresh and different. And if you can’t think of anything, just do what I do. I explain that I don’t use clichés, that I’m merely sticking with the “respected conventions of the genre” or “presenting a respectful homage to some of the finest writers in the field.” It works like a charm.

Your turn now. What do you think about clichés?

INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE: Your Favorite Character

Welcome back, everyone. This week on INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE we’re talking about our Favorite Characters from a suspense, thriller, mystery, or horror novel. (Excluding our own.) Who’s yours? Why? What makes them so memorable? Hope you’ll join the conversation.

Harry Shannon starts us off:

I'm a fan of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, John Connelly's Charlie Parker, Michael Connolly's Harry Bosch and several other series characters...But if I had to choose one favorite suspense hero, I guess it would have to be James Lee Burke's immortal Dave Robicheaux. From Black Cherry Blues and The Neon Rain all the way through to The Glass Rainbow, the series has held up beautifully. Robicheaux has lost a wife and numerous friends and lovers, been shot and stabbed and beaten and abandoned, gotten drunk and gotten sober. Through it all he's struggled to be dignified and compassionate, generally under the worst of circumstances. Hell, his wounded companion Clete Purcell is like another old friend, almost as real to me as the worn face in my bathroom mirror. As for Dave, he has become an old man now, one who still battles a horrendous temper, the urge to drink, and a wonderfully wrought, self destructive, deeply existential angst. He is an archetype and a contradiction in terms, a character who gives life to the phrase "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing."

Libby Hellmann says:

I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with my favorite characters. As Harry said, there are so many memorable ones. Steve Hamilton’s THE LOCK ARTIST turned the genre upside-down with his young, mute lock-picker, Michael. And I confess to a fondness for Bob Crais’ Joe Pike as well as Ree Dolly in Daniel Woodrell’s WINTER'S BONE. All of them are people of few words (Hmm, maybe there’s a pattern here?) but a strong sense of justice and loyalty.

But I keep coming back to two characters, both of whom I never tire: Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon. V.I. is the kind of person I want next to me in a fight. If we don’t win, we’ll have given it all we had. She can’t suffer injustice without needing to do something about it, and yet she’s savvy and experienced enough to pick her battles wisely. I trust her implicitly, knowing she’ll always have the right motivation for her actions. Gabriel Allon is more of an enigma. He has baggage, some of which we still don’t know, but that only adds to his allure. His skill set as an assassin is unparalleled, and yet he’d rather be an artist. The combination of brutal cunning and sensitivity is incredibly appealing.

Bill Crider adds: My favorite thriller character is any first-person narrator in an Alistair MacLean novel published before 1970. You might be thinking that’s a lot of different characters since MacLean didn’t write a series, but they way I see it, all his first-person narrators are the same guy, no matter when or where they might be. He (or they) is tougher than industrial leather, resourceful, able to go without sleep for days under conditions that would kill most people, and prone to make terrible blunders that get people killed. That last one might not seem very heroic, but anybody else in a similar situation would get hundreds more killed. If not thousands. He’s often handicapped by some injury or wound, he’s clever, and (this is important for a first-person narrator) he knows how to conceal important information from the reader without cheating too much. I read many of MacLean’s books well over 40 years ago. They thrilled me then, and they thrill me now, thanks to thanks to that wonderful character.

Dave Zeltseman says: "There are so many good choices for best thriller character, but I'm going with Hammett's Continental Op from Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, and 24 short stories. Hammett's nameless PI is tough, smart, resourceful, and also persistent as all hell. He might take a beating or two, but he's going to get his man (or dame) even if he's got to steal crutches from a cripple to do so!"

Lee Goldberg says: I can’t pick a favorite…but I can give you some favorites… Robert B. Parker’s Spenser (the early books, not the last 378 of’em), Richard S. Prather’s Shell Scott, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, Gregory McDonald’s Fletch, and Charles Willeford’s Hoke Moseley. What makes these characters so terrific is that that they all have distinct voices and attitudes, strong and often brilliantly flawed personalities that totally shape the stories that are being told, and how they are told, whether it’s in first person or third person. It’s their voices, as much as their characters, that stick with me. I may forget the mysteries, but I can’t forget these characters.

And now, Max Allan Collins: It may be cheating a little, since I am working with the Spillane estate to complete various novels from the late writer's files, but...Mike Hammer is by far my favorite of the thriller heroes. The toughest of all P.I.s, Hammer was a post-war sensation who established a new threshold of violent response -- and sexual responsiveness -- for fictional protagonists. His vengeance-prone ways inspired every tough private eye and rogue cop who followed, as did his active libido, and it's no wonder that James Bond was first marketed in the USA as the 'British Mike Hammer.' But it's not just Bond, it's everybody from Peter Gunn to Dirty Harry, from Shaft to Jack Bauer.

Ed Gorman also weighs in: I'm going to disappoint a lot of people by saying that my favorite thriller protagonist is Lew Archer. There's dumb tough and there's smart tough and Archer is of the latter variety. And by tough I also mean perceptive and obstinate in pursuit of the truth. He found real tragedy in the everyday and wrote as well about the poor as the rich. I prefer the early novels (before the 1970s) because there's more action and less NYC-crowd pleasing (all the critical praise seemed to soften the books). I don't believe any writer has challenged him as the great psychologist of my era or as a storyteller who came closest to equaling the fine psychological novels of Simenon. If, as his critics insisted, he wrote the same book over and over again, it's a book I never tire of reading."

Today's Sizzling Summer Read: Blood Dreams by Jack MacLane

I'm Bill Crider. Jack MacLane is my evil twin. He's usually chained up down in the basement, but back in the late 1980s he somehow got loose, got hold of a computer, and wrote some horror novels for Zebra Books. The family never thought much of Jack, even when he became a writer, but the funny thing is, he coulda been a contender.

At least his editor at Zebra Books thought so. After Jack's first couple of novels, she was going to give Blood Dreams a big push. It's the story of a man named Hubert, who runs a used-book store in a small town. His hobby is killing people. He's very clever, so he's never been caught or even suspected. Not until a boy who has strange dreams, nightmares, really, and all of them about Hubert, comes along. Bad things ensue. And there are alligators!

But I digress. I was going to tell you about how Jack almost became a contender. The editor at Zebra really liked his work, and she had big plans for Blood Dreams. A die-cut foldout cover. A dump full of the books to put at the front of the big chain bookstores. Stuff like that. Jack still has a couple of proof copies of that cover among his little treasures.

But that's all he has because the editor left before the book was published. It became an orphan, and while it did have a cool cover, it didn't get the big push. The new editor shoved Jack's next two books way to the back of the catalog, and Jack, in a black depression went out and, . . . Never mind. We still don't talk about that. He's been down in the basement since then, fondling the tattered paperback editions of his work, talking to spiders, and staring at those cover proofs, now growing moldy with age.

Not even the news that his books are now available in e-book format seems to cheer Jack up, but I have a feeling you could help. Here's how. Buy Jack's books! Especially Blood Dreams. Help him remember the glory days, when he was an up-and-comer. If he cheers up, maybe we'll even let him out of the basement for a while.

Today's Sizzling Summer Read -- Summer of the Big Bachi

by Naomi Hirahara

My first mystery novel, SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI, is probably the most challenging one in my mystery series featuring cranky gardener Mas Arai. From start to publication, it probably took me fifteen years. It’s a flawed book yet a very ambitious one. For all these reasons, it still remains my favorite.

Mas Arai (pronounced “awry,” as in things go “awry”) is an atomic-bomb survivor who has lived in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California for more than half a century. He lost his wife years ago. He is estranged from his daughter. Other than a beat-up Ford truck and a couple of good friends, he doesn’t have a lot going for him. But, of course, there’s more to Mas than meets the eye. He has a secret from his days in Hiroshima during World War II and, of course, that secret is now ready to unravel in Los Angeles 1999.

Why do I describe my first novel as flawed? This is not a finely tuned mystery novel, as sits probably in the middle of being a traditional mystery and literary fiction. Mas is very broken in this novel and not that likable at times. And I use a lot of dialect. BACHI, for instance, means “what goes around, comes around.”

I feel that SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI captures a community of people that you probably never knew existed. They have survived and thrived through experiences you couldn’t imagine. This summer, spend a few days in Mas Arai’s world. It will be a fresh, and unique experience and probably one you won’t forget.

You can read reviews and a sample right here. Or if you're on Nook, here.

INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE: SEX

It’s gonna to be a long, hot summer, and you’re probably wondering how you’ll get through it. What do you think about when the nights are hot and heavy, it’s impossible to move without sweating, and the smell of someone's perfume or aftershave hangs in the air? Well, if you’re INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE, you think about sex.

So that’s our topic this time. How do you mix sex, murder, and suspense? Do they go together at all? When you write sex do you close the door and cut to the next scene? Or do you give readers all the details? Top Suspense gives you our opinions, starting with the Mistress of Erotic Suspense, Vicki Hendricks. You'll also hear from Lee Goldberg, Ed Gorman, and Naomi Hirahawa.

Hope you’ll join the conversation, too… it’s bound to be a hot one.

From Vicki Hendricks

Since I’m first on this topic, I'll start with the most basic part of writing: words. Whether you’re writing a suspense novel or any novel, the choice of language level for a sex scene has to be made by carefully considering the characters and the type of writing. For example, is the point of view you’re using a shy college professor or an ex-con? In a suspense novel you want to be realistic, so you would not use romance language—a common error—but you might not want to dip too far into slang either. It always takes plenty of rewriting and reading aloud to get the right tone, since there can be a fine line between sounding like a “normal” sexual participant and a physician writing for a medical journal. However, sometimes, you can get down and dirty in order to bring out a gritty character, especially in noir. Here are the three basic categories:

Romantic (abstract and soft, sometimes clichéd)
For example: member, rod, loins, love juice
cave, mound, peaks,
the earth moves

Realistic (concrete, physiological)
For example: penis, testicles, semen,
breasts, vagina, lubrication
orgasm, intercourse, climax

Slang (concrete, idiomatic, graphic and visual)
For example: cock, balls, jism,
pussy, tits, clit,
cum/come

Of course, there are many other words to choose from, especially in the slang category, but I’ll save the titillation for my novels. Make your own list. It’s fun!

From Lee Goldberg

I think the words you choose to describe sex...and the body parts...has to be a reflection of the characters and their attitudes...and the overall tone of the book. To me, writing a sex scene is less about the sex itself than what the scene is supposed to accomplish as far as revealing character or furthering the plot. It shouldn't just be there to turn the reader on...even if you're writing erotica. The sex act, in and of itself, will be mere coupling between two creatures...and certainly won't be compelling, entertaining or arousing if the reader isn't emotionally invested in the characters. Here's an example of what I'm talking about, from my book WATCH ME DIE.

I guess something I learned from “Mannix” was true. Being a private eye really is an aphrodisiac to women. Carol had never attacked me like that before.

I’m afraid the surprise and excitement were too much, because I came in about three minutes. But I don’t think Carol minded; it calmed me down and allowed me to concentrate real hard on getting her off. And believe me, it took my complete attention. Pleasing a woman, especially Carol, isn’t easy and with me, at least, there’s a lot of potential for embarrassment and humiliation.

She rewarded me for all my hard work with a nice, squealing, writhing orgasm that nearly broke my nose on her pubic bone, but I didn’t mind. I even jumped in, literally, to enjoy the last few squeals of it with her.

It was so dark, and things happened so fast, she never saw my cuts and bruises, so she mistook my occasional groans of pain for pleasure.

Carol fell right to sleep afterwards.

Between the sex, the pain, and the things on my mind, I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked. But I get laid so rarely, I’m willing to sacrifice just about anything for it, especially sleep, when I usually dream about having sex anyway.

While the scene is explicit, more by implication than actual description, it's not about the choreography or body parts. It's about attitude and character -- or, at least, I hope it is. To me, that's how you get around the pitfalls of writing the sex scene.


From Ed Gorman

The late poet Charles Bukowski once said something to the effect that no man is more dangerous than when he’s having trouble with the woman he loves. Especially if she’s left him for someone else. I don’t know about dangerous but I do know that I’ve seen a good number of swaggering macho men brought low when the women they’re with say time out or even goodbye.

The power of love and sex has caused wars; certainly it’s caused murders. No one wears jealousy well but most of us cloak ourselves in it from time to time. Nothing animates a story like love and sex. And betrayal.

Some stories work perfectly without graphic elements such as Somerset Maugham’s killer short story “The Letter” (and great Bette Davis movie) or loaded with it such as Nabokov’s LOLITA. As the writer the choice is yours.

As for me, I tend to favor the late John D. MacDonald’s notion that after awhile the ”gymnastics” of sex get dull when what you really want to know is how the two people (or since these are modern times the three or four or five people) feel about each other.

But as somebody who decades ago wrote many porno house name westerns I appreciate sex in stories if the writer gets to the psychology of the scene. If it’s just rutting that’s fine but we live in an age when various sexual encounters have been properly categorized-there’s the grudge, the pity, the merry fornicator, the deeply in-love, the monotony-breaker and the well know Patriot. And those are just a few of the categories I learned from carefully reading Hustler’s letter columns.

From Naomi Hirahawa

I will be the first to admit that I’m probably the “softest” of this bunch here at Top Suspense, in that I don’t write explicit sex scenes (more so in my short stories) and suspense usually comes in the form of historic betrayal and feelings rather than the end of an Uzi machine gun. But that is not to say that “Sex and Suspense” is not key in any kind of storytelling and especially in genre fiction.

First about sex – replace it with passion and that’s what makes the world go-around. Even if you write the coziest of cozies with an amateur sleuth like I do, your detective must understand human passion because it often fuels murder. And in writing genre fiction, you must touch people emotionally and sensually.
In terms of actually writing sex and romance scenes in a traditional mystery, it is a delicate balancing act. My sleuth is now in his seventies and there’s a potential romantic interest ten years his junior. Will I perpetuate the stereotype that once someone reaches their golden years, there is little sex? How will I continue this relationship without turning off my core readership who might be uncomfortable traveling in this arena? Honestly, I don’t know the answers to these questions – I just have to follow my character and see where his passion takes him.

Some tips to think about when writing a traditional mystery:
When in doubt, always think about your character and his/her POV. What turns him or her on? And there’s no need to go back to the 1940s and their tropes i.e. femme fatales. What does the love interest smell like? What does his or her hands and fingers feel like? A peck or simple squeeze may unleash passionate feelings that will keep your protagonist up at night.
With passion come other uncontrollable feelings, like jealousy and despair. Here’s your chance to add more conflict to your character’s life. Have fun with it!

INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE

Welcome to the launch of INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE, an ongoing discussion on the craft of fiction writing. Between us, the members of the Top Suspense group (you can see who we are on the right) have published literally hundreds of novels and stories, many of them best-sellers and award-winners. In the coming months we hope to share our knowledge with you.

Each week (or maybe two, depending on our schedule) several of us will discuss a topic related to the craft of writing and publishing crime, thrillers, and horror. We’ll let you know what’s worked for us and what hasn’t. But that's only part of the conversation. We'd also like you to join in. Ask questions, share reactions, tell us what works for you.

One caveat – this is not a place to BSP. While we might mention how a technique worked (or didn’t) in one of our novels, this isn't the place to advertise your work. We want this to be a forum that helps us all become better writers.

NOTE: HUGE APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE WHO CAME TO READ MAX ALLAN COLLINS TAKE ON SUSPENSE AND DIDNT FIND IT. THE BLOG ADMINISTRATOR (THAT WOULD BE ME... LIBBY... HAS BEEN WITHOUT POWER... (THANK YOU COM ED...) SINCE TUESDAY. I HAD TO FLY TO NEW ORLEANS TO GET ELECTRICITY... AND I'M ONLY HALF KIDDING. SO SCROLL ON DOWN TO FIND MAX'S TAKE ON SUSPENSE, AND LET'S GET THE PARTY ROLLING AGAIN. STEPHEN GALLAGHER, OUR BRIT MEMBER, HAS ALSO WEIGHED IN. WE STILL HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND IN STORE FOR YOU.

Our first topic is -- not surprisingly – suspense. What technique of suspense is most effective for you… and why? Thriller author Joel Goldman, whose first Lou Mason novel, MOTION TO KILL, has just been republished as an e-book, leads off, followed by Libby Fischer Hellmann. On Tuesday, Vicki Hendricks reports in, and Wednesday, the one and only Max Allan Collins. Finally, on Thursday, UK author and screenwriter Stephen Gallagher weighs in. During the week you’ll hear from the rest of us in the comments section as well. So, grab your favorite beverage, pull up to the screen, and join in. We hope INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE will become your favorite place to hang out!

Joel Goldman here and thanks to Libby for kicking things off. Suspense depends on several things. First, the reader has to care what happens to the characters. If they don't, the payoff is nothing more than a curiosity. Second, suspense has to build slowly at first and then accelerate with a combination of inevitability and unpredictability. The payoff can be something the reader knows is coming but dreads or something the reader doesn't see coming that leaves her gasping and shouting Holy Crap! Finally, the mix of plot and character has to make sense, even if it involves characters making bad choices or events that strain (but don't break) credibility. Don't confuse suspense with suspension of disbelief. And it never hurts to make your prose sing and zing.

Libby, here. I agree suspense has to accelerate, but one of my favorite techniques -- which you can only use during moments of high suspense and/or action -- is something I call "Literary Slow Motion." It's what William Goldman did in HEAT where he spent something like 6 pages describing 18 seconds. I love to s-l-o-w down the action using as many sensory details as possible... ie the hero has been knocked to the ground, and he sees a boot coming at him, feels the snow and ice on his cheek, hears a laugh from the enemy, tastes blood in his mouth... etc. The more details you can add, the more the reader is invested, and hopefully is compelled to keep reading.

I have a question for you, Joel... or anyone. How far can you strain credibility? How much is too much?

From Vicki
I'll let someone else answer that question and go on with my tip for the day.
The most well-known and easiest to explain suspense technique, the only one that I know of with a name, is called “The Ticking Clock.” The writer sets a figurative clock ticking or, in the case of the TV series 24, a literal clock. Other examples: the cop is given 24 hours to find evidence on the murderer to avoid being accused, the woman has 2 hours to get an antidote for her snake bite, or the scuba diver has half an hour of air left, it’s getting dark, and murderers are on a boat above her, looking for her bubbles. The last one is from my novel Iguana Love, and it was a challenge to think of a way out for the character with that set up, but knowledge of equipment always offers possibilities, while underwater vulnerability and lurking creatures keep the reader turning pages. Once the time is set in any story, the reader’s subconscious will keep the clock ticking to heighten the tension in every scene.

From Stephen Gallagher
My take on suspense is a pretty straightforward one, I think. You have a character with whom the reader empathises, who needs to achieve something. Bad things are going to happen if he or she doesn't achieve it.

As they set out, everything seems set for success. But then obstacles arise - immediate, unplanned-for problems that have to be solved before your protagonist can move forward toward the greater goal. Meanwhile, the bigger situation deteriorates and the bad consequences loom larger.

Solving the lesser problem may get your protagonist closer, but gives rise to further problems that will impede progress even more. This is where the art comes in. Those problems have to be entertaining, and the effect of the delays and diversions has to be a pleasurable one. Suspense isn't about making the reader uncomfortable. It's about deferring closure in a way that heightens the anticipation of it.

The reader is trusting you to deliver an ultimate reward. But there's only a slim chance of success for your protagonist. And it gets ever slimmer, the closer you get to it. Will that slim chance disappear altogether just as you get there, or will your protagonist make it in time? For me that's the essence of suspense.

From Max Allan Collins
I don't really think in terms of suspense techniques. I am an instinctive writer and fairly linear, and just set up suspenseful situations and let them play out, as dictated by character. The most conscious craft decision I make along those lines is where to start and end chapters. Like many, if not most writers of msytery/crime fiction, I try to start at an exciting point. I was raised on Mickey Spillane, and his beginnings -- and for that matter his endings -- are always the gold standard for me. In KISS ME DEADLY, a beautiful woman, (naked but for a trenchcoat) jumps in front of Mike Hammer's car, to force him to pick her up, in the first paragraph. So I am very careful to start at an interesting, compelling point. That strategy works for the first chapter, but really every chapter. And the end of the chapter -- yes the cliff-hanger -- is equally important. The idea is to make the reader start reading, and keep reading.

Another technique -- really a strategy -- is to play against the reader's expectations. In a thriller there are certain conventional situations that can't be avoided, so giving them a fresh spin can keep the reader guessing and ratchet up the suspense. In the Nate Heller novel I'm working on, a very cliched moment arrives -- two thugs show up to take Heller for a ride to see a mob boss. But Heller knows these guys are killers and just goes Nancy Reagan on 'em ... just says no. He says he will follow them to the mob boss and will take the meeting, but will not get in the car with them. No violence breaks out, but the threat of it hangs over a very tense scene.

Free Audio Download of Short Story

For anyone who likes their short stories on audio, my story "The Murder of Katie Boyle" is free through March 26 at Sniplits. It's about the murder of an exercise instructor (and who hasn't wanted to do that), and it introduces my two sleuths, Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis, to each other.

Just click on the Free Story of the Week... and enjoy!