Wednesday, November 08, 2023
Sunday, October 30, 2022
Thursday, April 14, 2022
Guest Post: Time Between Books by E.J. Copperman
It has been quite awhile since Mr. E. J. Copperman was last here, but please welcome him back to the blog today. He has been very busy the last couple of years. We may share the worry gene, but he has been far more productive.
Time Between Books by E.J. Copperman
I’m waiting at the station
I can choose my destination
I’m a free soul
I’ve got no chains
But it’s a long time between trains
--Susan Werner, “Time Between Trains”
There was a time, not many years
ago, when I was writing four mystery series at the same time. People would
marvel at that and ask how I could possibly keep it up, but I honestly enjoyed
it because it kept my mind occupied and if I ran into a wall on one book I
almost certainly had another to think about and clear my brain.
Because the publishing business is,
you know, a business, I now have one series. Witness to the
Persecution is the third in the Jersey Girl Mystery series from Severn
Books, and if it’s not in your bookstore or your library now it will be
shortly. The fourth in the series is in the editing process as we speak, and
after that… we’ll see.
Now in the third year of the
Covid-19 pandemic, everyone – absolutely everyone – has experienced some sort
of disruption in their life. Some are tragic and impossible to shake off.
Others, the lucky ones like me, have had some degree of inconvenience and not a
tremendous amount more.
But what I have found in this
insane time is that I need to be writing.
When the pandemic sent everyone
home to lock the door and not come out, I occupied my mind by writing – count
‘em – five novels. Not all at once. I filled my agent’s inbox with two possible
series “pilots,” two standalones (unusual for me) and one that could go either
way. Don’t be rushing to a bookseller in pursuit of those; they have not be
purchased by publishers. Yet.
Oh yeah, and a middle grade novel
too.
After a while adding more inventory
to the pile just seemed excessive. I didn’t have any can’t-miss ideas that I
couldn’t wait to sink my synapses into, and there was the matter of the
aforementioned Jersey Girl Legal Book #4, which I made sure to get to the
editor a mere two months early because what else did I have to do?
I might not be the greatest writer
in the world, but I’m fast.
After that last one was sent in,
and with no contract in place (again, yet) for a Book #5, I had nothing to
write. And my family knows that when that’s the case, you tiptoe around me. I
don’t get mean but I’m anxious and testy. I don’t like being around me when I’m
not writing so you can imagine what it’s like for other people.
Time between books isn’t great for
me. I worry about politics, about aging (something I’ve been doing at an
alarming rate), about family members and about the baseball season. Don’t get
me started. I’m a first-class worrier. And when there’s no story to occupy me
my mind will, as Paul McCartney once put it, “go wandering.” It doesn’t often
go to nice places. My life is actually pretty good, all things considered, but
go tell that to my mind.
As of this writing I can’t update
that situation, but I have every confidence in my agent and he has plenty of
books to peddle, so I think something will happen soon. And I’m not quite as
desperate to get something going as I was in the darkest days (like a month
ago).
I have this new idea, see, and it’s not ready to write yet but I’m working on it.
E. J. Copperman ©2022
E.J.
Copperman is the author of the Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series, with the
latest book WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION arriving any minute (officially April 5
but who really knows). The books follow Sandy Moss from her “safe” job as an
assistant county prosecutor in New Jersey to Los Angeles, where she thinks
she’s going to be working on less stressful things like divorces. But somehow
she keeps having to defend accused murderers in court… www.ejcopperman.com
Monday, April 04, 2022
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Guest Post: Writing Funny by E.J. Copperman
Please welcome author Jeffrey Cohen whose books in the Asperger Mystery Series were very much enjoyed and reviewed here years ago. His new book, Inherit the Shoes: A Jersey Girl Legal Mystery is out now in eBook with print next month and audio in February.
Writing Funny by E.J.
Copperman
People come up to me (well, they used to
come up to me when we were out in the world) and they say, “E.J.,” (these are
very pushy people, given that we’ve never met before in this fictional scenario)
(some of them are familiar enough to call me “E,” which is just odd) “how do
you get humor into a story about murder?”
Let’s get past the idea that these imagined
people who are imposing on my supposed peace and quiet are asking me odd
questions, or that in my tortured little mind they have any idea who I am or
what I do for a living or that they think I’m funny. Let’s just put
those aside and consider the question: “How do you get humor into a story about
murder?”
You don’t.
Humor
isn’t the kind of thing you just layer on like frosting when something is
finished and expect it to be the perfect touch. You have to have the right tone
from the beginning. Readers can tell when you’re trying to be funny. If you’re
trying too hard with “wacky” situations and the like, they’ll back away from
you with some trepidation.
It
helps if two things are working for the writer: First, you have to have a sense
of humor. People who aren’t funny and try to write humor are just about the
saddest beings on the planet. It’s sad. You shouldn’t do it. Ask your friends –
the ones who always tell you the truth – if you’re funny. If they look away,
don’t try to write humor.
Second,
it’s a big boost if your character has a strong sense of humor. This is especially
true in first-person narratives, because the character is telling the story
directly to the reader. A sense of irony, at the very least, would be a
requisite for the narrator in a funny mystery. I let my native New Jersey
sarcasm (our National Language) speak for itself. Some people seem to find it amusing.
(This
is especially true in Inherit the Shoes, the first Jersey Girl Legal Mystery coming
on January 5 from Severn House. But don’t take my word for it – take 80,000 of
my words for it and read the book.)
There’s
also this strange temptation to write “funny” murders. No. Stop it. Having the
victim drown in a sea of punctured water balloons or having an anvil drop on
their head is fine if your protagonist is Wile E. Coyote, but if it’s a
semi-realistic human being, all you’re doing is signaling to the reader that
you really, really want them to laugh. There’s nothing more uncomfortable to
watch than a desperate comedian.
Murder
isn’t funny. If you try to make it funny you’re degrading the reality of your
story and creating a situation in which the reader doesn’t care about the
person who has been killed. That lowers the stakes of your story and probably
doesn’t have the same impact you’re hoping it will. The murder should be a
murder.
Now.
That doesn’t mean there’s no fun to be had. The way your characters react to the killing is where you find your humor. Some will overreact
(those are the likely suspects) and others will be blasé about it and pretend
not to care (the likelier suspects). Your narrator, if it’s first-person, is
probably the sleuth doing the sleuthing, and will view these people with, let’s
say, a wary eye.
See?
You’re getting somewhere.
Comedians
say there’s no subject that can’t be joked about. Murder, the ultimate crime,
is not taboo. There are plenty of good mystery authors right now creating hilarious
mysteries.
They’re
just not showing you the flop sweat.
E.
J. Copperman ©2020
E.J.
Copperman is the author of Inherit the Shoes, the first Jersey Girl Legal
Mystery. E.J. also wrote the Haunted Guesthouse series, the Asperger’s Mystery
series, the Mysterious Detective series and the Agent to the Paws series. That’s
a number of series. It’s even a series of series. In any event, Inherit the
Shoes is available as of January 5 and E.J. hope you’ll find it amusing. If you
don’t, this whole post was probably a total bust for you.
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