Category: Author Advice

Interview by Connie Berry

Buckeye Crime Writers is thrilled to welcome Lori Rader-Day, the Edgar Award- and Agatha Award-nominated and Anthony Award- and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Lucky One and Under a Dark Sky. She lives in Chicago, where she co-chairs the Midwest Mystery Conference and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. Her newest book, Death at Greenway, is based on a little-known moment in history, when a group of London children were evacuated from the Blitz during World War II to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate.

Recently I had a chance to ask Lori a few questions about her writing and journey to publication.

Connie: Your books have been called “dark stories — with heart.” Tell us more about that. Where would you place your writing in terms of genre?

Lori: When I first tried to submit to agents, I called myself “suspense” after a lot of frustrating research. The truth is, there are no lines between subgenres or genres, and a good deal about what a book is called has to do with tone, which is hard for a beginning writer to figure out. My agent said, it’s a thriller! The editor who bought it called it a mystery. And then online retailers called it… suspense. Psychological suspense gets at what I’m interested in, at least, even if it puts my books on the thriller shelf where I’m not always sure they truly belong. So they’re dark stories, but I love a good ending. A happy ending sometimes, not always, but an ending that feels like resolution one way or the other, and characters who I hope feel real to readers. That’s what I like to read, so that’s what I write. Dark stories where readers can invest in the characters. My new book, Death at Greenway, is historical but even though that feels like a departure, I don’t think it is. I just had to figure out a story to tell that felt like a story I would tell.

Connie: You studied journalism at Ball State University, then creative writing at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Was the jump from journalism to fiction difficult?

Lori: It was a leap, for sure, but I did do a half measure. I studied journalism writing, editing, and design first, and then I studied long-form journalism known as creative nonfiction (also at Ball State, with the wonderful writer and human Mark Massé). Creative nonfiction or literary journalism is where real events are reported in scenes, using many of the tools of fiction. I didn’t think of studying this kind of writing as a half measure at the time. I was all in, imagining that I would write for magazines. I wrote fiction on the side my entire life, but there came a moment when I realized I didn’t have to apologize for writing fiction or wanting to be published as a novelist, and that it was a thing that I was allowed to try to do. The difficult part of giving in and studying and writing fiction was that part, the allowance. I’m from a small town in Indiana, and I hadn’t ever realized that writers could come from places like that. When my high school friend Christopher Coake published his first book (We’re In Trouble), that’s when I realized people like us were publishable, too.

Connie: Which came first for you—finding an agent or finishing a manuscript?

Lori: Finishing TWO manuscripts (and honestly, finishing a lot of short stories before that)! I got a chance to talk to a couple of agents before I was ready but — I wasn’t ready! I always knew the process would be an internal one. When I felt as though I had written the book I wanted to, then I would see what agents might say. If I sent it out too soon, how would I know if they were the right agent or if their comments were the right direction? I had to be pretty sure of my story before I could deal with rejection of it or with comments about it. Not confident — confidence is hard to come by. But I had to be able to judge other people’s opinions of it, and that was going to take time. Every step of this process takes more time than I wish it did, by the way. I’m impatient as heck, especially about myself.

Connie: How long did it take for your first book to be published? Were you ever discouraged? If you were, how did you push forward?

Lori: How long did it take? is a question that has many answers. If you mean how long did it take from the first word I wrote of my first published novel to the last word written, then it’s two and half years. First word to sold is another number. First word to published is something like four years. But I had another novel that I’d worked on for years before putting aside, and I think we have to count those years as apprenticeship; from the first word written of that book to publication of The Black Hour was seven years. From the moment I decided to stop talking about writing and actually write to the moment my first novel was published? That was eight years. I got discouraged then and I still do now, but by different things. Writing is an enterprise that has a lot of discouragement built into it. I guess I got through it because I wanted to know how it turned out. In life, I’m a pantser, too. How does this story I’ve imagined turn out? How will readers like it? There’s always something to look forward to, and some days you have to write, even if you can’t quite look forward or see forward. And then some days you take a break until you can see your way forward.

Connie: Are you a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between?

Lori: Pantser, although for my fifth novel, The Lucky One, I had a little glimmer of a thing I was writing toward and that’s the closest I’ve ever been to plotting. So, yeah. Pantser. I get easily bored, so the writing process needs to be one of discovery for me, or I won’t do it. We are living in a time of great television, and I could be watching it.

Connie: What is your number one piece of advice for aspiring authors?

Lori: Read. Read a lot, inside and outside the genre you think you want to write. Re-read, read contemporary successes, read novels you like and those you don’t and learn to articulate why you felt the way you did. What leaves you cold, as a reader? What engages you? Then read closer and closer to find out how other authors create these effects within you.

My second piece of advice is to get involved. Our genre has writers’ and readers’ associations (like, yes, Sisters in Crime) but it’s easy to become a member of a group and then never take another step. The best way to engage in our community is to help out a little, meet new people, find new books to read and champion, find a role and some friends. The publishing game can be very long, but if you have people to connect with, commiserate with, building up your career over time can be fun, too.

Connie: Tell us a little about your latest novel, Death at Greenway.

Lori: Death at Greenway is based on a little-known fact from World War II: When Britain was evacuating London ahead of what would become known as the Blitz — three million people, mostly children — ten children were sent to Agatha Christie’s holiday home, Greenway. I discovered this in a nonfiction book about Agatha Christie, and just had to read that story. But no one had written it. I figured out why pretty quickly: The Greenway ’vacs were all under the age of five. They were chaperoned by a married couple called Arbuthnot and two hospital nurses, according to Agatha Christie’s autobiography, and lived in the house for a short time before the house was requisitioned by the military. To work a crime story in, I got those nurses into a lot of trouble.

Connie: Lori, thank you so much for sharing your story!

You can find Loriat www.LoriRaderDay.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Death at Greenway is available wherever fine books are sold!

Bridget Kelly is a nurse in training who has made an error that cost a man’s life. To get back into her Matron’s good graces, she takes on an assignment to evacuate a group of children to the country. It’s really the last thing she wants to do, and Greenway is a place with a lot of rooms one can’t enter and lovely little breakable things the children can’t touch. And a library full of murder books. When a body washes ashore nearby and the other nurse, also Bridget Kelly but known as Gigi, is not what she says she is, Bridey has to keep Gigi’s secrets to keep her own.

By Connie Berry

Recently I was asked in an interview to give my best advice to new writers. Part of my answer went like this: “Attend conferences if you can afford it. Make connections with other writers, both published and unpublished. They will become your advocates and encouragers.” This is certainly true for Grace Topping, the USA Today best-selling and Agatha-nominated author of the Laura Bishop Home Staging Mysteries. We met through Carolyn Melvin, another Buckeye Crime Writer, at Malice Domestic in 2014. We were both unpublished at the time and almost instantly became great friends. Our first books came out around the same time. We regularly read and comment on each other’s work. Grace is someone I can count on for sound advice and encouragement. Her latest, Upstaged by Murder was released in April.

When professional home stager Laura Bishop enters a competition to become the next TV home staging star, she figures it will be murder — but she doesn’t expect it to include a body. As tensions rise and rivalries rage, a coded notebook flips the script and Laura’s on the case.

But she’s not alone. Her closest confidantes pitch in by sleuthing, eavesdropping, and even staging a sting to protect those near and dear. Yet she’s still corralling a runaway teen, sparring with a handsome detective, and handling the shock of her life with a blast from her past. All while creating a cozy cabin retreat fit for first place.

Amidst constant cameras and glaring lights, Laura tries to style the stage and pull back the curtain on a killer before her career — and her life — get cut.

Welcome to Buckeye Crime Writers, Grace! Since our journeys to publication have taken similar paths, I’m especially interested to ask you about your experiences.

CONNIE: First, I know you were a technical writer for years. How did you make the switch to writing fiction — and mysteries in particular?

GRACE: As a technical writer, I wrote all kinds of deathly boring things like policy, procedures, speeches, and instructions on how to operate complex computer systems. It didn’t get more exciting than that. I realized one day that although I had written about a wealth of things, most of it was now occupying a landfill somewhere. That was rather disheartening. I wanted something I had worked on to have a longer life than that. Then a friend invited me to go with her to Malice Domestic, a conference for fans and writers of traditional mysteries. I had long been a mystery reader, but I’d never heard of Malice. When I read the names of the authors who would be there, I couldn’t sign up fast enough. Hearing them speak, I discovered they were everyday people who set out to write something they hoped people would read. It made me wonder if I could do the same. I had always loved mysteries, so I decided to write one. The seeds to my becoming a mystery writer were planted at Malice.

CONNIE: It seems to me that technical writing and fiction writing must require different skills. What was the most difficult part of making that switch, and what is the one skill you really had to work at?

GRACE: I had been accustomed to writing very lean — to get to the heart of the matter and give people only the information they needed. Nothing else. So after taking a course at my local community college on writing mysteries, I wrote a complete mystery, with a sum total of 45,000 words. Less than half of what I would need to get it published. I quickly learned that I needed to include a lot more. Over the years, the plot and structure of that mystery stayed the same, but I learned to add description, emotion, and impressions — the things that flesh out a book. To make it less plot driven and more character driven.

CONNIE: Since you’ve now finished three books in the Laura Bishop home staging series, I’m interested to learn how you keep track of all the little details of character, setting, and plot? Do you have what some writers call a “bible” to check?

GRACE: I keep a list of details from each book, but it is so easy to start writing and not refer to it. You think you are going to remember all the details, but you don’t. In my first book, my main character sold her Volvo to help finance her new home staging business. In the second book I referred to the car as a Mercedes. Later, that didn’t sound right, and sure enough, when I checked my book “bible,” I saw it had been a Volvo. Fortunately, I caught it before publication.

Sometimes things get past me and even past my editor. In the first book, I called a local shop Antiques and Other Stuff. In the following book, I mistakenly called it Antiques and Other Things. Fortunately, I liked the new name better. It does make me wonder if any reader has noticed. So, rule number one: keep a book bible. Rule number two: refer to it. Don’t rely on your memory.

CONNIE: You have a busy life outside of writing with your husband, two daughters, a grandchild, a large circle of friends. What is your secret to a balanced life? Do you have a writing routine that you stick to?

GRACE: If someone has found the best way to balance writing and everything else, I wish they would tell me. It’s a hard balance. First, I take care of the things for my family and friends, which has absorbed a lot of my time over the past two years. For my most recent two books, that left me facing the crunch of meeting contract deadlines with little time to write them. So although I have a year between books, I’ve ended up writing them very quickly in four or five months. Having a contract deadline is a great motivator to write every day. So my routine during that time included sitting in front of my computer late into the evening instead of reading or watching television. With things somewhat more settled in my life now, I’m hoping to do better with my next book. We’ll see.

CONNIE: How would you advise writers today who are hoping to get published? What is the most important thing you did for your career as a prepublished writer?

GRACE: I took me ten years of writing off and on to finally get published, so there are many things I learned along the way I could advise writers about. Things like learning your craft, joining writers groups, don’t give up, etc. But the most important thing I learned was to take time to make sure my manuscript was really ready for submission — not to submit it to agents or publishers before it received feedback from other writers and was thoroughly edited. I learned this the hard way by submitting an early manuscript to my dream agents and receiving rejections pretty quickly. Most agents, once they have rejected your work, won’t look at it again, no matter how much more you’ve worked on it. Looking back, I’m so thankful none of them published it. After receiving those rejections, I realized I had a lot to learn. Each time I learned something new, I revised and renumbered my manuscript. I was up to 38 versions (minor and major) by the time my first book was published.

If I could add one more thing — find what works for you. I spent years writing in third person. It was only when I switched to first person that my writing came alive. I wish I had discovered that a lot sooner.

CONNIE: I know you’ve just launched your newest book, Upstaged by Murder. Is it too soon to ask you about your plans for the future?

GRACE: Upstaged by Murder came out in April, and it fulfilled a three-book contract with my publisher. Since the publisher’s future is somewhat in question, I don’t know if I will be writing any more books for them. So I have to decide whether to find a publisher who will take on my existing series, independently publish a new book in that series, or interest a publisher in a new series. Until I make a decision, I’m focusing on promoting my current books and may try my hand at writing short stories, which is harder than it sounds.  

CONNIE: Best of luck with your writing, Grace. Thanks so much for stopping by Buckeye Crime Writers!

Grace Topping is an Agatha Award finalist and the USA Today bestselling author of the Laura Bishop home staging cozy mystery series. She’s a recovering technical writer and IT project manager accustomed to writing lean, boring documents. Let loose to write fiction, she’s now killing off characters who remind her of people she dealt with during her career. She is the former VP of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the Membership Guppy of the SINC Guppy Chapter, and a member of Mystery Writers of America.