Now Write! Mysteries

LOUISE PENNY is the author of the Armand Gamache mysteries. Her books have made bestseller lists internationally, including the New York Times list, and have won the British Dagger, the Canadian Arthur Ellis, and the American Anthony, Agatha, and Barry awards. Like her characters, Penny lives in a small village in Quebec.

I suspect that Emily Dickinson was talking about both interior and exterior landscapes. But at some stage the two meet and meld, and that’s what I’d like to talk with you about. You want your book to be a ticket onto that frigate. You want to construct a whole world for these literary tourists, filled with sights and sounds and sensations.

When you set about writing that first book you almost certainly consider the characters. The detective, the victim, the suspects. But there’s another character. One as real and as powerfully alive as any of the rest. And that’s your setting.

Like any of your characters, describing how they look is important, but describing how they feel is vital. The same is true for a setting.

Where will your novel be set? In the countryside or a city? In a fictional place? In your hometown, or an exotic locale? Paris? Tahiti? Venice? Kansas City?

There’s no right or wrong answer or choice. Anyplace can be made riveting, if the writer feels strongly enough about it. But a good piece of advice I was given is to choose a place you’re already familiar with.

There are thousands of people trying to convince an editor to buy their books, so what will distinguish yours? To convince an editor or agent, you need to use every tool at your disposal. And one tool often overlooked is a keen sense of place. Readers love being transported. And you have a chance to offer them just that.

Think of Donna Leon’s Venice, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh, Tony Hillerman’s American Southwest and the Navajo. Others have set crime novels in these locations, and will again. So what distinguishes these authors? Why are they so associated with that territory? Because of their passion for it; because they breathe life into the setting.

So, how do you bring your setting alive? Not with endless description, that’s for sure. We’ve all suffered through that, and skipped and skimmed and groaned. No, it’s done simply, elegantly. With a well-placed word, the telling detail.

Here’s what I try to do. I try to make my books, set mostly in a village in Quebec, sensual. Not sexual, but the classical definition of sensual. Using all the senses. How else would you construct a world? It’s more than buildings. It’s sensations.

If my books are frigates then I want there to be no mistaking the destination. When people read my novels, I want them to taste the flaky croissants, smell the rich cafés au lait, feel the bone-chilling cold that burrows into the marrow, and I want them to see what I see. The beauty of the Quebec countryside, and the peace it promises.

And then I shatter that peace with a crime. How much worse is a murder in paradise than in a place already marred?

I struggle in each book to refine the picture and breathe life into the setting.

Do you know what I do? I way overwrite my first draft. Throw everything at it. I don’t worry about going on and on ad nauseam about a cabin or a tree or a croissant. I once spent two pages describing a rose. I knew it wouldn’t make it into the final draft, and it didn’t, but it was fun and freeing.

There’s no right or wrong approach to a first draft. Many terrifically successful and creative writers edit as they go. Others, like me, prefer to just toss everything at the page and not worry about it until the book is finished. I know the book is in there somewhere. It helps keep my critic at bay and to allow myself to take risks.

It also makes space for inspiration—things unplanned. For me, the internal critic leads to fear, and fear leads to playing it safe, and that leads to the book I didn’t really want to write, and a book most people would feel they’ve read a hundred times before. It wouldn’t be fresh and alive, and mine.

So my advice is to not worry about that first draft. Really go to town. Indulge yourself. Have fun describing every feeling, every smell, every touch, every building. The back alleys of Paris, the lavender fields of Provence, a sandwich in Boise, a spring morning in New Haven.

And then in the second draft get out the knife, and take most of that out. Carve away and shape. Like a sculptor.

It is thrilling, to create a world. But it doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work, dedication, a vision. And it takes joy. The genuine pleasure of inviting people to join you on this voyage, to visit what you’ve created. But you have to make the trip worthwhile, and make the passengers feel precious and valued.

And finally, a tip. When I’m planning a new novel, I start a notebook and in it I have a section on “Description.” As I walk around I write down small details that I can sprinkle through the book. Smells, tastes, sights. Things that might bring a book alive. Grace notes for the voyage.

EXERCISE