Dawn Brookes

Author

writing for authors

Cozy Mystery Writing Conventions

Genre Fiction

I’m a mystery writer with my fiction falling into the cozy/cosy crime niche. I’ve now published seven books in one series with an eighth on the way. Cosy mysteries and the majority of detective novels fall into the category of writing known as genre fiction and on the whole, follow a defined set of conventions.

Agatha Christie Monument

These conventions/rules developed out of the Golden Age of Crime novels. Authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie created the widely recognised genre. The cosy mystery has evolved over the past few decades as new writers attempt to stretch boundaries, although many still adhere to the Decalogue or ten commandments described by Knox in 1929. 

Escapist Literature

I admit to being challenged by proponents of literary fiction and literary debate such as Albert Camus, but I prefer to write books to enable people to escape from the reality of life. This is one of the reasons I write books where the criminal is always found and justice is served. The popularity of genre fiction could highlight the need for people to feel safe while – at least in terms of crime fiction – being given the opportunity to experience vicarious excitement. The excitement comes through readers exercising their brains to solve the puzzle, working alongside the sleuth. 

As a former nurse, I studied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs in great detail. He described the need to feel safe in the hierarchy. He postulated human beings needed to satisfy certain needs in order to grow, mentally and physically. Maslow’s definition of safety was more about protection from external elements. Such safety requires a person to have shelter and security of body and mind; order in the world outside; laws that reinforced safety; stability in work and finance and freedom from fear.

Escapist literature does help people to remove themselves from the harsh realities of the world for a time. 

Writing within Genre Conventions

A major challenge with formula writing is that of staying within genre constraints while adding enough variation to make the work unique and interesting. Lethem, (2007) argues that no work is completely original and Eliot (1920) stated that ‘mature poets steal’. King Solomon complains even in Biblical times that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9). 

Genre Conventions

When a reader sits down to read a book based on a formula they are familiar with such as a crime novel. They and the writer will have been influenced by previous books. Julia Kristeva called such a relationship within the academic world, intertextuality but the same applies to reading and writing formula fiction. The reader expects to find new layers within each novel, without which, they will feel dissatisfied. 

Genre, or formula writing doesn’t claim complete originality but there still needs to be something different about each work to keep it interesting. Bloom (1997) suggests that authors can be original although his text spends a lot of space arguing why it might not be.

Opponents of Formula Fiction

Stories falling within formulaic modes are commonly defined by those who oppose such literature as ‘sub-literate (as opposed to literature), entertainment (as opposed to serious literature), popular art (as opposed to fine art), lowbrow culture (as opposed to highbrow)…’ (Cawelti).

Describing formula writing in this way denigrates its artistic ability to fulfil a need within the human being to find pleasure through reading such works, and denies its own purpose and justification. 

Pacing

One of the main issues authors have with writing genre fiction – or any fiction for that matter – is pacing. 

Cosy mysteries tend to be written at a meandering pace where the plot unfolds gradually in an enclosed space, for example an English country village or, in my case, on board a cruise ship. 

Some crime fiction is written in this style but suspense thrillers generally require more tension. Writing the first Carlos Jacobi mystery has involved a change of pacing for me as a writer. I’ve had to think about phrasing and creating hooks at the beginning of the work. On reflection, this applies to all fiction and all writers improve over time.

New Series: Carlos Jacobi PI

For me, opting to remain true to crime fiction, but attempting to write a grittier series has been a new experience. Many people believe that the original detective fiction novel formula began with Edgar Allen Poe.

Carlos Jacobi PI

In Body in the Woods, there is one character (brother-in-law of protagonist) who is deliberately long-winded as he is the sort of person who goes into the minutiae of detail even in normal conversation. He is a scientist and a bit of an anorak. My challenge was, how to incorporate these characteristics into the story so that the reader understands his long-windedness is deliberate. I wanted the reader to be able to relate to this person as someone they might know in real-life. 

Valuing Genre Fiction

With my new series – although more gritty than the Rachel Prince Mysteries – I’ve remained true to my ethical stance as a writer that not all crime fiction needs to be gory. Neither does it have to include bad language nor explicit sex. I believe the challenge for me as an author is to create page-turning work without the use of sensationalist shock value. There is as much room in the market for clean crime today as there was when the forerunners of cozy crime penned their works.

Cawelti’s work has had the most profound influence on me as a writer in that it has reinforced my belief that writing genre fiction is just as valuable as writing literary fiction. He argues that formula literature (which crime fiction fits into) has a cultural value and I believe such literature fulfils an important function in human psychology. 

What about you?

Crime Writers’ Daily Writing Habits

Crime Writers’ Writing Habits

I thought it would be fun to select a few crime writers and discuss their writing – or not – habits! Much emphasis is placed on ritual and routine when it comes to art, but as these few examples show, every writer is different.

Ian Fleming (1908-1964)

Ian Fleming described himself as a writer rather than an author and writing in an article on the topic or writing he suggested that writing 2,000 words per day, five days a week for six weeks enabled him to produce his first draft for his Bond novels.

The novels he produced were around 60,000 words which is acceptable in series writing even to this day.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Agatha Christie didn’t have a special room to write in and carried notebooks around and jotted down plots, labelling her notebooks. She wrote longhand and then typed it up later. In later life she dictated her books. She never had a daily routine of writing and would nip off to write when the opportunity presented itself it.

Strangely, it appears that Agatha Christie was the only one of these four to admit to having difficulties writing with the process causing her much stress at times. And yet it is Christie’s works that are among the world’s top bestsellers with her estate claiming she is third only to Shakespeare and The Bible. Her books are still enjoyed today with Miss Marple and Poirot being crime mystery staples. I remember seeing The Mousetrap on stage in London, the longest running play in London still enjoyed by so many readers today.

Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957)

Dorothy L Sayers wrote at night as she worked full time for a London advertising agency.

I couldn’t find  anything written about her habits but would assume that as one of the first female graduates of Oxford she was methodical.

Sayers moved away from crime writing after WWII, her last being published before the war’s outbreak. She later concentrated on writing Christian drama for which she was well regarded.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the earliest writers to use an agent claimed not to have much of a routine once money wasn’t an object.

In an article, he explained he would spend a whole day on a work if he was engrossed but less time if he wasn’t. He seemed to intimate spending less time writing his short stories (Sherlock Holmes novels seemed to be short stories to him), and was also less concerned with their accuracy as they were a product of what he termed, fantasy.

Conclusion

It seems from just these four examples that routine isn’t everything and yet so many writers today swear by it.

I personally set myself a goal of 2,000 words when writing but don’t write every day. I’m perhaps more akin to Ian Fleming at this point in my career although I will be much more like Arthur Conan Doyle as I develop I think. It pays to remember there is no such thing as one size fits all.

If you would like to read more about writer/artist rituals, the two books listed here might be worth a read. Daily Rituals: how artists work seems to be out of print but is available as an audiobook.

Dawn Brookes is author of the Rachel Prince Mystery series of cozy mysteries and the Hurry up Nurse series of memoirs.

Making a Living as an Author! It all began with a broken foot!

Genuine Thanks to Readers 

First of all, if anyone had told me when I published my first memoir as an indie author in August 2016 that I would sell more than a couple of hundred copies I would have been excited at the prospect. Three years on and I have sold over 25,000 books, mostly in the past year. I have my readers to thank for this and I am truly grateful.

I’ve moved over to using the term indie rather than self-published because I think it more realistically reflects the independent author as a complete business person. Many indie authors don’t sell more than a couple of hundred books but before we mock, many traditionally published authors sell fewer than 5,000 copies of a book and bearing in mind they receive pennies rather than pounds for each book sold, the majority would struggle to earn a living.

My Journey began with a broken foot!

The journey began in 2016 when I finished a memoir that I’d been writing for a couple of years. I broke my foot in three places while at work and ended up being unable to drive for eight weeks. Having worked in the NHS for around thirty-nine years, I was not used to sitting around and my friends all worked. I remembered the story I had started on the laptop and despite losing a large chunk of it when a hard drive was destroyed, I picked it up again to pass the time. The rest, they say, is history!

I published the memoir and went on a cruise to the Mediterranean. Naivety reigned supreme at the time, and after selling a dozen or so copies to friends and family, I realised there was more to being an author than I had ever imagined. I assumed that after all the hard work, I would put the book out there and the whole world would realise it was a bestseller! Not quite, but you get the picture.

Reinventing Myself

I had given decades of my life to the health service, and the time had come to do something I had always wanted to do – write. I was about to embark upon a steep learning curve because being an author – traditionally published or indie – involves so much more than writing. 

Still, the first task is to write something that others might want to read and then to keep writing and this is what I did. In 2016 I produced the first memoir and then in 2017, a second memoir, and a couple of children’s books. 

Last year, I wrote my first novel, the first in a cosy mystery series with a second published later in the year and a third earlier this year.

In addition to this, I wrote two more children’s books. Danny the Caterpillar and Gerry the One-Eared Cat are among my favourite children’s books….

My children’s book listings can be found here.

Learning Curve

Whilst Amazon has opened up a new and exciting world for the author who wants to maintain control of their creative work, with over 5 million books on the platform it is a monumental task to get a book noticed. One has to delve into research and marketing to find out what is required to make a book get noticed.

To sell books, firstly the book needs to be worth reading and then an author or publisher must learn a multitude of other things. 

Skipping over the steps involved in writing and producing a high quality book such as drafts, editing, beta readers, professional editing and proofreading, there follows many other factors required in order to sell books and keep them visible.

Reviews

The bane of many an author’s life is the need for reviews. Reviews are required for social proof and they may also be responsible for triggering Amazon’s algorithm among other things in order to make books more visible.

When I buy a product, I check the reviews beforehand and like to see at least twenty or thirty reviews to inform my purchasing decision. They don’t all have to be five star, in fact, if they are I am suspicious that they may not be genuine. You get the picture? People who buy books are the same, they want to see that other readers have enjoyed the book, of course not everyone is going to enjoy a book, so the first thing an author needs to develop is a thick skin. It is devastating when that first 1 star review comes in, but as long as the majority of people like the book, its easier to live with the negative reviews. That said, its hard to get reviews in the first place.

Numerous sources suggest that only 1% of purchasers review a book on Amazon and less than this if the book is offered for free. A new author therefore needs to sell 100 books at least to get 1 review. I never reviewed books until I became an author because I didn’t understand the importance, I now review the majority of books I read, and I read a lot.

If you read a book and enjoy it, please leave an honest review for the author, if you don’t enjoy it, please remember there’s a person at the other end of the spectrum and at least try to say one positive thing if you can. I used to teach on a post-graduate course and I gave a feedback sandwich: starting with the good, adding in the areas for improvement and ending with more good! The feedback was still honest!

Marketing

Blood, sweat and tears have gone into producing the initial manuscript and getting the book out there, so be patient with the new author (and the not so new)! I think every author is guilty of the “buy my book” syndrome, particularly when it comes to social media. This is mainly down to over-enthusiasm and can also come from desperation!

Social media is a free platform and authors, I’m ashamed to say, myself included, can get a bit carried away. If they don’t learn they will either lose their Facebook friends, or develop a lot of other author friends who are in the same boat but are never going to buy their books!

I have now separated my social media into business and personal. I do still post the occasional ‘good news’ story or special offer but I don’t want my friends to get ‘heartsink’ whenever I post anything! I have a Facebook page dedicated to my work as an author for those genuinely interested in my writing, and here, I would still rather engage with readers than constantly market to them.

Paid marketing is actually the best route for getting a book seen by more people and Amazon, Facebook and others offer marketing platforms to authors. As the majority of indies sell more eBooks than paperbacks, I had to learn not to overspend and discovered terms like Return on Investment (ROI) to make advertising pay.

Results

Up to the end of May 2019, I have sold in excess of 25,000 books and have finally moved into profit during the 2018-2019 tax year. 

Over the past two months I have had over half a million page reads through kindle unlimited and over 2.5m since 2016.

For a full list of my books, please visit my Amazon author page.

What Next?

I continue to publish my books as audiobooks in addition to print and eBook, and Killer Cruise is currently in production. A Cruise to Murder and Deadly Cruise are already available as audiobooks. If you’ve never listened to an audiobook, you can try any one of mine for FREE for 28 days by joining audible. If you find it’s not for you, just cancel before the 28 days are up.

I am working on the fourth book in the Rachel Prince Mystery series, Dying to Cruise will be launched in the summer of 2019. I am also working on a third memoir. 

Last month, I was approached by a small publisher with reference to producing a further memoir and negotiations are still underway.

I think I can safely say that although I still have much to learn, I have reinvented myself as an author following a successful nursing career that spanned four decades.

Writing a Memoir

By Dawn Brookes, bestselling author of  Hurry up Nurse: memoirs of nurse training in the 1970s.

Dawn Brookes, author

Recently I gave a talk at a local church to an interesting group of people, most of whom could write great memoirs if they had a mind to. We all have a story to tell, so if you’ve ever considered writing your own memoir but don’t know where to start, read on…

Memoir or Autobiography

First of all you need to decide whether their focus is on your whole life story (an autobiography) or on one aspect of your life, bringing in themes, memories and anecdotes that highlight that theme (a memoir). To be honest, unless you’re famous or writing for posterity, a memoir is likely to be more readable that an autobiography! Having said that, who knows?

Reasons for Writing

People have different reasons for writing a memoir or autobiography, some of which are listed below:

  • Personal–writing for posterity, family
  • As branding –e.g. running a business
  • Teach something
  • Publishing–writing to publish

You don’t have to be famous, but it helps!

This was a screenshot of the top 17 books listed in the bestseller list of Amazon’s memoir/biography section at the time I prepared my talk. Spot the famous people! That said, there are some who weren’t well-known prior to writing their biography or memoir.

When you niche down, it makes a difference as shown in this screenshot of the bestsellers in nursing category where two of my books feature in the top 18! If I’d taken a screenshot of the US Amazon store, niching down, my book would be top, where it has been for the past 16 months, but hey, that’s just showing off!

My point is, you can do well within your area of expertise if you’re writing a memoir. This only matters if you’re considering publishing of course. When I started writing my first memoir, it was more about getting my memories written down for posterity.

Niches

Here are just a few niches where memoirs are popular, but the list is not exhaustive:

  • Career–e.g. Medical/Nursing – think Adam Kay, Jennifer Worth, Monica Dickens; lawyer; teacher; train driving; councillor; vicar, sport etc
  • War –WWI; WWII; Gulf wars; Afghanistan etc
  • Conflict–Ireland; Spain etc
  • Romantic–love story; loved & lost; cross-cultural etc
  • Rags to Riches –e.g. Cliff Richard
  • Addiction–ex addict; child of addict etc
  • Difficult background to happiness, profession, faith etc
  • Wealthy background to poverty, mental health issues, addiction etc
  • Ordinary but have a story to tell
  • Different viewpoint –war from German perspective, 
  • Religious–missionary etc
  • Travel–travel memoir
  • Pet stories
  • Worked somewhere of national interest or for famous person etc
Nursing Memoirs

Even within those niches you can niche down again e.g. historical account. This image from the UK Amazon store shows bestsellers listed under biographical history.

Making it Interesting

People want to engage with an author’s story and the book needs to be worth reading. This is just as true if you are only writing for family, the story still needs to resonate. People are more likely to engage with stories that are gritty; painful, true stories; relatable e.g. medical nursing (most people experience the health sector at some time); about abuse although this might be difficult to write; insider secrets; pet stories. Whatever the theme, if some aspects of the above are included, you are more likely to grab peoples’ attention!

Make it Unique

In one way, there is nothing new under the sun, but in another, your story is unique and you need to bring that originality throughout. Mindmap the memories associated with your story and choose carefully what to include and what not to include. Choose with care how much detail to go into if you’re considering publishing. Initially you will write a whole lot more than you need.

There are some things you need to be cautious of and these include:

  • Identifying people
  • Venting your anger at an individual or workplace
  • Defamation of character
  • Glossing over the surface
  • Too much detail
  • Not enough detail
Hurry up Nurse memoirs

My memoirs are about my work as a nurse and therefore it was important for me to protect the confidentiality of those involved, particularly patients. In most circumstances, changing a name isn’t enough in such cases so I had to change names, times, places and sometimes, gender in order to protect people from being identifiable. This doesn’t alter the truth of the content and you will need to state that you have done this at the beginning.

This also works if you do need to talk about someone who has hurt you or damaged a work environment if these things are a necessary part of your story.

Some tips you might want to consider:

  • Change characteristics e.g. gender, time, place, details
  • Get release forms signed if using real names
  • Ask friends if they are happy for you to use their names or a pseudonym
  • Include disclaimer at the front of the book
  • Don’t hide the bad bits but disguise the people responsible

Show don’t Tell

Contemporary fiction writers use a ‘show, don’t tell’ way of telling a story and such skills are just as important when writing a memoir. Take a look at the example below:

Tell:

‘The night sister walked onto the ward and told me to join her for the ward round.’

Show:

‘The loud clopping sound of heels reverberating off the marble floor outside the ward filled me with dread. As the night sister rapidly approached, the knot in my stomach told me it was time for the ward round.’

Likewise, as with writing fiction, a memoir is made more interesting by the inclusion of dialogue; description with good use of adjectives; conflict; tension; anecdotes; emotion and pacing. I read lots of memoirs, biographies and autobiographies and the better ones use all of those elements.

You also need to be real. People like you to be honest, show vulnerability, and personality. If you like humour, use it, include jokes and funny stories. Swearing will put some people off, but if that’s you, it will make the story more real to use your potty mouth. Also build the narrative, adding tension as the story progresses.

Mistakes to Avoid

  • Poor structure
  • Too much detail
  • Being a show-off/arrogant (for some this will work, but for most, it won’t)
  • Being superficial
  • Missing your topic, theme
  • Unrelateable
  • Hiding your mistakes (don’t pretend to be perfect)

Tips for Producing Your Memoir

  • Introduction
  • Sections/chapters relevant to your topic
  • Chapters named or numbered
  • Keep chapters similar lengths (not always possible but aim to do this)
  • Conclusion
  • Choose a catchy title
  • Get a good book cover (particularly if publishing)
  • Get an editor/proofreader (vital, even if self-publishing)
  • Word count 40,000 –90,000 words

Conclusion

Medical biography

This short article might give you a start, but is not exhaustive by any means. You never know where it might lead to, I have re-invented myself in my fifties and now write children’s books and cosy mysteries.

If you do decide to write a memoir, autobiography, I’d be interested to hear how it goes for you. Thank you for reading this article.

Writing a Book Outline

Writing a Great Book Outline and Writing to Target

I have recently finished my debut novel so don’t consider myself an expert on this but I was greatly helped by using a system for writing the book. This system kept me to time and was just what I needed. The system I used I have adapted from one I learned from a course on Udemy called Reverse Engineer Riveting Fiction

The first thing I need to say is that I did veer off but not hugely and you will see what I mean when I explain it.

Storyline

Obviously before you can develop a plan there needs to be a story in your head. My story evolved but I had the basics of the plot before I started writing.

I had a main character (initially it was 2), sub-characters important to the plot, a scene (set on a cruise ship), a theme – murder mystery (initially thriller but turned out to be cosy as I don’t do graphic), a beginning, a middle and an end (I had two in mind).

Word Count

The next thing was to decide on a rough word count. There is some debate over words needed but in general they are as follows:

Quote

Word Counts are not written in stone

Depending on what you read there are different opinions on how long a book should be so I have gathered a few together but they are just guides. Publishers will have minimum and maximum word counts for different books and generally frown on shorter novels and those that are too long.

  • Novel 40,000 words or over (generally 60,000 for mystery, 90,000+ for non-series novel). Some authors and publishers recommend 50,000+ with a maximum of 120,000 but Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix is over 250,000 words!
  • Young Adult 40,000 to 80,000 words
  • Biography & general non-fiction 50,000 to 120,000 words
  • Memoir & self-help 40,000 to 90,000 words
  • Novella 17,500 to 39,999
  • Novellette 7,500 to 17,499
  • Chapter books for children start at 16,000
  • Short story under 7,500
  • Flash fiction 500 to 1,000 words
  • Children’s picture books 400 to 800 words (some of mine are 1,200)

Splitting the Story

Splitting the word count to write the book

In my case I opted for 56,000 words (it has ended up being nearer the 60,000). As this was my first novel and I wanted to keep to time, I decided to aim for the same number of words per chapter using a table system.

The book had to have a beginning, a middle and an end and I wanted tension to build until the climax so this had to be factored in.

The grid or table includes the number of chapters split into one quarter for the beginning, one half for the middle and one quarter for the end. These quarters are then divided into 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and so on, depending on how long the book will be and how many chapters you want to include.

So for example for a 60,000 word book using a 6 grid system 6 x 4 or 24 chapters.

60,000/24 = 2,500 words per chapter (guide only, can be flexible)

There would need to be 6 chapters in section 1, 12 in section 2 and 6 in section 3

In this example there will need to be at least 24 chapters of 2,500 words each split into sections.

I outlined each of the chapters with points that would be included in each, building on the story and adding tension as the story developed. By the halfway stage the tension was building and by three quarters it was higher with no resolution in sight. The final quarter then built on that tension but arrived at resolution.

Quote

Writing in this way kept me to time 

I used 56,000 with the 5 grid system 5 x 4 or 20 chapters 

56,000/20 = 2,800 words per chapter. 

Writing the outline for each of those chapters helped me meet the target of writing the 2,800 per day. I didn’t stick to 20 chapters and have ended up with over 30 but that didn’t matter. The system helped me write the required number of words per day because I knew what I wanted to include in each of those grids.

Writing at a slower pace or writing more words

If you want to write at a slower pace you can write half the amount per day e.g. 1,400

If you want to write a much higher word count you will want to choose a higher number of grids resulting in more chapters. For example:

9 grid system 9 x 4 = 36

100,000/36 = 2,778 (give or take) words per day or half if you want to write slower

Conclusion

This is a system that has helped me and I hope that it helps you. If you want to learn more about this system check out Reverse Engineer Riveting Fiction by Geoff Shaw where he explains it much better and outlines plot building within the system.