Chapter Member
Spotlight Profile
June 1999
Chapter MemberSpotlight Profile
June 1999
Pat Browning,
Steering Committee member
Pat Browning is an active member of SinC-IC, you may have seen her many posts both in the digest and on the boards. She is also a newly elected (June 1999) member of the Steering Committee. Pat has oodles of nonfiction writing experience, writing for newspapers and industry newsletters. Currently she writes a book column for the Hanford Sentinel in California. The column logo above is used with the permission and assistance of the Sentinel. She has also been busy taking fiction writing courses and writing her first novel. Pat's been all over the world and shares some of her experiences with us. Some themes found a place in her heart. See how neatly she picks up a theme in one of her favorite passages and builds on it in her own work.
Even now I know that I have savored the hot taste of life
Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast.
In the red clay hills of Oklahoma, or on the sandy beaches of the Malabar Coast, it is always the same, that yearning for the 'hot taste of life.' Early on the morning of my departure, the olive-eyed boy brought me tea and toast, lingering only for a moment. I had to catch the plane to Bangalore, and it was a long ride to the airport. He wished me well, and then demanded, 'You will remember me?' I said that I would, and I do. If I could have one wish this Christmas I would simply wish, for everyone, a place at the feast.
IC
Are you a reporter or a columnist with your local newspaper?
Pat
Until recently I was both. Family matters keep me at home right now but I do a monthly book column. I've been a reporter (spare time, part time, full time) for area newspapers off and on for almost 40 years. Even in a small town the news biz is exciting and it’s easy to think the world will stop if you don’t get your story written. Now and then the world really does stop, putting things into perspective. One of my cover features for the women’s section of The Fresno Bee ran the weekend of President Kennedy’s assassination. I remember thinking how proud I would have been any other time, and how puny my story was under the circumstances.I’ve always been a news junkie. When I was four or five I used to lie on the floor and look at The Daily Oklahoman, page by page, front to back, even though I could only “read” the pictures. Two popular ads burned into my memory featured the man who amazed his friends when he sat down to play the piano, and the man who kept his dirty hands in his pockets until he started using Lava soap. All these years later I use Lava to clean up after working in the yard. Who says advertising doesn’t pay?
IC
You are working on your first mystery novel. Have you written other fiction?
Pat
Not counting one-page haunted house stories dashed off and passed around my fifth grade classroom (self-publishing in its basic form), my only published fiction was a short-short story in The Kansas City Star, which came by mail. I was twelve and the story was some nonsense about fairies in a hollow tree. I think the Star sent me fifty cents. I was mortified when I saw the thing in print.Over the years I’ve sweated out short stories that were rejected, filed and forgotten. Rightfully so. They were terrible. About fifteen years ago I burned all of that stuff in the fireplace except for the first few pages of a novella. It was autobiographical and I’ve used bits of it in newspaper columns and features. I tried like crazy to slip it into the mystery I’m writing but it won’t fit. Maybe next time. As Archie McNally would say, “One never knows, do one?”
IC
Have you found your prior experience as a travel reporter has helped in setting scenes in your current work?
Pat
Not really. Reporting is about reduction, using a few good words to tell the story. Most of my travel reporting was for a trade journal, which shrinks the target audience considerably. You’re gathering information for travel agents rather than setting scenes. But no matter what I'm writing I always try to shoehorn in a few lines that evoke a sense of place. Even in a mystery, or perhaps especially in a mystery, the reader needs a sense of place.When I was growing up, popular novels went on endlessly about scenery, history, philosophy, whatever the author wanted to talk about, and I loved reading it. But in a mystery, I sometimes skim it because I want to move on with the story. There are writers who combine those various elements with great skill. I love the characters and stories Nevada Barr sets in our national parks, and those Tony Hillerman sets in the Four Corners area.
Books that evoke memories of my own travels are Stefanie Matteson’s Murder on the Silk Road; Jeanne M. Dams’ Holy Terror in the Hebrides; Robin Paige's (Bill and Susan Albert) Death at Rottingdean and Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish
One book eludes me, haunts me even. I found it about 1980 in a ship’s library during a rough stretch of coastal water that threatened to sink the ship. Otherwise I would have jotted down title and author. The setting centered on a lake in Yugoslavia, where the hero fended off bad guys looking for treasure tossed into the lake during World War II.
Yugoslavia was a place I loved. I even loved Belgrade, although I never heard anyone else say a good word for it. These days I think of a winter night in Belgrade’s lamplit Bohemian quarter. Packed cafés, everyone eating, singing, slugging down plum brandy. When the clock struck nine, rolling blackouts kicked in and waiters brought candles. Nobody missed a note or a drop. Haunts me still, book and country.
IC
Rolling blackouts? Is that another term for intermittent power failures? I can't imagine you were there during the 1940s' war-time blackouts.
Pat
They were scheduled power shutdowns, section by section throughout the city, due to an energy crisis. It was Nov. 1982. You're right, war-time 1940s would have been a little early for me to be tromping around Belgrade.I traveled through Yugoslavia several times, both during Tito's time and after he died, and there was so much energy in that country. They were building and rebuilding at a frenzied pace. Consider this: there were 40 miles of paved road in the entire country when WWII broke out. The Nazis came in blowing up bridges and villages; their fighter planes strafed people in the streets of Belgrade and there were concentration camps outside of town. But Yugoslavia was rugged terrain, with no roads to speak of, so Nazi tanks weren't much use. The people just went up into the hills and lived with the Partisans, or guerrillas, and the Nazis couldn't get to them there unless they wanted to go on foot.
In the '70s, after Tito broke with Russia and decided to open the country to tourists, the Yugoslavs started building roads and hotels and doing everything they could to encourage Westerners to come. Something I will never forget: I was in a tour bus rolling through a rural area on a brand new road--built in such a hurry that it sliced a little steepled church in half. The half that was left still stood beside the road.
The Yugoslavs had no experience with being an open country looking for tourists. They were starting from scratch and had very little money to work with and were pretty clumsy at first. The tourism industry was one big moveable feast in the 70s, with travel agents being wined and dined from all sides. If a major airline threw a party at the country club in Fresno, champagne flowed and agents came from near and far. If the Yugoslavs came to town they might put out coffee and doughnuts for breakfast and six people would show up. After a while they figured it out and jazzed up their programs a little.
They were going great guns with their expansion when I was there the last time, in Nov. 1982. When TV news announced Saturday that Jesse Jackson's party would take the three Americans by bus from Belgrade to Zagreb, I thought, yeah, I was there when they were building that highway. This whole Balkans mess curdles my insides.
IC
You've mentioned several books, mysteries, set in foreign locations. When you first selected the book was it because of the setting or because it was a mystery?
Pat
I was looking for mysteries, but the well-defined settings tipped the scales, whether in the bookstore or at the library. I buy lots of mysteries, usually in PB, but I have very little shelf space so most of them go to the library after I read them. The books I mentioned are keepers because they stir up memories of past travels.
IC
What attracted you to SinC?
Pat
I usually join business and professional groups related to my job, and I assumed that SinC was such a group for mystery writers. After I talked to someone from the San Joaquin chapter in Fresno, and was referred to the national group, I learned more about SinC’s objectives. They sounded worthwhile, so I joined the national and San Joaquin chapters. Then I surfed into the Internet Chapter’s Website and it seemed made to order, so I joined that chapter. SinC-IC opened up a whole new world. I’m indebted in too many ways to count.
IC
When did you first develop an interest in the mystery field and what sparked it?
Pat
Good question. I don’t know the answer. I read Nancy Drew mysteries growing up, but as an adult all I knew about mystery was what I saw on TV-- the Perry Mason series, Murder She Wrote, Mystery on PBS. When I began doing periodic book columns for The Hanford Sentinel, I went to the library and picked out some new books that looked interesting. One was a mystery called Creeping Jenny by John Sherwood and it was fun to read. I noted in my review that it yanked the traditional English village mystery into the 90s. Sometime later, for whatever reason, I began to think of trying to write a mystery.
IC
Not everyone who reads mysteries for pleasure then decides to write one. Why did you?
Pat
You force me to reveal the true depth of my shallowness. I honestly don’t remember why, but I remember when. I was taking a cigarette break at work when thoughts of writing a murder mystery drifted by. I began haunting the library and bookstore, bringing home mysteries by the armload. The only author’s name I knew was Mary Higgins Clark, so I paged through books for a quick take on dialogue, setting, etc. and picked books that looked interesting. In the first batch were The Bookman’s Wake by John Dunning, Lying in Wait by J.A. Jance and The Dandelion Murders by Rebecca Rothenberg. They are still favorites, and Rothenberg’s book is extra special because the setting is a few miles from where I live.About the same time, I got a computer, discovered the Internet and surfed into Walter Sorrells’s Website, The Mystery Zone. A link led to Al Alexander’s Crime Scene page. Al seemed discouraged and about ready to fold his tent but had a couple of books in soft cover left to sell. I bought How to Craft Murder Mystery & Suspense Novels That Sell and his novel The Last Blue Kiss. Al gave me some good advice, and said that I picked a good time to jump in because the market was open for female protagonists and female writers. So I was off to a flying start. The problem was that I was going at it backwards.
IC
In your current novel in progress, what has been the most difficult aspect to writing this book?
Pat
Same problem I’ve always had. Couldn’t plot my way out of a paper bag. That was the problem with my short stories, too. They didn’t go anywhere. When I decided to write this book, I sat at the computer inventing characters, researching settings, piling up pages. Whoopee time. After about a year, I decided a pro should look at it. I surfed into Carolyn Wheat’s Web page, liked what I saw, read some of her books, and decided to put myself in her capable hands. I sent her about 30 pages. She sent them back with blue lines drawn through most of them. What I had was about 30 pages of back story, description and interior monologue. Bo-ring.Carolyn waded through some rewrites of those same blasted 30 pages and a couple of clumsy attempts at a synopsis ( you can’t write a synopsis of nothing), and introduced me to the four story arcs that a mystery/suspense novel must have. Carolyn is great. I recommend her to anyone looking for a writing coach.
IC
You are participating in an online writers' workshop. Tell us what you like best about it and what least.
Pat
I’m just completing a four-week advanced plotting class taught by Eileen Alcorn, who’s a member of the Los Angeles chapter of SinC, and I’ll do four more weeks with her. I would really like to finish my book about the same time I finish the class in mid-July. The advantage of an online class is that you have a teacher and critic handy at all times, on a private message board and in a weekly chat. You can brainstorm and do Q & A seven days a week and it really keeps you pumped.I had read several good books on novel writing, but couldn’t seem to wrap my characters and my setting around the principles and techniques. s-l-o-w learner. About to throw in the towel. Here’s how the plot thickened.
August 1998: Eileen Alcorn offered a plotting class for beginners on the NovelAdvice Website. We stripped our novels-in-progress to the bone -- the “what if” exercise, and one-sentence descriptions of the three acts of our novels. Sounds simple, but it’s tough. You have to cut through the fuzz and fog to find the central unifying problem of the story. Four terrifying weeks!
February 1999: Alicia Rasley began The Plot-phobic’s 12-step Program to the Perfect Plot on the Painted Rock Website. She ran us through the wringer--internal, external and romantic plots, the protagonist’s external/internal journeys, his/her goal and what he/she is willing to do to achieve it, setups, conflicts, reversal. My head was spinning when the class ended. I was learning stuff faster than I could absorb it.
March 1999: Diana Fox announced signups for her Painted Rock class calledWriting Fast. Everything I’d learned in the past few months fell into place in that class. Two of Diana’s best tips: When you write a scene, enter late and leave early; if a scene doesn’t move the plot or show character development, dump it. She told us: You’ll come to loath padding and can sniff it out like a rotting corpse. Diana does what Hollywood calls a step-outline, a scene-by-scene outline of the story’s action (use verbs, forget adjectives). She e-mailed one of her step-outlines for a script that has been optioned. When I printed it out and saw the story skeleton at a glance, with every little bone in place, I said, Yeesssss! THAT’S what they mean by setups/payoffs, action/reaction, dialogue subtexts, the “power of 3" and so on and on.
April 1999: Back to NovelAdvice for Eileen Alcorn’s advanced plotting class. Light at the end of the tunnel. We’re a small group, working independently, bouncing ideas around on the message board and in the chat room. I now think of Eileen as both teacher and midwife. Responding to one of my plot summaries, she tossed out a comment on a problem that has bugged me for months. In my thank-you, I told her I could have saved myself a lot of pain by starting with the plot first. Her response sums it up so well, and I have her permission to quote. "I believe that when you write mystery you always need to start at the end first and work your way back to the beginning. If you haven't yet determined in your own mind how all this happened and why, trying to plot a trail which leads us to some conclusion becomes very difficult. Why? Because you don't know where you're going. Leading others while you're working blind is almost impossible to do. The mystery writers I know who say they work this way (without knowing the ending first) either lie, or write a zillion drafts in order to pull it together. It's very much like what you've been doing all along analyzing and discarding your options but with real writing attached. Painful. I don't recommend it."...Eileen Alcorn
IC
Do you recall what your favorite book was during high school or, if not the title, what types of books you read for pleasure?
Pat
I loved novels with sweeping historical themes and strong heroines such as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind and Edna Ferber’s books, especially So Big. A short story I loved was “Turkey Red” by Hamlin Garland. A few years ago one of our local librarians found an anthology containing “Turkey Red” in the library basement. She dusted it off and I did an oral reading for a women’s club. The story still moves me to tears.
IC
Now that you are writing a mystery novel, are you reading more, less, or about the same number of books as you did previously?
Pat
I didn’t read fiction for years. Three years ago when I decided I wanted to write a mystery, I began lugging mysteries home by the dozens. If it’s a cozy or police procedural or private eye novel written in the past 10 years I have probably read it. I don’t read horror, science fiction or much suspense. Novels about mass murderers, stalkers, serial killers, rapists, child molesters and other crazies creep me out. A few years ago I bought Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (true story but written in a novelist’s style) and I didn’t sleep well for weeks after reading it. The writing was brilliant, the story scared me to death. Finally I took the book out of my bookcase, tore it apart with my hands and burned it. Only time I ever destroyed a book.
IC
Who is your favorite fictional character and what question would you like to ask that character?
Pat
In general fiction: My all-time fave is Auntie Mame, and I'd ask her: Is this seat taken? In mystery fiction: My role model is Agatha Raisin. She's getting old and fat and cranky, but she's still kicking the gong around. I'd ask her: Have you tried the high protein-low carb diet?
IC
I’ve never asked our guests before, but with all the recent chatter about writing software, maybe now’s the time. What is your favorite writing package or is it a matter of ‘use what you know’?
Pat
I have two software programs, Dramatica and Story Builder, and haven’t had time to use either. Dramatica looks a bit complicated. Story Builder looks user-friendly and great for organizing work. Too late, I realized that if I could slay the plotting dragon I wouldn’t need writing software, at least not this time. Software programs are expensive. For me, the money would have been better spent in an online seminar tackling a specific problem.
IC
How about a closing thought for SinC-IC visitors?
Pat
Why are mysteries so popular? The simple answer seems to be that mysteries tie up loose ends and give us closure. The White Hats chase the Black Hats out of town. Just as the brave knight of legend slew the dragon, today’s mystery protagonist brings the evildoer to justice.Mysteries try to bring some order out of chaos by taking up the hard questions. I just finished reading The Hanging Garden, Ian Rankin’s latest Inspector Rebus mystery. In this one, Rebus pursues an accused war criminal who has lived a long and apparently blameless life in England since World War II. Another character says to Rebus: “You are not investigating the crimes of an old man, but those of a young man who now happens to be old. Focus your mind on that. There have been investigations before, half-hearted affairs. Governments wait for these men to die rather than have to try them. But each investigation is an act of remembrance, and remembrance is never wasted. Remembrance is the only way we learn.”
This interview was conducted during the month of May for SinC-IC by Louise Guardino
Pat Browning Louise Guardino
Read an earlier Spotlight Profile.
