Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Their Wildest Dreams’

First Sentences and the Whole Story

I did an interview this week for About the Authors TV with Jake Brown, an excellent and well-informed interviewer. He remarked that the first sentences of some of my novels seem to encapsulate the whole story, almost micro novels in themselves. Later, that got me wondering where these first sentences came from. No thoughts arrived on this subject so I soon gave up. The interview will be on YouTube and other places around pub date for Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge – July 25. Meanwhile here’s one of the first sentences Jake mentioned, from Their Wildest Dreams, one of several turning points in my career:

Mackie dreaded the mail.

Saturday Morning Coffee

I woke up this morning thinking of the desert. The Sonoran desert, specifically. I fell in love with Arizona during the writing of Their Wildest Dreams. I think it’s the first book where I broadened some of the humor a little bit – so in two ways at least it’s a precursor to Chet and Bernie. No canine narrator in Their Wildest Dreams. The POV is multiple third-person close. In desperate financial straits, Mackie, the main character and a former dancer, tries working in a strip club. I got an email from a stripper telling me the thoughts in Mackie’s head while performing were just like hers. A stroke of luck. How could I ever have researched something like that? (Don’t even go there.)

 

Beginnings

On Sunday we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. How about Their Wildest Dreams, the first book where I got interested in writing about Arizona?

(“Peter Abrahams… is once again at the top of his game in this wildly inventive, captivating caper. – Publishers Weekly)

Mackie dreaded the mail. That was new, one of the many new things in her life, none good.

Beginnings

On Sunday we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker. How about Their Wildest Dreams, my first stab at writing about Arizona?

(“Peter Abrahams… is once again at the top of his game in this wildly inventive, captivating caper. – Publishers Weekly)

Mackie dreaded the mail. That was new, one of the many new things in her life, none good.