It's been far too long since Dana King visited us here at Omnimystery News, and we wanted to bring him back to give us an update on his work.
The most recent mystery in his Nick Forte series is The Man in the Window (July 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked him to tell us more about his characters, plots, and, well, anything else that comes to mind while writing a mystery.
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Dana King
No series of books can exist without a strong protagonist readers can empathize with. That doesn't mean the subordinate characters are unimportant. Think of Spenser without Hawk or Susan. True, some of us could have lived without Susan altogether, but that relationship was part of what made Spenser Spenser, and showed he was more than a tough guy. Mike Hammer had Velda and Pat Chambers. Patrick Kenzie had Angie Gennaro and Bubba Rogowski. Dave Robicheaux has Clete, a series of soon-to-be-dead wives, and Alafair.
That admittedly abbreviated list has something else in common, too: contrast. The protagonist needs more than one type of character to play off of, and the books need variety in well-developed characters if they are to have the ring of truth. Readers tend to have favorites. ("Well, sure, I like Poke Rafferty, but it's Arthit I look forward to seeing.") I once had a writer friend tell me never to let anything happen to Nick Forte's secretary/office manager Sharon Summers. Quite a few people have asked to see more of Mad Shea from Wild Bill. (A standalone, but Will Hickox's relationship with Mad was a key element to his character, and helped drive the plot.) Still, my favorite of all my supporting characters is Forte's daughter, Caroline.
I'm not alone in that feeling. I wondered early on in the Forte stories if the Caroline chapters slowed down the book. After all, nothing happens with the plot while Forte takes time off to spend with his eight/nine/ten-year-old daughter. They eat, they play catch, they go shopping. In the current book, The Man in the Window, they buy a new DVD player ("Black is the official color of high technology") and make tomato sandwiches ("Always cut the sandwich on the diagonal"). I wanted my beta readers to tell me if those scenes could go.
Apparently not. People not only love Caroline, they love the side of Forte she brings out. He's goofier around her, but not so lenient they don't spend one of their precious days together cleaning school equipment a classmate talked her into vandalizing. Caroline becomes his sanity check as events push Forte to darker places, a cherished connection in a rapidly diminishing number of access points to the brighter and cleaner world. By the next book in the series (A Dangerous Lesson, due out later this year) he comes to her for consolation, though he makes sure she doesn't know that.
I'm a believer in Stephen King's version of "write what you know," which is to write about whatever you want and flesh it out with things you know intimately to create a sense in the reader that, if he knows this so well, maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt on the rest. The catch is it's been fifty years since I was ten years old, and even longer since I've been a ten-year-old girl. ("Never" is significantly longer than fifty years.) What do I know about Caroline?
Not much, frankly. I have been a father to a ten-year-old girl, though, and that wasn't nearly as long ago. Since the reader gets the story exclusively through Forte's point of view, what's important is to show how he views his daughter, even more than how she might differ from his perception. And for that I have a perfect model. I didn't even have to reach for the name. My daughter's middle name was to be Caroline until her mother decided she liked Kimberly better. (I was good with either, and Rachel was my idea in the first place.)
I make up very little of what Forte and Caroline do. I elaborate on things — never let the truth get in the way of a good story — and I juxtapose events here and there, but Caroline is as close to Rachel at that age as I can get her. The technique worked so well for me I built the Penns River series on it. Penns River itself is based on a cluster of three small towns — not quite 30,000 people between them — where I grew up and still visit regularly. Ben Dougherty's parents are very much mine. The climax of Grind Joint takes place in the house where I grew up and my parents still reside. (Which is the house where the climax of Grind Joint takes place.) Hell, my father's first name is Benjamin, my mother's maiden name is Dougherty, and her father's friends all called him "Doc." I did not agonize late into the night to come up with any of this.
So why am I telling you? The most commonly asked question readers have for authors is "Where do you get your ideas?" I always say everyone is tripping over ideas every day and the secret is to find those that best suit your talents. That's a little glib, but just a little. A lot of imaginative energy goes into writing a book. Pick and save the low-hanging fruit when you find it. (Assuming it's ripe for the purpose at hand.) You never know when it'll come in handy.
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Dana King’s first Nick Forte novel, A Small Sacrifice, was nominated for a 2013 Shamus Award. His short fiction has also appeared in the original Thuglit, A Touch of Noir, Mysterical-E, and other web sites. He lives in suburban Maryland with The Beloved Spouse.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DanaKingAuthor.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Man in the Window by Dana King
A Nick Forte Mystery
Publisher: Dana King
Nick Forte doesn't want Marshall Burton's case. Forte hates divorce work and doesn't care much for Burton, either. Still, he has bills to pay, and still has them when Burton is shot dead, apparently the innocent bystander of a drive-by. Or not. An eccentric and mysterious friend of Burton's thinks the wife had him killed and hires Forte to find out.
Forte's investigation leads him back toward his musical roots, where an old friend keeps him connected, eventually leading to a plot involving both terrorists and acclaimed musicians, and Forte suffers a loss greater than he's known before.
— The Man in the Window by Dana King
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