Susan Oleksiw

During the spring much of my focus is on reading stories for the next Crime Spell Books anthology. This is our fifth year (and the third anthology/literary journal I've started and spent years working on), and we're considering offering more than our usual twenty or so stories—a form of celebration for our readers.
 
But I'm also writing a story, and have been using a key to each individual character. It begins with a name. Characters have to match their names in some ineffable manner. Use the wrong name, and the character falls flat, and is flat. But get the name right, and the character breathes and fills out. Once a character is named and starts appearing on the page, the writer can't and shouldn't change it. I tried that once, and the rest of the book never felt right, so I had to go back to the beginning and correct my errors. This is a beginning writer's error, and I was indeed a newbie, struggling with my first novel. (It won. I was defeated, but I learned a lot.)
 
Sometimes I use a dictionary of names, and for this story I've made a list that are keys to the characters. Names give me ideas, but also delimit what the person can do. For one figure in particular I chose the name Miriam because I did want her to be disappointed, bitter, which is the definition of Miriam. But when I came to describe her conduct in a key scene I found out exactly what she was bitter about, and it wasn't at all what I expected. It also wasn't in my plan for the story. The question here is, What do I do about it? And the answer is, Nothing.
 
When a character takes off and emerges from my pen (or typing fingers), I've learned to give in and not try to correct it. I did try that once and got nowhere. I operate under the illusion that I control my typing, my thoughts and plans for my fiction. But sometimes I don't. I can't cross my unconscious. If it has decided this or that character will behave in a certain way, I have to go along with it, or the writing stops. If I want to go on writing, I have to open a new blank page and pick another topic.
 
Lots of people will think this is an exaggeration, an overly dramatic expression of how hard it is to write, and on and on and on. But when you are fully in tune with your creative unconscious, a part that arrives unbidden, first you are grateful for it, and second you are wary to break the spell. It's like ignoring your conscience. You can do it, but it won't go well.
 
Miriam brought a new thread into my story, so my job now is to trace it along and find out where it leads, what it means and what to do with it. This can be the best part of writing, as exciting for the writer as it is for the reader—the experience of discovery, of not knowing what's going to happen when I turn the page, of the delicious pleasure of surprise.
 
That's where I am now. You can read the final result in the upcoming anthology, Snakeberry: Best New England Crime Stories 2025, available in November.

Maintaining a Mystery Series with Nicole Asselin, Sharon Healy-Yang, Edith Maxwell, and Susan Oleksiw, SinCNE zoom 4.2.25

This past week I participated in a zoom webinar sponsored by Sisters in Crime New England chapter. Our topic was maintaining a mystery series, and the participants were Nicole Asselin, moderator, with Sharon Healy-Yang, Edith Maxwell, and yours truly. I've done dozens of panels, online and in person, over the years, with a variety of writers. I've never been on a panel with Edith and Sharon before, as far as I can recall, but I did a workshop a few years ago with Nicole. I don't know why some programs work better than others, but last night all four of us came away feeling we'd had a very special evening.
 
One factor was, of course, the speakers. We knew each other, had spent time together and worked together, but we weren't close friends. As a result there were no insider or private jokes. We knew each other but also many of the listeners equally well. Forty people registered. I failed to look at the number who signed in, but a rolling list of names of people saying hello, I'm from . . .  filled the right-hand screen.
 
The topic was one the four of us have grappled with for a while, and Edith Maxwell has to be an expert on this one. She has several series in progress, and all have their following. I have two and one that never quite got off the ground, and Sharon has one series that despite ups and downs with a publisher (another problem) lives on. She's on book number 4, which many writers will tell you can be crucial to the continuation of the series.
 
Perhaps it was the genre. Mystery writers and readers are devoted to the genre, and their enthusiasm can lift any gathering to a higher level, above the text-book responses to questions we all have to face and answer coherently. I've been to plenty of conferences and other online events, and writers in other genres don't have nearly as much fun as mystery writers, no matter the questions. And perhaps that's because we don't take ourselves too seriously.
 
I'm sure our professional courtesy played a role. Everyone got to talk about any version of the question that called to them. Nicole didn't miss an opportunity to draw in someone who was listening so intently that she forgot she was supposed to speak. When one panelist's zoom link went wonky, we waited, it came back, she spoke, it went and returned, and the points she wanted to make were made.
 
Another sign of the general mutual respect among the panelists, no one took too much time in answering any of the questions, contributing to the dialogue or offering her own question. No one hogged the microphone, as it were. We were engaged in conversation, not sales or promotion.
 
I'm certain one of the key factors in last evening's success is our moderator, Nicole Asselin. She joined in the conversation, but never forgot her responsibilities to direct the dialogue and cover the topic.
 
Analyzing why something like a panel works is sort of like trying to figure out why a joke is funny. You can do it, but you still won't really know. Sometimes there's great synergy, and we were lucky to have it last night. Thank you, ladies, and thank you to our listeners.