And One Last Thing ...

(Laurie returning briefly--dry, warm, and electrified again.)

Two questions came in over at Mutterings yesterday that I thought I’d add to these Rap Sheet posts:

Do you often use a thesaurus? A dictionary? And do you use the Internet for research and how do you know to trust the information that you find there? Do you always cross-check it at a library or some other resource?

I use my dictionary and my thesaurus all the time, though more in the rewrites as I’m adding texture and wondering if that’s really how you spell that word. I use the Internet for simple questions, chronology and such, although for opinion and detailed information, I take everything with a cellar of salt, and look for second opinions either online, or in a book by someone reputable.

... I have always been amazed at your ability to manage the different “voices” of your varying characters in both first and third person. Is there anything you do to maintain the consistency of the characters over the course of several books? For example, after taking a break from Russell to write a Kate story, but then coming back to the Russells, do you go back to read something to get in the right frame of Russellian/Holmesian mind before sitting down to write her? Or does it come naturally?

Did Touchstone differ in any respect? Did the characters write themselves? How difficult was it to write the male characters you wrote for Touchstone, compared to your Russell and Martinelli series books?

Voice is an interesting game, isn’t it? I remember one of my early reviews referred to characters speaking in the same “flat idiom,” and although I wasn’t sure what that meant--still am not--I could tell it wasn’t good. In a book like Touchstone, with six main characters who all get their time at center stage, I need to ground each of them clearly in my mind, from Sarah’s slight ditheriness to Stuyvesant’s tough-guy Yank.

It takes some time to find those voices chattering away in the back of the head. In fact, knowing that I had to nail down Stuyvesant’s voice first and foremost, I spent a lot of the early weeks of the book reading boy books. I re-read every Child, Crais, and Connelly on my shelves. And Block and Eisler and Pelecanos and …

It’s amazing that I didn’t start spitting on the floor and bashing walls with my fists.