by Shelley Costa
I wrote the love scene first. And that was over 30 years ago. It was one of those unspoken challenges, one of those invisible gauntlets, this one dropped by Sue Grafton in G Is for Gumshoe, published in 1990. If you’ve read it, the seventh book in her wonderful Kinsey Millhone series, you may recall the love scene. It had something to do with Dietz and a staircase, and it was fabulous. All right, Missy, I told Sue Grafton in my imagination, I’ll see your Dietz and a staircase, and I accept your challenge – which you personally know nothing about – to do you one better. And so, I began. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had a winter book, because I needed them sprawling in the snow. I had a trailer because I needed them relocating to a small and intimate and glowing warm space. And I had a morning after that – as my West Virginia granny used to say – busted it all to flinders. He is, after all, a murder suspect. The dynamics, the descriptions, felt like an Adagio to me, and I loved it. The problem was, now I had to write a book around that scene.
According to Google, for what it’s worth, a person at 30 should have been paying into a retirement account, learned a foreign language because it’s good for the brain, delved into roots, managed time, and dressed for success. My little love scene that fell somewhere in the first third of what became the book has done none of those things at 30. Instead, it has become this timeless entity. Character names have changed over the years, along with the color of sweaters, the background music – and some of the pillow talk didn’t age well, so out it went. But the essentials of who these two characters are, what they think of each other, the compelling utter randomness of the sudden love, all that remains the same. Including the trailer. Including the snow.
Along the way, I figured out the other pesky details: the manner of the victim’s death, the labyrinth of the investigation, the choreography of the confrontation with the killer, and how a salamander – yes! — has something to do with the emotional aftermath of murder. In some ways, the love scene written 30 years ago is a counterpoint to all that awfulness. But in other ways, it is deeply embedded in and shaped – and unchanged – by all that awfulness. So here is what that 30-year-old scene taught me about writing the novel, and I pass it on for your own consideration. There is nothing holding you to beginning the work at the beginning. I’ve always told my students to write around in the story. If the fish aren’t biting in one hole, find another. Begin with the scene that comes to you, wherever it ultimately belongs in the tale, because that’s where your heart is. Writing your heart will set a fine tone for the entire work. And you will write something that matters.
Finally, one other thing has remained the same through the years from the time I responded to Sue Grafton’s Dietz and a staircase, and that’s my heroine’s name. It’s Marian. It has always been Marian. My first full-time job after college was in New York book publishing, where I was Editorial Assistant to Marian Wood. Some call her the redoubtable Marian Wood, and by me, they are correct. From her, I learned the meaning of a great boss, the value and beauty of great prose, and the possibility of rolling passion, taste, intelligence and just plain hard work into office life. Just a few days ago, I did a Google search and learned that Marian Wood died three years ago. My very deep sadness didn’t surprise me. Ironically, she was Sue Grafton’s longtime editor. So, she knew all about Dietz and the staircase.
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