Writing Between The Lines with PJ Parrish
The sister duo of P.J. Parrish (Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols) have written nine books, most featuring the character of former police officer Louis Kincaid. Their seventh novel, An Unquiet Grave, won the Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original of 2006 and the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Their follow-up, A Thousand Bones, has been nominated for a Thriller Award in the Best Paperback Original of 2007 category. Their new novel, South of Hell, continues their amazing string of successes.How did you both end up collaborating?
To make a long sad story shorter and sweeter: Kris had four books published in the Eighties in women's fiction (i.e. long, heartfelt family saga kind of things) but got let go as part of a coup d'etat at her publishing house. She decided to take an agent's advice and try writing mysteries instead. But her first effort was really bad (nobody dead in the first 200 pages. The agent advised her to read some P.D. James and try again). Kelly, coincidently, had been working in a Mississippi casino while trying to write her own novel about a young biracial cop who becomes entangled in a twenty-year-old lynching case. Kris's husband suggested they team up and thus was born Louis Kincaid.How do you write together?
It has become so easy that we now wonder how anyone can write alone. We live in separate states so we rely on almost daily phone conversations with an annual in-the-flesh meeting (usually two to three weeks) where we sprint to the finish line together. We write equally -- roughly every other chapter -- but only after lengthy discussions of plot, motive, etc. We don't outline but we try to work from a template of about four chapters at a time. Writing for us is like traveling down a road at night; we know our destination but we can only see ahead as far as our headlights go. After we agree on a template, we take "assignments" based on who has the better feel for the scene, write our chapters and then exchange them over AOL for massaging and input as needed. We've developed many tricks over the decade we've been working together, such as: keeping detailed plot chronologies, location photos, and character boards (photos we cut from magazines so we agree on what characters look like. The Florida Department of Corrections website is a great source as are society magazines, oddly enough). We also have a system of plotting using Post-It notes, on which we write the basic details of each scene or chapter and then put them on a large board. They are color-coded: Yellow for basic "case" plot, blue for backstory, and pink for "personal" scenes. If we have a multiple POV story, we add colors for the various POVs. This makes it easy to move various scenes around as needed and keep a balance between action scenes and scenes that dwell more on character. It also helps us keep POVs in balance so one is not too dominant. This might sound anal, but seeing your story broken down this way -- much like story-boarding in movies -- allows us to keep a tighter rein on the story's arc, its pacing and its suspense quotient.
Has your lives changed as a result of winning the Thriller Award for An Unquiet Grave? (And you are in the running for this year's Best Paperback Original as well).
The great thing about the Thriller Award is that it is a badge of credibility within your community. It is one of the few awards that is awarded by your peers, so it means all that much more. And because we have both been judges for ITW and other contests like it, we know how difficult it is to single out finalists, let alone one winner. On the practical side: many say awards don't carry much weight, but we know that booksellers, publishing folks and tuned-in readers take notice. And it sure helped with our foreign sales last year.
What sparked the idea for your new novel, South of Hell?
We have both been interested in reincarnation and especially past-life regression therapy. Kris even had a regression session with Dr. Brian Weiss, author of the seminal book Many Lives, Many Masters back in the Eighties. When we thought about using regression in our Louis Kincaid series, we were worried our editor might not want us to venture into "woo-woo" territory. The conventional wisdom is that once you have established your reputation in gritty suspense, veering into sub-genres like paranormal or romance is professional suicide. Will your readers follow you or desert you? But we decided we could make the reincarnation element work if we presented it in such a way that allows the reader to make the final judgment as to its veracity. And the story had to be true to our character's core beliefs and Louis is definitely a "let me see the evidence" type of cop. It was a really challenging book to write.
How do you develop the voice for Louis and Joe?
Both seemed to emerge naturally and without effort. We have been with Louis for ten years now so we know him as well as we know ourselves. Joe came a little harder (she debuted in last year's A Thousand Bones.) Weird thing is, we found it harder to write in a female voice than a male. That is probably one for the shrinks out there.
How difficult is it to keep a series fresh for the reader and you?
Very hard. We have just started Louis book #10 and are frankly concerned about hitting that wall many series writers do. If you aren't careful, an ambivalence can creep into your character, like you begin to take him for granted. That's death, because readers can smell it before you do. Also, with thrillers, there is the temptation to ratchet up the violence and drama with each successive outing. This is worse if you have a series character because the accumulated weight of the violence over say ten books becomes almost cartoonish. The anecdote for us at least has been to find freshness in plumbing our characters' personal story arcs. Unlike Jack Reacher, Louis doesn't travel light -- which is one of the main plot points of South of Hell.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being published as a paperback original? Is hardcover on the horizon?
That's a tough question, mainly because these days success in publishing seems to be a constantly moving target. If you are still building the mass audience that you need to be a bestseller (i.e. having wide distribution in all outlets, not just bookstores) you need as many of your books out in the market as possible. And publishers are often more willing to put out big numbers in paperback because the risk is lower. So if someone asks us, would you rather have 250,000 copies of your books out or 15,000, I would go for PBO. Of course you lose something by not being in hard cover: prestige, some reviews, and perhaps some credibility. But review space is shrinking fast so that's less an issue and if someone thinks a book's format is an indication of its quality, well, they really aren't paying attention lately. When we will go to hardcover? Our publisher is considering it. We do know that it can be suicide to take a paperback original author to hardcover if the numbers can't support it in this fragile market. And sadly, survival is all about numbers, isn't it.
As the series continues, do you plan to bring Louis and Joe closer to the era of DNA and computers?
Ha! Funny you should mention that. Our series "ages" in real time and we are bumping up against the advent of DNA. Luckily, most cop-shops couldn't afford the tests in the early years, so we figure we've got five years before we have to deal with it. We get a lot of fan mail from readers who say they are glad we don't deal with modern technology because it forces Louis and Joe to use their wits more. Folks still like a good old fashioned yarn.
What is next for PJ Parrish?
The new book takes place in Palm Beach at the nexus of sex and political power. Did we mention it all starts with a headless body found in the sugar cane fields? Now there's a headline for the New York Post.
Contributing editor Jeff Ayers is the author of VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION: THE STAR TREK FICTION COMPANION Pocket
Books-November 2006. He frequently reviews thrillers for Library
Journal and regularly interviews authors for LJ, the Seattle
Post-Intellgencer, and Writer Magazine.
The great thing about the Thriller Award is that it is a badge of credibility within your community. It is one of the few awards that is awarded by your peers, so it means all that much more. And because we have both been judges for ITW and other contests like it, we know how difficult it is to single out finalists, let alone one winner. On the practical side: many say awards don't carry much weight, but we know that booksellers, publishing folks and tuned-in readers take notice. And it sure helped with our foreign sales last year.
What sparked the idea for your new novel, South of Hell?We have both been interested in reincarnation and especially past-life regression therapy. Kris even had a regression session with Dr. Brian Weiss, author of the seminal book Many Lives, Many Masters back in the Eighties. When we thought about using regression in our Louis Kincaid series, we were worried our editor might not want us to venture into "woo-woo" territory. The conventional wisdom is that once you have established your reputation in gritty suspense, veering into sub-genres like paranormal or romance is professional suicide. Will your readers follow you or desert you? But we decided we could make the reincarnation element work if we presented it in such a way that allows the reader to make the final judgment as to its veracity. And the story had to be true to our character's core beliefs and Louis is definitely a "let me see the evidence" type of cop. It was a really challenging book to write.
How do you develop the voice for Louis and Joe?
Both seemed to emerge naturally and without effort. We have been with Louis for ten years now so we know him as well as we know ourselves. Joe came a little harder (she debuted in last year's A Thousand Bones.) Weird thing is, we found it harder to write in a female voice than a male. That is probably one for the shrinks out there.
How difficult is it to keep a series fresh for the reader and you?
Very hard. We have just started Louis book #10 and are frankly concerned about hitting that wall many series writers do. If you aren't careful, an ambivalence can creep into your character, like you begin to take him for granted. That's death, because readers can smell it before you do. Also, with thrillers, there is the temptation to ratchet up the violence and drama with each successive outing. This is worse if you have a series character because the accumulated weight of the violence over say ten books becomes almost cartoonish. The anecdote for us at least has been to find freshness in plumbing our characters' personal story arcs. Unlike Jack Reacher, Louis doesn't travel light -- which is one of the main plot points of South of Hell.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being published as a paperback original? Is hardcover on the horizon?
That's a tough question, mainly because these days success in publishing seems to be a constantly moving target. If you are still building the mass audience that you need to be a bestseller (i.e. having wide distribution in all outlets, not just bookstores) you need as many of your books out in the market as possible. And publishers are often more willing to put out big numbers in paperback because the risk is lower. So if someone asks us, would you rather have 250,000 copies of your books out or 15,000, I would go for PBO. Of course you lose something by not being in hard cover: prestige, some reviews, and perhaps some credibility. But review space is shrinking fast so that's less an issue and if someone thinks a book's format is an indication of its quality, well, they really aren't paying attention lately. When we will go to hardcover? Our publisher is considering it. We do know that it can be suicide to take a paperback original author to hardcover if the numbers can't support it in this fragile market. And sadly, survival is all about numbers, isn't it.
As the series continues, do you plan to bring Louis and Joe closer to the era of DNA and computers?
Ha! Funny you should mention that. Our series "ages" in real time and we are bumping up against the advent of DNA. Luckily, most cop-shops couldn't afford the tests in the early years, so we figure we've got five years before we have to deal with it. We get a lot of fan mail from readers who say they are glad we don't deal with modern technology because it forces Louis and Joe to use their wits more. Folks still like a good old fashioned yarn.
What is next for PJ Parrish?
The new book takes place in Palm Beach at the nexus of sex and political power. Did we mention it all starts with a headless body found in the sugar cane fields? Now there's a headline for the New York Post.
Contributing editor Jeff Ayers is the author of VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION: THE STAR TREK FICTION COMPANION Pocket
Books-November 2006. He frequently reviews thrillers for Library
Journal and regularly interviews authors for LJ, the Seattle
Post-Intellgencer, and Writer Magazine. ThrillerFest
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