Fact v. Fiction

By Kathryn Casey

A while back when my latest true crime book, Shattered, debuted, I wrote a post on a writer's life, talking about my experiences as a working author. I hope I didn't dissuade any of you from trying it. A couple of my friends have told me that I'm a bit disillusioning on the subject, but I've always believed that people need to hear the truth, and writing is a pretty tough way to make a living. There are those authors who write one book and hit The New York Times list. (Why God, not me?) But for most of us, it's a long, competitive road.

Perhaps part of the reason I see writing as I do is that I've spent so many years writing non-fiction crime books, in other words, true crime. Covering a big case is a monumental task. I manage to turn out about a book a year, but there's always a lot of angst as I work my way through a long list of interviews, collect mountains of testimony and court documents, and spend weeks locked up in a courtroom listening to evidence. It's been tough at times, but as I've probably said here before, because I say it often, the years spent writing true crime have also been an education in law enforcement, especially homicide investigations.

The bottom line is that for the past couple of decades, I've focused on writing about real murder cases. Looking back, it's been a good way to learn a lot about what what happens behind the scenes in a sensational murder investigation. Now, for the other truth: It also plants scenes in your head, ones you can draw from when you take another step, moving from fact to fiction.

I did that about five years ago--actually a bit longer than that--when I first sat down to write my mystery series. The first book, Singularity, took me years to finish. I started and stopped a bunch of times. I guess I was having a hard time freeing my imagination and allowing it to stray from the facts. The second book in the series, Blood Lines, came out last year. And yesterday, ta dah, the third debuted, The Killing Storm.

Although I didn't think about it while writing, I used a lot of my true crime experience when pulling it together. First, the missing kid case in the book. I did an article on a group of missing kid cases for Ladies' Home Journal years ago. I've never forgotten the experience. The parents even decades later were still on the edge of their emotions, praying daily that their children would be found. Is it always that way? No. Of course, not. All you have to do is look at Casey Anthony for an example of the polar opposite.

Then there's the ritualistic slaying of longhorns in the book. In The Killing Storm, someone is murdering the beasts and drawing strange symbols on their sides. My heroine, Sarah, has to decipher the clues that eventually appear to be connected not only with the longhorn killer but the fate of the missing child. Where did that come from? When I was working on the book, I remembered a group of Florida murders a profiler friend told me about, in which symbols weren't used but another medium of communication was. In that case, the victims' bodies were mutilated and positioned in certain ways to spell out the killer's motives. The crime scene photos were frightening but at the same time, I hate to admit this, rather morbidly fascinating.

Finally, the storm in my book. Here, I didn't have to go out in search of an experience. I live in Houston, so every so many years a hurricane comes calling. I'm sure all I need to say is that The Killing Storm was written following Hurricane Ike for all of you to understand my inspiration. In the book, the storm is a ticking clock, propelling the action. It becomes imperative for the boy to be found before the hurricane hits. If not? The unthinkable will happen.

I guess all those years of first-hand experience have paid off, because the reviews have been great, from Kirkus calling the book "pulse-pounding," to Publisher's Weekly saying it's "the best in the series so far." Library Journal honored it with a star, and Booklist said, "solid crime fiction with a real feel for the humanity of the characters."

So, after years of covering real murders, I'm now making it all up, and it's fun. There's so much that's exciting about writing fiction, from being able to twist and turn a plot to birthing your characters, including attributes and foibles. After all these years as a true crime writer, with fiction, I'm finally in control. And you know what? I like it.

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A writer's life

by Kathryn Casey

The truth is that there's always one. Whenever I have a new book out, as I do right now with Shattered, I emerge from the confines of my office, momentarily unlatched from my computer, eyes blurred from months of staring at the screen, ready to meet the world and do book signings. Now let's be honest, what I'm there for is to connect with people who enjoy reading and, I hope, sell some books. Meanwhile, what those who attend are there for varies. Some folks like to drop in just to say hi and tell me that they enjoy my books. Others come to ask questions, bringing up different aspects of the cases in my books or inquiring about the inspiration for my fictional characters.

While that's why most have come, at nearly every book signing at least one person in the audience is an aspiring author, someone who dreams of being published. They come for two reasons. First, they inquire about what it's really like to write books. Second, they're hoping for pointers on how to get started, how to make their own dreams come true.

Before we go any further, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the answers. While I'm delighted with the success I have had, I'm still waiting to find my name on the NY Times list. (Fingers crossed. God, are you listening?) If I knew how to make that happen, I'd be Stephen King (hmm, maybe not?), Patricia Cornwell (a bit dark?), or my friend Ann Rule. That said, my guess is that if you ask them, they'd admit that they don't know all the answers either. I'm convinced that a healthy percentage of success in any endeavor is luck, that old being-at-the-right-place-at-the-right-time combo. In the writing world, that translates to picking the right topic, doing a bang-up job on the manuscript, getting it in the hands of the best agent, who sells it to the perfect editor, and then having magic happen, the cosmic coming together of worlds that propels a book to the top of the lists.

Still, most of the people I meet aren't necessarily dreaming of hitting the big time, at least not initially. They're more concerned with seeing their work in print. What I'd like to do is talk now to those of you out there who want to do what I've done, build a career as a writer.

First off, and this is important, you have to need to do it. The successful authors I know didn't have any other choices. Something in them told them that they have to write, often from a young age. There's so much rejection in writing, so many projects that fall through, hopes that are dashed, that to do it you have to love it, or it'll drive you near crazy.

So, that's concern number one: Are you truly cut out to write for a living? How do you know? Well, in addition to feeling the need to write, are you willing to take rejection, because it'll be there, be assured. Are you focused enough to pound away at your typewriter even when a blue-sky day beckons you to the garden or the guy next door suggests a Saturday morning golf game? Are you dedicated enough to stay up half the night pounding out that manuscript while the rest of the world sleeps, and strong enough to still make it to your day job?

You have to truly need to write, want to write, because there are always easier, more enjoyable and probably more profitable distractions. (Mine? Scrabble on the Net. Geez, I need to figure out how to delete that game.) The desire to write has to be a part of you, like hankering for pasta and a good glass of red wine, like the instant warmth you feel gazing at a beloved child. It has to be as much a part of you as your eyes, for it will shape how you see the world.

If you've said yes to those questions, your first task as a would-be writer is to read, not just anything but good books in your chosen genre. And read about writing. My favorite book on writing and life is one I've mentioned on the blog before, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Some of the chapters still make me laugh, like the one entitled "Shitty First Drafts."

So what's it like being a writer? The scene I opened this post with is the one most folks have of the writing life, authors holed in their offices, feverishly working on a project. It's actually kind of like that when you write fiction. You have to be willing to segregate yourself from the world for months at a time, letting your imagination take over and propelling you through a fantasy land populated by your fictional characters. In truth, I actually enjoy this part. When the writing is going well, it's as if the characters take over, moving the book along. I've had some pop up when I didn't expect them. The first time it happened, I was shocked. Now I welcome them in, often suggesting they take over the project and tell my story for me.

Non-fiction is quite a bit different. For months before I sit down to write a true crime book, I'm researching, attending trials, interviewing sources. Then there's the monumental task of organizing all my files, one I dread. Yet it's important. When I finally do sit down to write, it's all worth it; I have a wealth of information at my fingertips.

Since I work out of a home office, I wear blinders and walk past the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, around the pile of clothes waiting to be washed on the laundry room floor, to get to my spare bedroom turned office. It's easy to get waylaid and find at the end of the day that I've accomplished nothing. One popular question involves my schedule. I write best in the afternoons. I have no idea why. Maybe there's some truth to that biorhythm theory? For other writers it's different. I know some who write through the night and others who get up early to work, before daybreak. But for me, my work flows better after lunch. Once started, if not interrupted, I'll work until ten or eleven at night with only the occasional stretch and bathroom break.

Next is that all important question: How to get published?

Well, that's tricky, it's true. I'd suggest starting smaller than a book. If you're interested in non-fiction, try writing for magazines or newspapers, a blog on the Internet, get some clips in your portfolio. This will give you the opportunity to do some networking, including meeting editors who can recommend you to agents, if they deem your work worthy. If you write fiction, why not enter a short story contest? If you win, you'll have a published piece to mention in cover letters to agents.

What about writers' groups? They're great, but they can also be a trap. Some writers I know end up working on the same short story or book for years, refining it over and over, never feeling as if it's completed because folks in their writers group are still nitpicking. My advice is to take criticism in context, make changes until you're happy with the piece, and then consider it finished.

As I mentioned above, there's that old bugaboo, rejection. Along with loving to write, to be published requires courage. At a certain point, a writer who wants to become an author needs to suck it up, slip the manuscript into an envelope, address and stamp it, and mail it to an editor or agent. That's scary, because once it's in the mail, it's out in the world, and the likelihood is that the return mail won't bring the preferred response, at least not with the first or second attempt. Maybe it'll even take longer. As in any field, those who succeed persevere. Perhaps the most important trait for any writer is die-hard determination. Hang in there and all things are possible.

(FYI: My next signing is at Katy Budget Books on Saturday, August 7th. For anyone who reads this, takes the advice and makes the NY Times list, I'd like a blurb, please!)

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Crimes and Misdemeanors -- and Murder

by Cathy Scott

Journalists by nature are nosy -- and we're chameleons, fading into the background as we observe the happenings around us. I've been to more homicide scenes than I care to count. But once there, I'm all about the details. So, as I've put together a book this past year about the Barbara Kogan case (scheduled for publication in spring 2011), I've been all about the details.


On a rainy October morning in 1990, Kogan's husband George was gunned down by an unknown assailant. From the start, Barbara was a suspect. For nearly two decades, she adamantly denied any involvement. Now 67 years old, she has admitted to playing a part in hiring a hit man to shoot three slugs into George Kogan's back. She said, through her attorney, that she didn't want to put her two sons through the stress of a lengthy trial. She is about to be moved from the Riker's Island jail to a New York prison upstate to serve out a 12-to-36-year sentence.

But the first criminal case I was involved in -- and the reason I became a crime reporter -- wasn't a murder. It was a misdemeanor crime against two friends, my sister and me. As a teenager, I regularly followed crime stories in the local newspaper, and I always was interested in TV news reports, although during that era growing up in San Diego County, there wasn't much crime to speak of.

I lived in La Mesa, a suburb east of San Diego known as the "Jewel of the Hills" with its near-perfect weather and safe neighborhoods, which still have walkable, tree-lined streets. It was a quiet, middle-class, crime-free 'burb -- and a nice place to raise children.

And so it was shocking on one spring night in that same neighborhood when I became a victim along with my sister and two of our friends. And while we were the ones victimized, it was so absurd to us at the time that we laughed -- mostly out of embarrassment.

It happened as we jogged in preparation for a 30-mile benefit walk for hunger -- plus my sister and I were getting swimsuit-ready for Spring Break in Palm Springs. So we took a week-night run as we had dozens of times before. We never felt at risk -- until that night.

We started our run from a cul-de-sac at the end of our block. About two blocks later, a man sitting in a dark-colored Volkswagen Bug stepped out of his car just as we jogged by. The four of us were chatting it up as usual, but it creeped us out enough that we stepped up our pace.

Our route took us a few blocks before turning right, running a few more long blocks, and turning right again to make for a run of a few miles. The last stretch was past a church, then up a hill toward home.

But halfway up the hill, the same man we'd seen blocks earlier stepped out of the darkness and under the light of a street lamp. He was naked from the waist down, with his trousers around his ankles.

It was startling. but we moved so quickly that the man was as shocked as we were. He started running too, away from us, stumbling because his pants were still wrapped around his ankles. He hobbled away while we crossed the street and ran to the home of a neighbor, Mrs. Harris, to call the police. One of my friends, in the meantime, screamed at the top of her lungs, so much so that my sister afterward described it as "screaming and waving her arms hysterically, a la Blanche in Bonnie and Clyde."

It was no exaggeration. And perhaps that was what we all wanted to do that night -- scream -- but didn't. Instead, we giggled. Before that, as a group, we had felt pretty fearless.

When police arrived, two officers asked us direct questions about what we saw, where the man was standing when he dropped his pants, and a good description of the suspect and his car. Then we all went to our respective homes. Within 30 minutes, an officer called and said they had located a suspect and his car. As it turned out, the man lived around the corner from us -- which creeped us out even more -- and his VW was parked in his driveway.

Police needed the four of us to meet them on the street in front of the man's house. So we drove there. Sure enough, standing with the officers was the same man who had earlier exposed himself to us. The man was arrested, and later we were summoned to court for a trial. Outside the courtroom with our mothers, we met the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case. He informed us that the suspect had just pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct.

Thus ended my first involvement with a criminal case. I've been fascinated with criminal law ever since, not as a victim but as a journalist and author. I wouldn't write about that night until many years later; it was hardly a crime worthy of a news story. But for four young women, it was a pivotal moment in time. It stripped away our sense of safety and security in the neighborhood where we'd grown up.

When I eventually became a crime reporter, my habit was to write about the underdog. And for many of their families, what we as reporters put on paper is the last time their loved ones will be written about, so I've always felt it's important to do right by them.

That has been my goal with the George Kogan murder, to tell it like it is and get to the bottom of the story. In a murder-for-hire homicide like his, which has been anything but open-and-shut, sometimes it's tough getting to those crucial details. But in the end, dogged determination usually gets us the facts, documents and interviews we need. 

George Kogan's family, as well as his estranged wife Barbara, the accused and now convicted, should expect nothing less -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Joseph Pulitzer once wrote that journalism is "a noble profession" he'd spent his life doing. While not all would agree with him 100 percent, it's our responsibility, as writers and journalists, to get the story right. George Kogan, shot in the back in broad daylight in October 1990, deserves as much.

Photo of Barbara Kogan courtesy of the New York Post.

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What Is It About Crime?

by Katherine Scardino

Last night, I went to a book store in my city, Houston, called Murder by the Book, and it was a thriving place. One of my associates in Women in Crime Ink, Kathryn Casey, has written a novel called Singularity, and she had a book signing at this shop, which specializes in crime stories. Kathryn’s book is a murder mystery.

I looked around the shop and noted how many people were there and started wondering: What is this draw people have toward crime, blood and guts?

I started thinking about all the books and television shows about crime - CSI, The Closer, Miami Vice, Forensic Files, and movies too many to mention. They are all popular - lots of action, lots of bone-chilling mystery.

But don’t we all hate crime? Don’t we complain about too many people committing crimes, which raises our tax dollars?

More crime makes us have to build new prisons and jails, make new courts, hire more judges, clerks, staff, pay lawyers to defend indigent defendants? And all this costs money - lots of money.

So where is the attraction? Is it like the gawker on the freeway looking at a car accident, slowing down a line of traffic behind him? Why would this driver want to see the sorrow and pain of other people? Are we all like that?

I think we get a neurophysiologic high with crime and deviant acts - a sensory high - just like that guy on the freeway who slows down and looks at that car accident expecting to see a little blood. But what is it about tragedy that draws us closer. Wouldn't it seem more instinctive to run from danger, rather than slow down for a better look?

I think we get a sense of completion from crime novels, television shows, and movies. There is a beginning, middle, and an end - all nicely tied in a bow. We are at some point introduced to the killer, and usually there is an ending which includes a police officer with handcuffs leading the bad guy off to jail.

Life for most of us is a mess. It’s like a jumbled up set of facts and circumstances that usually do not end with a nicely tied bow. There are lots of loose ends, unanswered questions.

Why did this happen to me? Why did I do that? Was it my fault? How can I fix it?

If you think about it, life is just the middle part. We do not remember being born, and death is not part of life. Still we exist and remember the middle.

But crime stories are exciting and after the murderer is unmasked, everything falls into place like a jigsaw puzzle - much unlike our lives.

Tell us why you read crime stories. What is it about them? When we're winding down from our day, and reach for a book on our nightstands, why select A Descent Into Hell, for example, instead of Restful Sleep? What brought you here, to a Web site which focuses on all things crime?

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