Hallie Ephron tells why mystery writers have more fun

Hallie Ephron knows what readers want.

The popular author writes mysteries, but also dissects mysteries in reviews for the Boston Globe and coaches mystery writing students in workshops and conferences. Her book “Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ’Em Dead with Style,” published in 2005, is a favorite on the craft of writing a mystery.

She began learning the secrets of the trade in the pages of Nancy Drew, but despite being an avid mystery reader her whole life and being born into a prolific and well-known writing family, the former teacher only took up writing 15 years ago as her “retirement” career. Yet she’s in demand at conferences and events, like Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, where  she just taught in early October. She’ll be at Portsmouth Public Library on Saturday, Oct. 13 at 10 a.m., to offer a workshop on “How to Write a Killer Mystery.”

The Wire talked to Ephron about why we fall for mysteries.

You wrote a book called “1001 Books for Every Mood.” It’s true that I predictably turn to mysteries at certain moments. Why is that? Why is it fun, or even soothing sometimes, to read about murders and serial killers and horrible disappearances? It doesn’t make sense.
If you’re in the mood for a walk on the wild side. If you’re in the mood for chills, or thrills. Or just pure fun. To be astounded. It’s such a big umbrella. There’s the thrillers and Lisbeth Salander, and then there’s Janet Evanovich and Miss Marple (and they’re not even that similar). There’s another spectrum that goes from classic to more hip. It’s such a big welcoming genre with so many different places to be. And I think they’re very satisfying. I mean, life is very ambiguous. People do terrible things, but they don’t always get comeuppance. Quite often there’s not a satisfying justice. And in a lot of mysteries, there is.

Some mysteries distance the readers from any violence. Maybe it takes place in the past, if at all. Others are incredibly gruesome. Do you distinguish between Miss Marple and Dexter?
There isn’t as much difference as you think. For a mystery to work—and by that, I mean a book that readers recommend to friends—the mystery has to really matter to the sleuth, and the sleuth really has to matter to the reader. Whether it’s a kidnapping or someone slicing up fashions at a fashion show, the reader has to care about the character, and the character has to be genuinely threatened by what’s happening. It’s about the stakes. There have to be stakes, and the reader has to care.

My books rarely have a murder in them. If they do, it’s kind of beside the point. I’m always writing from a personal point a view. In “Never Tell a Lie,” the couple is having their first baby, and how vulnerable you feel and who do you trust become so important at that moment. My next book, “There Was an Old Woman,” is about being afraid you’re losing your mind, and generations, and being afraid that an older person you love is losing their mind. Even Tess Gerritsen—one of her characters is called “The Surgeon” who slices up women while they are still alive—if you talk to her about where those ideas come from, she starts with personal experience or a personal place, then goes waaaaay out from there.

I’ve been reading them forever, starting right with Nancy Drew. I powered through Agatha Christie. (Reads across her bookshelf) Dorothy Sayers. Wilkie Collins. I loved “The Moonstone” and “The Woman in White.” I love them. And I understand them. Good mysteries follow a formula, but they’re not formulaic. Readers expect a plot. It requires taut writing. Forward momentum. Not all fiction does.

And I think you also have to like puzzles. I’m not a big puzzle doer, but I do like secrets, and that’s another word for a puzzle. A puzzle implies you know what the question is; with a secret, you might not even have known the question, or to ask the question. Then the secret pops up and you say, “Oh, that’s what that was about.”

It’s a fun genre. It’s for when you’re in the mood to have fun. Which is why mystery authors are all so nice. We don’t take ourselves that seriously. We know that we’re doing something that’s fun. The product is for someone to enjoy themselves, to escape. To make a plane ride go fast. To scare ourselves to death. Or laugh ourselves silly. We’re not writing oeuvres. It’s an enormously supportive community.

What about true crime? Have you been tempted to write in that genre? And does it work the same way?
The first series of books I wrote, I co-authored with a forensic neuropsychiatrist. He had worked multiple murder trials. Those people are just not that interesting. It’s wrong place, wrong time, or terrible upbringing, or dumb luck. Or they’re just dumb and nasty. Those are not the kind of characters that make good fiction villains. There’s Charles Manson and Ted Bundy, but after that, there’s not that many characters that are really fascinating in a scary way.

You know, the very first book I wrote, which I never published, I was writing with a friend whose brother had been murdered. It was a true story of the murder and its aftermath on the family. Someone from TV was interested in it before I even sold it. And I pulled it. Even though I fictionalized it, there were people in the world, like the widow and the children, who would know this was the story of their father and husband. I couldn’t make fun out of something that awful. I think a lot of true crime manages that. I loved “Helter Skelter” and “In Cold Blood,” but I couldn’t write it and it’s not something I could read on a regular basis.

When I started “There Was an Old Woman,” I thought I would have a subplot about 9/11: a man is fired from his job at the World Trade Center, he goes in to shoot his colleagues and ends up saving them. I visited New York, I went to 9/11 museum and talked with people. I thought, I cannot do this. It’s like touching a live wire. I cannot make fiction out of this.

You came to Portsmouth Library last November to give a workshop for folks who were participating in NaNoWriMo (the challenge to write a novel in a month).
I could no more write a book in 30 days than I could stand on my head. I feel like I know too much. I couldn’t do it. But I could certainly give people tips on ways of coming at it. I’m a really slow writer.

How long do you usually take to write a book?
At least a year, preferably two. There’s no good reason for that. I just haven’t figured out a better way. I always get to that ‘what happens next’ question, and that’s every page and a half!

Then, do you know how your books will end? Do you write your way there, or is it worked out ahead of time?
I often will have three or four plot points I’m writing toward. Often I know the end, what the big climactic scene or “ah-ha” scene is going to be. For my new book, “There Was an Old Woman,” I knew that, I knew the opening scene, which started with an old woman reading obits trying to find someone older than her. I knew two of the characters and their stories. But there’s always a point where you reach page 50 and you’ve written a whole story. Now there’s 150 pages left before the scene that happens at the end! So you go back, and rewrite, and add more. It’s a really ugly, messy process. I haven’t figured out how to make it less so.

Each time, it’s hard in different ways. You’ve raised the bar. Every time you write a book, you’re trying to make it better than the last. You write what you know. But you’re better at it, so you know more, but the work doesn’t get easier.

You know, I didn’t write for ages and ages and ages. I come from a family of writers, and I was always the one who said I didn’t write. I’m a teacher. I live in Boston. I’m a quasi soccer mom. But when my youngest daughter was heading into college, I started to write. I’ve only been at it for 15 years. Before that, I had multiple careers. This is retirement (laughs).

Does that mean you’ll be stopping anytime soon?
I hope to be at it for a while. I’m really loving this. I feel like I’m just hitting my stride.