Archaeology and Murder,

Meet author Sarah Wisseman

Archaeological sites are composed of layers, just like geological strata. In the Middle East, where I worked on my first excavation, people chose the same sites over and over again to build on for two reasons—the availability of water, and defensibility. Thus, walled cities with protected cisterns inside rose on the same “tells” over and over again.

Unlike the layer-cake they are so often compared too, archaeological layers are messy. Instead of being neat, horizontal layers that are easy to interpret, they are disturbed by running water, animal burrowing, tree roots growing, and humans digging garbage pits and foundation trenches.

Mysteries are composed of layers, too. The top layer, or stratum, is what the reader sees and where the main story takes place. A couple of strata down is where the villain hangs out, plotting and planning away, occasionally rising to the surface like a misplaced artifact in an ancient garbage pit.

Personalities are layered as well, and it's the job of writers to reveal the layers in their characters in ways that move the story along. And everyone has a garbage pit--the family traumas from the past, the dysfunctional relationships of the present. Garbage, like compost, can provide rich beginnings for new stories.

Gradually I'm excavating my own life to unearth situations and characters that will make good mysteries. These include creepy old attic museums, digs in Israel, Italy, and Nevada, and peculiar academic characters that morph into murderers (or murderees!).

My latest book, The House of the Sphinx, has at least three layers. Lisa Donahue, archaeologist and museum curator, finally gets to visit Egypt with her physician husband, James. Their standard tour of Egypt, complete with a four-night cruise on the Nile, is the top layer. Underneath is a terrorist plot to infect Western tourists with smallpox at major archaeological sites. And below that is the complicated layer of interactions within the Arab family that aids the terrorists.

I love reading layered mysteries, especially historicals. A recent discovery is Medicus, by Ruth Downie. It’s about an irascible but loveable Roman physician working in Britannia and his slave/housekeeper Tilla who won’t obey orders. A fabulous read!


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Peg Herring's Blog Jog Day

Thanks, Pat, for hosting Peg’s Blog Crawl. Yesterday’s post, “Why Do We Say That, Part II”.

The Post - Dialogue and What It Reveals

When I taught high school, I used to get a kick out of watching certain students look at choices for their upcoming book reports. They would flip through the pages, looking for a book with lots of dialogue: fewer words, less to read, more movement. No long descriptions for them!

Dialogue indeed moves a story along. We are interested in what people have to say and how they say it. Writers convey many things as dialogue flows: personality, plot, and emotion, as well as time and place. Readers often get the messages subconsciously, without really thinking about specifics. Here are a few of the methods.

First, the words themselves. What vocabulary is appropriate for the character, the setting, the time period? With historical characters, readers want the flavor of the era, but they also want to understand what is said, so dialogue must be carefully researched. Most of the time an occasional word or phrase is enough to remind the reader of the time difference.

In any era, characters speak as their backgrounds demand. Writers ask themselves: would this character use four-syllable words, figurative language, pidgin English, expletives, baby-talk? Other description can often be minimal if the author displays his characters’ personalities by the way they express themselves.

Authors must consider word order, syntax, and level of complication of a character's language. One speaker might use as few words as possible. Another might love the sound of his or her own voice. Some people "decorate" their sentences with lots of extras: modifiers, qualifiers, even brain stutters. I once had a speech student who started every sentence with "You know--" It meant nothing, but it said something about her personality and her hope that others would agree with her statements.

Another consideration is how words are said. Does the speaker mumble? Stammer? Have an accent? Authors can add variety and depth with differences in dialogue. We must be careful, though. Taken too far, odd spellings and syntax of dialect or argot interrupt the reader's understanding.

A question writers argue among themselves is so-called “bad” words. How much of a character’s cursing is too much? The answer to that is quite personal. Some don’t mind it and contend that swearing helps a writer depict characters realistically, and it is certainly an easy way of conveying anger or lack of education or socialization. Other writers avoid offensive words whenever possible. For me, swearing quickly becomes tiresome, though I recognize that it can be used successfully by a writer with the right sense of timing and character.

Dialogue interest readers, and truthfully, it interests me as a writer, too. I like hearing what my character have to say. I like tweaking their words so that they unconsciously reveal themselves. I like choosing just the right expressions, the ones that tip readers off to who a character really is, just like real-life conversations do.

The Poser-Name a book/series where a child is the sleuth. (Let’s make it a little more difficult and eliminate Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.)

The Prizes-Weekly prizes (your choice of THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY in e- or print format) drawn from the names of those who comment on the blogs as we go. Comment once/day, but the first commenter each day gets entered twice in Saturday’s drawing!

The Pitch: THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, First in The Dead Detective Mysteries, paranormal mystery. Tori Van Camp wakes in a stateroom on a cruise ship with no memory of booking a cruise, but she does have a vivid recollection of being shot in the chest. Determined to find out what happened and why, Tori enlists the help of an odd detective named Seamus. Together they embark on an investigation like nothing she’s ever experienced. Death is all around her, and unless they act quickly, two people she cares about are prime candidates for murder. Read more about this book and the author here or buy the book here.

The Perpetrator: Peg Herring writes historical and contemporary mysteries. She loves everything about publishing, even editing (most days). Peg’s historical series, The Simon and Elizabeth Mysteries, debuted in 2010 to great reviews. The second in the series will be available in November from Five Star.




The Pathway: The next entry, “Portmanteau Words” and the answers/comments to the Poser will be up tomorrow here.

The Perpetrator: Peg Herring writes historical and contemporary mysteries. She loves everything about publishing, even editing (most days). Peg’s historical series, The Simon and Elizabeth Mysteries, debuted in 2010 to great reviews. The second in the series will be available in November from Five Star.



The Pathway: The next entry, “Portmanteau Words” and the answers/comments to the Poser will be up tomorrow on Mid List Life