Christoffer Petersen

Authentic Arctic Thrillers

writing process

Some method, plenty of madness!

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I was recently interviewed for Mystery & Suspense Magazine about writing crime novellas, and to share some thoughts on why novellas can be a really good length for crime stories, and why so few crime writers write them.

If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, then you’re absolutely right. It is contradictory. But, as I mention in the interview – alongside a host of fantastic authors, I might add – novellas work for me in many different ways.

I wrote my very first Maratse novella: Katabatic between the Fenna novels and Seven Graves, One Winter. The experience was liberating, and I was consumed by the story, inspired by the length, and motivated to write more.

I wrote a lot more.

And with each novella I wrote, I allowed myself to explore topics, writing styles, and new characters within a ‘safe’ and supportive story format. Safe in this context hopefully doesn’t mean boring, as I had so much fun writing Maratse’s novellas, and that fun spilled over into the Greenland Missing Persons series too.

I don’t go in for padding. A story is the length it needs to be, and if that length is a novella, and it works, then it makes no sense to pad it out to hit publishers’ (and readers’) expectations of longer works. Some stories demand more pages, and that works too. But a story is meant to entertain, and I’m sure we’ve all read stories that could have been 100 pages shorter. Likewise, many readers who have enjoyed my novellas often wish they were a bit longer.

I understand that too.

And so I still write novels.

But I’m itching to write more novellas.

However, I think it’s best to return to this topic later, and give you a chance to read the article first.

The interviewer, William Burton McCormick, is an established author in his own right, and has recently published one of his award winning short stories.

I’ll be back with more thoughts about novellas and short stories later.

Chris

Spin-Offs

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If you’ve read some of my books you’ll know that characters from one series often pop up in another, or even get their own series. Maratse started his “career” in The Ice Star. Petra started her career in Seven Graves, One Winter, and in a Maratse novella called Container. I can’t quite recall which came first. However, moving characters between series keeps things alive for me, and certainly some readers seem to enjoy it.

Writing different lengths of stories helps me to define the characters. For example, after 22 Maratse novellas I’ve got a pretty good idea of who he is. 🙂 Short stories help too. And, like ’em or loathe ’em, they really help me dial in to the character, in this case Kamiila Sorsuttartoq. Of course, I get myself into literary problems too.

Kamiila is from the alternative timeline in the Guerrilla Greenland series of novellas. I think she’s really cool. So, my problem is how do I transplant her into the “other” series? Or, do I even need to? It’s a bit like writing about Luui after writing the Dark Advent series. How do I “fix” the continuity issues?

The answer is not to worry about it, and to just let things happen.

They fix themselves.

As for Kamiila, she can stay in her current timeline, but I have an awful feeling – I mean, it’s a good feeling – she will probably have her own book sometime soon. She’s already got a series of short stories, and I’m figuring out who she really is along the way.

I’ll publish the stories at $0.99 and you can try them out, or wait until I bundle them at a later date. The first one: Radio Free Will, is already live. There will probably also be free short stories with Kamiila in the future.

Until then, I’ll try and figure out what happens next.

Chris

Nothing is impossible

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The publishing world has changed drastically since the advent of eBooks. There are thousands of articles and blog posts about the changes, and I’m not going to recap any of them here. But what I will say, as an independent author, is the smartest thing I ever did when flirting with the traditional publishing world was to keep my English rights for the books they were interested in.

I’d like to take credit for that smart move, but I must confess that at the time, I was ready to go all in, and sign over everything, because I believed I had finally made it. An editor from a big French publisher reached out after finding me on Amazon. They were interested in my books, but they would only deal with an agent. I found a reputable agency in Copenhagen, and I’m guessing having a publisher in my back pocket might have worked in my favour, and I was invited to meet them in the big city. I took my bag of books – I think I had five at the time – and I went off to make my fortune.

Sitting on the train, I felt like I was in a Disney movie, with my bag of books clutched to my chest. It was fun. I was excited about the prospects of becoming a ‘real author’. There was a tiny part of my brain that urged caution, and reminded me of everything I had achieved already as an indie author, but I ignored it. I was ready.

To cut a long story short, after the initial meeting and a tiny bit of haggling about commission rates, I accepted and the agency said they would send the contract to be signed.

The Chestnut Man got in the way.

Yep, that Chestnut Man.

Basically, the agency was swamped, understandably so, with putting the finishing touches on that book, and my contract took a little while to arrive. In the meantime, that voice urging caution got louder and louder, and when the contract did come, I renegotiated and pulled my English rights, leaving the agency to represent my foreign and film rights only. My English rights were my only source of income, so I kind of needed them. Prior to pulling those rights back the agency suggested I return to teaching.

This was in 2018.

I quit my teaching job in December 2017, wrote Seven Graves, One Winter in January/February 2018, published it on Valentine’s Day, got spotted in March, signed in June.

However, the French realised they already had a “Greenland Crime” book in their catalogue, and they pulled out. But during that time Françoise contacted me. She was a translator and had heard about the French interest in Seven Graves, One Winter, and was keen to translate it. But of course that particular deal fell apart. And with no other French interest, so did the opportunity for translation.

Fast forward to February 2021.

I was getting more and more disillusioned with traditional publishing, and considered quitting my agency contract to be truly independent once more. I reached out to Françoise. Was she still interested? And would she like to translate Petra’s Greenland Missing Persons series? They were not on the agency’s books, and therefore not bound to any contract or commission.

I think you can see where this is going, but I’m really excited to say she was interested, and today I published the fifth French translation in the Greenland Missing Persons: Le Piège de l’Hiver. Françoise is currently working on the sixth book in the series. You can find the others here. You’ll also see a Polish edition – more about that later. 🙂

When dealing with the traditional world of publishing, you’re often told about the things that are impossible to do as an independent author. Getting indie books translated was one of those things. Well, when you find the right person, and you both agree on the terms, then nothing is impossible.

One of my favourite books is Michael Asher’s Impossible Journey. It’s a fabulous true-life account of a husband and wife crossing the Sahara with camels. Michael Asher is one of my heroes and I was fortunate to meet him and his wife, photographer Mariantonietta Peru, at a lecture in Glasgow. In the book, Asher visits a French explorer to pick his brains about desert travel. What Théodore Monod said has stuck with me ever since I first read it: … nothing is impossible. Only, some things are difficult.

That quote and that attitude has been my mantra for as long as I can remember. It’s gotten me this far, at least. However, I’d like to add something to that quote and change it slightly to:

Nothing is impossible. Only, some things are difficult, but with the right help, many things can be easier.

I got the right help with my French translations.

Thanks, Françoise!

Chris

Throwing a logline

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When I lived in England, one of my friends called Beef (he was the butcher’s son) showed me how you make sausage. It’s true, it’s one of those things probably best unseen, but I’ll never forget him cutting the fat away from the meat he was preparing at the counter and throwing it, together with bits of gristle and other “stuff”, across the shop and into a sausage making machine. There’s probably a name for such a machine, but I was more impressed with Beef’s aim, because he didn’t miss. However, with a smile he confirmed that it’s true, I probably didn’t want to know how you make sausage, or more to the point, I didn’t want to know what was in them.

This little flash from the past is your trigger warning. If you don’t want to know how I begin my stories, then look away now. 🙂

One of the modules of my degree was Screenwriting, and of all the modules I took it is the one that has had the greatest impression. I use one aspect of it regularly, and always at the start of a new project, just to see if it has legs. That module was my first introduction to loglines, but as you might know, we see them all the time. If you are a movie-goer then loglines are used to help you decide which movie to see. If you watch Netflix or any other streaming service, that same logline is used to help you decide what to stream. In fact, if you’re like me, you might spend more time reading the damn loglines than watching anything, begging the question – just how helpful are they?

My answer is really helpful.

Basically, a logline is 25 words to describe the gist of a story, usually the plot of a movie. I use them to figure out if my idea for a story is viable, and – sausage making alert – this is how I do it.

The 1st Pass

I try and write my idea in 25 words. So, for example, right now I am putting together short stories for my Kickstarter campaign. I’ve already teased the idea to the backer of this story and revealed the title, so here’s the logline for The Ice Breaker Quandary (yes, icebreaker in two words):

When a nuclear-powered icebreaker’s captain threatens to blow the reactor if Greenland won’t help him defect, Constable Petra Jensen enlists a passenger to stop him.

That’s 25 words, with an assist by the hyphen.

I’ve written a lot of loglines over the years, but often they start around 30 words or more. The trick is to be economical with your words. In this example, I’ve chosen to “spend” three words on Constable Petra Jensen, but I could have used two words: a policewoman, choosing policewoman instead of police officer to save a word. The loglines are for me, so I don’t worry about inclusive language. Also, I could have written a middle-aged American passenger, but even with an assist, that’s still four words when all I really need is one: passenger. I could also have written When the captain of a nuclear-powered icebreaker…, but When a nuclear-powered icebreaker’s captain is more economical, using five instead of seven words.

It takes some time, but I enjoy the process of dialing in to my basic plot, and I’m not worried about details. They come later during the writing process.

I’m not using my loglines like they do on Netflix. They are just for me. However, many of my loglines often end up in my story description, sometimes with no added words. I try not to embellish the logline because all I want is the roughest of outlines.

I like to know where I’m going in the story, who with, and why.

Some writers might say that’s amateurish, and one should write into the dark, starting with little more than a blank page. There’s nothing wrong with that, and neither is there anything wrong with having a detailed outline of every step of the story including comprehensive character notes and world-building “stuff”. But it’s a bit like the sausage machine, for God’s sake don’t show anyone. 🙂

My approach – closer to the dark but with a tiny candle in front of me – works for me.

A quick aside – the original photo (inverted for the cover) is taken from my kitchen window in Qaanaaq, Greenland. And yes, that’s a nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker (icebergs and glaciers in the background), now used as an adventure cruise ship for folks with far more money than me. And yet, they came to visit me (kind of), so it all works out in the end.

Stress Test 1 (or several)

I used to have a lot of passes and a lot of stress tests. I don’t anymore. I’m happy with the bare bones of the logline, but I do want to satisfy the demands of the logline I picked up from the screenwriting module.

According to somebody’s rules, a logline must include the who, what, why, when, where, and how of the story. Six things that, if present, ultimately suggest that the story “has legs” as I put it. At this point I could dive into what each of the things actually means, but let’s keep it simple:

  1. Who is your main character
  2. What is your problem or conflict (or subject)
  3. Why is the reason why your character must act
  4. When is the time in which your story is set (often the most difficult to write economically, so I cheat)
  5. Where is your setting
  6. How is the way your character solves the problem, or not (I also cheat with this one)

If you’re wondering about what comes first, yeah, keep wondering. I used to think that was important, but honestly, each element gets points just for showing up.

So, continuing with my own example:

When WHEN a nuclear-powered icebreaker’s captain WHAT threatens to blow the reactor WHY if Greenland WHERE won’t help him defect, Constable Petra Jensen WHO enlists HOW a passenger to stop him.

  1. When is a pain, so I cheated. It takes far too many words to write On a blustery summer’s day in 2018 so I don’t. Nor do I need to know exactly when. I’ll figure it out along the way.
  2. What is my problem to be solved, and that’s the captain going crazy in the reactor room. Or is he/she on the bridge? It doesn’t matter. That’s something else I’ll figure out along the way.
  3. Why is the reason to solve the what. Petra needs to get a wiggle on if she’s going to resolve this problem.
  4. Where is my setting. Perhaps the easiest part of the logline, although for the story description I might add something like in Qaanaaq, in the far north of Greenland but I don’t have room for that either.
  5. Who is dead easy. It’s hero time, and Petra is a star. But I like that she is a constable, so I spend a few words on her title, but drop her Greenlandic name: Piitalaat. I use it plenty in the stories! 😉
  6. How is where I cheat to the max, often because I don’t know how Petra is going to fix this one, and I’d rather not know because it’s more fun to find out. Often the candle I’m holding snuffs out long before this point, and I’m trying to keep up as Petra puzzles it out and saves the day. So the enlists is enough to let me know she’s going to get a passenger to do something, probably putting their lives at risk, but … nuclear-powered icebreaker??? … I’m guessing it’s worth it.

And that’s it, sausage made, ready for consumption, or in this case writing.

I used to have very detailed notes for every project, but the more I write the more I like to be surprised. However, I still like to know if a story works before diving in, and the logline helps.

Chris