What We're Writing Week: Writing for Listeners as well as Readers

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If you read JRW, you've heard a lot about what goes into the imaginative grist mill of a writer's mind. Travel to different places. News stories. Real historical events. And the ways we express ourselves: point of view, structure, outlining or organic. In short, there are a lot of items jostling for space on the author's To-Write list.

One of those items on my list is writing for the audio book. I love the audio versions of my series, performed by the wonderful Suzanne Toren, and thinking about how my words will be read has changed my writing in subtle ways. I try to leave off as many "he said," and "she said"s as I can, because when you're listening to the narrator, it's perfectly obvious who said what.

I try to give clues about the differences in people's speech without spelling it out, so instead of, "'I'm perfectly fine to drive myself,' she said in a haughty tone," I'll have "'I'm perfectly fine to drive myself.' Her voice made Russ think of the rich women on the North side of town." Let's face it, the latter is a much more interesting way to describe a person speaking, isn't it?

And because Suzanne is so good at accents, it's pushed me to make my cast more diverse, which, I confess, isn't anything I originally thought of. I know the area my Millers Kill is based on, and it's pretty goshdarn white, inhabited largely by people whose ancestors settled in the lower Adirondacks no later than the 1880s. But there's no reason I can't have a European doctor, or an assistant district attorney whose family came from Vietnam. Or characters who are Black or Iroquois or Quebecois. 

So when I knew I was going to introduce officer Kevin Flynn's family in Through the Evil Days, I decided to make Irish-American Flynn the son of an Irish immigrant father. (There's a whole history. I should write it as a short story some day.) Since one of the plot lines of my work-in-progress, At Midnight Comes the Cry, is the mysterious disappearance of Kevin, I couldn't resist the chance to bring his dad, Sean, back on the scene for a bit.

They had joked about Kevin Flynn being Irish, but Russ had no idea he was Irish-Irish until meeting his father. “This is it. Turn here.” Sean Flynn sounded like a tour guide from the auld sod, but instead of a castle in Limerick, they were approaching a street of small houses hard against the bank of the Seneca River in Baldwinsville. “Here 'tis.” Sean pointed to a small, neat house with a red door and green metal roof. No curb in this neighborhood; Russ parked at the edge of the frost-stricken lawn.

He figured he had been on the road to this house since Hadley Knox had asked him where he thought Flynn might be. Between his former officer and Clare's pointed comments, he decided to do the smart thing and surrender. He was glad he had, though, when he contacted Flynn's parents, who were so worried about their middle son's disappearance, Sean Flynn had volunteered to drive the three hours across New York state to let Russ into the rented house. “I know you'll want to keep it all on the up-and-up, and I have his key and his permission, and I suppose they're both still good, even if he gave them over near a year ago.”

Russ had turned him down, preferring to make the trip in his own truck, but Sean had come along for the ride. Russ grabbed his jacket from the back seat and got out. “Nice little place.”

“It's small, but the back garden runs straight down to the river, with stairs and a wee dock. I told him if he wanted to buy, we could expand toward the road here or raise the roof to put in a second floor...” Sean's voice died away. He pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the front door.

They walked into a mudroom space at the end of a galley-style kitchen. Everything was clean and neat. No clothing waiting in the stacked washer and dryer. He opened the fridge. Condiments, bottled water, a six-pack, but no food left to spoil. The freezer was stuffed with frozen meals and ice cream that had crystalized over.

“Does Kevin like to cook? Would he have milk and eggs and that sort of stuff?”

“He isn't much to make his own dinner, but he likes cereal and his sandwiches.” Sean paused beside Russ. “That looks cleaned out to me.”

“Me, too.”

“Is that a good sign?”

“Well, it means he probably left of his own accord, and he had enough time to plan his departure and get rid of everything that might spoil.” He shut the refrigerator door. The kitchen opened into a great room beneath a peaked roof, with a TV watching spot on one side and a desk and bookcases on the other. He could see the promised view of the river through a glass-fronted door framed with two wide picture windows. “Why don't you check his bedroom and see what clothes might be missing. I'll take a look at his desk.”

 

What do you think, dear readers? Do you "hear" accents in your head as you read a book, or do you wait for the audio edition? If you're a fan of the latter, who are some of your favorite narrators?