I had writ\u00adten the first draft of what became A Truth Stranger Than Fic\u00adtion<\/i><\/strong><\/a> (released today), but I was\u00adn\u2019t sure I was going to fin\u00adish it (rewrite it sev\u00aden times) and pub\u00adlish it. So, to the audi\u00adence mem\u00adber\u2019s ques\u00adtion I replied, \u201cProb\u00ada\u00adbly not. I mean, does the world real\u00adly need anoth\u00ader detec\u00adtive nov\u00adel?\u201d<\/p>\n Obvi\u00adous\u00adly the answer to that ques\u00adtion is, \u201cNo, it does\u00adn\u2019t. There are already thou\u00adsands of detec\u00adtive nov\u00adels.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pho\u00adto by DAVID ILIFF<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Yes, there are thou\u00adsands of detec\u00adtive nov\u00adels<\/em> out there, but there aren\u2019t a lot of nov\u00adels about a detec\u00adtive<\/em>, which is what I\u2019m try\u00ading to write. (My role mod\u00adel in this is the great Ray\u00admond Chan\u00addler<\/a>.)<\/p>\n From the begin\u00adning, I\u2019ve striv\u00aden to write books that are good, well-writ\u00adten nov\u00adels in and of them\u00adselves, where the mystery\/detective stuff is a bonus.<\/p>\n A num\u00adber of artists, from G.K. Chester\u00adton to Picas\u00adso, have advo\u00adcat\u00aded the idea that \u201cArt is limitation\u201d\u2014that is, by lim\u00adit\u00ading the para\u00adme\u00adters of your artis\u00adtic work, you can give the remain\u00ading aspects deep\u00ader dimen\u00adsion. Put anoth\u00ader way, you force your\u00adself to be more cre\u00adative.<\/p>\n With all three of the Dako\u00adta mys\u00adter\u00adies, I set out to write books with mem\u00ado\u00adrable, quotable lines; fun turns of phrase. But I have to say, I think that, of the three, A Truth Stranger Than Fic\u00adtion<\/strong><\/em> con\u00adtains the most of these lines. As a friend remarked to me this morn\u00ading (said friend hav\u00ading read the book with\u00adin six hours of it arriv\u00ading on his Kin\u00addle), \u201cI don\u2019t drink, but I assume this is what the finest bour\u00adbon tastes like.\u201d<\/p>\n I wrote back, \u201cIf by \u2018finest bour\u00adbon\u2019 you mean, clean, smooth, a lit\u00adtle smoky and mys\u00adte\u00adri\u00adous, and sexy with a bite, then, yes, it is like fine bour\u00adbon. :)\u201d<\/p>\n (Actu\u00adal\u00adly, I\u2019m a sin\u00adgle-malt Scotch whisky<\/a> and Stel\u00adla Artois man myself, but I\u2019ll take \u201cfinest bour\u00adbon.\u201d)<\/p>\n I sin\u00adcere\u00adly hope that every read\u00ader of A Truth Stranger Than Fic\u00adtion<\/strong><\/em> enjoys it as much as my friend.<\/p>\n \u2014Chris<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Buy A Truth Stranger Than Fic\u00adtion<\/em> for Kin\u00addle<\/a><\/p>\n Buy the Print Ver\u00adsion<\/a><\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Pho\u00adto Cred\u00adits: The pho\u00adto \u201cNew York Mid\u00adtown Sky\u00adline at Night\u201d (the orig\u00adi\u00adnal is in col\u00ador) is by David Iliff and is shown here under a Cre\u00adative Com\u00admons license: CC-BY-SA 3.0. This is a link to the orig\u00adi\u00adnal pho\u00adto: http:\/\/goo.gl\/n7FMVq<\/a>. The pho\u00adto \u201cGuns and Ammo 1\u201d is by a pho\u00adtog\u00adra\u00adph\u00ader named Ken on Flickr. The orig\u00adi\u00adnal pho\u00adto was in col\u00ador, and here is the link: http:\/\/goo.gl\/L8glx5<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was\u00adn\u2019t going to write the lat\u00adest Dako\u00adta Stevens mys\u00adtery. Back in June of last year, at a read\u00ading I gave from my then-new pas\u00adtoral nov\u00adel\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,30,3,33,56,21,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-truth-stranger-than-fiction","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-craft","category-indie-publishing","category-kindle-books","category-kindlestuff","category-publishingandthemarket","category-dakota-stevens-mysteries-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6647"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6679,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647\/revisions\/6679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/TSTF_Enhanced_01-1024x358.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"TSTF_Enhanced_04\"](\"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/TSTF_Enhanced_04-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a>This is why I enjoy writ\u00ading a PI series. I like the lim\u00adi\u00adta\u00adtions that the mystery\/PI genre impos\u00ades on me. Because I know that each sto\u00adry is going to have a mys\u00adtery and be writ\u00adten from a sin\u00adgle point of view (Dako\u00adta\u2019s), I\u2019m then able to chan\u00adnel my cre\u00adative ener\u00adgies into oth\u00ader facets of the craft: voice, char\u00adac\u00adter, dia\u00adlogue, humor, metaphors, sen\u00adtences and noir atmos\u00adphere.<\/p>\n