{"id":8321,"date":"2019-02-09T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T13:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=8321"},"modified":"2019-02-12T00:36:35","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T00:36:35","slug":"backstory-the-story-behind-the-perfect-triple-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/backstory-the-story-behind-the-perfect-triple-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstory: The Story Behind The Perfect Triple Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The idea for The Per\u00adfect Triple Threat<\/em>, a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of three Dako\u00adta Stevens mys\u00adtery novel\u00adlas, didn\u2019t come to me all at once. Rather, the book grew out of tiny, inter\u00adest\u00ading seedlings that got my atten\u00adtion and wouldn\u2019t let it go.<\/p>\n

The first glim\u00admers of the book appeared on my radar in the spring and sum\u00admer of 2015. I had released A Truth Stranger Than Fic\u00adtion<\/em> that win\u00adter and was burned out from months of radio inter\u00adviews and pub\u00adlic\u00adi\u00adty work for the book, with remark\u00adably lit\u00adtle return in the way of book sales for my efforts. I was burned out and a lit\u00adtle bit annoyed with the read\u00ading pub\u00adlic for not sup\u00adport\u00ading what I con\u00adsid\u00adered my best Dako\u00adta Stevens nov\u00adel to date, and I vowed not to write anoth\u00ader one for a long time.<\/p>\n

The prob\u00adlem is, we nov\u00adel\u00adists don\u2019t have as much say in what we write as we like to think we do, or that read\u00aders think we do. Speak\u00ading for myself, I don\u2019t have much con\u00adtrol over what catch\u00ades my fancy\u2014ideas, images, sto\u00adries oth\u00aders tell me\u2014and when a par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar item does grab me, and the sen\u00adtences of a sto\u00adry begin to unfurl effort\u00adless\u00adly in my head, it\u2019s incred\u00adi\u00adbly seduc\u00adtive.<\/p>\n

In fact, at times the clar\u00adi\u00adty of the words and the scenes reveal\u00ading them\u00adselves has been so pow\u00ader\u00adful, it\u2019s sur\u00adpassed the highs of sex or any drug I\u2019ve tak\u00aden. When this hap\u00adpens, it\u2019s as though the sto\u00adry had always been out there, float\u00ading in the ether, but invis\u00adi\u00adble until a beau\u00adti\u00adful Muse spir\u00adit chose me to whis\u00adper the sto\u00adry to\u2014whispering it in my ear.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Most of the time nov\u00adel-writ\u00ading is plain hard work, what I con\u00adsid\u00ader the white-col\u00adlar equiv\u00ada\u00adlent of min\u00ading. Luck\u00adi\u00adly, how\u00adev\u00ader, the Mus\u00ades favor those who pay homage to them by qui\u00adet\u00adly lis\u00adten\u00ading for their guid\u00adance, who work hard, who are ded\u00adi\u00adcat\u00aded and per\u00adsis\u00adtent; and they usu\u00adal\u00adly shun the dilet\u00adtantes, the ones who \u201ctry\u201d to write, but do it only occa\u00adsion\u00adal\u00adly, and who don\u2019t fin\u00adish what they start.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal: If you\u2019re a nov\u00adel\u00adist, when the Mus\u00ades begin to whis\u00adper ideas in your ear, you have to write them down, because if you hear their whis\u00adper\u00ading many times and don\u2019t show them the min\u00adi\u00admum respect of writ\u00ading the things down, then they\u2019re going to stop show\u00ading up. This includes all of the lit\u00adtle \u201cbits\u201d that end up com\u00adpris\u00ading our nov\u00adels.<\/p>\n

In the case of The Per\u00adfect Triple Threat<\/em>, in the spring and sum\u00admer of 2015, for rea\u00adsons already men\u00adtioned the last nov\u00adel I want\u00aded to be writ\u00ading next was a Dako\u00adta mys\u00adtery, but the Mus\u00ades were giv\u00ading me those tid\u00adbits, and if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve always done, it\u2019s respect what\u00adev\u00ader they want to give me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One after\u00adnoon I was play\u00ading golf at my reg\u00adu\u00adlar club, the 9\u2011hole Vas\u00adsar Col\u00adlege golf course, when the man\u00adag\u00ading pro Rhett Myers told me about an old grave\u00adyard between the third green and the ninth fair\u00adway, and he drove me up there on a cart to show it to me. The grave\u00adyard, enclosed by a decrepit pick\u00adet fence, held the remains of the orig\u00adi\u00adnal own\u00aders of the farm that became the golf course. It dat\u00aded back to the 19th<\/sup> cen\u00adtu\u00adry and held the remains of the farmer, his wife and their baby, who died before reach\u00ading a year old.<\/p>\n

Then he drove me over to the 4th<\/sup> tee and point\u00aded out a post up the hill, in the mid\u00addle of the fair\u00adway. He explained that, years ago, his then-greenskeep\u00ader, a Mex\u00adi\u00adcan man, had been doing some work on the tee one morn\u00ading when he looked up the hill and saw a giant Native Amer\u00adi\u00adcan, with long braids and a bowler hat, stand\u00ading next to the post. Based on the height of the post, the greenskeep\u00ader gauged the Native Amer\u00adi\u00adcan to be at least sev\u00aden feet tall. Spooked out of his sens\u00ades, the greenskeep\u00ader jumped in his cart, raced back to the club\u00adhouse, and told Rhett what hap\u00adpened. He quit his job then and there, and nev\u00ader came back.<\/p>\n

Rhett\u2019s sto\u00adry about the 7\u2011foot-tall Native Amer\u00adi\u00adcan and the fright\u00adened greenskeep\u00ader stuck with me, and occa\u00adsion\u00adal\u00adly as I went through my days that sum\u00admer, I could feel the gears of my lit\u00ader\u00adary grist mill start to grind on this sto\u00adry.<\/p>\n

Then, in Octo\u00adber 2015, while stay\u00ading at a friend\u2019s vaca\u00adtion home in Vermont\u2019s Green Moun\u00adtains, I began to imag\u00adine Dako\u00adta and Svet\u00adlana there, babysit\u00adting their friends\u2019 boys over Colum\u00adbus Day week\u00adend. When my wife drove up from New York to join me, we drove through the moun\u00adtains and serendip\u00adi\u00adtous\u00adly found a town fall fes\u00adti\u00adval, with a bake sale, church raf\u00adfle, games, a used book sale, and dozens of local arti\u00adsans sell\u00ading their wares. Once we had walked through the fes\u00adti\u00adval, I sat down, ate a cou\u00adple cider donuts and start\u00aded to write what became the Dako\u00adta novel\u00adla The Adven\u00adture of the Babysit\u00adting Detec\u00adtives<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The idea for the third novel\u00adla in the col\u00adlec\u00adtion\u2014The Case of the Fake Real\u00adi\u00adty TV Show<\/em>\u2014was whis\u00adpered to me while watch\u00ading a new Blu-Ray of one of my favorite movies of all time: L.A. Con\u00adfi\u00adden\u00adtial<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ever since I\u2019d read the works of Ray\u00admond Chan\u00addler (par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly his nov\u00adel The Lit\u00adtle Sis\u00adter<\/em>, which brings his detec\u00adtive Mar\u00adlowe in con\u00adtact with movie stu\u00addios), I\u2019d want\u00aded to write a mys\u00adtery involv\u00ading mod\u00adern-day Hol\u00adly\u00adwood, and the Mus\u00ades knew it. The oth\u00ader idea, or trend, that they drew my atten\u00adtion to, that they whis\u00adpered in my ear, was how \u201creal\u00adi\u00adty\u201d TV shows were becom\u00ading increas\u00ading\u00adly less plau\u00adsi\u00adble, less based in real\u00adi\u00adty, than ever. Also, they\u2019d had to become increas\u00ading\u00adly edgy, to the point that I asked myself, \u201cI won\u00adder when they\u2019ll base one of these shows on ille\u00adgal activities\u2014like bur\u00adglar\u00adies, say\u2014and they\u2019ll have to pro\u00adduce and film it gueril\u00adla-style?\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that, I had the gen\u00ader\u00adal con\u00adcept behind the third novel\u00adla in The Per\u00adfect Triple Threat<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Since writ\u00ading this col\u00adlec\u00adtion, in the back\u00adground or between my much larg\u00ader nov\u00adel projects, I\u2019ve been writ\u00ading a series of Dako\u00adta Stevens mys\u00adtery short sto\u00adries. My even\u00adtu\u00adal aim is to pro\u00adduce a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of gems on par with the best of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s Sher\u00adlock Holmes short sto\u00adries.<\/p>\n

But nov\u00adel or short sto\u00adry, every\u00adthing depends on hear\u00ading the Muse, and to hear the Muse, you have to show up every day, lis\u00adten, and write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea for The Per\u00adfect Triple Threat, a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of three Dako\u00adta Stevens mys\u00adtery novel\u00adlas, didn\u2019t come to me all at once. Rather, the book\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,247,30,3,244,19,29,36,77,7,76,68,11,293,13,14,233],"tags":[124,94,262,98,99,133,134,96,155,221],"class_list":["post-8321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-truth-stranger-than-fiction","category-amazon-kindle","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-craft","category-ebooks","category-fiction","category-film-tv","category-mystery-writing","category-novels","category-personal","category-process","category-rewriting","category-dakota-stevens-mysteries-series","category-the-perfect-triple-threat","category-writers","category-writingexperiences","category-writing-life","tag-amazon","tag-chris-orcutt","tag-dakota","tag-dakota-stevens","tag-dakota-stevens-mystery-series","tag-mysteries","tag-mystery","tag-novelist","tag-orcutt","tag-writers-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321","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=8321"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8330,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions\/8330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}