My first mystery novel, The Book of Answers, made the short-list for The Unhanged Arthur Ellis, an award for unpublished crime fiction. The annual competition is sponsored by Dundurn Press and CrimeWriters of Canada. On May 23, my wife and I attended a banquet at Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club, where I had the honour of meeting other authors who were nominated, as well as a number of editors, publishers, and authors. It was great fun!
The winning manuscript in my category, the Unhanged Arthur Award for best unpublished crime novel, was The Scarlet Cross, by Liv McFarlane. You can learn more about Liv at her website: https://livmcfarlane.com/
I look forward to reading The Scarlet Cross, and the work of the other nominees:
Hypnotizing Lions by Jim Bottomley
Omand’s Creek by Don Macdonald
One for the Raven by Heather McLeod
That the manuscript of my first ever novel was even considered for such an honour, has inspired me to improve my online presence. This site is a re-tooling of my old “Sharing Bread Along The Way” blog, along with old material from “The Fifth Page”, which is where I used to post what didn’t make it into my sermons, which are always a maximum of 4 pages. (I now call them “learning times”, to reflect the truth that I am still learning as I go.)
I am a minister in The United Church of Canada, currently serving the congregation and wider community of Harrow, in beautiful Essex County, Ontario. In the words of Max Marshall, a singer-songwriter from Harrow, it’s a “bread-basket town” in “fruit-stand land”. You should also check out Max, he’s great!
Nanowrimo, the National Novel Writing Month claimed much of my creative energies. An annual event that’s been around for almost 25 years, Nanowrimo is essentially a self-directed challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.
This time around, I produced a little more than 33,000 words in 24 days, and ran out of steam in the last week of the month. Most of those words went into chapters for a new mystery I’ve been working on, set in Essex County, Southwestern Ontario. It’s tentatively called either “The Right Cross Murder” or “A Death in Sun Parlour” and it features a different protagonist and supporting cast of characters from my first novel.
I’ve enjoyed the process of plotting out the new story, and creating the new characters. Along the way I decided to include Rev. Tom Book, the reluctant sleuth from my first book.
Tom’s first adventure was set in Oakville, which is where I was living when I started The Book of Answers. During the COVID lockdown I began a new story for Tom, set here in Essex County, which is where I see him settling after leaving the church he served in Oakville. This second story for Tom is actually set during the lockdown, and has him helping out at a retreat centre founded by his former mentor and life-long friend Paul Bennett.
The retreat, called “The Quiet Centre” found its way into the The Right Cross Murder, so it made sense to add Tom to the story.
I was plotting this story, ahead of the writing marathon in November, while I was also actively selling The Book of Answers. I did a fair amount of online and in-person promotion of the book this fall. I was surprised by how many people asked about the further adventures of Tom Book.
I’ve thought from the beginning that Tom would appear again. I set up the first story to be part of an ongoing series, each with a title that would be “The Book of…”. The lockdown story set at the retreat centre is called “The Book of Strong Suggestions”.
I have most of that story plotted, and many chapters written, but took a break from it to work on the newer book, with the new set of characters.
All the questions about Tom’s life beyond The Book of Answers made me wonder if I should have actually had his second story finished, and ready to go, soon after the launch of the first one.
So I’ve taken a break from The Right Cross Murder, or Death in Sun Parlour, while I mull this over.
Another factor in the choice to take a break was my return to full-time work as a pastor. I had the privilege of a month long vacation followed by a 90 day sabbatical from my pastoral responsibilities. I used that time for rest, work-related studies, and planning for the upcoming year.
I found it so much easier to drop into “mystery writer” mode when I did not have the weekly project of producing a (hopefully) meaningful worship service and sermon. This is less a matter of time for the work, as it is about mental bandwidth or energy. When I have a sermon on the back burner, simmering somewhere inside, I find I have less creative heat available to cook up my stories.
The other big reason I have not been writing more fiction lately is I have become active in my new volunteer role as a police chaplain.
Above is a photo of the tunic from my dress uniform. The OPP has strict rules about the use of their insignia, so I’ve deliberately made the picture a little blurry. Here’s one of the shoulder board, which identifies me as a chaplain with the honorary rank of Inspector. (That’s what the crown signifies.) The white shirt next to it is also part of the uniform.
In the OPP, most of the front-line officers are Provincial Constables. Above them in the rank structure are the Sergeants and Staff Sergeants, who are non-commissioned officers, and like the Constables, wear blue shirts. The first “commissioned” rank above Staff Sergeant is Inspector. Inspectors and upward (Superintendents and Deputy Commissioners, and the Commissioner of the OPP) wear white shirts.
There is a bit of a divide between “white shirts” and “blue shirts”. White shirts are management. Think of commanding officers in the military. Respected for their accomplishments and responsibilities, but not always liked or appreciated in their roles as leaders.
When I visit detachments I usually wear my clerical collar, affixed to a blue or black polo shirt. The chaplain, like in the military, is in many ways outside the formal hierarchy. Kind of an observer and advisor with a supportive role, which suits me just fine.
I met online last night with Larry, John, Joyce, Tim, Edna, Sandy, Elaine, and Sandy. (yes, there were two!)
They are all connected to Roseland Trinity United Church in Windsor, Ontario. This was the second time they’d met to discuss The Book of Answers.
If you have not read it, here’s a link to Amazon, where you can read a sample: https://a.co/d/17px2xY
At their first meeting they worked through some of their owned prepared questions, and a few I’d provided.
At this second meeting, with me as an invited guest, (and I loved this), they took time before we got into the book to go around the Hollywood Squares of Zoom gallery view and introduce themselves.
Two things came through for me as I listened to their stories about themselves.
This is not just a book club. It’s a subset of a larger, caring community. These folks like and love each other, and gathering to discuss their latest read is just one aspect of something bigger, that was a joy to see.
They are all intelligent, accomplished people, most of them retired, who crave, seek out, and make use of opportunities to exercise their minds, feed their spirits, and make the world a little better for their efforts.
I’m not just saying that because they invited me, or because they all said nice things about my book. (Which they did!)
They also asked thoughtful questions, that demonstrated they’d actually read the book, and had taken time to look for deeper meaning in the story.
The most encouraging questions they asked me had to do with my writing process. Do I have trouble keeping the details about all the character straight in my mind?
Yes, I have to keep notes about them.
Did I know from the beginning what was going to happen in the middle and at the end of the book?
Not consciously, but looking back, all the clues and pointers for pretty much the whole story were buried in the first two chapters, and I unearthed for myself while writing the rest.
Do I have images in my head of what the characters look like?
Yes. To help with that, I choose pictures of people from TV and movies that look like the characters as I imagine them.
Who does Rev. Tom look like?
In my mind, he looks like Mark Ruffalo, who plays Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the Avengers movies. Someone in the group had imagined him looking like Tom Hanks. I thought that was good casting.
The most surprising question was, “What’s going to happen to Brad Kazinski?”
Brad is a shadowy, scary crime boss who makes a couple of appearances in The Book of Answers, and who was involved in some dirty deeds with some people connected to St. Mungo’s, the church in the book. He’s the second least likeable character in the story, as far as I’m concerned. He will show up in the sequel, which is tentatively titled “The Book of Strong Suggestions”
Here are their book club questions, and the ones I provided. (Their questions are in italics.)
Overall Impression: Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why (not)?
Plot Line: A mystery novel is often called a “whodunit” story. Who “done it” in this story and exactly what was done?
Characters: The author has created several memorable characters in this book. Who are some of your favourites? Why do they resonate with you?
How would people at your church respond if a body was found in the basement?
In the book, an actual body falls out of a wall but in some churches there are secrets that get buried. If the walls of your church could speak, what might they say?
One theme of the book is “there is almost always a story under the story”. Does that ring true in your own life?
Another theme is “appearance vs. reality”. For some characters in the story, especially Attie, how things look is more important than how things are. Do you know anyone like that?
The book touches on how a fictional United Church congregation lived through tumultuous times in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the aftermath of the decision to affirm the full membership and ministry of gay and lesbian people. Do you have any memories of that time?
Rev. Tom sees what some might call a ghost in the church sanctuary. He is open to other interpretations. What do you think? Is it imagination? Something else?
Rev. Tom and his daughter Hope are grieving the loss of Carrie. How does their experience of grief touch you?
One reader has said Rev. Tom is too forgiving of those who did him wrong. What do you think?
Several readers said they could visualize streets and neighbourhoods in Oakville as they read the book. How important is the sense of “place” in a work of fiction?
These are my rough, rough notes so far, for a talk I’m doing at a community centre breakfast next weekend. What do you think?
When I was a student minister in rural Manitoba in the mid 1980’s I was friends with an Anglican priest named Paul and his wife Mary, who along with the expectations and duties as a clergy spouse, was a nurse working in the local hospital. (I changed their names for this story!)
I once told Mary I liked to read murder mysteries. She confided that she secretly, and only for herself, wrote stories in which members of her husband’s parish died suddenly, and sometimes violently.
Mary said she wrote as a form of therapy, that allowed her to keep smiling and nodding her head at people who she knew were sometimes, consciously or unconsciously, very unkind to each other, and to her husband, their priest.
Mary could create and manage a fictional world in which things came out different. She could live out her revenge fantasies without anyone getting hurt, and without anyone worrying about the murderous nurse, who might have put an unexpected something in the fancy silver pot from which she was obliged to pour at the church ladies tea.
The image of Mary secretly writing her stories stayed with me over the years, without me really doing anything with it.
Every once in a while, while I was lost in a mystery novel, I would wonder if I could write one.
I noticed the books I liked most were not really about the murder, but about an interesting investigator. I like characters that actually have character. They have a moral code, and have developed ideas about how to live their lives, and how to be with other people.
I also like the hero to have serious flaws, problems, issues in their life. I prefer stories in which the lead character is changed by what happens.
They learn something, or solve a personal problem, or make a big shift in their lives. If nothing actually happens to the protagonist while they are dealing with something as traumatic and major as the death of another human, it’s probably not a story I am going to keep reading.
I also like stories in which there are heroes, sort of, and villains, sort of. Every major character in my stories is complicated. They may do incredibly dumb or cruel things. They may be brave. They may be brilliant about some things and dense about others.
When I create a character who’s going to be a perpetrator- commit a crime, hurt or even kill someone, I make sure that they have a reason for doing it. The reason has to make sense to them, even if we would look at it and say, nope, I’d never do that. It’s not enough to make all the villains purely evil.
I actually think purely evil people are pretty rare, and from a fiction writing point of view, they’re boring, because they have no dimension, no nuance, and most of us can’t really connect with them, or relate to them, because we aren’t purely evil.
I was a minister for over 20 years before I started to cook up a story about a church where murder happens.
What got me going on plotting out a novel, and starting to write it, was a course I took at Sheridan College. It was taught by a woman who’s written 18 crime novels, but who teaches writers of all different genres: westerns, young adult, science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical, erotic, horror, thriller, mysteries, and a lot of combinations of all those categories. It was a 12 week spring and summer class called “The Art of the Novel.”
My kids were away from home for summer jobs, and my wife was on sabbatical from her church, and living in Kingston while she did some further training. I had a lot of free time on my hands.
I had some ingredients for a story that I’d been stocking in my author’s kitchen.
One ingredient was an idea about a church that had a body buried behind a basement wall, in a room that no one ever wanted to use, because it felt weird, and kind of smelled. That was based on a true story- the room, not the body in the wall, as far as I know.
I had a small portion about a church that was haunted by the ghost of a former caretaker. This was also based on a true story.
I had some spice. I’d heard about a minister who disappeared overnight and was never seen again, and left behind their spouse. This also actually happened, but not in the way I imagined and told it.
I needed a pot in which to mix all these ingredients. I figured I needed to borrow a church to kill people in, because if I wrote about one that was too similiar to the ones I’ve worked in, people would wonder if I wanted to kill them, or if I was writing about them. (I also knew I was going to include fictional versions of some people I’d met over the years, in highly altered and exaggerated forms.)
I visited a colleague at a neighbouring church, and told him what I had in mind. He was enthusiastic, and hospitable. He loaned me a book about the congregation and its building, and during a tour, told me some stories that did not make it into the official history. One of the best ones was about the church ghost- lots of churches have them!
Another flavour he gave me was a story about the guy who secretly, and without permission, lived in the church belfry for a while, and used to come out at night and pilfer snacks from the supplies of the daycare that rented space in the building.
I took all this rich, juicy food for thought and imagination, ground it all up, spiced it, turned on the heat. Then I cranked, and cranked and out came the story sausages.
(the challenge of getting a book in the hands of readers)
It was a novel-writing class that started me down the path to completing The Book of Answers, my first mystery novel. Our teacher, the amazing Melodie Campbell, told us early on that she’d been writing, and getting published, for decades, and still needed a day job.
Here are some sobering statistics about the “business” side of being an author:
The average self-published book sells 250 copies.
The average self-published author makes $1,000 per year from their books.
33% of self-published authors make less than $500 per year.
Melodie was letting us know that writing fiction in Canada, actually, anywhere, is not a get rich quick scheme. In other words, if we weren’t writing for the joy of writing, it could be disappointing.
I know I am quite privileged to have the luxury of time, energy and resources to have creative hobbies, and interests, as well as work that I find meaningful.
I’m also into the numbers. Partly because most months I choose a cause or charity I care about, and give them half the royalties from sales.
(In November, half the proceeds from sales will go to Five Oaks, a retreat centre on the Grand River near Paris, Ontario.)
It’s also pretty cool to have put a book out into the world, and know that people in four different countries are buying and presumably, reading it.
I have been hearing back from folks who’ve read it, and I love that.
As of today, total confirmed sales of The Book of Answers in all formats, including e-books for Kindle and Kobo, and paperbacks and hardcovers sold through Amazon and a handful of independent bookstores, is 416 in just under 5 months!
The number sold does not include the ones I have on hand for my mini-book tour. I will have copies to sell, and sign (for those who want that) at these exciting events next month:
for those who bought The Book of Answers on Amazon
If you go to Amazon, and rate the book (how many stars out of 5?) and write a two or three sentence review, and send your address to me at revdww@gmail.com I’ll mail you a signed bookplate. (pictured below) If you bought the print version, there is room to add it to the title page. If you bought the e-book, I will still send you a bookplate, but would not presume to tell you where to um, stick it?
I’ve had readers ask why I post photos of fallen police officers.
Many people who read my posts are fans of mystery fiction, crime novels, and police shows on television. It is possible for those of us who read stories about violence and other criminal acts to become de-sensitized to them.
Constable Rick O’Brien was 51 years old. He and his wife had six children. Before joining the RCMP he was a mental health worker. In his 7 years with the RCMP he continued to work with youth with mental health struggles, and served as a school liasion officer.
According to an official RCMP statement:
“Within months of starting… he was involved in the rescue of a home invasion victims, which included a child and the arrest of armed suspects. He received a CO Commendation for Bravery and provincial award for those efforts. Cst. O’Brien led by example, and had a great sense of humour. He was well respected by his peers and the community.”
On Friday morning, September 22, Constable O’Brien was shot and killed, and two fellow officers seriously wounded while serving a warrant related to a drug investigation.
The real life women and men who serve as peace officers live daily with the knowledge that this could happen to them, or to their colleagues. Their families also live with this fear.
Tomorrow, Sunday September 24 the 46th annual Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial Service will be held Sunday on Parliament Hill. The memorial service will begin at 11 a.m. It will conclude with a march past the memorials to the recently fallen officers.
(Going through old files, I found this print of a cartoon about Mr. Carter which he autographed.)
For a few months in 1986 I lived in Sumter County Georgia, and slept in an old farmhouse that had bullet holes in the walls.
I also met former President Jimmy Carter, and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
The Carters, as well as their Secret Service detail came to visit while I was summer intern at Koinonia Farm, which is about 10 miles from Plains.
Koinonia was founded in 1942 as a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God.” The bullet holes in the farmhouse walls were from the years in which their neighbors objected to their efforts towards racial integration.
The Carters rode their bicycles from Plains to join us for Sunday afternoon worship. Their security detail did not ride bikes. They had a lead car and a following van. Each agent had the ear bud with the curly-wired leads we’ve seen in the movies, that went down under their collared shirts, over which they all wore matching blue blazers, which tastefully hid their holstered weapons.
As I remember, there were 4 agents, who placed themselves near the exits of the dining hall where we met for worship.
I was the worship leader and preacher that day. I have no idea what I said, and it’s a blessing no notes survived. At that point I’d had a whole two years of seminary training and possessed far more confidence than practical wisdom.
The Carters were as gracious as you’d expect, and Mr. Carter extended an invitation for the following Sunday, for our intern group to attend his Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.
Five years after the Carters left the White House, people flocked to Plains to attend. When we pulled into the church parking lot in the Koinonia van, the same one we used to run to town to pick up groceries (and the occasional clandestine case of beer) we saw license plates from almost every state.
On that day, Mr. Carter taught about the ancient history of Israel, with many references to the Camp David accords, and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process.
Before the formal lesson, Mr. Carter introduced the Koinonia summer interns. He said all of our names, and told the large crowd (there were hundreds in the auditorium) where we were from.
When he got to me, he noted I was the sole Canadian. He said he continued to be grateful for the involvement of Canada in the rescue of American diplomats from Tehran in 1980.
I received a handshake from a former president, and an enthusiastic round of applause from those gathered in that church auditorium.
Thirty years later, I told this story to my daughter, and she quoted me as a primary source for a high school history paper.
We are on vacation, and will be offline for two weeks, as we travel to Waterloo, Manitoba, and other fun places. I thought I’d do one more promo for my new mystery novel, which is set in a United Church. People in the industry tell me most first books by Canadian authors sell less than 300 copies. When independently published, the numbers are even lower. The average sells less than 50 in its lifetime. As of this morning, after being available for exactly 2 months, The Book of Answers has sold 137 copies. It’s available as an e-book, paperback or hardcover through Amazon, and Storyteller’s Bookstore in Windsor has a few copies left. Half the royalties for August sales go to Walton Memorial United Church in Oakville. I borrowed their building as the setting for the murder and mayhem.
I’d toyed with writing fiction for many years, and was drawn to creating a mystery for two reasons.
The first is it’s a genre I love. I favour mysteries grounded in a real place, that through reading the book I feel I learn something about. I gravitate to mysteries and thrillers that have a protagonist who has interesting things to say. (Two authors who regularly accomplish both are Louise Penny and James Lee Burke.)
The second is that in my (many) years of visiting people’s homes, I’ve seen far more works of genre fiction on shelves and coffee table than I have books of sermons, or of philosophy or theology.
Writing a book is one thing, and writing one people might read is something else altogether.
I thought a murder mystery set in a church would allow me to write about a world that I know something about, and also give me a chance to say, or have the characters say, some things about that world.
I began the novel when I was the pastor at Trinity United Church, a wonderful congregation in a suburb of Toronto called Oakville.
It seemed to me if I was setting a mystery in a church, in a community I know well enough to describe, it had better not be the church I served.
With that thought, I visited Walton Memorial United Church in Oakville’s Bronte Village and chatted with my colleague, the Rev. Jim Gill. When I told him what I had in mind, he was generous with his time, and encouraging words. He even loaned me a history of the congregation and its building, and told me some stories that sparked my writer’s imagination.
For August, I’ll donate half the royalties from sales of The Book of Answers to support the ongoing ministry of Walton, which is a great congregation, and home to many spiritual seekers.
If you have not yet ordered your e-book, paperback, or hardcover copy of The Book of Answers, or you perhaps want to gift it to someone, this is a great time to do it.
If you decide you want it autographed (a thing I’ve been asked to do lately!) email me your mailing address, and I’ll send you a signed bookplate.
My first mystery novel, The Book of Answers, made the short-list for The Unhanged Arthur Ellis, an award for unpublished crime fiction. The annual competition is sponsored by Dundurn Press and CrimeWriters of Canada. On May 23, my wife and I attended a banquet at Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club, where I had the honour of meeting other authors who were nominated, as well as a number of editors, publishers, and authors. It was great fun!
Darrow Woods: Writer of Things 