(Whispered conversation between two young ladies recently overheard in a library bathroom…)
“Do you know anything about, you know…what they’re talking about in there?”
“No. I’m pretty inexperienced when it comes to that kind of stuff.”
“Me too.”
“Is there some sort of book or something that would explain everything?”
“You mean like an illustrated how-to manual?”
“Yeah.”
“Not that I know of. But I’ve heard some of the older girls talking.”
“And?”
“I think they’re talking like they know, but they really don’t know.”
“So how do you learn?”
“I guess you just learn by doing it…”
No, these young ladies were not talking about the facts of life. They were aspiring authors attending their first mystery writers’ meeting. Words like genre and sub-genre and novella had been bandied about like bits of gossip dropped at a high-society cocktail party, all followed by a knowing look and responded to with an I’ll-pretend-I-know-what-you’re-talking-about-even-though-I’m-clueless nod. It might surprise you to learn that these two seemingly unrelated topics do have a lot in common.
