How To Guns is different than any of my other books

About a year ago, I wrote a post for Omnimystery about the difference between plotting mysteries and writing noir. You can read the whole thing if you want. But the upshot is that the former genre is about architecting the ending, while the latter is about losing yourself in atmosphere.

Both of the Owl and Raccoon books were outlined from the solution backwards before I started writing. While both the Sin and Nicki books chase a scene or sentence I found compelling.

To Guns is the first book I've written that's both. It has all the lush detail and moody atmosphere, but I finished chapter-by-chapter notes for the four main characters (Sin, Nicki, Mathieu and Meb) before I started writing.

Courage, whiskey and whiplash: An excerpt from an interview

I was pretty uncensored in this interview with OmniMystery. For instance:

OMN: You finished Regret Things almost a year ago. What was the hold up? 

MI: Fear. Sin Walks Into The Desert was classic neo-Western noir, filled with cool characters. But Regret Things is a hard book to categorize. I expect it to be polarizing. Grant can be perceived as sexist because he objectifies every woman he sees. But he can also be perceived as anti-male because he is so powerless in the presence of the opposite sex. It’s a running joke that he never really connects with the action in the book because he keeps getting distracted by pretty girls. And while Grant’s chapters are told in straight-ahead thriller style, I unleashed the English language for Nicki’s chapters. I wanted them to feel as wild and overwhelming as Manhattan itself. That shift in tone might be exhilarating, or it might give readers whiplash. I don’t know. It took a lot of courage and a little whiskey for me to hit the publish button.

Click here to read the rest.