Everything I Needed to Know About Writing Mysteries I Learned From Quilting

[Writers Plot]

Posted by Leann Sweeney

I have always had a need to keep my hands and my brain busy at the same time. If you write for pleasure, for money, for whatever, you have this trait. You've probably had it for as long as you can remember. No coincidence I painted (while listening to music) and cross-stitched (while watching television) before I began writing (while listening to music) and quilting (while watching television or DVDs). And of course it's no coincidence. Mystery writers shouldn't believe in coincidence. That's Charles Dickens' business.

Odd that I began quilting and writing long fiction simultaneously. I didn't know how to sew and I certainly didn't know how to write (though I thought I did). Guess I was seeking out punishment (aka a challenge). You can learn how to quilt by starting with small easy projects. Not me! Oh no. I had to make a bed quilt. Queen size, in fact. Maybe I went for the big stuff because I'd already discovered that starting small in writing is tremendously difficult. Short stories are tough, people. If you've tried this, you know. I am in awe of anyone who can write a compelling short story. It is truly an art and is very different than penning a novel. By the way, my first quilt was rather ugly and a very odd shape. But usable. I've learned never to throw out anything covered in the DNA found in my tears. And that goes for my books, too.

The quilting skills came quicker and easier than the writing. But I was learning both crafts at the same time. And that's where the quilting really helped. Quilting requires many skills my mother failed to teach me. Patience. Precision. Persistence. Oh, and the humility to admit that what you have created is a piece of crap and you must start over. Every quilt piece must fit together exactly right. If you get sloppy and force pieces to match, you have a big problem when you reach the part where all those pieced squares or triangles or rhomboids--yeah there are even rhomboids--must fit together into something that makes sense, some hing-that actually resembles something pleasing. Same thing with a mystery. Loose ends, as with a quilt, can create a lot of problems.

Way back when, I wrote a bunch of over-dramatic (that's a nice way of saying AWFUL) literary short stories. But when you are creating something plotless (and I am NOT saying plotless is a bad thing) and on the literary end of the scale, persistence isn't all that necessary. Precision yes. In any piece of writing, every word must be the perfect word. Persistence in mysteries and quilts? Absolutely necessary. Finishing either is immensely satisfying. Especially when you've had to take all the pieces apart and start over. I don't believe that if I hadn't learned persistence, patience and precision doing about five quilts that I would have had the skills necessary to write a book and then rewrite it about ten times.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg concerning quilting. I could write a book with a title stolen from that guy who loved Kindergarten. Me? I hated Kindergarten. But god I love quilting and writing.

[Jackie Houchin]

What a great analogy, Leann, and I loved your three P's. I notice that you didn't say perfection, although you thought each word should be perfect. Thanks for the advice...and why not write that "book" like the guy who loved Kindergarten. Oops... that would be a "How to--" and your blog sister would get upset.