Nev March's Writing Secrets

It's my pleasure to introduce my good friend, the writer Nev March. We first in the spring of 2018 at the MWA Edgar Week Symposium when Nev was being announced as the winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Award/ When I blurbed Nev's first book, MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY, I commented on her facility at creating extraordinary historical dialogue and weaving history seamlessly into her exciting story. I highly recommend Nev's books, which deal with issues of identity, race, and moral boundaries. Today, she agreed to share some of her writing secrets. Enjoy!----from Sujata

By Nev March

The hardest thing about writing a novel? For me, it’s keeping faith that it will come out well, that I still possess the ingenuity to craft an irresistible tale. This belief fuels everything. 

If I believe, then I can commit to the narrative, see the story evolve, write characters with depth and spin story twists that astonish and delight. Outlining and research help me prepare, but it’s that belief which propels me on. And some days it’s tattered by doubts. 

After writing three books (plus four unpublished manuscripts) I’m at the opening of novel #4. Along with family moments, travel commitments and promotions, I also “fill the well” by reading fiction and non-fiction, mysteries and biographies. Some days, this feels like I’ve done nothing productive. Writers need to trust in the process, but it’s not easy. In fact, having a great first book means the bar is already pretty high. 

So, what can we do about it?

Journaling gets me started each day with the rhythm of writing. It begins in fits and starts, jerky spurts of forward movement, ideas in bits and pieces, disconnected, tantalizing… That’s the point. In this noisy world of voices, we need to hear our own. And that means stopping, for a while, to listen--within. My first book, MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY, was inspired by the true story of two young Parsi women falling to their deaths from the University of Bombay's clocktower in 1891. The story was told as a warning for us children to be careful, but I always wondered who did it--and why.

As children we are trained to “pay attention.” Our entire academic career of about twenty years is spent listening, absorbing, regurgitating, and sometimes, problem solving. However, pursuing a framework to understand the world does not teach us self-belief. Younger writers may lack world experiences to fuel their writing, but they may also have escaped the damaging criticisms of officious judgement. Perhaps this might explain the wonderful inventiveness of younger writers in the fantasy genre. They can pay attention to their own wild creative imagination because it is uncritiqued by a noisy world. There’s something to be learned from this! How can we “catch the wave” of the unfolding story and apply it to a historical setting?

The narrator of MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY is my character Captain Jim Agnihotri. Invaliding out of the army, he wanted a civilian job. He knew it would be difficult to “find a wife” because of his mixed race, which made him something of a social pariah in 1892 colonial Bombay. As the book opens, he’s reading in his hospital bed: “I turned thirty in hospital, in a quiet carbolic scented ward with little to read but newspapers.” Then he reads a letter to the editor by a young widower. It contains a phrase this soldier empathizes with: “They are gone, but I remain.”

I remain. Nineteenth century letters between friends often ended, “your humble servant,” or “I remain your humble servant,” etc. In the twentieth century we closed letters with “Yours truly,’ and “sincerely.” These are abbreviations of “I remain, yours, truly,” or “With sincere affection, etc.” A century later we omit (and have forgotten) the missing salutations, “I remain” and much more.

Writing in a formal “antique” voice came easily because Captain Jim is a Victorian gentleman, proper, earnest and educated in a time when one’s family name and manners opened doors to society or slammed them shut. Reading classics by Conan-Doyle, Orwell, or Jim Corbett can imbue our language with delicious old-fashioned prose, as well an understanding of the peculiar attitudes of the times!

I find inspiration in curious family lore too. As family historian, I’ve just worked through a dusty box of handwritten letters from 1940s and 1950s. In this time capsule, my father (now 92) is a young man, asking for a few rupees to go on a school trip, and later telling his papa about his first job; my grandpa is a young father writing to his brothers—his carefully reworded drafts (he saved them!) show a diligent, caring and careful man. Some things don’t change—a father worrying over his sons; sisters writing to brothers, mothers sending foodstuffs across cities to their kids. And then I found some mysterious allusions, things I don’t quite understand  . . .  so will their troubles make it into my future book? 

Ha, yes indeed, it’s entirely possible!

Nev March is the first Indian-born author to receive the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Award. Her debut novel, MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY, was a finalist for six national awards including the Edgar and Anthony, and was an Amazon Editor's Pick and one of the New York Times' "Best Crime Novels of 2020." During July 2023 only, the e-book version is discounted to $2.99. 

The series' second book, PERIL AT THE EXPOSITION, is just released in paperback. It's a mystery set during Chicago's 1893 Worlds Fair, an event occurring during an era she believes planted the seeds for today's political divisions. Her third series book, THE SPANISH DIPLOMAT'S SECRET, is available for pre-order and will be published in Sept. 2023.

More of Nev's articles can be found in back issues of Mystery Tribune, Mystery Scene Magazine, and CrimeReads.