WHAT OF MARK ARSENAULT, MILD-MANNERED REPORTER, CAN BE FOUND IN THE WORLD-WEARY BILLY POVICH?
My character, Billy Povich, is an obituary writer, a job I did early in my career. Unfortunately, when I wrote obits in my early 20s I didn’t appreciate how important they are to the newspaper or the community. Billy understands, as I do now, that obits are news stories — or, at least they used to be. Billy and I share a horror over what’s happened to the obit page, not just locally but nationwide. Obits are advertisements now. The other thing I have in common with Povich is dark humor. A crime novel needs humor to help ratchet up the suspense. Humor and tension are opposites, and when you put them together both become more intense, like colors on opposite sides of the color wheel. EVEN THE BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER CAN HAVE TROUBLE DIVINING THE MOTIVES OF ALL THE PLAYERS. IS THE OMNISCIENCE OF THE FICTION WRITER MORE SATISFYING? Fiction and journalism are satisfying in different ways. Fiction is harder to write because you’re not divining the motives of the characters, you’re creati
