ELIZABETH BECKA’S BACKSTORY

I’m new to this. Not writing, exactly, I’ve been writing since high school—I mean I’m new to people asking who I am and where I came from and how and why I wrote Trace Evidence. I can’t say, because I don’t know.

I graduated from college with a degree in Political Science, leaving me no marketable skills save typing. I applied to join the DEA—they were hiring, and I grew up on a steady diet of cop shows—but married instead. I went back to school to get the degree in biology when I realized that I liked science more than any other subject, and sucked up to the staff at the coroner’s office until they hired me. I loved that job. I mean, I loved it. It was exhausting, smelly, dirty and pressured, not just because you’re helping to decide if a killer goes to jail or goes free, but because you have the clothing of three homicides backed up in the drying room and your boss left your last five reports on your desk with lots of red marks and it’s 3 pm and you haven’t had lunch yet but since the county does not pay overtime you will finish by 4:25 on the dot. But at the same time, I read about my cases on the front page, or at least in Local and State, and it sure as hell beat being a secretary. When I went to parties, people wanted to talk to me. I never had that before.

So you can imagine how I felt when I had to quit that job after five short years and move to southwest Florida, because my husband doesn’t like rain or snow or even clouds. Perhaps the less said about that, the better.

I had written 6 novels while a secretary (I had plenty of time) with spies and amateur sleuths. Now, in Florida, I had plenty of time again, and since my heroine is always a thinly disguised me, she became a forensic scientist. So I did not write Evelyn in order to ride on CSI’s coattails, though there is no doubt this turned out to be the best example of timing in a life filled with bad timing and bad decisions. I wrote Evelyn to stay sane, to give myself something to think about besides how homesick I was. Am.

Evelyn has my old job in my old building, drives my old car and lives in my sister’s house. She didn’t require a great deal of creativity. I do not, however, use real cases or real victims or real coworkers in my books. Most murders are quite mundane, the result of either drug activity or people getting mad at each other. You couldn’t get a whole book out of them. I came up with the bizarre drowning method used in the book because I don’t want to detail terribly gory demises—yes, even though I was surrounded by such demises every day, or perhaps because of that. You survive in that environment by not having an imagination, by not thinking too hard about what this person experienced before that final oblivion, and I didn’t want to start. Any death, I figured, is horrible if you think about it. Buckets of blood are not required. Exactly what got me onto rivers and cement shoes…I don’t know. It might have been that scene in Billy Bathgate where they throw Bruce Willis in the water, and you can see he is holding his breath, knowing the futility of it.

I write my books all wrong. I know I’m supposed to take an approach like, what’s the worst thing that can happen to my heroine? How would this change her personality, make her grow in ways she doesn’t expect? But I can’t do it. I write books like, that person is dead, and these are the clues, and this clue seems to lead you here but that doesn’t make sense, and this person doesn’t want to tell you the truth for some reason that has nothing to do with the murder when you come down to it. I don’t want the worst thing in the world to happen to my heroine. I don’t care if she grows. I want the world to leave her, like me, the hell alone. Just let her do her job and come home at night. She investigates murders—isn’t that interesting enough?

The answer, of course, is no. It’s never enough. I can’t think of enough bad things to happen to her at one time that would be enough. So I go back, again and again, adding layer after layer. An obnoxious coworker. A persistent reporter. A fight with her teenage daughter. And above all, some emotional angle that makes this particular murder of particular importance, to the cops, to the entire city of Cleveland, and especially Evelyn. That’s the hardest part. Murdering people and scattering clues here and there is easy.

There. I may not be interesting, but at least I’m honest.

People really like Evelyn but I don’t think it’s because they like me, or because I’ve made her a fascinating person, or because she does amazing things. Like me, Evelyn is self-effacing and just a bit dull, and I think that allows readers to see themselves in her—just a working grunt single mom, trying to be kind and fair and get her job done and maybe, just maybe, have a little left over for herself at the end of the day. We can all identify with that.

Trace Evidence is Elizabeth Becka's first novel.

Comments

[George A. Alaimo]

Becky,
You are a great writer, keep up the fantastic work. . .

[Mark]

I really enjoyed "Trace Evidence". And I think your "cement shoes" passages were even more stimulating than the ones E.L. Doctorow used in "Billy Bathgate". ;)

[Megan]

I loved your book! I know it's been out for a while, but I spied it at the library in the "Readers Choice" area. I've never even seen an episode of CSI, (most likely because I spend all my spare time reading), but I was fascinated with the forensic science angle of this story. It had great characters and kept me guessing until the end. Keep it up! I will be the first in line to buy the next one.

[Beverly]

love your autobiography. thanks for giving us your background. See ya at Murder on the Beach bookstore this week. :-)

Beverly