Debut Novelist Mads Molnar III on Finishing Untold Stories and Traveling to Write

by Mads Molnar III

A Brooklyn Wine Class and the Unfinished Story

I’d been thinking about this idea ever since a wine class in Brooklyn 7 years before. As we sniffed and snorted our glasses, the vintner leading the class paused his wine pitch to tell us a story from the French countryside in 1940. 

In May, the Nazis raged across the border of Germany through Alsace and did a little more looting than was seen later in the war. One French winemaker, upon getting word they’d raid his cellar next, poisoned a case of his best wine.

We had all stopped drinking and swirling. The vintner had our attention. Then he added, “No one knows what happened to the wine.” The class released a collective sigh before we poured the next glass. 

Traveling to the Scene of the Crime 

The story lodged in my subconscious, and reminded me of my grandfather’s biographical WWII tales. I mulled both over for years, until I found myself on a biodynamic vineyard in a little town called Katzenthal, working for a winemaker named Clément Klur.

We took in a harvest of grapes: gewurztraminer, pinot noir, pinot grigio and riesling. I stomped some with my bare feet freezing numb in the cold of the fall and pressed others in Klur’s large bladder press. My wife cooked giant family-style lunches for the workers and we finally, after weeks of work, rode through the little town on the harvest tractor wearing garlands of grape vines and singing in the end of harvest—La Fête des Vendanges. We got to taste the juice from the grapes that we’d harvested. And as I helped with the fermentation and was alone in the cellar surrounded by bubbling barrels of juice turning hard, I remembered the story from the tasting and my grandfather’s life. Now surrounded by the same world of wine, standing in a cellar in that same region of the world, 80 years later, the story began to bubble up in my mind like the wine and I began to write. 

My grandfather inspired the psychologist-turned detective protagonist, the wine class vintner inspired the plot and Clément Klur and his gorgeous town of Katzental inspired the winery and winemaker in the book. 

The ferment was soon finished and my writing broke from the early morning hours into other parts of the day. 

My wife and I traveled through France, Switzerland and Italy for months from one vineyard to the next. We ended up in New Zealand via Australia before I typed “THE END” and attained closure on the story of the poisoned case of wine. 

Writing Prompts for Fiction Authors

As a writer, have you ever had a life event shove you out of inertia and into writing a story? Here are a few questions and writing prompts for you, related to travel and expanding on true stories:

• The next time you travel, collect details from that place. It just might serve you in your next story. Take note of the smells and sounds, the personality of the people and the place’s history. And most importantly, ask questions of all the local people. If you can become curious to learn the history it will be fleshed out in your mind and be more real to readers.

• Are there details about people you’ve met or know that could inspire rich characters? Think about speech patterns, mannerisms, dress, physicality, habits, motivations and even the things that make that person angry.

• Is there a story you’ve heard that’s always stuck with you? Maybe from a class or from someone in your family, like grandparents?

• Is there a compelling true story with an unknown ending that you could finish?

If you’re a fan of fast-paced adventure and hard-boiled detectives such as Philip Marlowe, you may enjoy reading my take on the destination of the bottles of poisoned wine. The historical thriller is a story of murder, love and revenge that one early reader called “a wild ride through Europe during WWII.” Watch the book trailer and grab a copy of Pinot Noir: A WWII Novel here: www.pinotnoirbook.com 

By afternoon, he's a journalist who's won numerous writing awards; by evening, he's an award-winning film director and by early morning he's a fiction writer under the name Mads Molnar III. Pinot Noir is his first novel.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

I’m hoping you will consider my 95,000-word YA historical adventure novel, THE VICTORIAN TRAVESTY, which I believe will appeal to fans of Meg Cabot’s PRINCESS DIARIES and Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER. What you have here is great in terms of comp titles and description. However, I usually advise to put this information at the bottom of the query. They know you're querying hoping that they'll represent you. It's an assumed. I personally think it's better to jump in wtih a strong hook.

What if there was a secret kingdom in modern-day that lived as if it was the Victorian era? Rhetorical questions aren't a good start. What if it was ruled by an evil queen, bent on keeping her people in the dark about modernity? What if there was only one girl with the birthright to dethrone the queen, but she was raised in the outside world? You need to strike this entire first para and get these elements Victorian enclave in modern day world, evil ruler, lost royalty, into the query in a different way.

Alair has never had to answer any of these questions until a mysterious uncle arrives and invites her to reunite with her estranged father in Penvellyn Quarter. Hidden deep in the lush Bavarian Alps, Penvellyn Quarter is a small kingdom that chooses to live as if it is in the Victorian era—in fashion, in manners, and in everyday simplicity. Decent, but we know nothing about Alair. Is she nice, mean, cute, ugly, sporty, proper? What's her life like before this happens? Is she bored, or invested in what she already has?

As if that wasn’t mindboggling enough, Alair’s father just so happens to be the king.

Alair’s uncle ushers her through a bustling Victorian town to a magnificent castle to reunite with her father. She arrives just in time to witness the unimaginable: her father is murdered by his wife, Queen Fidelia. His dying words: Dethrone Queen Fidelia. Now the sole ruler, Queen Fidelia is free to implement her evil vision for the kingdom. Right now this is reading more like a synopsis than a query. You're walking us through the setup when what we really need is to know the meat of the story.

Now-Princess Alair is overwhelmed by the dated and often backward mores of Victorian culture. There's no way she can remember the difference between fifteen kinds of spoons or learn the language of flowers. Her royal cousins won’t speak to her, and soldiers study her every move, as if they know just how many secret passageways she’s already found. So she can't go back? Why not?

Reeling from culture shock and grief, Alair is ready to flee for home. It’s only after she makes some friends, realizes the beauty, whimsy, and fun of this strange place, and comes to care about the dire danger it faces under Queen Fidelia that Alair commits to fulfilling her father’s wish—she commits to dethroning Queen Fidelia. Don't use Fidelia's name so much, it's muddying up the query. You also have an echo with "commits."

To do that, she must out Queen Fidelia’s secret that she killed the king. Luckily, the popular and cunning Fidelia has one hamartia not going to lie, I had to Google this. Better to stick with words the agent will know: she’s hidden proof of her crime somewhere in the castle. But why would she do that? It doesn't make sense. Alair just has to find it—before one of Fidelia’s attempts on Alair’s life succeeds.

If she fails to defeat her father’s killer, Alair, her new friends, and all of Penvellyn Quarter will be Queen Fidelia’s next victims.

THE VICTORIAN TRAVESTY is my first novel. I graduated with a BA in English from the University of Georgia, and I currently work as a freelance copywriter and editor. You don't need to state that it's your first novel, but everything else in the bio looks good.

Overall - don't start with the questions, open with something stronger. The idea of a modern girl being uprooted and tossed into Victorian life is a good hook. Don't cripple it with the rhetorical questions. The Uncle seems to disappear after serving his purpose, so does he really need to be in the query?

You infer earlier on that the queen keeps the secret of modern life from her kingdom, and that is part of her evilness. But that is dropped later on when Alair only seems to want to reveal the murder - not usher everyone into the 21st Century. So what's the real goal here? Move the people into the modern life? Or dethrone the queen for murder?

Kristy Boyce on Using Travel For Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Kristy Boyce, author of Hot British Boyfriend, releasing Feb. 9, 2021. She lives in Columbus, OH and teaches psychology as a senior lecturer at The Ohio State University. When she’s not spending time with her husband and son, she’s usually writing, reading, putting together fairy gardens, or watching happy reality TV (The Great British Bake-Off and So You Think You Can Dance are perennial favorites).

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I did! Actually, my earliest inspiration came from a multiple choice question I wrote for an exam. In my psychology class on “The Self,” I was teaching about how people are often pulled between showing their best self (self-enhancement) and their true self (self-verification). I wrote a question asking if a person studying abroad would use self-enhancement or self-verification when interacting with other students and then I sat back and thought, “That would be a fun YA to write!”

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

First, I knew I wanted to set it in England. I’ve always been a huge anglophile and I’ve been lucky enough to travel there multiple times. Additionally, my best friend taught at a study abroad program at Harlaxton Manor, which is a gorgeous manor north of London, and I was inspired to use that location for my school.  

Once I had the main premise and the location figured out, everything else started to come together. For Hot British Boyfriend, the setting plays a huge role in the plot. I was able to take virtual tours of the manor to help me and I also pulled from my own experiences in England and Europe. Compared to other books I’ve written, this plot came together (relatively) easily.  

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper? 

Oh, definitely. I will have this whole manuscript laid out in my mind, but when I start to write I’ll sometimes find that the stakes aren’t high enough or the character motivations aren’t solid.

I like to fast draft at the beginning so I try not to get too caught up in these issues. Often if I keep writing then I’ll figure out how to solve the problems. Also, I’ve found it’s better for me to get down a full rough draft and then step back and look at it as a whole before making decisions or changes.   

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I’m not someone who gets story ideas very often. I’d say maybe every six months or so I’ll be inspired by a new idea, but I don’t have notebooks of ideas sitting around or anything like that. It’s always a relief when a new shiny idea comes to me because I know I haven’t lost it yet! 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Usually I have one manuscript I’m working on and one lurking in the back of my head that I know I’ll move to next. Choosing the next story has never been a hard decision for me. Plus, now I’m in the lucky position where I can talk to my agent and editor when making that choice.

I have 5 cats and a Dalmatian puppy (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I have one elderly cat named Moogle (named from the Final Fantasy video game!) and she loves to be in my office because it’s sunny and she can sleep in peace. Honestly, she might be happier if I wasn’t there and she had the place to herself!