Category Archives: Terry Odell

THE CRAFT OF WRITING BLENDED GENRE – MARCH 2025

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Welcome back to another episode of great writing advice on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog. This year we’re focusing on Genres. We’ll be looking at approaches to writing thrillers, mysteries, romances, and more. Each month I’ll interview an accomplished author who writes in a particular genre, so get ready to learn from the experts!

Today, I’m posting an interview with my friend and colleague Terry Odell. Terry has carved out a lane for herself in a genre that blends police procedural with cozy mystery.

Terry’s latest book, now available for pre-order at this link: https://terryodell.com/danger-abroad

 

So read, enjoy, and engage in Blended Genre.

The Craft of Writing Blended Genre with Terry Odell Share on X

 

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Good news! In recognition of my Lady Pilot-in-Command series, my good friend and master craftsman Dr. Steve Hooley has provided me with this unique and fabulous “Wilbur and Orville 1903” propeller pen. Hand crafted by Steve, the pen is made from Ash, one of the woods the Wright brothers used to build their first aircraft. The market value of this beautiful creation is around $80.00.

The name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for the pen. So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll post the name of the winner after 9 PM Central Time tonight. (Previous 2025 winners are not eligible to win.)

 

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Welcome, Terry, and thank you for being on the Craft of Writing blog!

Thanks so much for having me, Kay. I’m delighted to be here.

You write police procedural / cozy mystery novels. Define that blended genre for us.

When I wrote my first Mapleton Mystery, Deadly Secrets, I had no idea it was a “blended genre.” I simply told the story I wanted to tell. A police chief who had accepted the job reluctantly. I tested him by creating the first homicide in the town’s collective memory—and let things unfold.

I also realized that the mystery books I enjoyed most were those where the protagonist had a life beyond the job. I was reading many of them twice: once for the private life and again for the mystery. So, I gave Gordon, my police chief, a life outside the office as well. He’s very private when it comes to his outside relationships—almost shy—so in the first book, we meet Angie, the owner of the town café, the woman he has a personal interest in, but he’s reluctant to pursue it. He feels it’s inappropriate to be seen in any kind of relationship. (Angie puts him straight.)

And that was about it. I let things play out, and now, with 8 novels and 3 novellas, their relationship has grown.

Once I’d finished the book, I pursued the at-the-time process for finding a publisher. I met one editor at a conference, and she requested the manuscript. When she responded, her comment was, “I don’t know if this is a police procedural or a cozy.” She gave me the option of rewriting it, one way or the other, and resubmitting, or writing a new book which she said she’d be happy to look at.

After talking to the editor. I realized then that publishing was all about the marketing. Where would that book, as written, fit on the bookstore shelves? But I liked the book the way it was. Indie publishing was still in its infancy, but it seemed to me there must be other readers out there who like things a little different.

So, I guess to answer your question, a blended genre novel has elements of more than one genre.

How are police procedural / cozy mystery books different from other forms of fiction?

I would say they’re different the same way any other fiction genres are. People gravitate toward the genres that appeal to them, be they mystery, romance, science fiction, paranormal—the list goes on. As long as you meet reader expectations, such as making sure the crime is solved at the end of the book in a mystery, I think there’s plenty of room to include aspects of other genres.

Why did you decide to write in a blended genre?

An early reviewer praised the book as a police procedural with a cozy feel, so I accepted that and ran with it. Until then, I thought I was writing a straight police procedural with characters with lives beyond solving a crime. However, I don’t follow the ‘rules’ of the cozy genre. My protagonist is a cop, not an amateur sleuth. He’s in a relationship with someone who doesn’t solve crimes, but she’s a good sounding board and has helped Gordon from time to time. She doesn’t go off trying to solve crimes on her own. And, sorry, but there are no pets, talking or otherwise. Animals appear from time to time, but they’re on the periphery.

For the record, the Mapleton series is only a little different from traditional mysteries. When I read mysteries, I liked seeing what the cops did off the job, so there was more to the book than Gordon showing up at work every day. I preferred to put his personal life on the page, not between chapters.

Can you give us a brief outline of the process—from concept to completion—that you use to write your blended genre novel?

I’m not a plotter, so I don’t have an outline or a ‘formula’ when I set out to write one of my Mapleton Mystery books. For me, the process with the first book, Deadly Secrets, was basically the same as my process for any book. I follow the case, and I follow Gordon and Angie’s relationship as the story moves along. Some books might be more about the case, others might put more emphasis on Gordon and Angie’s home life, but I don’t track that. I let it unfold organically.

Note: for me, any book is all about the characters, so that’s where I focus.

What advice would you give an author who decides to write a blended genre novel?

If you’re looking to be traditionally published, it might be a harder sell than a single-genre, for the marketing reasons stated above. If you’re going to publish the book yourself, you’ll have to work at marketing—but then, unless you’re a Big Name Author, it doesn’t matter how you’re published. You’re going to have to do some—or a lot—of the heavy lifting.

Besides your own books, what other BG books would you recommend?

I’d recommend any romantic suspense. Those were the first books I had published, and they’re definitely  blended genres, even though they’re not marketed that way. There’s a mystery/crime/suspense element and a relationship element, and both have to be resolved to fulfill reader expectations by the end of the book.

Are you working on a book now?

Yes, I have my 12th Blackthorne, Inc. novel, Danger Abroad, coming out next month. It also qualified, in my mind at least, as a blended genre, since there’s some suspense, a mystery, and a relationship. In fact, I call ALL my books “Mysteries With Relationships.”

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

My website

My Facebook Page

My blog

My Substack https://terryodellauthor812.substack.com

The Craft of Writing Blended Genre with Terry Odell Share on X

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Meet Terry Odell

I was born in Los Angeles and now make my home in Divide, Colorado. An avid reader (my parents tell everyone they had to move from our first home because I finished the local library), I always wanted to “fix” stories so the characters did what I wanted, in books, television, and the movies. Once I began writing, I found this wasn’t always possible, as evidenced when the mystery I intended to write rapidly became a romance.

However, my entry into the world of writing can be attributed to a “mistake” when my son mentioned the Highlander television series on a visit home. Being the “good mother” I began watching the show and soon connected with the world of fan fiction, first as a reader, then as a critique giver, and then, one brave weekend, I wrote my first short story.

Things snowballed and soon I was writing my first original novel. Much later, I mentioned something about a recent Highlander episode to my son, and he said, “Oh, I’ve never actually watched the show, I just thought the concept was cool.” Little did he know what he’d started.

I love getting into the minds of my characters, turning them loose in tight spots and seeing what they do. Too often, they surprise me.

My published works include the Pine Hills Police Series, the Blackthorne, Inc. covert ops series, the Triple-D Ranch series and the stand alone, What’s in a Name? — all Romantic Suspense, as well as the Mapleton Mystery series, which have been described as a blend of police procedural and cozy mysteries. Heather’s Chase is a stand alone International Mystery Romance, which I had a blast researching on a trip through the British Isles. My mystery short story collection, Seeing Red, is a Silver Falchion award winner. I also have a collection of contemporary romance short stories.

When I’m not writing, or watching wildlife from my window, I’m probably reading.

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“a spectacular tale of decades-old murder mystery, human drama, and a hint of romance…” —Prairie Book Reviews

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — DECEMBER 2024

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2024 has been a special year on the Craft of Writing blog. The theme of this year’s blog posts was Aspects of the Novel, and each month I interviewed an extraordinary author on a different subject. The results were so full of writing wisdom, I decided to present a snippet from each interview in this, the last post of 2024.

Walking with the Wise - A summary of wisdom from the Aspects of the Novel blog posts Share on X

 

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The name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll post the name of the winner after 9 PM Central Time tonight, so be sure to check back to see if you won. (Previous 2024 winners are not eligible to win.)

 

Now, sit back and enjoy walking with our wise friends through Aspects of the Novel. To see the entire interview for any of the choices below, click on the link.

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VOICE (James Scott Bell)

How does an author go about developing his/her own voice?

It’s really a matter of learning ways to let the voice run free. Let it come out naturally as you, the author, are concentrating on the emotion and action and internal lives of the characters. There are various exercises I give in my book on voice, such as the page-long sentence. When I come to a place of high emotion in a scene, I like to start a fresh document and write a single, run-on sentence of at least 200 words. It is free-form, wild text in the character’s voice, not thinking about grammar or structure. It’s just pouring out the emotion as fast and intensely as possible.

What happens inevitably, like panning for gold, is you get a few glistening nuggets. It may even be only one sentence, but that sentence will be choice.

There are other methods, but the great point is that doing this begins to develop a strong “voice muscle” in your writer’s brain, and you get better and better at it the more you exercise it.

 

PLOTTING (DiAnn Mills)

What makes a good plot? Do you advise authors to write to specific plot points (e.g., inciting incident, first pinch point, dark night of the soul)?

This depends on the type of plotter and the method the writer’s brain functions. I’d like to emphasize that the writer must work according to how their brain processes and analyzes story. With that said, I write toward:

  1. The first open doorway which is 1/5 to ¼ of the way into the novel. This is where the POV character determines to go after the goal.
  2. Mid-point, I toss in a wrench. In other words, something about the plot changes the story.
  3. End of middle, the climax.
  4. Resolution

 

ANTAGONISTS (Debbie Burke)

How does a good writer approach creating the antagonist character? Are there exercises a writer can use to develop their villain-creating talents?

A technique I like to use is James Scott Bell’s voice journal. Let the antagonist write out their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. What are their deepest, most secret desires? Give them the opportunity to express their frustration, anger, and hatred. Putting their emotions into words helps the author get inside their skin and understand why they feel their behavior is justified.

Interview the villain/antagonist. Ask questions. What is their background? How did their parents treat them? Were they bullied or abused? What early losses or failures scarred them?

Another Jim Bell tip: have villains argue their case before the jury that will decide their fate. What compelling arguments can they offer to save themselves from the death penalty?

 

SCENE (Randy Ingermanson)

You also say every scene in a book is a miniature story. Explain that.

Every scene in your book needs to work as a short story. Every single scene. It must have a viewpoint character that the reader can root for (or root against). And it must have a single conflict that gets resolved by the end of the scene.

If you have even one scene that doesn’t work as a story, you’re going to lose readers at that scene. They’ll put the book down. And they’re done with that book.

So you need every scene in your novel to be pulling its weight. If a scene doesn’t work, then you have some options. You can kill the scene—just shoot it right in the head and throw its carcass to the wolves. Or you can fix the scene—figure out why it’s broken and solve the problem.

I have killed a few scenes in my life, but 95% of all scenes can be fixed. If you know how. And my book shows you how. One of the main reasons I wrote my book is to teach authors how to diagnose and fix a busted scene. (And also how to recognize a scene that works so you can leave it alone.)

 

EMOTION (Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi)

What part does emotion play in novel writing?

In some ways, emotion is the novel, because the words we choose will steer readers toward what we want them to feel. Is the noise emanating from that dark room a sing-song hum, a melody whispered to a child at bedtime? Or is it a slow, heavy scrape, conjuring the image of a monstrous axe blade being dragged across the floor? As the writer, we choose what we intend readers to feel, and shape our description accordingly. When we do this well, reading becomes an immersive, powerful experience.

To ensure readers are drawn in, though, we must make sure they emotionally connect to our characters first and foremost. We do this by revealing their human layers as they navigate the world around them, showing how they feel, what they need, want, fear, and think. When we do this well, readers connect to our characters because life is an emotional journey, and they find common ground. When we show what’s going on within a character, readers come to see them as someone real. They begin to empathize and become invested in what happens next.

 

DIALOGUE (Larry Leech II)

How does dialogue bring characters to life?

Individuality. Much has been taught about plot, structure, character arc, etc., but I believe readers love to hear a character speak. First, each character must have a distinctive voice. A fifty-year-old white male should not sound like a twenty-two-year-old female person of color. Even two teenage boys should not sound the same. Each has a backstory and moral center that dictates how they speak.

Think of the cinematic voices we know well. Whenever someone says, “Life is a like a box of chocolates,” we hear Forrest Gump. Or “No, I am your father,” we hear Darth Vader. Or “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” we hear Chief Brody in Jaws.

Also, along with what I mentioned above about the importance of dialogue in story, dialogue also reveals worldview, syntax, and what I call “industry language.” For example, law enforcement and military personnel often say, “I’ve got your six (your back).” A plumber wouldn’t say that.

Along with action, dialogue helps the reader understand the character. And if done effectively, allows the reader to “live” the story instead of reading it.

 

DEEP POINT OF VIEW (Terry Odell)

Now, on to Deep POV:

Deep POV can be thought of as writing a first person book in third person. You are deep inside the POV character’s head, providing the reader with not only the character’s five senses, but also their thoughts and feelings. Because you’re deep into their heads, your readers should feel closer to the characters than if you have an outside narrator, as is the case in shallower third person POV. A test. You should be able to replace he, she, or the character’s name with “I.”

When writing in Deep POV, it’s also important to be true to the character. What would they notice? Two characters walk into a room. (No, that’s not the start of a joke.) One’s a cop; the other is an interior designer. They’ll focus on very different things.

 

ANTI-HEROES (Sue Coletta)

How do you define an anti-hero?

An anti-hero is the protagonist of the story, who straddles the law. Good people doing bad things for the right reason. Nothing is black and white. Anti-heroes thrive in shades in gray.

 

ROMANCE IN CHRISTIAN FICTION (DiAnn Mills)

Toss aside your thoughts about simple themes and tepid emotions that water down the love relationship between a man and a woman, Instead, think about how to include “real” elements and write an authentic and believable story.

  • The joy of true romantic love is real.
  • The emotions are real.
  • The physical, mental, and spiritual challenges are real.
  • The heartbreak of broken relationships is real.
  • The struggle of adhering to God’s way of honoring each other until marriage is real.
  • The blessings of obedience and a Christ-filled relationship are real.

Dipping our toes into the waters of writing Christian romance doesn’t mean we swim in shark-infested waters. According to the American Heritage Dictionary romance is “a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.” Love is “an intense feeling of deep affection.”

 

DESCRIPTION (P.J. Parrish)

How would you define descriptive writing?

Wow. That’s a toughie. Well, let’s start with a distinction. There’s explanation and then there’s description. Explanation is you, the writer, just dealing with the prosaic stuff of moving characters around in time and space. Explanation example: The man walked into the room. Simple choregraphy. Gets the job done but pushes no emotional buttons.

But description? That’s where the magic happens. When you work your descriptive powers, you engage the reader’s senses and imagination, maybe tugging on their memories and experiences. The man didn’t just walk into the room.  Rewrite:

The old man stopped just inside the door of the café. He was in his eighties, that much was clear. But as he stood there, erect and with a small smile tipping his lips, heads turned to him. It wasn’t just the panama hat or the seersucker suit. Because the hat was yellowed and his sleeves were frayed. No, we were staring at him because the air around him seemed to vibrate with an aliveness. He caught my eye and started toward me, and my throat closed. It was like looking at my father, the one I had seen only in photographs.

See the difference? The main purpose of descriptive writing is to show the reader a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in their mind. It means paying close attention to the details by using all of your five senses. Explanation vs description. When you explain something, you try to make it clearer and easier to understand. But when you describe, you’re tugging on their emotions.

 

FAITH IN FICTION (Chautona Havig)

For authors who are interested in including some faith element in their works, what advice would you give them?

I think the key is to reframe the idea of “putting faith into a book.” Instead, look at ways faith might naturally emerge from a character or situation.  That makes all the difference. Jesus talked about insides and outsides of cups. Polishing up the cup of your book to reflect Jesus doesn’t have the power that allowing Him to spill out onto the page naturally does.

The best way I know to make that happen is to fill yourself with Jesus. You can’t write what isn’t in you. Get into the Word. Study it. Talk about it with other Christians. Listen to godly teachers and then go compare what they said with what the Bible says.  I firmly believe that if you fill yourself with Scripture, it’ll come out in your writing and in your reading. You’ll get spiritual lessons from books that the authors never intended.  I know this because I can’t count how many times I’ve told an author, “When I read this and remembered that Scripture, I realized that this other thing was true.” MANY times the author says, “I never caught that connection.”  I got it because of what I was studying at the time. And God used that.  And that is the beauty of Scripture.

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A NOTE FROM KAY

I’m deeply grateful to all the authors who agreed to be interviewed on my blog in 2024 and to all the folks who dropped by to read and/or comment on the interviews. Best wishes to you all for a Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy New Year!

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If you’re looking for a last-minute gift, each of my ebook mystery novels is on sale in December for 99¢. Click on the image of a book to go to the Amazon sales page.

        

Walking with the Wise - A summary of wisdom from the Aspects of the Novel blog posts Share on X

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — JULY 2024

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This year the CRAFT OF WRITING blog is focusing on Aspects of the Novel, such as Plot, Dialogue, Characterization, etc. We’ve had some great discussions so far, including James Scott Bell on Voice, DiAnn Mills on Plotting, Debbie Burke on Antagonists, Randy Ingermanson on Scenes, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi on Emotion, and Larry Leech on Dialogue. If you missed any of these, go to kaydibianca.com/blog and choose the post you want to revisit.

This month, I’m excited to welcome back Terry Odell, award-winning novelist and fellow Kill Zone Blog contributor.  Instead of an interview, Terry has chosen to write this post about Deep Point of View, the perspective she uses in her novels.

 

So come close because we’re talking intimate point of view!

 

Deep Point of View with Terry Odell Share on X

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We ran out of our gorgeous propeller pens, but this month the name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Card. (Not nearly so pretty as the pen, but still a useful gift!)

So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll post the name of the winner after 9 PM Central Time tomorrow night, so be sure to check back to see if you won. (Previous 2024 winners are not eligible to win.)

 

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Welcome back to the Craft of Writing blog, Terry, and thank you for joining us!

Thanks, Kay, for inviting me to talk about one of my favorite writing topics. When I toyed with writing a short story and sent it to an author I had been beta reading for, she sent it back with comments about my “liberties” with point of view. I had no clue what that meant, but I accepted the challenge and learned what I could. Later, Suzanne Brockmann introduced me to Deep Point of View, and I was hooked.

Let’s start at the beginning.

What is point of view?

Simply said, it’s who’s telling the story in any given scene. It’s the character through whose senses the reader experiences what’s going on. There are no ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ but choosing the wrong POV can keep the reader from being drawn into the story. Readers need to bond with character, and POV is one tool the writer uses to develop that connection.

What are your choices?

There are variations and subsets, but these are the basics:

Omniscient: Someone outside the story knows what’s going on and reports to the reader.

Examples:

John and Mary lingered over coffee. Little did they know that outside, the Romulans were planning their first attack on Earth.

A melody she didn’t recognize as Mozart came from the room.

If she’d known what waited behind the door, she’d never have opened it.

First Person: Told from the point of view of a single person. The use of “I” can get monotonous for the reader, which presents challenges for the author.

Examples:

I went to the store.

The cloying odor of death wasn’t what bothered me as I signed the patrol officer’s clipboard and ducked under the yellow tape fastened across the door.

Second Person: This one is very rare, and also very hard to pull off. It’s commonly used in things like children’s books where the reader can choose what to do next.

Examples:

You went to the store.

You feel your heart race. The only way forward is to move your feet.

Third Person: This is the most commonly used, and it has many variations. It can be shallow, almost narrated, or deep—almost the same as 1st person—with all levels in between.

Examples:

He went to the store

Gordon Hepler’s face ached from the smiles he’d been forced to display.

Now, on to Deep POV:

Deep POV can be thought of as writing a first person book in third person. You are deep inside the POV character’s head, providing the reader with not only the character’s five senses, but also their thoughts and feelings. Because you’re deep into their heads, your readers should feel closer to the characters than if you have an outside narrator, as is the case in shallower third person POV. A test. You should be able to replace he, she, or the character’s name with “I.”

When writing in Deep POV, it’s also important to be true to the character. What would they notice? Two characters walk into a room. (No, that’s not the start of a joke.) One’s a cop; the other is an interior designer. They’ll focus on very different things.

Pet peeves of mine (not that they’re wrong, they just pull me out of the character’s head) are in this example:

Sally rushed down the avenue, her floral chiffon scarf trailing behind her. She adjusted her Oakley sunglasses over her emerald-green eyes. When she reached the door of the office building, she finger combed her short-cropped auburn hair. Her full, red lips curved upward in a smile.

 

Is Sally really thinking about the specifics of her scarf? Or the brand of her sunglasses? The color of her eyes? I think you get the picture. We don’t think of ourselves that way unless there are good reasons. Maybe Sally just came from the salon and had her hair cut short and colored, so she might be noticing the length and thinking about the color. But that, to me, is a big maybe. And just “no” on the lips. That’s not coming from inside her head, either.

In Deep POV, just as in real life, a character can only observe and make assumptions about what another character is thinking. They can notice facial expressions and body language, but they can’t know what’s really going on in that character’s head.

Stick with what’s appropriate for the POV character. This means you’re writing in the character’s voice, not your own. In short, there’s no narrator.

Don’t show things a character can’t see or know. Likewise, don’t hide things they are seeing, hearing, etc., from the reader.

Don’t use “thought” as a speaker tag. That’s going to distance the reader. If you’re handling the POV correctly, readers will know they’re in the character’s head. I use a lot of internal monologue in my books, and most of the time, don’t feel there’s any need to italicize them. The only time I use italics for thoughts is when a character is thinking to himself—and I’ll shift to second person for those.

Example: You idiot. Why did you say that?

Compare that with: He was such an idiot. Why did he say that?

They’re both ok, but the first example is deeper. In either case, it should be clear these are thoughts and “he thought” isn’t necessary.

Use anchoring words to keep the reader grounding in the character’s head: knew, saw, wanted, seemed to be, obviously, watched, noticed.

 

Why do I prefer Deep POV?

  • We live in 1st person POV.
  • Deep 3rd is as close to 1st person as one can get.
  • It easily accommodates multiple POV characters. Most of my romantic suspense titles use two POV characters, and I use a Deep POV for both of them.
  • It gives the reader an emotional connection to the character.

I’ll be checking back during the day, so if you have questions, ask away.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

My website, my blog, my Facebook Page, and recently, my Substack, Writings and Wanderings.

 

Thank you, Terry, for being with us today.

My pleasure, Kay. Any time!

 

Deep Point of View with Terry Odell Share on X

 

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Meet Terry Odell

 

“I love getting into the minds of my characters, turning them loose in tight spots and seeing what they do. Too often, they surprise me.

My published works include the Pine Hills Police Series, the Blackthorne, Inc. covert ops series, the Triple-D Ranch series and the stand alone, What’s in a Name? — all Romantic Suspense, as well as the Mapleton Mystery series, which has been described as a blend of police procedural and cozy mysteries. My current releases in that series are Deadly Adversaries and the first three novels as a box set. It’s called, brilliantly enough, The Mapleton Mystery Novels, Volume One.

Heather’s Chase is a stand alone International Mystery Romance, which I had a blast researching on a trip through the British Isles, soon to be followed up with Double Intrigue, set on a Danube River cruise, where we toured Christmas markets last December. My mystery short story collection, Seeing Red, is a Silver Falchion award winner. I also have a collection of contemporary romance short stories.

When I’m not writing, or watching wildlife from my window, I’m probably reading.”