Category Archives: Uncategorized

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — NOVEMBER 2023

Posted on by 25 comments

I’m excited to continue this year on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog by focusing on authors who write series. This month, I welcome the effervescent Chautona Havig.  Chautona has written over a hundred books in several series and hosts a popular podcast as well! I don’t know where she gets the energy, but I’m glad she’s with us today to talk about writing the series.

Here are just a few of Chautona’s books. Click the image to go to her website.

How did she write more than 100 books? An interview with Chautona Havig and a chance to win a hand-crafted Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

* * *

Once again, we’re doing something fun for this interview. The name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for a unique “Beginning of Time” pen, hand-crafted by my friend and colleague Steve Hooley. So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll leave the contest open for an extra day for folks who comment later, and I’ll post the name of the winner after 9PM Central Time tomorrow (Tuesday, Nov 14) night.

(Former winners are excluded from the drawing, but not from commenting!)

* * *

Welcome to the Craft of Writing blog, Chautona Havig, and thank you for joining us!

Thank you for having me! I always love a good chat with you.

 

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer, and what was your first published work?

I remember “the moment” quite distinctly. I was twelve and living in Ventura, California. Mom gave me a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and told me I might want to read it.  I did.  And the teacher in that book—the one who Francie lied to about the little pie she took home—answered so many problems I had. She counseled Francie and then said, “Tell the truth. Write what should have happened.”

I can’t recall if it was 2007 or 2009, but my first book published was Noble Pursuits.  I was testing out the whole indie publishing thing to help me decide if I wanted to go traditional or not. I took a lot of bad advice with that book, made tons of mistakes.  Eventually, however, I unpublished it, rewrote it, and republished it as Oh, Gracious!

 

What was your first series, and why did you decide to write it?

The first series I wrote was the Aggie’s Inheritance series.  The first book, Ready or Not, was actually the first book I wrote.  I was still working on it when I published Noble Pursuits.  I started writing after another frustrating day with people walking up to me (I had eight kids at the time) and saying, “How do you do it all?  I can barely manage with my one or two!” And I kept saying, “But I didn’t get eight all at once. I barely managed with one or two also.  Barely managed with three, five, and then eventually nine. But I have a writer’s brain, and one day I thought, “But what would happen if someone got eight kids all at once?  What if she was single?  What if she doesn’t know a lot about kids?  What if her sister’s mother-in-law keeps interfering?  And well… four 120k-word books later…

 

Can you tell us about the other series you’ve written?

Soooo many series.  I’ll just throw out a few and a one-line snippet, okay?

The Annals of Wynnewood:  historical fantasy (13th Century) in England about a girl, the village that is terrified of her, and the boy who takes a chance on being her friend (middle-grade).

The Hartfield Mysteries: A horror/thriller author lives an eccentric life in an idyllic, Mayberry-like town where murder strikes over… and over…

The Agency Files: If you need protection, The Agency’s got your back—even against all odds. (suspense/romantic suspense)

The Meddlin’ Madeline Mysteries: If Miss Marple were fifty-years younger and had the observation skills of Patrick Jane (from the Mentalist), you’d have Madeline Brown.  It’s the slow birth of a detective and how that might look (historical circa 1900).

Bookstrings:    With the slow demise of independent bookstores, Milton Coleridge takes his expertise in saving businesses and helps bookstores survive and thrive… with a tiny bit of matchmaking on the side. (General)

And half a dozen or so more series.  Maybe a dozen.  *whistles*

 

How do you approach writing a book? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

My writing style totally depends on the book, how fast I have to write it, and the genre.  Naturally I’m mostly a pantser. I love to just start writing and see where the story takes me. I used to say that I felt like a transcriptionist for a story I didn’t know until I wrote it. That’s really not true. Clearly, my subconscious has a plan.  But whatever.

Most often, I think of an idea and while driving, I talk it through. I used to use a voice recording app or recorder, but now I use my Ottr app on my phone. It transcribes everything as I talk it through. My goal is to know the hook (first sentence/paragraph/page), the inciting event (what kicks the story into action), the midpoint death (whatever “dies” in the middle—loss of a job, a friendship, a hope or dream, or even a person), the climax (the big tense scene near the end), and then the denouement (the resolution).  Then I tend to make a huge list of scene ideas. I may or may not ever use them.  I just begin writing and if I can’t decide the best way to go or if I’m tired and don’t want to think, I scan that list and go.

Mysteries, however, I tend to plan out more but even that, it’s a reference rather than a true plan.  No matter how tightly I try to outline and plot stuff out, I always deviate—a lot.

 

How do you handle the situation where a reader jumps into the middle of a series without reading the first book?

Um… recommend they don’t?  My books and series are very layered. While you USUALLY can jump into the middle and be okay, you’ll miss a lot of layered nuances and backstory that I don’t rehash in each one.

I’ve had readers email me asking if the book they got free can be read out of order, and I usually send them a review copy of the first in the series because I want them to have the best reading experience. I get why authors write almost “stand alones” in series to help readers be able to jump in anywhere, but I really love a good layered series, and I can’t do that well without them needing to build upon the last.

 

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing a series?

Write down every single thing you can as it happens.  If in book one she hates coffee, write that down.  Review in book two. And three. And four. Or in book five, she’ll be swigging five cups a day and telling her friends she’s been addicted since she was eight.  Write down the name of the bookstore they go to, the car they drive, the childhood story they told.  Review it all with each new book. Trust me. You won’t regret it when it comes time to write the next books.

And then you won’t realize in book eight that your series has a Jarod Kennett, a Justine, a Josi, and a Jessie…  Yeah. Not that this happened to me or anything.

 

I loved being interviewed on your “Because Fiction” podcast. Please tell my blog audience about the podcast and how they can find it.

Because Fiction looks at all things Christian fiction—books, authors, genres, you name it. I have a lot of interviews with authors, indie, traditional, debut, and everything in between. I don’t limit my interviews to any specific subgenres. It just must be Christian.  You can find us on most if not all apps as Because Fiction Podcast or go to the website at becausefictionpodcast.com

 

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

The best place to find me is my website, Chautona.com There you’ll find my books, the podcast, blog posts—all kinds of stuff. Feel free to email anytime. I used to promise to get back to you quickly. Now I just promise I’ll get there eventually.  To keep up with the many sales I have (with over a hundred books, there are a lot of sales!), the giveaways I do, and all that stuff, I recommend getting my newsletter at Chautona.com/news. Here’s a hint.  Feel free to delete any author’s newsletter if you’re just not in a place to read it that day. There will be another one.  No stress. Or unsubscribe if you discover you aren’t interested. We get it. Life is full of choices, and one less choice to make is a blessing!

If you like to listen to folks chat about what they’re reading, what they want to be reading, and all things reader life, I also have a YouTube channel at youtube.com/chautonahavig. BookTube is a great community for readers, but I don’t limit my channel to just Christian fiction. It is, however, 95% clean reads (sometimes something sneaks up on me).

 

Thank you, Chautona, for being with us today.

Again, thanks for having me. This was fun!

* * *

 

Meet Chautona

Using story to connect readers with the Master Storyteller.

Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours, and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

 

How did she write more than 100 books? An interview with Chautona Havig and a chance to win a hand-crafted Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — OCTOBER 2023

Posted on by 24 comments

I’m excited to continue this year on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog by focusing on authors who write series. We’ve had some wonderful guests so far this year, and this month’s guest, Linore Rose Burkard, is continuing that trend.

Linore has written many novels, including three series, and she has a wealth of information and advice for the rest of us. Here are the two books in her latest series:

* * *

Once again, we’re doing something fun for this interview. The name of each person who enters a comment will be put into the drawing for a unique “Beginning of Time” pen, hand-crafted by my friend and colleague Steve Hooley. So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. I’ll post the name of the winner after 9PM Central Time tonight.

(Former winners are excluded from the drawing, but not from commenting!)

 

What happens when you combine Regency Romance with Time Travel? An interview with Linore Burkard about her series, and a chance to win the beautiful Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

* * *

 

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

My pleasure, Kay, thanks for having me.

 

When did you start writing, and what was your first published work?

I started writing a novel at age 9, but after I’d written about 13 chapters, I realized I was basically copying (with me as the protagonist) the story from My Side of the Mountain, which I had read and just adored. Thus ended that project! (It’s not a bad idea for young writers to do this, though. All writing is good practice.) I didn’t return to novel writing until much later but dabbled in short stories and poems all through my teens and into college. It wasn’t until I had three of my five kids that I finally wrote my first novel, and in 2008 Harvest House picked it up after I’d self-published it. (Before the Season Ends). I had waited years for someone to write an Inspirational Regency and finally decided I’d have to do it myself. I’m honored to say, it was the first of its kind on the market.

 

What was your first series, and why did you decide to write it?

After Harvest House published the first book, to my delight, they asked if I had a sequel, and were open to me writing two, so I did. The Regency Trilogy, as we call it, was born. The takeaway from that is that you don’t always have to know in advance that you’re going to do a series, particularly in light-hearted romance.

 

Can you tell us about the other series you’ve written?

The YA/Suspense trilogy, The Pulse Effex Series, is about the aftermath in a grid-down world (when the electric grid goes down due to an electromagnetic pulse.). It shows how three teens and their very different families survive in this dark and scary world. It was a perfect way to show the difference between coping mechanisms and outcomes, for one family is very wealthy but non-religious; one is Christian, homeschoolers on a farmstead; and one is nominally religious, living in an apartment. The series is gritty and suspenseful, so I used my initials and last name (L.R. Burkard) instead of my full name in order to warn my readers. I didn’t want to horrify those expecting sweet historical romance!

Another trilogy, The Brides of Mayfair, is clean Regency romance, but not overtly Christian. With this series, I was trying to reach the secular audience of fans of the genre in the hope they’d go on to read my Christian books. Each of the brides’ stories are humorous and fun and I always try to hit all the earmarks of the true Regency.

My last series (Forever in Time) is Regency Time Travel Romance, and thus far has only two books. The second book, Forever Lovely, comes out on November 28! Like all my regencies, the emphasis is on good, clean fun but with the added element of time travel I was able to contrast the era with today’s life and culture in very humorous ways.

 

You’ve written both regency romance and suspense novels. How did you get interested in two such different genres? How does your approach to writing differ in each genre?

I really enjoyed reading Georgette Heyer, Emily Hendrickson, Marion Chesney, and other traditional (clean) Regency writers. I loved the era, the language, costume, atmosphere and the banter between heroes and heroines. But the books lacked the inspirational elements of Christian fiction, so I dove headlong into researching. Once I felt I’d mastered enough of it, I started my first novel, always striving to include all the fun and atmosphere that I enjoy so much myself, but with a Christian worldview.

As for the suspense trilogy, I had read an article about a space object that came within a hair of hitting the earth (in space terms, that is) and would have caused a massive EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that would have shut down the grid for large parts of the world. I wondered, what if it had hit? How would we survive? That started a wholly different type of research as I learned what would happen, how people might survive by preparing beforehand, but more than anything, I was struck by how many people would NOT be prepared. Really, I saw my book as a wake-up call to the church. Because it’s not science fiction—an EMP could happen, either from a space event, or a terrorists’ bomb or war, and most people are not ready. To write that series I had to dig in to my past as a teen, but I didn’t find that difficult. I was asked once how I wrote teens so well and I said it was due to never having grown up! (I was joking, but I suspect it’s true.) Readers interested in EMPs or the series can see more at https://www.linoreburkard.com/pulse-effex-trilogy

How do you handle the situation where a reader jumps into the middle of a series without reading the first book?

This is probably the trickiest part of writing sequels. The first chapter has to contain enough information to get them grounded in the story quickly while letting them know past events happened that brought us where we are. It’s a matter of interspersing little bits of the past while the narrator (protagonist) is still engaging with the present. If nothing else, this is why writing is an art and not a science. It must be done lightly enough not to befuddle or frustrate the new reader, while still acknowledging what’s happened for those who read the earlier book(s). (I like to think I did this particularly well in book two of the Pulse Effex, Resilience: Into the Dark. ) First chapters, in my opinion, are the most difficult to get right in any book, much less a sequel. They’re easy to write in the beginning, but when you go back after the writing’s done, the real work on them starts. If a writer doesn’t have to rewrite chapter one a dozen times, at least in part, I would question whether it is as effective as it should be.

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing a series?

If you know at the outset you’ve got a series in mind, I would suggest writing a rough outline for each book.I can never stick to an outline myself, but many writers find them really helpful. It could be as simple as Book one: “EVENT HAPPENS. FALLOUT. THEN THIS HAPPENS. FALLOUT.FINALLY THIS HAPPENS. CRISIS. SOLUTION OR TRAGEDY. CLOSURE (resolution) but something must be left open-ended for book two to resolve. This is for a continuing series that begins with the same event. My Brides of Mayfair series are all stand-alone stories. The similarity is that each protagonist is a bride-to-be living in Mayfair, which is the posh center of Regency upper class life. This type of series is fluid in that you can add as many books as you wish without having to continue one long story. If you decide after writing book one to make it a continuing-story series, you need to find the person or persons whose story hasn’t been completely told. Side characters in book one often make great protagonists for later books.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

For me, the question is, how do I write while I’m doing so many other things? (ha!) My family has always come first , I homeschooled my five kids for more than two decades, plus we have a house and property that need a great deal of attention. I often cooked from scratch while our five kids were growing up, and so meal planning and preparing was a big time drain. These days, I make simpler meals, but with my husband retired, I feel busier than ever. I do Spanish lessons daily for fun to improve my fluency, and I love word games, jigsaw puzzles, and reading. We spend a lot of time at church and in church activities, and I’ll drop just about anything to catch Masterpiece Theater historical dramas! I also attend two monthly writers’ groups, one of which I’m president of.( I recommend all writers join a local group. Zoom meetings are good and well, but in-person meetings are the most helpful.)

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

On my website or through my newsletter, as I keep readers up to date on new books, what I’m working on, sales, and giveaways. Readers can sign up here: https://www.LinoreBurkard.com/newsletter. And you’ll get a flash fiction Regency short story when you join the list.  😊

Thank you, Linore, for being with us today.

Thanks for letting me talk writing. Unlike me, it’s a subject that never grows old!

* * *

Meet Linore:

 

Linore Rose Burkard is a serious watcher of period films, a Janeite, and hopeless romantic. An award-winning author best known for Inspirational Regency Romance, her first novel (Before the Season Ends) opened the genre for the CBA. Besides historical romance, Linore writes contemporary suspense (The Pulse Effex Series, as L.R. Burkard), and contemporary romance. Linore has a magna cum laude English Lit. degree from CUNY which she earned while taking herself far too seriously. She now resides in Ohio with her husband and family, two cats, a Shorkie, and more teapots than any single human should possess!

What happens when you combine Regency Romance with Time Travel? An interview with Linore Burkard about her series, and a chance to win the beautiful Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

 

 

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — SEPTEMBER 2023

Posted on by 40 comments

The CRAFT OF WRITING BLOG continues in September with its 2023 focus on authors who write series. This month, the tables are turned, and I’m being interviewed about my series, The Watch Mysteries, by my good friend and colleague Debbie Burke.

Did you notice the pen in the image with the books? That’s the magnificent “Beginning of Time” pen that was hand-crafted by my good friend, author and craftsman, Steve Hooley. Inspired by the theme in The Watch Mysteries, the pen is built on 1870 Clocktower Pine, covered with black-as-night-sky dye, then coated with golden-stars glitter paint, and finally coated with a wet-gloss finish.

Here’s your chance to win the pen. The name of each person who enters a comment today will be put into a drawing, and I will post the name of the winner after 9 o’clock pm CDT tonight. So join the conversation and earn a chance to win. Many thanks to Steve for donating the pen for today’s post.

Former winners are excluded from the drawing. (But not from commenting!)

The fascinating subject of time. An interview with Kay DiBianca about her series, The Watch Mysteries. And a chance to win the beautiful Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

* * *

Now here’s Debbie:

I met Kay several years ago when she submitted an anonymous first page for critique at The Kill Zone. Her story featured two young wannabe detectives who charmed me and made me laugh. That promising first page turned into the book Time After Tyme. Kay and I have since become trusted colleagues and good friends. I’m honored to interview her today.

* * *

Time is a major theme in your “Watch” mystery series. What inspired you to explore that topic?

I was out running when I decided to write my first novel. I was jogging past a long fence at the time, and I thought I could begin the novel by having the main character find a mysterious object on a fencepost while she was out running. (Ha!) I can’t remember why I decided on the watch as the “mysterious object,” but it may have been a subconscious desire to delve into my fascination with the subject of time.

From the perspective of writing, mysteries are usually a race against time. Find the killer before he/she can kill again. To emphasize that, a timepiece is always central to the stories.

 

What did you learn about time while writing your books? Are there insights that you hope readers will realize?

I’ve read some good books on the subjects of clocks, watches, and time. One thing I had fun learning about was the need for a reliable clock that could be used aboard ships so that the early explorers could pinpoint their position at sea. It’s a fascinating story told by Dava Sobel in her book Longitude. I wrote a post for the Kill Zone Blog on the subject.

As for insights, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that time is an equal-opportunity dimension. Rich or poor, everyone gets 24 hours in a day, and the way we choose to spend those hours is up to us. Although we may have constraints (jobs, family, obligations), our individual responses to the demands of time belong to each of us. Only we can decide.

 

Do you plan to continue the “Watch” series? Want to give readers a hint about what might be ahead for Kathryn and Cece?

Although I took a break for the last year or so to pursue a couple of other writing projects, I do plan to continue the Watch series. I think the main characters, half-sisters Kathryn and Cece, have a few more adventures to work on before I let them go. (And I want to know where they end up in their relationships with Phil and Ben.)

I’ve been playing with a few possible plot ideas. Maybe you or the folks who read this can help me think through them: 1) I’ve thought about sending the two young women off to Scotland when Kathryn is informed she’s one of the beneficiaries of a will left by a Scottish relative where some old mystery is smoldering. 2) Another idea is to have Kathryn run a marathon in an interesting world city where a murder happens during the course of the race. 3) A third possibility is to have Kathryn and Cece involved when a book reviewer is murdered after writing a scathing review of a mystery by author Purity Carp. Let me know which one you think would be most interesting in the comments!

 

The two young detectives in Time After Tyme stole the show, earning an award for “Young Adult Fiction.” When you wrote the book, did you have a YA story in mind or did it evolve into that? Does the book have a crossover audience of both adults and young readers?

I had wanted to write the young girls, Reen and Joanie, as secondary characters to add spice to Time After Tyme, and they were very good at their job! They had me laughing every day with their crazy antics in an attempt to “help” the police solve a murder mystery. I only entered it as a YA book in the Memphis Awards contest because I had friends who were entered in the Adult Fiction category, and I didn’t want to compete against them. I was truly surprised when the presenter called my name, but I think it’s confirmation that a book can straddle categories and appeal to a wide audience.

 

Do you have future plans for Reen and Joanie in upcoming books?

Shortly afterTime After Tyme was published, I was encouraged by several of my writing colleagues to start a middle-grade series featuring the two young girls. The result is the first-in-series novel The Other Side of Sunshine: A Reen and Joanie Detective Agency Book. I hope it will be published early in 2024.

 

You’re a licensed pilot and your upcoming book is about a female pilot who solves mysteries. How long have you been flying? What is the most thrilling experience you’ve had in the air? What is the scariest?

Lacey’s Star: A Lady Pilot-in-Command Novel is the story of Cassie Deakin, a young woman pilot who lands in the middle of a mystery with every flight. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Cassie and Deputy Frank White, a man she doesn’t trust, but whom she has a strong attraction to. I’m hoping it will be published later this year.

I received my pilot’s license in 1995. When I told my husband I was going to take flying lessons, he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. But since then, he got his license in sailplanes (gliders), and we’ve had some good times flying together.

Our most thrilling experience was when we went to Nevada on a “flying vacation” around the year 2000 and I piloted a small aircraft out of the Carson City airport and over the mountains surrounding Lake Tahoe. It was an absolutely gorgeous trip in perfect weather.

The scariest experience was on the same trip. I always file a flight plan or request flight-following from Air Traffic Control when I fly. As we were flying around the mountains, ATC in Reno contacted us to say they couldn’t follow us on radar because of the mountains, so we went VFR (Visual Flight Rules). I think we were somewhere over Pyramid Lake when I looked out the right side of the plane and spotted another light aircraft flying directly toward us. We were never in any danger – I immediately turned and descended to a lower altitude – but it wasn’t an experience I’d ever want to repeat.

 

Recently you attended the Killer Nashville writing conference. What were the most interesting and/or important takeaways from that event?

Killer Nashville is a conference that focuses on mystery, thriller, and suspense writing that I’ve attended several times. One of the great things the conference offers is a group of Agent Roundtables where authors can have the first two pages of their work-in-progress read in a small setting of five authors and one agent. Each author receives feedback from the others, and if you’re lucky, an agent will request your manuscript.

I presented the first two pages of The Other Side of Sunshine at one roundtable and Lacey’s Star at another one. I was fortunate that two agents showed interest in the books.

 

Where can readers find your books?

Each of the individual ebooks is on sale for 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Google Play. The virtual boxset of the three books is also on sale for $1.99 on all of the same sites. Click on each image at the bottom of the page to go to the Amazon detail page.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked you about?

Just to say many thanks to you, Debbie, for interviewing me. It’s interesting to sit on this side of the desk for a change. Also, equal thanks to Steve Hooley for supplying the gorgeous Beginning of Time pen for today’s post.

The fascinating subject of time. An interview with Kay DiBianca about her series, The Watch Mysteries. And a chance to win the beautiful Beginning of Time pen. Click To Tweet

 

               

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — JULY 2023

Posted on by 37 comments

THE CRAFT OF WRITING – JULY 2023

 

In this year’s Craft of Writing blog, we’ve been concentrating on interviews with authors who write series. Each one of our guests this year has published several books in a series, and sometimes more than one series. This month is slightly different, and I think it’s going to be a special treat for readers.

My July guest, Dale Ivan Smith, is a fellow contributor to the Kill Zone Blog and recently published his novel, A Shush Before Dying: A Meg Booker Librarian Mystery.

Since Dale plans this to be the first book in a fun, cozy mystery series, I thought this would be an ideal time to interview an author who is on the leading edge of his series journey with all the first novel lessons fresh in his mind.

* * *

Once again, we’re doing something fun for this interview. The name of each person who enters a comment today will be put into the drawing for this beautiful hand-crafted pen, made by my good friend, author and craftsman, Steve Hooley. Many thanks to Steve for donating the pen for today’s post. I will post the name of the winner after 9 o’clock pm CDT tonight. So join the conversation and earn a chance to win.

Former winners are excluded from the drawing. (But not from commenting!)

What better way to celebrate a cozy mystery in a library setting than by winning a hand-crafted pen. Join the interview with Dale Ivan about his new mystery A Shush Before Dying. Click To Tweet

* * *

Welcome to the Craft of Writing blog, Dale Ivan Smith, and thank you for joining us!

Thank you so much for inviting me, Kay. It’s a real treat to be here.

You’ve recently published your first-in-series cozy mystery, A Shush Before Dying. Why did you decide to write this book?

I’d idly thought about writing a mystery for years, but kept putting it aside while I worked on fantasy novels. After publishing the final novel in my Empowered series in May 2020, the desire to write that mystery at long last hit me, and hit me hard. The previous December I had retired from the public library after thirty years, and I realized I wanted to set my mystery in a library, immersing the reader in the people who worked there and their perspectives, as well as show how much that library could be the heart of a community.

Why did you choose to place the novel in a library in the 1980’s?

I began working at the library in September 1987, after graduating from Portland State University, and have many fond memories of the small branch I began at. It was the last days of the pre-internet library. We used “dumb” computer terminals to check-out and check-in books, and create library cards, but did everything else by hand. Stamping date dues, putting newly arrived magazines into the collection, and especially searching for books in the card catalog. Each branch had a very distinctive character, with their own larger-than-life patrons and staff. Physical books were the heart of the library then: popular novels, non-fiction, an extensive collection of magazines and newspapers, and reference books on almost every topic.

In some ways, the public library back then felt like an old-fashioned bookstore, quite different from the open-concept and digital resources aspect of the modern 21st century library. The library was very much centered in the community, too, with book groups, neighborhood association meetings, programs. Some of those persist today, but not to the same degree.

I also have a lot of personal nostalgia for that decade with its colorful and varied fashions, music, books, and movies. I was in college, newly married, and there was a sense during those years that anything could happen, and that your life could go in any of a number of different directions.

 

You told me you always planned for this to be a series. What issues did you run into as you were writing this book, and what lessons did you learn from this experience?

There were several challenges. There was the obvious one of coming up with a mystery that worked. The more series specific challenge was managing a large cast of characters—my beta readers pointed out that I simply had too many to keep track of in A Shush Before Dying, which was vital feedback. I trimmed the cast down and also removed names from several minor characters. Lessons learned: Keep the cast to a number the reader can readily track, and be judicious about naming incidental characters when they’ll only be in one scene.

I also learned the importance of the developing both the series cast and the ongoing “cozy” plots, like a romance for Meg, what her actor brother Theo, a ball of enthusiastic energy, was up to, and foreshadowing future events and charaters. One example of this is Meg’s big sister, Shirley, who is absent in A Shush Before Dying, and lives a life of mystery. Another is why is the new page, Keith, who is always late, is so steadfastly mysterious about what he is doing when he’s not at work. I hope these questions and others propels reader interest going forward.

Creating the setting was not a challenge—it’s inspired by the real southwest Portland neighborhoods I worked in. I wanted the freedom of a fictional neighborhood, so I created Fir Grove, and invented the Portland Area Library System as an analog to the real library system that hired me. I realized that keeping track of setting details in a series bible is crucial so that the series remains consistent over a number of books.

What plans do you have for future books in the series?

A romance for Meg, what her brother Theo is up to, answering questions about Keith, Meg’s friendships with coworkers and with “Aunt” Dorothy and others, as well as what happens with a certain kitty who will appear in Book 2.

When the series begins, Meg sees her librarian job as a short-term affair while she finishes her delayed master’s degree, with a PhD in history and a career in academia to follow. But her heart is drawn to library work, and this conflict will play out as the series develops and we see Meg growing into her various roles.

How do you plan to keep the series fresh after readers become familiar with the stories?

Great question! I hope to keep the series fresh by showing Meg’s unfolding life, relationships, and what happens with both the family she was born into and the family she found at the library, and her growing reputation as an amateur sleuth, along with a few surprises.

Have you considered what to do if a reader picks up the second book in the series without having read the first one?

Since this is a cozy series, each novel’s main story line will be self-contained (even as each book advances the ongoing series arc) and so will need to open by grounding a reader in the setting and the characters, especially Meg. I think with a cozy mystery series doing this is easier because you also need to show the “world” as it is before the crime disrupts everything. Establishing that world in brief is an excellent opportunity to bring new readers on board at the start of each book.

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing an episodic series, such as cozy mystery?

Consider character-centric questions you don’t answer in the first book, as well as an ongoing, open-ended storyline, like a budding romance. Also, think about your continuing supporting cast, because they will appeal to readers and keep them reading as well. Can you discover more about what makes each of them unique, interesting, quirky even, and fun to read about?

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

My website is http://www.daleivansmith.com. The mystery page there has a link to my mystery reader group newsletter. You can email me at dale@daleivansmith.com I’m also on Twitter: @dalevan.

Thank you, Dale, for being with us today.

Thank you so much, Kay. It was a genuine pleasure being here.

What better way to celebrate a cozy mystery in a library setting than by winning a hand-crafted pen. Join the interview with Dale Ivan about his new mystery A Shush Before Dying. Click To Tweet

***

Dale Ivan got into trouble in Fifth Grade for sneaking off to the school library during class, so naturally he wound up becoming a librarian. He started out at a small branch library in Portland, Oregon after graduating college, and worked at several different branches in the Multnomah County Library system for over thirty years.
Dale loved helping readers find their next great read, showing students how to use the library, teaching computer classes, working with library patrons from every walk of life and every part of the world, and giving story times for families. He retired in 2019 to follow his passion for writing. A long-time mystery reader, when he’s not writing, reading or watching mysteries, he can be found doing jigsaw puzzles with his wife, playing board games or outdoors at night stargazing. He blogs every other Saturday at The Kill Zone.

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — APRIL 2023

Posted on by 53 comments

I’m excited to continue this year on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog by focusing on authors who write series. This month, we welcome back my good friend, Debbie Burke, the award-winning author of the Tawny Lindholm Thrillers with Passion series.

 

* * *

 

In addition to the wisdom Debbie brings to us, we’re also doing something fun for today’s post. The name of each person who enters a comment today will be put into the drawing for a hand-crafted 1815 Left Behind Walnut pen, made from trees that were growing before the Civil War. Many thanks to my good friend, author and craftsman, Steve Hooley, for donating the pen for today’s post. I will post the name of the winner after 9 o’clock pm CDT tonight. Please be sure I have your email address for the drawing.

 

Win a handcrafted pen when you visit the Craft of Writing blog! Click To Tweet

* * *

Now, here’s a look at Debbie’s Thrillers with Passion series:

 

 

 

***

 

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

Kay, many thanks for inviting me back. I always enjoy connecting with your interesting group of readers!

Before we begin, I can personally attest to the beautiful quality of Steve Hooley’s pens. He’s an artist and master craftsman!

 

Give us a little background. When did you first start writing?

About age eight when I learned cursive writing. Throughout my life, stories always went on inside my head although I didn’t have time to write during my business career. But after retirement and moving to Montana, the dam burst and all those collected stories poured out.

 

This year we’re concentrating on writing series, and I love your Tawny Lindholm Thrillers with Passion series. Why did you decide to write it?

Thanks for your kind words, Kay! When I wrote the first book, Instrument of the Devil, I didn’t envision a series. But reader response was wonderfully encouraging. Many people identified with the struggles the main character Tawny Lindholm endured with her new smartphone. The two leads, Tawny and attorney Tillman Rosenbaum, had more stories to tell and the series grew.

 

Can you give us an overall description of the series?

Tawny is in her fifties, a widowed mother of two grown children, who lives in small-town Montana. She’s an everywoman like your next-door neighbor, someone most people can identify with. She’s dyslexic and doesn’t have an advanced education but she’s smart, intuitive, and is good at putting puzzle pieces together. People trust her because she’s kind and doesn’t judge them. Therefore, they reveal secrets to her they wouldn’t normally share.

In stark contrast, the male lead, Tillman, is a brilliant, cynical, sarcastic attorney. His family background is complex—his paternal grandmother was an Ethiopian Jew (Beta Israel) and his maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust. He intimidates most people, and hired Tawny as his investigator to counterbalance his aggressiveness. He tells her, “Clients tell you what they’re too scared to tell me.”

Their yin-yang chemistry makes them an effective team at solving crimes. It also leads to (spoiler alert!) romance.

Although the books are set in Montana, a rural state with a relatively low crime rate, there’s plenty of nefarious activity and, shall we say, unusual characters. After all, the Unabomber made his home here.

 

There are seven published books in the Tawny Lindholm series. How do you keep the series fresh, book after book?

Great question!

In real life, when you first meet someone, you know very little about them. But, as you become better acquainted and watch them deal with various problems, you learn about their deeper character and how they react under pressure. Someone who seems ordinary and easy-going on the surface may show an entirely different side when faced with a crisis, for instance, betrayal by a person they believed was a close friend, or a threat to someone they love.

Tawny and Tillman are fairly well developed in my mind, but, in each book, they meet a new daunting problem—covert surveillance by drone (Eyes in the Sky), elder fraud (Stalking Midas), the pandemic (Flight to Forever), etc. How they deal with those challenges reveals new sides of their personalities and background that surprise me and, I hope, the reader.

 

How do you handle the situation where a reader jumps into the middle of a series without reading the first book or two?

Another excellent question!

Each book must stand on its own with a beginning, middle, and end. Each contains mysteries or crimes that are resolved by the end of that story.

There is also an overarching evolution in the ongoing relationships among the characters. While I mention incidents that happened in previous books, a reader doesn’t need to know about them to understand the current book. Of course, I hope hints about prior events will interest them enough that they go back and read earlier books.

The hardest trick is to refer to prior events without giving away surprise twists.

 

I know you have an eighth book that will be out soon. Can you tell us about it?

Thanks for asking. The new book is called Deep Fake Double Down and is available for pre-order by clicking on the title. The story is about artificial intelligence software that can create videos where people appear to do or say things they didn’t. When you see something with your own eyes, it must be real, right? Not anymore.

Deepfakes have been in the news a lot lately with politicians, actors, and celebrities (view examples at this link). Software can shape-shift a person’s face, body, gestures, and words into synthetic reality that’s almost impossible to distinguish from actual reality.  Deepfakes are used for entertainment (like Queen Elizabeth boogying down) but can also be used to manipulate elections and perhaps even world events.

Being a thriller writer, I wanted to explore the potential abuse of deepfakes. In this book, a female corrections officer is framed for crimes she didn’t commit by a corrupt warden who’s trying to cover up fraud and murder at his prison. He leaks fake videos of her allegedly helping an inmate (who’s supposedly her lover) to escape. When the videos go viral on social media, she is tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. To save her, Tawny and Tillman must separate illusion from reality.

 

How far do you intend to take the series?

With each book, I think this one is the last. But pretty soon a new idea starts nagging at me. As long as readers remain interested, I’ll keep writing.

 

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing a series?

As mentioned before, I didn’t realize this would turn into a series. Had I known, I would have done some things differently.

Even if an author believes a book is a standalone, consider what happens to the main character(s) after the book is finished. How do their lives go on? What might they be doing a year from now, five years from now? If the character is compelling enough, they will encounter fresh crises and have new adventures to share.

Just be careful whom you kill off—you might need that character in the future!

 

Tell us more about you. What interests do you have outside of writing?

Since writing is a sedentary activity, I need to balance that with lots of exercise. I enjoy Zumba, air-boxing, and hiking. I also like to cook and bake bread so that means even MORE exercise to undo the calorie damage. Additionally, I love to read—too many books, too little time.

 

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

My website is debbieburkewriter.com. There are sample chapters for each book so readers can try them out for free. Also, there’s a bonus free short story for people who join my mailing list. My books are available on Amazon and major online booksellers, as well as independent bookstores.

And drop by The Kill Zone where Kay and I have fun talking about murder and mayhem.

 

Thank you, Debbie, for being with us today.

Kay, I’m honored to be your guest and to call you my friend.

As a special “thank you” to Kay’s readers, currently published books in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series are on sale today for only $.99 each at this link.

 

Win a handcrafted pen when you visit the Craft of Writing blog! Click To Tweet

 

***

Debbie Burke writes the Tawny Lindholm Thrillers with Passion series. She is a regular blogger at The Kill Zone, a popular website about crime writing. Her nonfiction articles have won journalism awards and appear in national and international publications. She is a founding member of Authors of the Flathead and helps to plan the annual Flathead River Writers Conference in Kalispell, Montana. Her greatest joy is mentoring young writers

The Craft of Writing — March 2023

Posted on by 23 comments

 

I’m excited to continue this year on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog by focusing on authors who write series. This month is special because we welcome Reavis Wortham, an award-winning author of Westerns!

Reavis’s books in The Red River Series and The Sonny Hawke Series have received many accolades, including starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and The Library Journal. Kirkus also listed his first novel, The Rock Hole as one of the “Top 12 Mysteries of 2011.”

To celebrate our first Western series on the Craft of Writing blog, we’re going to do something fun: The name of each person who enters a comment today will be put into a drawing to win an ebook copy of The Rock Hole, the first book in Wortham’s Red River Series. I will post the name of the winner after 9 o’clock pm CDT tonight. Be sure to check back tonight to see if you won, and please make sure I have your email address for the drawing.

* * *

 

             

 

Award-winning western author Reavis Wortham on the Craft of Writing blog Click To Tweet

* * *

Welcome, Reavis Wortham, to the Craft of Writing blog and thank you for joining us!

  

What was your first published book, and why did you decide to write it?

My first novel was The Rock Hole, which released in 2011. It was listed as a Starred Review and one of the Top Twelve Mystery Novels of that year by Kirkus Reviews.

Like most authors, I’ve always wanted to write, and while talking with my wife, Shana, I mentioned that a lot of history was fading away as the old folks passed on. I wanted to preserve and record a way of life that was fast disappearing in the early 1960s, and the changing world that came at the end of the decade.

The Rock Hole is based on my grandfather who was both a farmer and constable in a tiny rural community located up on the Red River in Northeast Texas. I grew up hearing stories of his work in law enforcement, and wanted to relate a tale I’d heard.

I had no idea my publisher, Poisoned Pen Press (now Sourcebooks), would like that standalone novel so much. They offered me a series, requiring me to rewrite the ending because I’d killed everyone off. That cast of characters has continued through nine books, ending with the most recent that released in January of 2022, The Texas Job, which is a prequel and takes place back in 1932.

 

Can you tell us a little about each of the series you’ve written?

As I said, the Red River series is set in the 1960s. These historical mysteries began with 1964, with The Rock Hole, and follows the Parker family. We see life in that decade through the eyes of ten-year-old Top Parker and his near-twin female cousin, Pepper. Cody Parker and his girlfriend (then wife) Norma Fay provide a second view, representing a couple in their twenties and younger residents. Constable Ned Parker and his full-blood Choctaw wife are the elders of the clan who survived the Great Depression and WWII. They see the world from experience. Finally, Deputy John Washington serves the African-American residents of Chisum, Texas, and brings in a different viewpoint of life in that time period.

My second contemporary series featuring Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke is published by Kensington. Set in the Big Bend region of Texas, these high octane thrillers also utilize family as a foundation upon which everything rests. It features Ranger Hawke, who is the officer we all want to know, but he’s impetuous and not the greatest shot in the world. He often walks in that gray area between absolute right and wrong, but always acts in the best interest of the law and those innocent people around him.

Backed up by civilians and ex-military vets Yolanda Rodriguez and Perry Hale, he always finds himself drawn into situations we see each night on the news. Beginning with Hawke’s Prey in which the tiny West Texas town of Ballard is taken over by terrorists, it continues through a total of four books, two of which won Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America Association, Hawke’s War and Hawke’s Target.

 

How do you keep a series fresh after readers become familiar with the stories?

Each day of life is fresh, and often dictated by events out of our hands. I put my characters into play dealing with whatever is thrown at them, much like real life, and we watch their reactions to these situations.

Readers like to watch characters evolve, and those in my books grow with each novel. Unlike some authors who write similar human characteristics from one title to another, those people I’ve created have the same fallibilities as real people, including fears, concerns, ailments and faults. They face these, as well as the plot that drives them forward.

For example, in the Red River series, Top and Pepper grow older with each book, and experience all the trials and tribulations that adolescence and puberty throws at them. They move through each grade level in school, and endure all the same things we recall that happened to us, or those in school.

In the Sonny Hawke novels, he’s a tough-as-nails Ranger who can deal with all the horrors of the job, but at one point his emotions swell and he has a brief collapse when he runs over a cat in his truck. He’s as human as I can make him, and his relationship with his wife, kids, and community drives the story, keeping it all crisp and exciting.

 

How do you handle the situation where a reader jumps into the middle of a series without reading the first book or two?

Each of my novels are standalone, though the ensemble cast of characters remain essentially the same, except for the bad guys. I quickly bring readers up to speed with only a few references from earlier books. It’s my hope that when they finish a title, they are driven by the need to know the characters even more, and as my late father-in-law said, “I look forward to each book, because they’ve become family and I want to know what’s happening them.”

Then they, hopefully, go back and read the earlier books, but it’s not necessary.

 

Do you have plans for future books in either of your series?

I do!

My contract for the Red River series is ongoing, so I work on them all the time. I’ve started the tenth in the series, but have no title as of yet.

The Sonny Hawke books ended with the fourth novel, Hawke’s Fury. At this time there are no further books in the works, but that could change.

A new series from Kensington begins in May of 2024, with the first Cap Whitlatch novel, The Journey South. I’ve always wanted to write pure westerns, and this one fills the bill. It begins in the Oklahoma territories when Whitlatch sells a herd of horses to a crooked Missouri lawyer. On the way back to Texas, he arrives in a small town and finds his boyhood friend facing a lynch mob. To save Gil, Cap agrees to take the prisoner back to Texas for trial. Renegade Comanches, a trio of murderous Cherokee brothers bent on revenge, and two outlaws intent on robbing Whitlatch of the gold in his saddlebags bring a sense of the old west to these pages.

This story about honor, right, and wrong is in the can, and I’m working on the second novel that as yet doesn’t have a title.

 

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing a series?

Create a multidimensional cast of characters that readers value and can relate to.

Look at each novel as a standalone and don’t get overwhelmed by the thought of what’s to come. When they were growing up, I told my daughters to approach such tasks the same way you would eat an elephant. You do it by taking one bite at a time, and not looking at the massive beast itself.

They still roll their eyes at that one.

 

In addition to your successful series, you have a new book, Hard Country. Can you tell us a little about that one?

And that brings us to still another new series from Sourcebooks. Hard Country is the first novel in the Tucker Snow series, featuring a contemporary cattle inspector. These guys and gals are an offshoot of the Texas Rangers and have the power to enforce rural law in both Oklahoma and Texas. They investigate rural crimes for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA), and go after cattle rustlers, thieves, and any online crime that has to do with farming and ranching.

Tucker Snow is as tough as they come, hardened by decades working as an undercover narcotics agent for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Through special dispensation from the governor, he and his brother Harley cut a wide swath through the criminal element of Northeast Texas. But tragedy comes calling after taking a dream job as a special ranger with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, when Tucker’s wife and toddler are killed in a horrific traffic accident caused by a drug addled felon. Close to breaking, Tucker sets his badge aside to move his surviving teenage daughter outside of Ganther Bluff, a quiet town with enough room for them to mourn their unexpected loss.

But peace doesn’t last long for a man like Snow. Instead of settling into small-town life to heal from such an unimaginable loss, a fresh kind of hell hits them with full force.

Crimes and secrets strangle this rural community, and when a new form of meth with the street name of gravel gets too close to home, it’s enough for Tucker to put his badge back on and call Harley for help. The town will ultimately be better off with him as a resident lawman, but this unforgiving landscape will threaten everything Tucker holds dear.

 

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

Please visit my website at www.reaviszwortham.com.

Lots of folks follow my Reavis Wortham Facebook page where I post nearly every day about life, family, fun, entertainment, history, books, and never politics.

 

Thank you, Reavis, for being with us today.

Award-winning western author Reavis Wortham on the Craft of Writing blog Click To Tweet

* * *

Spur Award winner Reavis Z. Wortham retired in 2011 and now works harder than before as the author of the critically acclaimed Red River historical mystery series. Kirkus Reviews listed his first novel, The Rock Hole, as one of their Top 12 Mysteries of 2011. True West Magazine included Dark Places as one of 2015’s Top 12 Modern Westerns. The Providence Journal writes, “This year’s Unraveled is a hidden gem of a book that reads like Craig Johnson’s Longmire on steroids.” Wortham’s new high octane contemporary western series from Kensington Publishing featuring Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke kicked off in 2017 with the publication of Hawke’s Prey. The fourth Sonny Hawke thriller, Hawke’s Fury, was published in June 2020. In 2019, the Western Writers Association presented Hawke’s War with the Spur Award in the WWA Best Mass Market Paperback category

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — FEBRUARY 2023

Posted on by 18 comments

THE CRAFT OF WRITING — FEBRUARY 2023

Kristy Montee (P.J. Parrish) on writing a series

 

I’m excited to continue this year on the CRAFT OF WRITING blog by focusing on authors who write series. This month, we welcome P.J. Parrish, the award-winning author of the Louis Kincaid thriller series.

For those of you who don’t know, P.J. Parrish is the pseudonym of the writing team of sisters Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols. Kristy is a fellow contributor to the Kill Zone Blog, and she is my guest today. (You can read more about these exceptional sisters in the author bio below.)

Writing the series with P.J. Parrish Click To Tweet

***

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

 

First things first: Why did you and your sister decide to co-write books? Do you have a process for writing (e.g., alternating chapters) so you don’t get in each other’s way?

We decided to join up mainly because my career in romance was dead and my agent suggested I had a good sense of mystery and that I should try that. Ha! What hubris I had. My first effort was abysmal and my agent told me to go home and read some Connelly and PD James. (I hadn’t read a mystery since Nancy Drew.) Unbeknownst to me, my sister Kelly was trying to write her own first novel and was struggling (raw talent but no grounding in craft). My husband suggested we team up and it worked from the start.

Our process is to brainstorm together (we’re pantsers) and work out basic plot about 3 chapters forward. (the famous E.L. Doctorow method: You’re driving down a dark road with only your headlights to guide you, but you can get to the end that way). Then we “take assignments” based on who might have a better feel for the chapter’s needs (i.e., Kelly loves doing the action scenes; my forte tends toward character development and description. Though over the years we’ve both gotten stronger vice versa, although Kelly still considers doing description to eating broccoli. I force her to do it! We write our chapters, exchange them, edit them, discuss and rewrite if needed then move on down the dark road.

 

Why did you choose P.J. Parrish as your pseudonym?

Ha! Try to make a long story short. Our editor at Kensington suggested we come up with one because two names on a cover take up a lot of space and readers tend to be suspicious of books written by committee. We tried Kris Kelly. Editor said it sounded too Irish. (Ah, aren’t they great storytellers?). And because we write a male biracial protag, they wanted us to use a gender-neutral name. Remember, this was back in the dark ages of 1999 – women writing crime fiction, let alone with a male hero, well, it wasn’t as accepted as it is now. We were under contract with a pub deadline looming when Kelly and I went off to England. We were tooling around the Cotswolds, getting frantic calls from our agent. We bent a few elbows at a pub one rainy night and came up with the name PJ Paris (because we were flying there the next day). We ran out to one of those red phone booths and called our agent. She loved the name. When we got the contract it said “PJ PARRISH.” I guess I slurred my words during that phone call. True story, I swear.

 

This year we’re concentrating on writing series, and your Louis Kincaid series has been very popular. Why did you decide to write it?

Louis is Kelly’s creation. The book she was trying to write was a very rough version of our first published book “Dark of the Moon.” Louis was born of her own experience living in a small town — Philadelphia, Mississippi  — and having biracial grandchildren. I think of Louis as my adopted son.

 

There are eleven books in the Kincaid series. How do you keep the series fresh, book after book?

It is difficult, as any series writer knows. Doubly so since we age Louis with each book and we pay strict attention to his character arc over the course of each book and the entire series. I think that is what keeps readers coming back – that they have been witness to Louis’s life journey.

 

How do you handle the situation where a reader jumps into the middle of a series without reading the first book or two?

Good question. It’s a tightrope walk. You have to give a new reader just enough backstory so they don’t feel lost, yet not bore loyal readers who’ve been with you for the whole ride. This would make a good post for The Kill Zone.

 

Do you have plans for future Louis Kincaid books?

Well, this is as good a place to announce this as any. Right now, we have no plans for another Louis book. There are many reasons behind this decision, but foremost is that the changes in the industry in the last five years or so have not been kind to any author who is not a bestseller, especially for series. Publishers are very reluctant to pick up a series in midstream because they can’t access your backlist. Which is partly why we did our stand alone thriller “She’s Not There” with Thomas & Mercer. And you know, going back to the keeping a series fresh question: We feel that with our most recent Louis book “The Damage Done” that we left him in a very good place as far as his arc goes. As TKZ readers know, I’m not a fan of prologues. Bad epilogues are even worse.

 

What other books are you working on?

Working on a sequel of sorts to “She’s Not There” involving the secondary protagonist. He wasn’t supposed to be such a dominant force, but, well, sometimes characters surprise the hell out of you. Our editor (and readers) have asked us to tell his story. Problem is, he’s rather recalcitrant. And I’m getting old and am easily distracted by things like gardens, my dogs and pickleball.

 

What advice would you give an author who’s considering writing a series?

  1. Give your protagonist a lot of thought before you write one word. Figure out if you’re going to advance him or her in age with each book. Work out details of age, background, family, etc. and give yourself enough latitude for growth over the course of a series. It’s a marathon.
  2. Keep a record of every trait you give your protagonist. Every detail you commit to paper, record it somewhere: height, weight, siblings, where he was born, shirt size, how he takes his coffee. Record all the dates and years. BELIEVE ME, you will need this record. You will go insane trying to go back and find these details in your books. And your readers will be quick to call you out for errors. (“Hey, you said his middle name was Alvin in book 3, so why’d you call him Ervin in book 5?”)
  3. Keep similar records for all characters in each book. Because you will probably find they show up in future books. You don’t want to waste time getting to know them all over again.
  4. Give great thought to the character arc of your protagonist that you would like to cover over the course of the series. I know this isn’t always possible from the start, but the sooner you begin weaving this into your plot process, the more compelling your hero will be.
  5. Find a great co-author. Just kidding.

 

Tell us more about you. What interests do you have outside of writing?

Well, I’m blessed to have retired to two homes: Tallahassee FL (Nov.-May) and Traverse City MI (May to Nov.). In Florida, I am obsessed with tending my garden and watching my birds. In Michigan, I switch to active mode and do a lot of hiking in the woods, biking, kayaking, and pickleball every morning. We’re traveling a lot now – just back from France and gearing up for Italy and we go for about a month at a time. So, I’m also into languages big time, getting pretty proficient in French but now just learning how to order a coffee in Italian. Io sono di Florida! (Learned that today.) Am also trying to find more time to read just for pleasure.

 

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

PJ Parrish.com but be kind. We’re awful about updating it.

 

Thank you, Kristy, for being with us today.

 

Writing the series with P.J. Parrish Click To Tweet

***

P.J. Parrish is actually two sisters, Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols. Their books have appeared on both the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists. The series has garnered 11 major crime-fiction awards, and an Edgar® nomination. Parrish has won two Shamus awards, one Anthony and one International Thriller competition. Her books have been published throughout Europe and Asia. Parrish’s short stories have also appeared in many anthologies, including two published by Mystery Writers of America, edited by Harlan Coben and the late Stuart Kaminsky. Their stories have also appeared in Akashic Books acclaimed Detroit Noir, and in Ellery Queen Magazine. Most recently, they contributed an essay to a special edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s works edited by Michael Connelly.

The Craft of Writing — November 2022

Posted on by 21 comments

I am thrilled to welcome Anthony and Agatha Award-winning mystery author Elaine Viets to the Craft of Writing blog today as we continue our year-long interviews of mystery, suspense, thriller, and fantasy authors. Elaine is the author of several series from cozies to dark mystery, so it will be fun to get her perspective on the different sub-genres. And she’s a fellow contributor to the Kill Zone Blog.

Elaine’s latest novel, Late for his Own Funeral, was released in 2022, and her short story We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About won a silver at the Florida Writers Association. It appeared in the anthology The Great Filling Station Holdup.

 

***

Meet Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets has written 34 mysteries in four series: the bestselling Dead-End Job series with South Florida PI Helen Hawthorne, the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries, and the dark Francesca Vierling mysteries. With the Angela Richman Death Investigator series, Elaine returns to her hardboiled roots and uses her experience as a stroke survivor and her studies at the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course. Elaine was a director at large for the Mystery Writers of America. She’s a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Lawrence Block. Elaine won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty Awards.

***

 

Welcome Elaine Viets, and thank you for joining us!

Please give us some background – have you always wanted to be a writer?

At first, I wanted to be an artist, until I realized I didn’t have any artistic talent. In high school, my teachers steered me toward a career in writing and encouraged me to go to Journalism School at the University of Missouri. I worked my way through college proofreading medical books, Missouri Supreme Court briefs and phone books. That last job was incredibly boring. I was hired by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after graduation, as a fashion writer. Later, I became a feature writer and finally a humor columnist. I was syndicated by United Features in New York. Working for a newspaper was good training to be a novelist. I learned the importance of deadlines and also how to write realistic dialogue. You never want someone to quote you absolutely accurately, with every um, uh, and hesitation.

 

Why did you decide to write mystery novels?

I love reading mysteries. I had my mother’s set of Nancy Drews, the red-backed ones. Nancy drove a roadster. I had no idea what that was, but figured it was sort of like a Miata, which was definitely cool. I graduated to Agatha Christie and by then I was hooked. I had a three-book a week mystery habit. When the newspaper business began to fall apart in the mid-1990s, I quit to write mysteries.

 

Tell us about the first novel you wrote and how you came up with the story.

My first mystery was called “Backstab.” It was a newspaper series featuring a six-feet-tall columnist named Francesca Vierling. Since I am six-feet tall and had been a columnist, it wasn’t much of a creative stretch. I enjoyed satirizing the newspaper life of the time and killed off a number of editors. (Especially the ones who butchered my copy.) I wrote about the quirky side of my hometown of St. Louis, and some of my favorite people and places, including a bar and restaurant called Dieckmeyers, which served the city specialty, brain sandwiches. Brains – usually cow brains – were breaded and deep-fat fried.  In “Backstab,” two of Francesca’s good friends die suddenly. She’s convinced they were murdered, though the police are not. She investigates their deaths.

 

You’ve written four different series.  Can you tell us a little about each one of those and how they differ from each other?

The first series, the Francesca Vierling series, is a newspaper mystery, set in the mid-1990s. It stopped after four novels, when Dell ended its paperback mystery division.

The Dead-End Job mysteries came second. Helen Hawthorne, a St. Louis woman on the run from her greedy ex-husband, winds up in South Florida, working low-paying jobs for cash under the table. I’ve written twelve books in this series, and Helen had a different dead-end job for each mystery, from hotel maid to cat groomer. I worked many of those jobs. The worst was telemarketer.

My publisher asked me to start the Josie Marcus, mystery shopper series featuring Josie, a single mom and mystery shopper. My own mother was a mystery shopper, so I knew a little about that profession. I wrote 10 Josie books before I ended that very cozy series.

My current series is the Angela Richman, Death Investigator mysteries. I’ve just turned in book seven in that series, “The Dead of Night,” based on a legend from Transylvania University. (And yes, that’s a real university in Kentucky.) All these series are available as e-books.

 

What’s your writing process? Do you start with plot or characters or some combination? Are you a plotter or pantser?

Some combination. I always know the killer and the victims when I start a mystery, and I have a good idea of the story. I used to be a dedicated plotter, and worked out every scene in advance. My outlines were often 80 pages. But now that I’ve written more than thirty mysteries, I’m turning into a pantser. I’m letting the story develop. It feels freer that way.

 

What are your plans for future novels? Do you have another series in mind?

I have one more Angela Richman mystery on my contract with Severn House, and then I’ll have to decide my next move.

 

When you’re not writing, what do you do for fun?

I live in Hollywood, Florida, right on the ocean, and I love to go for long walks along the water. These walks are not only peaceful, they’re a good way to work out plots. Plus, I see so many quirky people, like the man who rides a bike with his cockatoo on the handlebars. I enjoy going out with my husband Don and our friends. I also enjoy reading. My condo has a 24-hour library, so if I need a mystery in the middle of the night, I can get it.

 

What advice would you give an aspiring mystery author?

Read. Whether you are traditionally published or indie, know who the leaders are in your subgenre. Read the masters and the emerging writers. Check out the Latina and Latino writers, writers of color and LGBTQ+ writers.

Study your craft. Know the basic rules of grammar, and the “rules” of mystery writing. You may want to break every one of them, but know them first. If you have problems with grammar, hire an editor or ask a friend for help.

Join. Writers understand other writers. Join the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and Sisters in Crime. There’s also the Short Mystery Fiction Society if you write short stories. Join local writers groups, too. I belong to the Florida Writers Association.

Attend the conferences. The  Bouchercon World Mystery convention, ThrillerFest, SleuthFest and Malice Domestic are just a few. These conferences are good places to find editors and agents, discuss the issues currently affecting writers, or find a writing partner.

And last but not least.

Write. Every day if you can, even if it’s only for ten minutes. Writers write. As much fun as it is to hang out in the bar at writers’ conferences, you still have to sit alone at the computer and write.

 

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

Check out my Website at elaineviets.com. Here’s also a TV interview about my new mystery, LATE FOR HIS FUNERAL. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_m9mPIOpRpY.

 

Thank you, Elaine, for being with us today.

And thanks, Kay, for interviewing me.

The Craft of Writing — September 2022

Posted on by 13 comments

As we continue our year-long interviews of mystery, suspense, thriller, and fantasy authors, I’m excited to welcome Sue Coletta, a colleague from the Kill Zone Blog. Sue is an author of psychological thrillers and true crime, and she has a large backlist of titles.

Her latest novel is HALOED. Click the image to go to the Amazon detail page for the book.


 

***

Meet Sue Coletta

Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org awarded her Murder Blog with “Best 100 Crime Blogs on the Net” (Murder Blog sits at #5 — 2018-2022). She also blogs at the Kill Zone, Writer’s Digest “101 Best Websites for Writers” (2013-2022), and Writers Helping Writers.

Sue teaches a virtual course about serial killers for EdAdvance in CT and a condensed version for her fellow Sisters in Crime. She’s appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion. In the fall she’s slated to appear on another true crime show for CineFlix. Learn more about Sue and her books at www.suecoletta.com.

 

Thriller Author Sue Coletta shares her writing journey on the Craft of Writing Blog. Click To Tweet

***

 

Welcome Sue Coletta, and thank you for joining us!

Happy to be here, Kay!

 

Please give us some background – have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes and no. I worked as a paralegal and owned/operated a hair salon for years. In my 20s I wrote children’s books, believe it or not, but not for publication. Only for friends’ kids to enjoy. But I quickly learned the power of the written word. Through these children stories I could hide a point that I’d tried to get across verbally to no avail. When my boyfriend (at the time) read each story, he understood what I’d been trying to tell him.

 

Why did you decide to write crime novels?

For several years I longed to write psychological thrillers with underlying mysteries, but I never believed I could do it. Then my husband and I put an offer on a house two hours north in a small, rural town. From the very first moment we strode through the door the house became my muse. While waiting to pass papers, I envisioned myself writing. Sounds bizarre, I know, but it’s true. Something told me I was meant to fulfill my destiny in this house. Later, after we moved in, we’d cruise the backroads, admiring the tranquil beauty while finding our way around, getting familiar with our new area, and I couldn’t help but notice all the perfect spots to dump a body. And that finally lit the spark for my first novel.

 

You’ve written several different series.  Can you tell us a little about each one of those?

Sure. My Grafton County Series focuses on a crime writer, Sage, who barely escaped a serial killer’s clutches in Boston. After the attack, Sage and her husband Niko left Boston and headed north to New Hampshire, where Niko accepted the position of Grafton County Sheriff. They both carried scars from that fateful night in Boston.

The Grafton County Series includes detailed investigations that run alongside Sage’s sleuthing, and often the two overlap and cause conflict. There’s an underlying mystery in each novel, a whodunnit. Fast paced and emotional, with alternating POVs from Sage, Niko, and his snarky deputy, Frankie.

The main themes for the series are…

  • Family first. Breaking this rule makes you vulnerable to predators.
  • Love conquers all.
  • You can’t outrun the past.

The Mayhem Series novels are textbook psychological thrillers, where the reader knows who the bad guy is right away. They’re cat-and-mouse, with a mind-numbingly fast pace. The main character is Shawnee Daniels, who runs the Cybercrimes Division for the police by day, cat burglar by night. She straddles the line of legality, but her heart’s in the right place. By targeting white collar criminals, she steals to repay the people who the criminals ripped off. Shawnee has a knack for breaking into the wrong home at the wrong time, making her the target of some brutal killers over the years.

Without destroying the reader’s journey, all I can say is the Mayhem Series has transformed from Book 1 to Book 5 into a spiritual awakening for Shawnee, with deep roots in Native American culture, tradition, and folklore. She’s still snarky and badass with a knack for getting into trouble. But now, she uses her cat burglar and hacking skills for a different reason. Can’t say more than that without spoilers.

What’s your latest book?

My latest book is HALOED, the final Grafton County novel. Though it’s book five, HALOED can easily be read as a standalone without feeling lost.

Description:

She may be paranoid, but is she right?

A string of gruesome murders rocks the small town of Alexandria, New Hampshire, with all the victims staged to resemble dead angels, and strange pink and red balloons appearing out of nowhere.

All the clues point to the Romeo Killer’s return. Except one: He died eight years ago.

Paranoid and on edge, Sage’s theory makes no sense. Dead serial killers don’t rise from the grave. Yet she swears he’s here, hungering for the only angel to slip through his grasp—Sage.

With only hours left to live, how can Sage convince her Sheriff husband before the sand in her hourglass runs out?

 

What’s your writing process? Do you start with plot or characters or some combination?

Since my characters are already well-established, I start with plot and one burning question—how can I outdo the previous book?

 

What are your plans for future novels? Do you have another series in mind?

Right now, I’m concentrating on the Mayhem Series. For a while I batted around an idea for a different series, but the characters in my Mayhem Series fit the plot. Hence why the series keeps twisting and turning. Just when readers get comfortable in the story world, everything flips on its head. 😉

 

What advice would you give an aspiring author of thrillers?

My advice would be to master the fine art of misdirection. You have to play fair. In hindsight, all the clues must be visible. Psychological thrillers require mind games, lots of twists, lots of turns. Becoming one with your characters is vitally important. You need to know them as well as yourself. Even your villains. Nailing characterization, emotion, and a deep point of view are key areas in making psychological thrillers work. If the reader’s mind wanders, you’re toast. Grab them by the throat in the first chapter and don’t let go till the end, then leave them wanting more.

 

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

The best place is my website: https://suecoletta.com

Murder Blog (where you can join my newsletter): https://suecoletta.com/murder-blog/

 

Thank you, Sue, for being with us today.

Thanks, Kay. J

Thriller author Sue Coletta shares her writing journey on the Craft of Writing blog. Click To Tweet

The Craft of Writing — August 2022

Posted on by 28 comments

The Craft of Writing — August 2022

with Patricia Bradley

I am thrilled to welcome romantic suspense author Patricia Bradley to the Craft of Writing blog today as we continue our year-long interviews of mystery, suspense, thriller, and fantasy authors. Patricia is the author of several series. Her latest novel, Deception is book #4 in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series.

***

Meet Patricia Bradley

 

Patricia Bradley is a Romantic Suspense Selah winner, Carol and Daphne du Maurier finalist and the winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award. Three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List.

She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series, the Memphis Cold Case Novels, and the Natchez Trace Park Rangers. She now hard at work on the second book in her new Pearl River series set in the Cumberland Plateau area above Chattanooga.

Writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers, the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen and Scrivener retreats where she was the keynote, Memphis American Christian Fiction Writer group, and the Bartlett Christian Writers group. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.

 

Romantic Suspense author Patricia Bradley is my interview guest on The Craft of Writing blog. Click To Tweet

***

 

Welcome Patricia Bradley, and thank you for joining us!

Thank you for having me on your blog, Kay.

 

Please give us some background – have you always wanted to be a writer?

Until I turned thirty-five I was a reader. Writing a novel had not crossed my mind. Then one night when I couldn’t sleep, a man appeared in my vision. He stood staring out a window with smokestacks billowing in the background. Then he turned toward me and said, “This isn’t the way my life was supposed to turn out.”

That blew me away, and I began to tell myself stories about what had happened in his life to make him say that. Soon other people came to live in my head and they weren’t content with me telling their story in my mind. They wanted printed matter. I bought a subscription to Writers Digest Magazine and began my writing journey on an old Hermes portable typewriter. If computers hadn’t come along I’m not sure I would have ever tried to write a novel.

 

Why did you decide to write romantic suspense novels?

That’s all I’ve ever read. Originally, Mary Higgins Clarke was my favorite author along with Patricia Highsmith, Lawrence Block, and Agatha Christie, of course. Oh! And the one that started me on that path—Walter Farley with his Black Stallion series.

 

Tell us about the first novel you wrote and how you came up with the story.

The very first novel I wrote will never, ever see the light of day—it was shredded years ago. However, I did take several of the characters over to my first published novel—Shadows of the Past. The idea came after I had put aside writing fiction for six years to work in the abstinence program. RISE to Your Dreams, the abstinence curriculum I’d cowritten was finished, and I’d cut my hours back.

One morning in my quiet time a woman appeared in my thoughts. She told me her name was Taylor and someone was trying to kill her. I was jumping-up-and-down happy. God had given me my suspense stories back—for six years I hadn’t had one single romantic suspense thought. But now that the curriculum and a workbook were finished, I was free to go back to my mysteries!

 

You’ve written several different series.  Can you tell us a little about each one of those?

The Logan Point Series is set in a fictional town just outside of Memphis. I actually took the area where I live now—Corinth, MS and the Tennessee River around Pickwick and moved them down to Memphis. I even asked my editor if I should note that in a foreword and she said, “No, it’s fiction.”

 

What’s your latest book?

Deception, Natchez Trace Park Rangers, Book 4 released August 2nd.  Here’s the back cover copy:

After being forced to kill an FBI agent gone rogue in self-defense while working in the violent crimes unit for the Investigative Services Branch, ranger Madison Thorn is comfortable with her move to the fraud and cyber division. At least numbers don’t lie. So she’s less than thrilled when a white-collar crime investigation in Natchez, Mississippi, turns violent. She could also do without being forced to work with former-childhood-enemy-turned-infuriatingly-handsome park ranger Clayton Bradshaw.

When a woman who looks just like Madison is attacked on the same night Madison’s grandfather is shot, it becomes clear that there is something much bigger going on here and that Madison herself is in danger. Madison and Clayton will have to work together–and suppress their growing feelings for one another–if they are to discover the truth before it’s too late.)

 

What’s your writing process? Do you start with plot or characters or some combination?

I usually start out with an image of a character in my mind, involved with a crime. Then I have to know why the crime happens now. Why not last year, or six months from now. And it goes from there.

 

What are your plans for future novels? Do you have another series in mind?

I’m working on a series set in the Cumberland Plateau up around Chattanooga—the Pearl River Series. But I’m not one of those authors who has a bag full of ideas. Usually while I’m working on a current series, ideas will pop into my head for another series. For my fifth series, I’m thinking about a skip tracer—that’s someone who finds people who are living off the grid.

 

What advice would you give an aspiring author of romantic suspense / mystery?

I would give them the same advice I give any new or aspiring writer—learn the craft—things like show, don’t tell, learn how to write dialogue, how to ask what if. And don’t publish the first thing you write. Let it rest, then go back and work on it again. Writing is rewriting.

 

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

I love to connect with my readers on my blog. Every Tuesday I post a Mystery Question—four scenarios, usually crimes. Three are true and I make one up and ask my readers if they can figure out which one I made up. We have a lot of fun with that one. Then on Friday I post a review of a book I’ve read along with the first line and invite my readers to share the first line of the book they’re reading.

You can also find me on social media:

Blog: www.patriciabradleyauthor.com/blog
Twitter: @ptbradley1
FaceBook: www.facebook.com/patriciabradleyauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptbradley1/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ptbradley/

Thank you, Patricia, for being with us today.

Romantic Suspense author Patricia Bradley is my guest today on The Craft of Writing blog. Click To Tweet
« Older Entries