KN Magazine: Articles
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel / Shana Thornton
Sometimes when we get done writing we sit back, look at the finished product, and wonder what's missing. We wonder what is keeping this story from being the suspenseful piece of work that we want it to be. Often times, that answer can be that a story is perhaps too linear. It can, of course, be comfortable to stay in our comfort zone and stick with an easy-to-write plot. What we sometimes must do instead is keep the reader turning pages with a secondary plot. In this week's guest blog, author Shana Thornton shares her experience with doing just that.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
By Shana Thornton
Writers often say they have a finished novel, but it’s missing something to make it a more suspenseful story. Maybe there’s not enough action in the book to hold your attention as the writer, and your fears could materialize if a reader stops reading your book due to lack of tension to make them turn those pages. Consider adding a crime, specifically, a murder as a secondary storyline. The murder does not have to happen to your character or even someone they know, and it can still be a captivating, secondary plot line for your readers.
When murder is a secondary storyline in your novel, you enrich your story with an event that could motivate your character(s) to make different choices. As with real life, when a murder takes place nearby, people are naturally preoccupied by the investigation happening in their community or on the news. Your main character could easily become obsessed with a murder, and you reveal more about the character’s mind to the reader. Simply by showing fear in the character’s mind, you increase the tension of the story.
A murder as a secondary story line adds suspense to a book that may not have any or enough, and the murder keeps the reader on edge, wondering if the crime will become more important and in es
sence, take over the story. For example, in my first novel, Multiple Exposure, my main point for writing the book was to show how fear and war affect the family members of soldiers who are deployed. I wanted to focus on the heightened state of fear caused by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I decided to show those themes through a narrator, Ellen Masters, whose husband is a Special Forces medic and photographer. He is deployed for the majority of the present-day action of the book. During that time, Ellen teaches classes at a university and three students are brutally murdered at a park near her home.
This secondary plot line can also help with character development. The character experiences fear in my book. For Ellen, the murder becomes an obsession that leads to heightened anxiety. When she arrives home, she looks under the beds, in the closets, behind doors, waiting for a murderer to come after her. You could also show a character’s compassion, courage, and/or shock and disconnect to a murder.
You could also push the suspense beyond a focus on the main character(s), and develop the tension in the larger community. For my book, not only does the reader face the murder and fear through Ellen’s eyes, but she goes on to show the reactions of the community where she lives. She describes how the college students on campus react to the loss of the murdered students. This reveals more about the setting and the people who live in that setting. In the reader’s mind, the story can become expansive as you show the community, press coverage, and how groups deal with the aftermath of a murder in differing ways.
Two storylines can be intimidating, especially in the beginning of the writing process. To maintain both storylines, keep the main plot line simple and weave in enough to entertain your readers and keep them guessing about what may happen next. Eventually, the two storylines will become entwined, even if only in the character’s mind. You will create added depth and tension to your characters and the overall story.
One common mistake when pitching a book with a secondary storyline is that we writers often forget to highlight that plot line when describing the book. Recently, I was at a book event and continuously pitched my book as a war novel from the point of view of a soldier’s spouse. Later, as more readers stopped to talk, someone asked me if I had any murder mysteries, and that's when I realized that I had been giving a book spiel that didn’t include the murder suspense part of my novel. Work on a pitch for your book that incorporates both storylines into the description. Chances are that readers will be interested in one or the other. You’ll gain readers who enjoy the murder mystery/suspense side of your story, and they will turn those pages as quickly as they can read the words to find out what happens next.
Shana Thornton is the author of two novels, Poke Sallet Queen & the Family Medicine Wheel (2015) and Multiple Exposure (2012), and co-author of the nonfiction creativity book, Seasons of Balance: On Creativity & Mindfulness (2016). Shana is a native middle-Tennessean. She earned an M.A. in English from Austin Peay State University. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Her Circle Ezine, an online women's magazine featuring authors, artists, and activists. She is the owner of Thorncraft Publishing, an independent publisher of literature written by women (thorncraftpublishing.com). Shana lives in Tennessee with her family.
To read Shana’s interviews with women authors and activists, visit Her Circle.
To read more of her nonfiction, visit her blog.
Follow her on Twitter @shanathornton
Instagram @shana_trailbalance
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel / Shana Thornton
Sometimes when we get done writing we sit back, look at the finished product, and wonder what's missing. We wonder what is keeping this story from being the suspenseful piece of work that we want it to be. Often times, that answer can be that a story is perhaps too linear. It can, of course, be comfortable to stay in our comfort zone and stick with an easy-to-write plot. What we sometimes must do instead is keep the reader turning pages with a secondary plot. In this week's guest blog, author Shana Thornton shares her experience with doing just that.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
By Shana Thornton
Writers often say they have a finished novel, but it’s missing something to make it a more suspenseful story. Maybe there’s not enough action in the book to hold your attention as the writer, and your fears could materialize if a reader stops reading your book due to lack of tension to make them turn those pages. Consider adding a crime, specifically, a murder as a secondary storyline. The murder does not have to happen to your character or even someone they know, and it can still be a captivating, secondary plot line for your readers.
When murder is a secondary storyline in your novel, you enrich your story with an event that could motivate your character(s) to make different choices. As with real life, when a murder takes place nearby, people are naturally preoccupied by the investigation happening in their community or on the news. Your main character could easily become obsessed with a murder, and you reveal more about the character’s mind to the reader. Simply by showing fear in the character’s mind, you increase the tension of the story.
A murder as a secondary story line adds suspense to a book that may not have any or enough, and the murder keeps the reader on edge, wondering if the crime will become more important and in essence, take over the story. For example, in my first novel, Multiple Exposure, my main point for writing the book was to show how fear and war affect the family members of soldiers who are deployed. I wanted to focus on the heightened state of fear caused by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I decided to show those themes through a narrator, Ellen Masters, whose husband is a Special Forces medic and photographer. He is deployed for the majority of the present-day action of the book. During that time, Ellen teaches classes at a university and three students are brutally murdered at a park near her home.
This secondary plot line can also help with character development. The character experiences fear in my book. For Ellen, the murder becomes an obsession that leads to heightened anxiety. When she arrives home, she looks under the beds, in the closets, behind doors, waiting for a murderer to come after her. You could also show a character’s compassion, courage, and/or shock and disconnect to a murder.
You could also push the suspense beyond a focus on the main character(s), and develop the tension in the larger community. For my book, not only does the reader face the murder and fear through Ellen’s eyes, but she goes on to show the reactions of the community where she lives. She describes how the college students on campus react to the loss of the murdered students. This reveals more about the setting and the people who live in that setting. In the reader’s mind, the story can become expansive as you show the community, press coverage, and how groups deal with the aftermath of a murder in differing ways.
Two storylines can be intimidating, especially in the beginning of the writing process. To maintain both storylines, keep the main plot line simple and weave in enough to entertain your readers and keep them guessing about what may happen next. Eventually, the two storylines will become entwined, even if only in the character’s mind. You will create added depth and tension to your characters and the overall story.
One common mistake when pitching a book with a secondary storyline is that we writers often forget to highlight that plot line when describing the book. Recently, I was at a book event and continuously pitched my book as a war novel from the point of view of a soldier’s spouse. Later, as more readers stopped to talk, someone asked me if I had any murder mysteries, and that's when I realized that I had been giving a book spiel that didn’t include the murder suspense part of my novel. Work on a pitch for your book that incorporates both storylines into the description. Chances are that readers will be interested in one or the other. You’ll gain readers who enjoy the murder mystery/suspense side of your story, and they will turn those pages as quickly as they can read the words to find out what happens next.
Shana Thornton is the author of two novels, Poke Sallet Queen & the Family Medicine Wheel (2015) and Multiple Exposure (2012), and co-author of the nonfiction creativity book, Seasons of Balance: On Creativity & Mindfulness (2016). Shana is a native middle-Tennessean. She earned an M.A. in English from Austin Peay State University. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Her Circle Ezine, an online women's magazine featuring authors, artists, and activists. She is the owner of Thorncraft Publishing, an independent publisher of literature written by women (thorncraftpublishing.com). Shana lives in Tennessee with her family.
To read Shana’s interviews with women authors and activists, visit Her Circle.
To read more of her nonfiction, visit her blog.
Follow her on Twitter @shanathornton
Instagram @shana_trailbalance
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel / Shana Thornton
Sometimes when we get done writing we sit back, look at the finished product, and wonder what's missing. We wonder what is keeping this story from being the suspenseful piece of work that we want it to be. Often times, that answer can be that a story is perhaps too linear. It can, of course, be comfortable to stay in our comfort zone and stick with an easy-to-write plot. What we sometimes must do instead is keep the reader turning pages with a secondary plot. In this week's guest blog, author Shana Thornton shares her experience with doing just that.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
Murder as a Secondary Storyline in the Novel
By Shana Thornton
Writers often say they have a finished novel, but it’s missing something to make it a more suspenseful story. Maybe there’s not enough action in the book to hold your attention as the writer, and your fears could materialize if a reader stops reading your book due to lack of tension to make them turn those pages. Consider adding a crime, specifically, a murder as a secondary storyline. The murder does not have to happen to your character or even someone they know, and it can still be a captivating, secondary plot line for your readers.
When murder is a secondary storyline in your novel, you enrich your story with an event that could motivate your character(s) to make different choices. As with real life, when a murder takes place nearby, people are naturally preoccupied by the investigation happening in their community or on the news. Your main character could easily become obsessed with a murder, and you reveal more about the character’s mind to the reader. Simply by showing fear in the character’s mind, you increase the tension of the story.
A murder as a secondary story line adds suspense to a book that may not have any or enough, and the murder keeps the reader on edge, wondering if the crime will become more important and in es
sence, take over the story. For example, in my first novel, Multiple Exposure, my main point for writing the book was to show how fear and war affect the family members of soldiers who are deployed. I wanted to focus on the heightened state of fear caused by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I decided to show those themes through a narrator, Ellen Masters, whose husband is a Special Forces medic and photographer. He is deployed for the majority of the present-day action of the book. During that time, Ellen teaches classes at a university and three students are brutally murdered at a park near her home.
This secondary plot line can also help with character development. The character experiences fear in my book. For Ellen, the murder becomes an obsession that leads to heightened anxiety. When she arrives home, she looks under the beds, in the closets, behind doors, waiting for a murderer to come after her. You could also show a character’s compassion, courage, and/or shock and disconnect to a murder.
You could also push the suspense beyond a focus on the main character(s), and develop the tension in the larger community. For my book, not only does the reader face the murder and fear through Ellen’s eyes, but she goes on to show the reactions of the community where she lives. She describes how the college students on campus react to the loss of the murdered students. This reveals more about the setting and the people who live in that setting. In the reader’s mind, the story can become expansive as you show the community, press coverage, and how groups deal with the aftermath of a murder in differing ways.
Two storylines can be intimidating, especially in the beginning of the writing process. To maintain both storylines, keep the main plot line simple and weave in enough to entertain your readers and keep them guessing about what may happen next. Eventually, the two storylines will become entwined, even if only in the character’s mind. You will create added depth and tension to your characters and the overall story.
One common mistake when pitching a book with a secondary storyline is that we writers often forget to highlight that plot line when describing the book. Recently, I was at a book event and continuously pitched my book as a war novel from the point of view of a soldier’s spouse. Later, as more readers stopped to talk, someone asked me if I had any murder mysteries, and that's when I realized that I had been giving a book spiel that didn’t include the murder suspense part of my novel. Work on a pitch for your book that incorporates both storylines into the description. Chances are that readers will be interested in one or the other. You’ll gain readers who enjoy the murder mystery/suspense side of your story, and they will turn those pages as quickly as they can read the words to find out what happens next.
Shana Thornton is the author of two novels, Poke Sallet Queen & the Family Medicine Wheel (2015) and Multiple Exposure (2012), and co-author of the nonfiction creativity book, Seasons of Balance: On Creativity & Mindfulness (2016). Shana is a native middle-Tennessean. She earned an M.A. in English from Austin Peay State University. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Her Circle Ezine, an online women's magazine featuring authors, artists, and activists. She is the owner of Thorncraft Publishing, an independent publisher of literature written by women (thorncraftpublishing.com). Shana lives in Tennessee with her family.
To read Shana’s interviews with women authors and activists, visit Her Circle.
To read more of her nonfiction, visit her blog.
Follow her on Twitter @shanathornton
Instagram @shana_trailbalance
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort? / DiAnn Mills
When writing we have numerous factors to think about before we can accurately translate our ideas to paper. Sometimes it can help to itemize things and think independently about each aspect of a scene in order to make everything come together and fit naturally. Few things can take away from a story more than something that seems out of place or factually inaccurate. In this week’s guest blog, author DiAnn Mills discusses her in depth knowledge and experience with doing proper research before you start writing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville MagazineWriter Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
By DiAnn Mills
A novelist who explores research, explores life — and life is story. Research allows us to deepen characterization by guiding the character toward crucial decisions. Plot twists with credible and realistic points keep the reader glued to the page. Dialogue and point of view offer unique perspectives about the story line. Setting with an antagonistic edge reinforces story structure. Add emotion and body language with a distinct purpose, and detailed research takes a priority in the writing process.
Writing is a challenge beyond technique. Those tools of the craft can be learned behind a computer screen or sitting in a comfortable chair at a writers’ event. But research means lacing up our boots and stepping into an unfamiliar world.
A writer needs three essentials before scaling a mountain called research:
A positive attitude.
A temporary personality change from introvert to extrovert.
A list of questions that demand answers.
The easy path, and that’s not necessarily bad, is to search the Internet. Accuracy doesn’t take a backseat to any research, so writers verify facts and use trusted sites to eliminate errors.
But the real grit of the process is reaching out to experts. Making phone calls and visiting where our characters work, play, and fear. This is the plus that adds a smile to our reader’s face. Since making a commitment to research, my stories stand solid.
In my latest novel, Deadly Encounter, the first book in the FBI Task Force series, I had to stretch beyond my comfort zone. The storyline involves Houston’s FBI forming a task force with the health department and Laboratory Response Network (LRN) to determine the source of a genetically engineered disease.
My hero is FBI and my heroine is a veterinarian. The best place for me to start was at the beginning:
Houston’s FBI
Veterinarian who volunteers for Houston’s Airport Rangers
Houston Airport Rangers
Houston’s Health Department
Laboratory Response Network (LRN) — which works with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Where my characters live — city, country, neighborhood etc.
Sorta makes a writer tired when our goal is to write an incredibly suspenseful story that foremost entertains the reader.
Some years ago, I forged a relationship with Houston’s FBI, specifically the media coordinator. She expressed the FBI’s goal to enlist community support to keep Houston safe and protected. She’d help me with every novel containing FBI elements to assure accuracy. She’s read each story and offered feedback — even typos. With Deadly Encounter, she and I met for breakfast with the director of domestic terrorism. Oh, the stories I could write simply from this man’s enthusiasm and passion for his job. In short, this treasured friendship has given me story ideas and relationships that will last long after a novel is completed.
Let me digress for a moment. We writers love to talk about what we do, right? Every person I’ve ever interviewed was eager to discuss his/her expertise.
Back to my research for this novel …
In my association with the FBI and being a part of their Citizens Cadet Program, I made great friends with those involved in various careers. One of my new friends works with animals and is a volunteer for Houston’s Airport Rangers. She helped me with veterinarian care and insight into the Airport Rangers. Stacy (yes I named my heroine after her) shared some of her life experiences, and a few of those made it into the book.
George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) Airport Rangers, an equestrian volunteer program, was created to keep the airport safe through community involvement. They are the only group of this kind in the US. The volunteers ride outside the perimeter of the airport in twos and threes. Their role is to report anything unusual or potentially dangerous to law enforcement. I visited their stables, took pics, and simply enjoyed myself. You can read about the group here.
I chatted with the health department about their policies and methods of keeping the people healthy and informed as it pertained to my story.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) required phone calls and e-mails to learn about their involvement in a disease threatening environment. They referred me to the LRN, and that research brought me a third point of view character.
Are you tired yet? Or excited about researching your next novel? As I write this, my mind is whirling with the faces of all those who made the research for Deadly Encounter possible.
My advice is to pull out your note-taking gear and start your research climb. The view at the top is grand.
How do you conduct your novel’s research? Let’s share ideas.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association; International Thriller Writers, and the Faith, Hope, and Love chapter of Romance Writers of America. She is co-director of The Author Roadmap with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion of helping other writers be successful. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. DiAnn has been termed a coffee snob and roasts her own coffee beans. She’s an avid reader, loves to cook, and believes her grandchildren are the smartest kids in the universe. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas. DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort? / DiAnn Mills
When writing we have numerous factors to think about before we can accurately translate our ideas to paper. Sometimes it can help to itemize things and think independently about each aspect of a scene in order to make everything come together and fit naturally. Few things can take away from a story more than something that seems out of place or factually inaccurate. In this week's guest blog, author DiAnn Mills discusses her in depth knowledge and experience with doing proper research before you start writing.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
By DiAnn Mills
A novelist who explores research, explores life — and life is story. Research allows us to deepen characterization by guiding the character toward crucial decisions. Plot twists with credible and realistic points keep the reader glued to the page. Dialogue and point of view offer unique perspectives about the story line. Setting with an antagonistic edge reinforces story structure. Add emotion and body language with a distinct purpose, and detailed research takes a priority in the writing process.
Writing is a challenge beyond technique. Those tools of the craft can be learned behind a computer screen or sitting in a comfortable chair at a writers’ event. But research means lacing up our boots and stepping into an unfamiliar world.
A writer needs three essentials before scaling a mountain called research:
- A positive attitude.
- A temporary personality change from introvert to extrovert.
- A list of questions that demand answers.
The easy path, and that’s not necessarily bad, is to search the Internet. Accuracy doesn’t take a backseat to any research, so writers verify facts and use trusted sites to eliminate errors.
But the real grit of the process is reaching out to experts. Making phone calls and visiting where our characters work, play, and fear. This is the plus that adds a smile to our reader’s face. Since making a commitment to research, my stories stand solid.
In my latest novel, Deadly Encounter, the first book in the FBI Task Force series, I had to stretch beyond my comfort zone. The storyline involves Houston’s FBI forming a task force with the health department and Laboratory Response Network (LRN) to determine the source of a genetically engineered disease.
My hero is FBI and my heroine is a veterinarian. The best place for me to start was at the beginning:
Houston’s FBI
Veterinarian who volunteers for Houston’s Airport Rangers
Houston Airport Rangers
Houston’s Health Department
Laboratory Response Network (LRN) — which works with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Where my characters live — city, country, neighborhood etc.
Sorta makes a writer tired when our goal is to write an incredibly suspenseful story that foremost entertains the reader.
Some years ago, I forged a relationship with Houston’s FBI, specifically the media coordinator. She expressed the FBI’s goal to enlist community support to keep Houston safe and protected. She’d help me with every novel containing FBI elements to assure accuracy. She’s read each story and offered feedback — even typos. With Deadly Encounter, she and I met for breakfast with the director of domestic terrorism. Oh, the stories I could write simply from this man’s enthusiasm and passion for his job. In short, this treasured friendship has given me story ideas and relationships that will last long after a novel is completed.
Let me digress for a moment. We writers love to talk about what we do, right? Every person I’ve ever interviewed was eager to discuss his/her expertise.
Back to my research for this novel …
In my association with the FBI and being a part of their Citizens Cadet Program, I made great friends with those involved in various careers. One of my new friends works with animals and is a volunteer for Houston’s Airport Rangers. She helped me with veterinarian care and insight into the Airport Rangers. Stacy (yes I named my heroine after her) shared some of her life experiences, and a few of those made it into the book.
George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) Airport Rangers, an equestrian volunteer program, was created to keep the airport safe through community involvement. They are the only group of this kind in the US. The volunteers ride outside the perimeter of the airport in twos and threes. Their role is to report anything unusual or potentially dangerous to law enforcement. I visited their stables, took pics, and simply enjoyed myself. You can read about the group here.
I chatted with the health department about their policies and methods of keeping the people healthy and informed as it pertained to my story.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) required phone calls and e-mails to learn about their involvement in a disease threatening environment. They referred me to the LRN, and that research brought me a third point of view character.
Are you tired yet? Or excited about researching your next novel? As I write this, my mind is whirling with the faces of all those who made the research for Deadly Encounter possible.
My advice is to pull out your note-taking gear and start your research climb. The view at the top is grand.
How do you conduct your novel’s research? Let’s share ideas.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association; International Thriller Writers, and the Faith, Hope, and Love chapter of Romance Writers of America. She is co-director of The Author Roadmap with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion of helping other writers be successful. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. DiAnn has been termed a coffee snob and roasts her own coffee beans. She’s an avid reader, loves to cook, and believes her grandchildren are the smartest kids in the universe. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas. DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort? / DiAnn Mills
When writing we have numerous factors to think about before we can accurately translate our ideas to paper. Sometimes it can help to itemize things and think independently about each aspect of a scene in order to make everything come together and fit naturally. Few things can take away from a story more than something that seems out of place or factually inaccurate. In this week's guest blog, author DiAnn Mills discusses her in depth knowledge and experience with doing proper research before you start writing.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
Writer Research - Is it Worth the Effort?
By DiAnn Mills
A novelist who explores research, explores life — and life is story. Research allows us to deepen characterization by guiding the character toward crucial decisions. Plot twists with credible and realistic points keep the reader glued to the page. Dialogue and point of view offer unique perspectives about the story line. Setting with an antagonistic edge reinforces story structure. Add emotion and body language with a distinct purpose, and detailed research takes a priority in the writing process.
Writing is a challenge beyond technique. Those tools of the craft can be learned behind a computer screen or sitting in a comfortable chair at a writers’ event. But research means lacing up our boots and stepping into an unfamiliar world.
A writer needs three essentials before scaling a mountain called research:
- A positive attitude.
- A temporary personality change from introvert to extrovert.
- A list of questions that demand answers.
The easy path, and that’s not necessarily bad, is to search the Internet. Accuracy doesn’t take a backseat to any research, so writers verify facts and use trusted sites to eliminate errors.
But the real grit of the process is reaching out to experts. Making phone calls and visiting where our characters work, play, and fear. This is the plus that adds a smile to our reader’s face. Since making a commitment to research, my stories stand solid.
In my latest novel, Deadly Encounter, the first book in the FBI Task Force series, I had to stretch beyond my comfort zone. The storyline involves Houston’s FBI forming a task force with the health department and Laboratory Response Network (LRN) to determine the source of a genetically engineered disease.
My hero is FBI and my heroine is a veterinarian. The best place for me to start was at the beginning:
Houston’s FBI
Veterinarian who volunteers for Houston’s Airport Rangers
Houston Airport Rangers
Houston’s Health Department
Laboratory Response Network (LRN) — which works with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Where my characters live — city, country, neighborhood etc.
Sorta makes a writer tired when our goal is to write an incredibly suspenseful story that foremost entertains the reader.
Some years ago, I forged a relationship with Houston’s FBI, specifically the media coordinator. She expressed the FBI’s goal to enlist community support to keep Houston safe and protected. She’d help me with every novel containing FBI elements to assure accuracy. She’s read each story and offered feedback — even typos. With Deadly Encounter, she and I met for breakfast with the director of domestic terrorism. Oh, the stories I could write simply from this man’s enthusiasm and passion for his job. In short, this treasured friendship has given me story ideas and relationships that will last long after a novel is completed.
Let me digress for a moment. We writers love to talk about what we do, right? Every person I’ve ever interviewed was eager to discuss his/her expertise.
Back to my research for this novel …
In my association with the FBI and being a part of their Citizens Cadet Program, I made great friends with those involved in various careers. One of my new friends works with animals and is a volunteer for Houston’s Airport Rangers. She helped me with veterinarian care and insight into the Airport Rangers. Stacy (yes I named my heroine after her) shared some of her life experiences, and a few of those made it into the book.
George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) Airport Rangers, an equestrian volunteer program, was created to keep the airport safe through community involvement. They are the only group of this kind in the US. The volunteers ride outside the perimeter of the airport in twos and threes. Their role is to report anything unusual or potentially dangerous to law enforcement. I visited their stables, took pics, and simply enjoyed myself. You can read about the group here.
I chatted with the health department about their policies and methods of keeping the people healthy and informed as it pertained to my story.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) required phone calls and e-mails to learn about their involvement in a disease threatening environment. They referred me to the LRN, and that research brought me a third point of view character.
Are you tired yet? Or excited about researching your next novel? As I write this, my mind is whirling with the faces of all those who made the research for Deadly Encounter possible.
My advice is to pull out your note-taking gear and start your research climb. The view at the top is grand.
How do you conduct your novel’s research? Let’s share ideas.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association; International Thriller Writers, and the Faith, Hope, and Love chapter of Romance Writers of America. She is co-director of The Author Roadmap with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion of helping other writers be successful. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. DiAnn has been termed a coffee snob and roasts her own coffee beans. She’s an avid reader, loves to cook, and believes her grandchildren are the smartest kids in the universe. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas. DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Researching Nashville / Caroline Fardig
As writers we get a lot of advice. A phrase that we are all too familiar with is, of course, “write what you know.” We hear it often enough that it can become something we don’t think critically about. In this week’s guest blog, author Caroline Fardig offers us her insight on how to familiarize yourself with a location that you would like to be a focal point of your writing. If you paint the picture of the world around you well enough, it can become as integral to the story as the characters themselves.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Researching Nashville
By Caroline Fardig
Write what you know.
As writers, we hear that advice over and over again. It’s good advice, because if you’re well versed in your subject matter, you’re less likely to provide incorrect facts, or worse, be compelled to make things up. However, even when we’re firmly inside our comfort zone, we still need to do some research. I find it’s especially important to research and get to know the setting of your story. (That is, unless your story is set on the planet Nebular, in which case you CAN in fact make up ridiculous things.) If written well, the setting can come to life and become as much a part of your story as your characters.
In preparing to write my latest series, the Java Jive Mysteries (Death Before Decaf, Mug Shot, and the upcoming A Whole Latte Murder), I’ve had to do some pretty intense research on my setting. And by intense, I mean serious hands-on, in the trenches, in depth VACATIONING in Nashville, Tennessee. A writer’s life can be tough sometimes.
My Java Jive series is a cozy mystery series following failed musician turned coffeehouse manager Juliet Langley. It’s set in a fictional coffeehouse in the Midtown area of Nashville. Midtown is just southwest of downtown, in and around the lovely Vanderbilt and Belmont University campuses. Whereas downtown can be glittery and rowdy at one end of Broadway, the campus/residential area at the other end is anything but. The area boasts dozens of mom and pop shops, from bars to boutiques, many of which are run out of restored old houses. That’s where I got the idea for the Java Jive coffeehouse.
I love coffee, so of course I had to visit every coffeehouse in the area—for the sake of research, of course. All coffeehouses have their own signature concoctions, my favorite being The Frothy Monkey’s White Monkey Mocha, an espresso drink flavored with white chocolate and banana syrups, which I recreate every morning at home. (In trying to learn about the life of a barista I also bought an espresso machine and learned to craft drinks and pour latte art.) At the coffeehouses, I researched their food and bakery offerings and their processes of serving and delivering the food to their customers. Again, a rough job. I paid attention to their hours of operation and employee work schedules. I drank in the atmosphere. Ultimately, I was able to glean a wealth of ideas to make Java Jive believable enough as a functioning coffeehouse.
Like Café Coco, Java Jive offers an open mic night for area musicians to perform. That was the only actual serious research I did. Each book in the series includes an original song I wrote, and I decided the best way to fully be immersed in the open mic experience was to perform myself. Talk about nerve-wracking! A forty-something mom of two getting up and performing in front of a bunch of young, talented Nashville musicians was almost more than I could handle. (I do have a music degree, so I’m not a total hack.) I never felt more empathy for my heroine, Juliet, and her crippling stage fright than in those few minutes I was up on that little stage.
Speaking of music, you can’t set your series in Nashville and ignore the unending supply of live music pouring out of the many bars and clubs downtown. My friend Karen (a Nashville area resident) was the perfect tour guide and partner in crime for a couple of unforgettable visits to the heart of Music City. Tin Roof is my favorite bar, and it made its way into A Whole Latte Murder. And speaking of “writing what you know,” the scene in A Whole Latte Murder where a bird defecates on Juliet on Second Avenue really happened to me the last time I was there. True story.
For outdoor locales, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Centennial Park. It became the setting for the death scene in Mug Shot. To research for the scene, I walked the beautiful grounds of the park, scouting out where everything would take place, from where actual benches are to what my characters would see when they sat on the steps of the Parthenon facing Lake Watauga. As for other outdoor landmarks, in one particular scene in Death Before Decaf, my heroine follows someone from the Vanderbilt Library lawn past sorority row to the Office Depot on West End. I dragged my husband along on the exact route my characters took, making sure I had all the details right. I also found the perfect semi-secluded area behind the library to have my heroine narrowly escape being kidnapped.
Thanks to the Killer Nashville Conference, I was introduced to the Omni Hotel downtown. The whole place is gorgeous, especially the library in the lobby, a reader’s dream full of books, overstuffed chairs, and a fireplace to die for. In Mug Shot, Juliet ends up at the Omni while spying on one of her suspects. She hides in the library, pretending to read. Of course I had to recreate the scene when I was there for last year’s conference.
Research doesn’t always have to happen in front of a computer or at the library. Venture out. Look at the world around you, even if you’re simply people-watching. And if you come for August’s Killer Nashville conference (which is moving to suburban Cool Springs/Franklin, about 20 minutes south), make sure to take advantage of what Music City has to offer. You might find Nashville becoming your new favorite vacation spot or the setting for your next novel.
Caroline Fardig is the author of the Java Jive Mysteries seriesand the Lizzie Hart Mysteries series. Suspense Magazine recently named Fardig’s Bad Medicine as one of the Best Books of 2015. She worked as a schoolteacher, church organist, insurance agent, funeral parlor associate, and stay-at-home mom before she realized that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Born and raised in a small town in Indiana, Fardig still lives in that same town with an understanding husband, two sweet kids, two energetic dogs, and one malevolent cat. Find Caroline on the web at www.carolinefardig.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Researching Nashville / Caroline Fardig
As writers we get a lot of advice. A phrase that we are all too familiar with is, of course, “write what you know." We hear it often enough that it can become something we don’t think critically about. In this week’s guest blog, author Caroline Fardig offers us her insight on how to familiarize yourself with a location that you would like to be a focal point of your writing. If you paint the picture of the world around you well enough, it can become as integral to the story as the characters themselves.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Researching Nashville
By Caroline Fardig
Write what you know.
As writers, we hear that advice over and over again. It’s good advice, because if you’re well versed in your subject matter, you’re less likely to provide incorrect facts, or worse, be compelled to make things up. However, even when we’re firmly inside our comfort zone, we still need to do some research. I find it’s especially important to research and get to know the setting of your story. (That is, unless your story is set on the planet Nebular, in which case you CAN in fact make up ridiculous things.) If written well, the setting can come to life and become as much a part of your story as your characters.
In preparing to write my latest series, the Java Jive Mysteries (Death Before Decaf, Mug Shot, and the upcoming A Whole Latte Murder), I’ve had to do some pretty intense research on my setting. And by intense, I mean serious hands-on, in the trenches, in depth VACATIONING in Nashville, Tennessee. A writer’s life can be tough sometimes.
My Java Jive series is a cozy mystery series following failed musician turned coffeehouse manager Juliet Langley. It’s set in a fictional coffeehouse in the Midtown area of Nashville. Midtown is just southwest of downtown, in and around the lovely Vanderbilt and Belmont University campuses. Whereas downtown can be glittery and rowdy at one end of Broadway, the campus/residential area at the other end is anything but. The area boasts dozens of mom and pop shops, from bars to boutiques, many of which are run out of restored old houses. That’s where I got the idea for the Java Jive coffeehouse.
I love coffee, so of course I had to visit every coffeehouse in the area—for the sake of research, of course. All coffeehouses have their own signature concoctions, my favorite being The Frothy Monkey’s White Monkey Mocha, an espresso drink flavored with white chocolate and banana syrups, which I recreate every morning at home. (In trying to learn about the life of a barista I also bought an espresso machine and learned to craft drinks and pour latte art.) At the coffeehouses, I researched their food and bakery offerings and their processes of serving and delivering the food to their customers. Again, a rough job. I paid attention to their hours of operation and employee work schedules. I drank in the atmosphere. Ultimately, I was able to glean a wealth of ideas to make Java Jive believable enough as a functioning coffeehouse.
Like Café Coco, Java Jive offers an open mic night for area musicians to perform. That was the only actual serious research I did. Each book in the series includes an original song I wrote, and I decided the best way to fully be immersed in the open mic experience was to perform myself. Talk about nerve-wracking! A forty-something mom of two getting up and performing in front of a bunch of young, talented Nashville musicians was almost more than I could handle. (I do have a music degree, so I’m not a total hack.) I never felt more empathy for my heroine, Juliet, and her crippling stage fright than in those few minutes I was up on that little stage.
Speaking of music, you can’t set your series in Nashville and ignore the unending supply of live music pouring out of the many bars and clubs downtown. My friend Karen (a Nashville area resident) was the perfect tour guide and partner in crime for a couple of unforgettable visits to the heart of Music City. Tin Roof is my favorite bar, and it made its way into A Whole Latte Murder. And speaking of “writing what you know,” the scene in A Whole Latte Murder where a bird defecates on Juliet on Second Avenue really happened to me the last time I was there. True story.
For outdoor locales, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Centennial Park. It became the setting for the death scene in Mug Shot. To research for the scene, I walked the beautiful grounds of the park, scouting out where everything would take place, from where actual benches are to what my characters would see when they sat on the steps of the Parthenon facing Lake Watauga. As for other outdoor landmarks, in one particular scene in Death Before Decaf, my heroine follows someone from the Vanderbilt Library lawn past sorority row to the Office Depot on West End. I dragged my husband along on the exact route my characters took, making sure I had all the details right. I also found the perfect semi-secluded area behind the library to have my heroine narrowly escape being kidnapped.
Thanks to the Killer Nashville Conference, I was introduced to the Omni Hotel downtown. The whole place is gorgeous, especially the library in the lobby, a reader’s dream full of books, overstuffed chairs, and a fireplace to die for. In Mug Shot, Juliet ends up at the Omni while spying on one of her suspects. She hides in the library, pretending to read. Of course I had to recreate the scene when I was there for last year’s conference.
Research doesn’t always have to happen in front of a computer or at the library. Venture out. Look at the world around you, even if you’re simply people-watching. And if you come for August’s Killer Nashville conference (which is moving to suburban Cool Springs/Franklin, about 20 minutes south), make sure to take advantage of what Music City has to offer. You might find Nashville becoming your new favorite vacation spot or the setting for your next novel.
Caroline Fardig is the author of the Java Jive Mysteries series and the Lizzie Hart Mysteries series. Suspense Magazine recently named Fardig’s Bad Medicine as one of the Best Books of 2015. She worked as a schoolteacher, church organist, insurance agent, funeral parlor associate, and stay-at-home mom before she realized that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Born and raised in a small town in Indiana, Fardig still lives in that same town with an understanding husband, two sweet kids, two energetic dogs, and one malevolent cat. Find Caroline on the web at www.carolinefardig.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Researching Nashville / Caroline Fardig
As writers we get a lot of advice. A phrase that we are all too familiar with is, of course, “write what you know." We hear it often enough that it can become something we don’t think critically about. In this week’s guest blog, author Caroline Fardig offers us her insight on how to familiarize yourself with a location that you would like to be a focal point of your writing. If you paint the picture of the world around you well enough, it can become as integral to the story as the characters themselves.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Researching Nashville
By Caroline Fardig
Write what you know.
As writers, we hear that advice over and over again. It’s good advice, because if you’re well versed in your subject matter, you’re less likely to provide incorrect facts, or worse, be compelled to make things up. However, even when we’re firmly inside our comfort zone, we still need to do some research. I find it’s especially important to research and get to know the setting of your story. (That is, unless your story is set on the planet Nebular, in which case you CAN in fact make up ridiculous things.) If written well, the setting can come to life and become as much a part of your story as your characters.
In preparing to write my latest series, the Java Jive Mysteries (Death Before Decaf, Mug Shot, and the upcoming A Whole Latte Murder), I’ve had to do some pretty intense research on my setting. And by intense, I mean serious hands-on, in the trenches, in depth VACATIONING in Nashville, Tennessee. A writer’s life can be tough sometimes.
My Java Jive series is a cozy mystery series following failed musician turned coffeehouse manager Juliet Langley. It’s set in a fictional coffeehouse in the Midtown area of Nashville. Midtown is just southwest of downtown, in and around the lovely Vanderbilt and Belmont University campuses. Whereas downtown can be glittery and rowdy at one end of Broadway, the campus/residential area at the other end is anything but. The area boasts dozens of mom and pop shops, from bars to boutiques, many of which are run out of restored old houses. That’s where I got the idea for the Java Jive coffeehouse.
I love coffee, so of course I had to visit every coffeehouse in the area—for the sake of research, of course. All coffeehouses have their own signature concoctions, my favorite being The Frothy Monkey’s White Monkey Mocha, an espresso drink flavored with white chocolate and banana syrups, which I recreate every morning at home. (In trying to learn about the life of a barista I also bought an espresso machine and learned to craft drinks and pour latte art.) At the coffeehouses, I researched their food and bakery offerings and their processes of serving and delivering the food to their customers. Again, a rough job. I paid attention to their hours of operation and employee work schedules. I drank in the atmosphere. Ultimately, I was able to glean a wealth of ideas to make Java Jive believable enough as a functioning coffeehouse.
Like Café Coco, Java Jive offers an open mic night for area musicians to perform. That was the only actual serious research I did. Each book in the series includes an original song I wrote, and I decided the best way to fully be immersed in the open mic experience was to perform myself. Talk about nerve-wracking! A forty-something mom of two getting up and performing in front of a bunch of young, talented Nashville musicians was almost more than I could handle. (I do have a music degree, so I’m not a total hack.) I never felt more empathy for my heroine, Juliet, and her crippling stage fright than in those few minutes I was up on that little stage.
Speaking of music, you can’t set your series in Nashville and ignore the unending supply of live music pouring out of the many bars and clubs downtown. My friend Karen (a Nashville area resident) was the perfect tour guide and partner in crime for a couple of unforgettable visits to the heart of Music City. Tin Roof is my favorite bar, and it made its way into A Whole Latte Murder. And speaking of “writing what you know,” the scene in A Whole Latte Murder where a bird defecates on Juliet on Second Avenue really happened to me the last time I was there. True story.
For outdoor locales, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Centennial Park. It became the setting for the death scene in Mug Shot. To research for the scene, I walked the beautiful grounds of the park, scouting out where everything would take place, from where actual benches are to what my characters would see when they sat on the steps of the Parthenon facing Lake Watauga. As for other outdoor landmarks, in one particular scene in Death Before Decaf, my heroine follows someone from the Vanderbilt Library lawn past sorority row to the Office Depot on West End. I dragged my husband along on the exact route my characters took, making sure I had all the details right. I also found the perfect semi-secluded area behind the library to have my heroine narrowly escape being kidnapped.
Thanks to the Killer Nashville Conference, I was introduced to the Omni Hotel downtown. The whole place is gorgeous, especially the library in the lobby, a reader’s dream full of books, overstuffed chairs, and a fireplace to die for. In Mug Shot, Juliet ends up at the Omni while spying on one of her suspects. She hides in the library, pretending to read. Of course I had to recreate the scene when I was there for last year’s conference.
Research doesn’t always have to happen in front of a computer or at the library. Venture out. Look at the world around you, even if you’re simply people-watching. And if you come for August’s Killer Nashville conference (which is moving to suburban Cool Springs/Franklin, about 20 minutes south), make sure to take advantage of what Music City has to offer. You might find Nashville becoming your new favorite vacation spot or the setting for your next novel.
Caroline Fardig is the author of the Java Jive Mysteries series and the Lizzie Hart Mysteries series. Suspense Magazine recently named Fardig’s Bad Medicine as one of the Best Books of 2015. She worked as a schoolteacher, church organist, insurance agent, funeral parlor associate, and stay-at-home mom before she realized that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Born and raised in a small town in Indiana, Fardig still lives in that same town with an understanding husband, two sweet kids, two energetic dogs, and one malevolent cat. Find Caroline on the web at www.carolinefardig.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research / Maggie Toussaint
Research is an essential part of writing. Your research contributes to the overall feel of the book, and it’s important to make sure your facts and information are up to date. It’s very easy for readers to get distracted from the plot if they notice something that’s incorrect. However, just because you research a lot of information doesn’t mean it all has to go in your book; overloading it with unnecessary facts or information can also be distracting. Maggie Toussaint talks about how important it is to research before you start writing, but also to keep some of the irrelevant details left out.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research
By Maggie Toussaint
Did you know loggerhead turtles return to the same beach for nesting? They are out there swimming around in the great big ocean, and yet they return to the exact beach (or very close) to lay their eggs. Scientists proved this by tracking nesting turtles with radio transmitters.
Not only that, but turtles spend most of their life submerged but must surface every four to five minutes to breathe air. They can sleep underwater without drowning because their level of activity is less.
More fun facts: Male sea turtles almost never leave the water while females nest every two to three years on beaches. That nesting—depositing about 100 golf ball sized eggs in a pit the turtle digs with her flippers and then covers up—takes about three hours.
Fascinating, right? The babies hatch at night two months later, crawl to the water, and swim away, lickety-split. These turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until somewhere around 12-30 years, when their outer shell grows larger than 90 cm.
Further, the gender of the hatching turtles is determined by the incubation temperature. Hot temps and you get gals, cooler temps and you get guys.
Your eyes may be crossing with turtle facts by now, but my eyes are alight with enthusiasm, even months after I’ve turned in my Turtle Tribbles novella. I knew this would happen when I began researching, so I created a folder of all the fun facts about these endangered turtles. I could go on and on about this topic, but I’ll spare you the biology lesson.
The reason I researched turtles is because down here on the Georgia Coast, college interns get assigned various barrier islands to monitor turtle nests. The plan is to get a better idea of the population and to do our part in protecting the nests so this species doesn’t go extinct.
Anyway, there’s also a serious problem of turtle eggs getting poached, which is a federal crime. A man who turned right around and poached turtle eggs right after getting out of federal prison for the crime sparked my interest in writing a murder mystery around this occurrence.
With a fat folder of turtle facts in hand, I was ready to write my novella. The first draft of chapter one drowned in details. I wanted to use all the cool facts I’d unearthed because they were so interesting.
But … did they advance the plot?
Sadly, the answer wasn’t to my liking. The loggerhead’s life cycle information is the reason there’s a Turtle Girl, but 90 cool facts about turtles don’t belong in a mystery about the death of a Turtle Girl.
So, how could I work in some of this information without the story feeling like science class? I open the story with the Turtle Girl visiting my newspaper editor sleuth, Lindsey McKay, in her office because turtle eggs are being poached. The editor is no biologist, so the Turtle Girl has to explain why people would steal turtle eggs.
The editor feels around the edges of what’s being said, realizing that the chance of catching a poacher on an island are slim in an area with lots of speedboats, decides to use the opportunity to run a feature about the turtles due to their endangered status.
Each time Lindsey and the Turtle Girl meet, a few more turtle facts work their way into the story. I also kept the tone light, as is shown in this brief snip from the story:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but could you have missed the hatch?” Lindsey said.
“Nope. I hit the beach first thing every morning and monitor the nests. If turtle eggs hatched, I would see the signs. Eggshells would be cracked and left behind. The sand from the nest to the sea would be full of turtle tracks. The nests would look disturbed. I didn’t see any of that at those locations. It’s like the eggs got beamed into outer space.”
As you can see from the tone of that dialogue, I kept the facts light, used nonscientific words, and even added in an element of humor. By not flooding the story with facts, the reader is drawn into the story and cares about the turtles because the Turtle Girl cares about them. And when the Turtle Girl is found dead on the beach, we care a lot about what happened to her.
Making the Turtle Girl passionate about her amphibian charges upped the stakes for readers caring about why she was murdered.
Bottom line? A little research goes a long way. Do the research, but keep the bulk of it out of your story.
Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes mystery, suspense, and dystopian fiction. Her work won the Silver Falchion Award for best mystery, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the EPIC Award. She’s published fifteen novels as well as several short stories and novellas, including the upcoming Happy Homicides 3. The next book in her paranormal mystery series, Doggone It, releases October 2016. Maggie serves on the board for Southeast Mystery Writers of America and Low Country Sisters in Crime. Visit her at www.maggietoussaint.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research / Maggie Toussaint
Research is an essential part of writing. Your research contributes to the overall feel of the book, and it's important to make sure your facts and information are up to date. It's very easy for readers to get distracted from the plot if they notice something that's incorrect. However, just because you research a lot of information doesn't mean it all has to go in your book; overloading it with unnecessary facts or information can also be distracting. Maggie Toussaint talks about how important it is to research before you start writing, but also to keep some of the irrelevant details left out.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research
By Maggie Toussaint
Did you know loggerhead turtles return to the same beach for nesting? They are out there swimming around in the great big ocean, and yet they return to the exact beach (or very close) to lay their eggs. Scientists proved this by tracking nesting turtles with radio transmitters.
Not only that, but turtles spend most of their life submerged but must surface every four to five minutes to breathe air. They can sleep underwater without drowning because their level of activity is less.
More fun facts: Male sea turtles almost never leave the water while females nest every two to three years on beaches. That nesting—depositing about 100 golf ball sized eggs in a pit the turtle digs with her flippers and then covers up—takes about three hours.
Fascinating, right? The babies hatch at night two months later, crawl to the water, and swim away, lickety-split. These turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until somewhere around 12-30 years, when their outer shell grows larger than 90 cm.
Further, the gender of the hatching turtles is determined by the incubation temperature. Hot temps and you get gals, cooler temps and you get guys.
Your eyes may be crossing with turtle facts by now, but my eyes are alight with enthusiasm, even months after I’ve turned in my Turtle Tribbles novella. I knew this would happen when I began researching, so I created a folder of all the fun facts about these endangered turtles. I could go on and on about this topic, but I’ll spare you the biology lesson.
The reason I researched turtles is because down here on the Georgia Coast, college interns get assigned various barrier islands to monitor turtle nests. The plan is to get a better idea of the population and to do our part in protecting the nests so this species doesn’t go extinct.
Anyway, there’s also a serious problem of turtle eggs getting poached, which is a federal crime. A man who turned right around and poached turtle eggs right after getting out of federal prison for the crime sparked my interest in writing a murder mystery around this occurrence.
With a fat folder of turtle facts in hand, I was ready to write my novella. The first draft of chapter one drowned in details. I wanted to use all the cool facts I’d unearthed because they were so interesting.
But … did they advance the plot?
Sadly, the answer wasn’t to my liking. The loggerhead’s life cycle information is the reason there’s a Turtle Girl, but 90 cool facts about turtles don’t belong in a mystery about the death of a Turtle Girl.
So, how could I work in some of this information without the story feeling like science class? I open the story with the Turtle Girl visiting my newspaper editor sleuth, Lindsey McKay, in her office because turtle eggs are being poached. The editor is no biologist, so the Turtle Girl has to explain why people would steal turtle eggs.
The editor feels around the edges of what’s being said, realizing that the chance of catching a poacher on an island are slim in an area with lots of speedboats, decides to use the opportunity to run a feature about the turtles due to their endangered status.
Each time Lindsey and the Turtle Girl meet, a few more turtle facts work their way into the story. I also kept the tone light, as is shown in this brief snip from the story:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but could you have missed the hatch?” Lindsey said.
“Nope. I hit the beach first thing every morning and monitor the nests. If turtle eggs hatched, I would see the signs. Eggshells would be cracked and left behind. The sand from the nest to the sea would be full of turtle tracks. The nests would look disturbed. I didn’t see any of that at those locations. It’s like the eggs got beamed into outer space.”
As you can see from the tone of that dialogue, I kept the facts light, used nonscientific words, and even added in an element of humor. By not flooding the story with facts, the reader is drawn into the story and cares about the turtles because the Turtle Girl cares about them. And when the Turtle Girl is found dead on the beach, we care a lot about what happened to her.
Making the Turtle Girl passionate about her amphibian charges upped the stakes for readers caring about why she was murdered.
Bottom line? A little research goes a long way. Do the research, but keep the bulk of it out of your story.
Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes mystery, suspense, and dystopian fiction. Her work won the Silver Falchion Award for best mystery, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the EPIC Award. She’s published fifteen novels as well as several short stories and novellas, including the upcoming Happy Homicides 3. The next book in her paranormal mystery series, Doggone It, releases October 2016. Maggie serves on the board for Southeast Mystery Writers of America and Low Country Sisters in Crime. Visit her at www.maggietoussaint.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research / Maggie Toussaint
Research is an essential part of writing. Your research contributes to the overall feel of the book, and it's important to make sure your facts and information are up to date. It's very easy for readers to get distracted from the plot if they notice something that's incorrect. However, just because you research a lot of information doesn't mean it all has to go in your book; overloading it with unnecessary facts or information can also be distracting. Maggie Toussaint talks about how important it is to research before you start writing, but also to keep some of the irrelevant details left out.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Do the Research Right, but Don't Write All the Research
By Maggie Toussaint
Did you know loggerhead turtles return to the same beach for nesting? They are out there swimming around in the great big ocean, and yet they return to the exact beach (or very close) to lay their eggs. Scientists proved this by tracking nesting turtles with radio transmitters.
Not only that, but turtles spend most of their life submerged but must surface every four to five minutes to breathe air. They can sleep underwater without drowning because their level of activity is less.
More fun facts: Male sea turtles almost never leave the water while females nest every two to three years on beaches. That nesting—depositing about 100 golf ball sized eggs in a pit the turtle digs with her flippers and then covers up—takes about three hours.
Fascinating, right? The babies hatch at night two months later, crawl to the water, and swim away, lickety-split. These turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until somewhere around 12-30 years, when their outer shell grows larger than 90 cm.
Further, the gender of the hatching turtles is determined by the incubation temperature. Hot temps and you get gals, cooler temps and you get guys.
Your eyes may be crossing with turtle facts by now, but my eyes are alight with enthusiasm, even months after I’ve turned in my Turtle Tribbles novella. I knew this would happen when I began researching, so I created a folder of all the fun facts about these endangered turtles. I could go on and on about this topic, but I’ll spare you the biology lesson.
The reason I researched turtles is because down here on the Georgia Coast, college interns get assigned various barrier islands to monitor turtle nests. The plan is to get a better idea of the population and to do our part in protecting the nests so this species doesn’t go extinct.
Anyway, there’s also a serious problem of turtle eggs getting poached, which is a federal crime. A man who turned right around and poached turtle eggs right after getting out of federal prison for the crime sparked my interest in writing a murder mystery around this occurrence.
With a fat folder of turtle facts in hand, I was ready to write my novella. The first draft of chapter one drowned in details. I wanted to use all the cool facts I’d unearthed because they were so interesting.
But … did they advance the plot?
Sadly, the answer wasn’t to my liking. The loggerhead’s life cycle information is the reason there’s a Turtle Girl, but 90 cool facts about turtles don’t belong in a mystery about the death of a Turtle Girl.
So, how could I work in some of this information without the story feeling like science class? I open the story with the Turtle Girl visiting my newspaper editor sleuth, Lindsey McKay, in her office because turtle eggs are being poached. The editor is no biologist, so the Turtle Girl has to explain why people would steal turtle eggs.
The editor feels around the edges of what’s being said, realizing that the chance of catching a poacher on an island are slim in an area with lots of speedboats, decides to use the opportunity to run a feature about the turtles due to their endangered status.
Each time Lindsey and the Turtle Girl meet, a few more turtle facts work their way into the story. I also kept the tone light, as is shown in this brief snip from the story:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but could you have missed the hatch?” Lindsey said.
“Nope. I hit the beach first thing every morning and monitor the nests. If turtle eggs hatched, I would see the signs. Eggshells would be cracked and left behind. The sand from the nest to the sea would be full of turtle tracks. The nests would look disturbed. I didn’t see any of that at those locations. It’s like the eggs got beamed into outer space.”
As you can see from the tone of that dialogue, I kept the facts light, used nonscientific words, and even added in an element of humor. By not flooding the story with facts, the reader is drawn into the story and cares about the turtles because the Turtle Girl cares about them. And when the Turtle Girl is found dead on the beach, we care a lot about what happened to her.
Making the Turtle Girl passionate about her amphibian charges upped the stakes for readers caring about why she was murdered.
Bottom line? A little research goes a long way. Do the research, but keep the bulk of it out of your story.
Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes mystery, suspense, and dystopian fiction. Her work won the Silver Falchion Award for best mystery, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the EPIC Award. She’s published fifteen novels as well as several short stories and novellas, including the upcoming Happy Homicides 3. The next book in her paranormal mystery series, Doggone It, releases October 2016. Maggie serves on the board for Southeast Mystery Writers of America and Low Country Sisters in Crime. Visit her at www.maggietoussaint.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked / Kelly Oliver
Writing with similes or metaphors is like writing without a pen. It’s impossible to compare anything without one of the two. In this week’s blog post, Kelly Oliver describes the process of writing her first fiction novel and compares it to, of all things, the grooming of a Persian cat!
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked
By Kelly Oiver
In the past two years, I’ve learned that writing fiction is a lot like combing a matted Persian cat. It takes a lot of patience and determination. And sometimes the cat bites back.
Let me explain.
For the last twenty years, I’ve written philosophy and nonfiction, and until lately it was very satisfying. But, a few years ago, writing philosophy started feeling a little routine—you know, thinking hard thoughts and writing them down. Anyway, I had always wanted to write fiction. The trouble was, for decades I’d been trained to get right to the point and hit readers over the head with my thesis. With a mystery, you have to do the opposite and hide the point, meander along, and create suspense. Like sneaking up on a weary long-haired cat, to write mysteries you have to have a few tricks in your grooming kit.
I got the courage to switch from writing nonfiction to fiction after attending a Killer Nashville Mystery Writers’ Conference. The 2014 convention gave me just enough ammunition to make me dangerous. The four-hour session on writing your opening line sponsored by Sisters in Crime had me on the edge of my seat. I loved mystery writing already and I hadn’t even written my first word.
Immediately after the convention, I wrote the first draft of Wolf in two months and spent the next two years editing it. During that same time, I also wrote Coyote, and alternated between editing one and then the other. For decades, I’ve relied on nonfiction writing to keep me sane. Now, writing novels, I find even more pleasure in inventing characters and whole worlds. But, like everything fun that’s worth doing, it’s also hard work! And when you’re determined to finish that next novel, you can get saddle sores… not to mention cramps in your fingers. Giving that matty cat a good brushing can be exhausting!
For me, the best way to write is to get something down on the page. Then comes the hard part, revising and editing. After writing quick first drafts, I go back and revise and revise and revise, concentrating on several key aspects of writing, including: consistent point of view, strong action verbs that show rather than tell, and interspersing enough backstory to enrich characters without sacrificing action.
Each chapter or section needs to stay within its main character’s point of view both in terms of what she says, how she says it, and descriptions of place and action. How she describes the situation tells us a lot about her. But it has to be consistent. In a first draft, it’s easy to drop out of your character’s point of view, and that’s why you need to revise. For example, a character probably wouldn’t describe herself using the adjectives “her delicate beautiful hands” or “her exquisite lips and soft silky hair,” unless she was a narcissist. And of course, she can’t describe something she doesn’t see or can’t possibly know. On repeated careful readings, these spots start to stand out like “hot spots” (a polite euphemism for ring worm) on your beautiful Persian kitten’s coat.
It’s challenging and fun to go back through your manuscript to replace common verbs like looked, pulled, pushed, or walked, with more exciting stronger verbs such as glanced or stared, hauled or yanked, shoved or thrust,strode or sauntered, etc., again with an eye to consistency in point of view. So “she looked at him, pulled his hair, pushed him down, then walked away,” becomes “she glared at him, yanked his hair, shoved him down, then strode away.” Speaking of pulling and yanking, you have to keep at it, teasing out those pesky mats that mar the flow of your story.
Finally, balancing backstory and action can be tricky. You have to cut out big matted chunks of backstory to keep the action moving. Then go back and add a subtle dusting of backstory—one-liners are best—throughout the novel. Once you hook your readers on the action in the first few chapters, you can always add more backstory later, still keeping your readers on a “need to know” basis when it comes to the past.
You have to keep brushing, combing, and teasing out the mats in your novel. Like the coat of that Persian cat, with every stroke, it will get smoother and finer until it flows beautifully. But, then there are the days when you just have to say to hell with it and get out the clippers!
Kelly Oliver is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and well-known feminist philosopher. She is the author of fourteen nonfiction books, most recently, Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Rape on Campus (Columbia University Press, May 2016). Her work has been translated into seven languages, and she has been featured in the The New York Times and on ABC television news. Kelly is releasing a new mystery trilogy featuring kickass heroine Jessica James, a Montana “cowgirl” and philosophy grad student taking on ripped-from-the-headlines crimes like date rape drugs on campus, sex trafficking, fracking and more. The adventure begins with trilogy debut Wolf (Kaos Press, June 2016) and Jessica’s adventures continue in Coyote (August 2016). Read more about Kelly and the Jessica James Cowgirl Philosophy Mystery series at www.kellyoliverbooks.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked / Kelly Oliver
Writing with similes or metaphors is like writing without a pen. It's impossible to compare anything without one of the two. In this week's blog post, Kelly Oliver describes the process of writing her first fiction novel and compares it to, of all things, the grooming of a Persian cat!Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked
By Kelly Oiver
In the past two years, I’ve learned that writing fiction is a lot like combing a matted Persian cat. It takes a lot of patience and determination. And sometimes the cat bites back.
Let me explain.
For the last twenty years, I’ve written philosophy and nonfiction, and until lately it was very satisfying. But, a few years ago, writing philosophy started feeling a little routine—you know, thinking hard thoughts and writing them down. Anyway, I had always wanted to write fiction. The trouble was, for decades I’d been trained to get right to the point and hit readers over the head with my thesis. With a mystery, you have to do the opposite and hide the point, meander along, and create suspense. Like sneaking up on a weary long-haired cat, to write mysteries you have to have a few tricks in your grooming kit.
I got the courage to switch from writing nonfiction to fiction after attending a Killer Nashville Mystery Writers’ Conference. The 2014 convention gave me just enough ammunition to make me dangerous. The four-hour session on writing your opening line sponsored by Sisters in Crime had me on the edge of my seat. I loved mystery writing already and I hadn’t even written my first word.
Immediately after the convention, I wrote the first draft of Wolf in two months and spent the next two years editing it. During that same time, I also wrote Coyote, and alternated between 
editing one and then the other. For decades, I’ve relied on nonfiction writing to keep me sane. Now, writing novels, I find even more pleasure in inventing characters and whole worlds. But, like everything fun that’s worth doing, it’s also hard work! And when you’re determined to finish that next novel, you can get saddle sores… not to mention cramps in your fingers. Giving that matty cat a good brushing can be exhausting!
For me, the best way to write is to get something down on the page. Then comes the hard part, revising and editing. After writing quick first drafts, I go back and revise and revise and revise, concentrating on several key aspects of writing, including: consistent point of view, strong action verbs that show rather than tell, and interspersing enough backstory to enrich characters without sacrificing action.
Each chapter or section needs to stay within its main character’s point of view both in terms of what she says, how she says it, and descriptions of place and action. How she describes the situation tells us a lot about her. But it has to be consistent. In a first draft, it’s easy to drop out of your character’s point of view, and that’s why you need to revise. For example, a character probably wouldn’t describe herself using the adjectives “her delicate beautiful hands” or “her exquisite lips and soft silky hair,” unless she was a narcissist. And of course, she can’t describe something she doesn’t see or can’t possibly know. On repeated careful readings, these spots start to stand out like “hot spots” (a polite euphemism for ring worm) on your beautiful Persian kitten’s coat.
It’s challenging and fun to go back through your manuscript to replace common verbs like looked, pulled, pushed, or walked, with more exciting stronger verbs such as glanced or stared, hauled or yanked, shoved or thrust, strode or sauntered, etc., again with an eye to consistency in point of view. So “she looked at him, pulled his hair, pushed him down, then walked away,” becomes “she glared at him, yanked his hair, shoved him down, then strode away.” Speaking of pulling and yanking, you have to keep at it, teasing out those pesky mats that mar the flow of your story.
Finally, balancing backstory and action can be tricky. You have to cut out big matted chunks of backstory to keep the action moving. Then go back and add a subtle dusting of backstory—one-liners are best—throughout the novel. Once you hook your readers on the action in the first few chapters, you can always add more backstory later, still keeping your readers on a “need to know” basis when it comes to the past.
You have to keep brushing, combing, and teasing out the mats in your novel. Like the coat of that Persian cat, with every stroke, it will get smoother and finer until it flows beautifully. But, then there are the days when you just have to say to hell with it and get out the clippers!
Kelly Oliver is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and well-known feminist philosopher. She is the author of fourteen nonfiction books, most recently, Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Rape on Campus (Columbia University Press, May 2016). Her work has been translated into seven languages, and she has been featured in the The New York Times and on ABC television news. Kelly is releasing a new mystery trilogy featuring kickass heroine Jessica James, a Montana “cowgirl” and philosophy grad student taking on ripped-from-the-headlines crimes like date rape drugs on campus, sex trafficking, fracking and more. The adventure begins with trilogy debut Wolf (Kaos Press, June 2016) and Jessica’s adventures continue in Coyote (August 2016). Read more about Kelly and the Jessica James Cowgirl Philosophy Mystery series at www.kellyoliverbooks.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked / Kelly Oliver
Writing with similes or metaphors is like writing without a pen. It's impossible to compare anything without one of the two. In this week's blog post, Kelly Oliver describes the process of writing her first fiction novel and compares it to, of all things, the grooming of a Persian cat!Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Like Persian Cats, Writing a Mystery Must Be Brushed and Stroked
By Kelly Oiver
In the past two years, I’ve learned that writing fiction is a lot like combing a matted Persian cat. It takes a lot of patience and determination. And sometimes the cat bites back.
Let me explain.
For the last twenty years, I’ve written philosophy and nonfiction, and until lately it was very satisfying. But, a few years ago, writing philosophy started feeling a little routine—you know, thinking hard thoughts and writing them down. Anyway, I had always wanted to write fiction. The trouble was, for decades I’d been trained to get right to the point and hit readers over the head with my thesis. With a mystery, you have to do the opposite and hide the point, meander along, and create suspense. Like sneaking up on a weary long-haired cat, to write mysteries you have to have a few tricks in your grooming kit.
I got the courage to switch from writing nonfiction to fiction after attending a Killer Nashville Mystery Writers’ Conference. The 2014 convention gave me just enough ammunition to make me dangerous. The four-hour session on writing your opening line sponsored by Sisters in Crime had me on the edge of my seat. I loved mystery writing already and I hadn’t even written my first word.
Immediately after the convention, I wrote the first draft of Wolf in two months and spent the next two years editing it. During that same time, I also wrote Coyote, and alternated between 
editing one and then the other. For decades, I’ve relied on nonfiction writing to keep me sane. Now, writing novels, I find even more pleasure in inventing characters and whole worlds. But, like everything fun that’s worth doing, it’s also hard work! And when you’re determined to finish that next novel, you can get saddle sores… not to mention cramps in your fingers. Giving that matty cat a good brushing can be exhausting!
For me, the best way to write is to get something down on the page. Then comes the hard part, revising and editing. After writing quick first drafts, I go back and revise and revise and revise, concentrating on several key aspects of writing, including: consistent point of view, strong action verbs that show rather than tell, and interspersing enough backstory to enrich characters without sacrificing action.
Each chapter or section needs to stay within its main character’s point of view both in terms of what she says, how she says it, and descriptions of place and action. How she describes the situation tells us a lot about her. But it has to be consistent. In a first draft, it’s easy to drop out of your character’s point of view, and that’s why you need to revise. For example, a character probably wouldn’t describe herself using the adjectives “her delicate beautiful hands” or “her exquisite lips and soft silky hair,” unless she was a narcissist. And of course, she can’t describe something she doesn’t see or can’t possibly know. On repeated careful readings, these spots start to stand out like “hot spots” (a polite euphemism for ring worm) on your beautiful Persian kitten’s coat.
It’s challenging and fun to go back through your manuscript to replace common verbs like looked, pulled, pushed, or walked, with more exciting stronger verbs such as glanced or stared, hauled or yanked, shoved or thrust, strode or sauntered, etc., again with an eye to consistency in point of view. So “she looked at him, pulled his hair, pushed him down, then walked away,” becomes “she glared at him, yanked his hair, shoved him down, then strode away.” Speaking of pulling and yanking, you have to keep at it, teasing out those pesky mats that mar the flow of your story.
Finally, balancing backstory and action can be tricky. You have to cut out big matted chunks of backstory to keep the action moving. Then go back and add a subtle dusting of backstory—one-liners are best—throughout the novel. Once you hook your readers on the action in the first few chapters, you can always add more backstory later, still keeping your readers on a “need to know” basis when it comes to the past.
You have to keep brushing, combing, and teasing out the mats in your novel. Like the coat of that Persian cat, with every stroke, it will get smoother and finer until it flows beautifully. But, then there are the days when you just have to say to hell with it and get out the clippers!
Kelly Oliver is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and well-known feminist philosopher. She is the author of fourteen nonfiction books, most recently, Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Rape on Campus (Columbia University Press, May 2016). Her work has been translated into seven languages, and she has been featured in the The New York Times and on ABC television news. Kelly is releasing a new mystery trilogy featuring kickass heroine Jessica James, a Montana “cowgirl” and philosophy grad student taking on ripped-from-the-headlines crimes like date rape drugs on campus, sex trafficking, fracking and more. The adventure begins with trilogy debut Wolf (Kaos Press, June 2016) and Jessica’s adventures continue in Coyote (August 2016). Read more about Kelly and the Jessica James Cowgirl Philosophy Mystery series at www.kellyoliverbooks.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Cover Story: Heart of Stone / James W. Ziskin
Picking a final book cover is one of the hardest things an author can do. We have so many ideas running through our brain, and we want to fill every bit of space without it looking clunky. Every decision matters. The color isn’t the right shade of white or the font needs to be a little smaller. Those decisions can prolong a book being published because we have a tendency to want to perfect everything, and if the cover we have isn’t a flawless vision of what we want, we keep going until we’re satisfied. In this week’s blog post, James W. Ziskin details the process of picking his newest book cover and how satisfying the whole journey can be.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
In the waning days of a lazy August holiday, Ellie Stone is enjoying a bright Adirondack-lake morning. Nearby, two men plummet to their deaths just a few feet short of the water of a dangerous diving pool. A tragic accident, it seems. But the state police quickly establish that the two victims—one, a stranger to the lake and, the other, a teenaged boy from a nearby music camp—surely didn't know each other. That anomaly is strange enough, but what really perplexes Ellie is the out-of-place station wagon parked twenty yards from the edge of the cliff.
Wading into a slippery morass of fellow travelers, free-love intellectuals, rabid John Birchers, and charismatic evangelicals, Ellie must navigate old grudges and Cold War passions, lost ideals and betrayed loves. She sticks her nose where it's unwanted, rattling nerves and putting herself in jeopardy. But this time, it's her heart that's at risk.
Today, I'm discussing the cover of my latest Ellie Stone mystery, Heart of Stone (Seventh Street Books, June 16, 2016). Readers judge books by their covers. They may not choose the book after skimming it, but they certainly pick it up in the first place because of the cover.
Covers attract attention in a variety of ways. The artwork creates mood through images, colors, fonts, and other elements of design. These are the covers of the first three Ellie Stone novels. The amazing Jackie Nasso Cooke of Prometheus/Seventh Street Book designed them all.
What do we see? First of all, there is a consistency in the layout: a clean font, and similar placement of the text. There's also the thematic repetition of women's clothing: shoes and gloves. Jackie strives to maintain the same design basics for each cover to build a look, a branding that readers have come to associate with the Ellie Stone mysteries.
One of many advantages of being published by a press like Prometheus/Seventh Street is that they are willing to discuss cover ideas with their authors. That doesn't happen at every publishing house. Since the Ellie Stone mysteries are set in 1960-61, the marketing folks told me they wanted a stronger nostalgic look for the Heart of Stone cover. They wanted readers to recognize the era instantly.
From the moment I plotted out Heart of Stone, I knew what kind of cover I would like to see. A summer lake with mountains in the background. Ideally, there would be a wooden dock and perhaps an Adirondack chair. And the item I wanted more than anything else was a discarded women's one-piece bathing suit that matched the early sixties era. But the perfect image proved to be elusive. The art department considered thousands of photographs, looking for just the right one.
They found lots of docks with lakes, mountains, and Adirondack chairs. But they didn't look anything like 1961. And there were no bathing suits, except those filled with women.
We tried other ideas. I liked this one, but it wasn't quite right. No lake, mountains, or bathing suit. And no nostalgia.
This one was perfect to illustrate the nude bathing that runs through the book, but the title would have been lost against the text in the image.
Jackie explored several other themes that might fit, but no one was satisfied.
This one is beautiful, but it looks more like a young-adult novel cover. A little too wholesome.
Here's an idyllic Adirondack lake, and it has a nostalgic look. Nice, but still no bathing suit, no mystery, no fun. And the orientation is landscape, which in this case wouldn't have worked for a cover.
Time was running short. We were in danger of having to send out the reviewer copies with no cover art at all.
And then, eureka! I stumbled across the photo below on a stock photography site. It took some imagination to picture the final cover, but I knew Jackie could turn this into a gem. First, we'd need to cut it down to fit a portrait orientation. Then we had to get rid of the hat and flip-flops. They didn't fit the period. But the rest of the photo ticked all the boxes: the dock, the lake, mountains, and bathing suit. The splash in the water was gravy.
Using Photoshop, I made a crappy mock-up and e-mailed it to Jackie to get her thoughts. She responded almost immediately with the comment, "This one is a contender." I was thrilled.
But my version was far from acceptable. Jackie went to work, removing the hat and shoes, and correcting the color. We wanted a faded Kodachrome look to give it more of a retro mood. Here's the concept she came up with.
I loved it. Everyone else seemed to be on board as well. But my brilliant agent, William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates, thought the dock looked a little empty. He said he'd like to see something else there to set the period. He suggested a transistor radio. Jackie worked her magic, found the perfect radio, and slipped it in. It was a home run.
And so the Heart of Stone cover was born. It's sexy without being sexist. It's fun and consistent in style with the covers of the previous books in the series. It even features an article of women's clothing. And it evokes the appropriate time and suggests the nude bathing I wanted. If Heart of Stone fails to set the world on fire, it won't be the fault of the cover.
Heart of Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery arrives in stores and online June 7, 2016. (Seventh Street Books
James W. Ziskin is the Anthony-, Barry-, and Lefty-nominated author of the Ellie Stone mysteries Styx & Stone, No Stone Unturned, Stone Cold Dead, and Heart of Stone. Look for Cast the First Stone in summer of 2017.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Cover Story: Heart of Stone / James W. Ziskin
Picking a final book cover is one of the hardest things an author can do. We have so many ideas running through our brain, and we want to fill every bit of space without it looking clunky. Every decision matters. The color isn't the right shade of white or the font needs to be a little smaller. Those decisions can prolong a book being published because we have a tendency to want to perfect everything, and if the cover we have isn't a flawless vision of what we want, we keep going until we’re satisfied. In this week’s blog post, James W. Ziskin details the process of picking his newest book cover and how satisfying the whole journey can be. Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
In the waning days of a lazy August holiday, Ellie Stone is enjoying a bright Adirondack-lake morning. Nearby, two men plummet to their deaths just a few feet short of the water of a dangerous diving pool. A tragic accident, it seems. But the state police quickly establish that the two victims—one, a stranger to the lake and, the other, a teenaged boy from a nearby music camp—surely didn't know each other. That anomaly is strange enough, but what really perplexes Ellie is the out-of-place station wagon parked twenty yards from the edge of the cliff.
Wading into a slippery morass of fellow travelers, free-love intellectuals, rabid John Birchers, and charismatic evangelicals, Ellie must navigate old grudges and Cold War passions, lost ideals and betrayed loves. She sticks her nose where it's unwanted, rattling nerves and putting herself in jeopardy. But this time, it's her heart that's at risk.
Today, I'm discussing the cover of my latest Ellie Stone mystery, Heart of Stone (Seventh Street Books, June 16, 2016). Readers judge books by their covers. They may not choose the book after skimming it, but they certainly pick it up in the first place because of the cover.
Covers attract attention in a variety of ways. The artwork creates mood through images, colors, fonts, and other elements of design. These are the covers of the first three Ellie Stone novels. The amazing Jackie Nasso Cooke of Prometheus/Seventh Street Book designed them all.
What do we see? First of all, there is a consistency in the layout: a clean font, and similar placement of the text. There's also the thematic repetition of women's clothing: shoes and gloves. Jackie strives to maintain the same design basics for each cover to build a look, a branding that readers have come to associate with the Ellie Stone mysteries.
One of many advantages of being published by a press like Prometheus/Seventh Street is that they are willing to discuss cover ideas with their authors. That doesn't happen at every publishing house. Since the Ellie Stone mysteries are set in 1960-61, the marketing folks told me they wanted a stronger nostalgic look for the Heart of Stone cover. They wanted readers to recognize the era instantly.
From the moment I plotted out Heart of Stone, I knew what kind of cover I would like to see. A summer lake with mountains in the background. Ideally, there would be a wooden dock and perhaps an Adirondack chair. And the item I wanted more than anything else was a discarded women's one-piece bathing suit that matched the early sixties era. But the perfect image proved to be elusive. The art department considered thousands of photographs, looking for just the right one.
They found lots of docks with lakes, mountains, and Adirondack chairs. But they didn't look anything like 1961. And there were no bathing suits, except those filled with women.
We tried other ideas. I liked this one, but it wasn't quite right. No lake, mountains, or bathing suit. And no nostalgia.
This one was perfect to illustrate the nude bathing that runs through the book, but the title would have been lost against the text in the image.
Jackie explored several other themes that might fit, but no one was satisfied.
This one is beautiful, but it looks more like a young-adult novel cover. A little too wholesome.
Here's an idyllic Adirondack lake, and it has a nostalgic look. Nice, but still no bathing suit, no mystery, no fun. And the orientation is landscape, which in this case wouldn't have worked for a cover.
Time was running short. We were in danger of having to send out the reviewer copies with no cover art at all.
And then, eureka! I stumbled across the photo below on a stock photography site. It took some imagination to picture the final cover, but I knew Jackie could turn this into a gem. First, we'd need to cut it down to fit a portrait orientation. Then we had to get rid of the hat and flip-flops. They didn't fit the period. But the rest of the photo ticked all the boxes: the dock, the lake, mountains, and bathing suit. The splash in the water was gravy.
Using Photoshop, I made a crappy mock-up and e-mailed it to Jackie to get her thoughts. She responded almost immediately with the comment, "This one is a contender." I was thrilled.
But my version was far from acceptable. Jackie went to work, removing the hat and shoes, and correcting the color. We wanted a faded Kodachrome look to give it more of a retro mood. Here's the concept she came up with.
I loved it. Everyone else seemed to be on board as well. But my brilliant agent, William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates, thought the dock looked a little empty. He said he'd like to see something else there to set the period. He suggested a transistor radio. Jackie worked her magic, found the perfect radio, and slipped it in. It was a home run.
And so the Heart of Stone cover was born. It's sexy without being sexist. It's fun and consistent in style with the covers of the previous books in the series. It even features an article of women's clothing. And it evokes the appropriate time and suggests the nude bathing I wanted. If Heart of Stone fails to set the world on fire, it won't be the fault of the cover.
Heart of Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery arrives in stores and online June 7, 2016. (Seventh Street Books
James W. Ziskin is the Anthony-, Barry-, and Lefty-nominated author of the Ellie Stone mysteries Styx & Stone, No Stone Unturned, Stone Cold Dead, and Heart of Stone. Look for Cast the First Stone in summer of 2017.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Cover Story: Heart of Stone / James W. Ziskin
Picking a final book cover is one of the hardest things an author can do. We have so many ideas running through our brain, and we want to fill every bit of space without it looking clunky. Every decision matters. The color isn't the right shade of white or the font needs to be a little smaller. Those decisions can prolong a book being published because we have a tendency to want to perfect everything, and if the cover we have isn't a flawless vision of what we want, we keep going until we’re satisfied. In this week’s blog post, James W. Ziskin details the process of picking his newest book cover and how satisfying the whole journey can be. Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
In the waning days of a lazy August holiday, Ellie Stone is enjoying a bright Adirondack-lake morning. Nearby, two men plummet to their deaths just a few feet short of the water of a dangerous diving pool. A tragic accident, it seems. But the state police quickly establish that the two victims—one, a stranger to the lake and, the other, a teenaged boy from a nearby music camp—surely didn't know each other. That anomaly is strange enough, but what really perplexes Ellie is the out-of-place station wagon parked twenty yards from the edge of the cliff.
Wading into a slippery morass of fellow travelers, free-love intellectuals, rabid John Birchers, and charismatic evangelicals, Ellie must navigate old grudges and Cold War passions, lost ideals and betrayed loves. She sticks her nose where it's unwanted, rattling nerves and putting herself in jeopardy. But this time, it's her heart that's at risk.
Today, I'm discussing the cover of my latest Ellie Stone mystery, Heart of Stone (Seventh Street Books, June 16, 2016). Readers judge books by their covers. They may not choose the book after skimming it, but they certainly pick it up in the first place because of the cover.
Covers attract attention in a variety of ways. The artwork creates mood through images, colors, fonts, and other elements of design. These are the covers of the first three Ellie Stone novels. The amazing Jackie Nasso Cooke of Prometheus/Seventh Street Book designed them all.
What do we see? First of all, there is a consistency in the layout: a clean font, and similar placement of the text. There's also the thematic repetition of women's clothing: shoes and gloves. Jackie strives to maintain the same design basics for each cover to build a look, a branding that readers have come to associate with the Ellie Stone mysteries.
One of many advantages of being published by a press like Prometheus/Seventh Street is that they are willing to discuss cover ideas with their authors. That doesn't happen at every publishing house. Since the Ellie Stone mysteries are set in 1960-61, the marketing folks told me they wanted a stronger nostalgic look for the Heart of Stone cover. They wanted readers to recognize the era instantly.
From the moment I plotted out Heart of Stone, I knew what kind of cover I would like to see. A summer lake with mountains in the background. Ideally, there would be a wooden dock and perhaps an Adirondack chair. And the item I wanted more than anything else was a discarded women's one-piece bathing suit that matched the early sixties era. But the perfect image proved to be elusive. The art department considered thousands of photographs, looking for just the right one.
They found lots of docks with lakes, mountains, and Adirondack chairs. But they didn't look anything like 1961. And there were no bathing suits, except those filled with women.
We tried other ideas. I liked this one, but it wasn't quite right. No lake, mountains, or bathing suit. And no nostalgia.
This one was perfect to illustrate the nude bathing that runs through the book, but the title would have been lost against the text in the image.
Jackie explored several other themes that might fit, but no one was satisfied.
This one is beautiful, but it looks more like a young-adult novel cover. A little too wholesome.
Here's an idyllic Adirondack lake, and it has a nostalgic look. Nice, but still no bathing suit, no mystery, no fun. And the orientation is landscape, which in this case wouldn't have worked for a cover.
Time was running short. We were in danger of having to send out the reviewer copies with no cover art at all.
And then, eureka! I stumbled across the photo below on a stock photography site. It took some imagination to picture the final cover, but I knew Jackie could turn this into a gem. First, we'd need to cut it down to fit a portrait orientation. Then we had to get rid of the hat and flip-flops. They didn't fit the period. But the rest of the photo ticked all the boxes: the dock, the lake, mountains, and bathing suit. The splash in the water was gravy.
Using Photoshop, I made a crappy mock-up and e-mailed it to Jackie to get her thoughts. She responded almost immediately with the comment, "This one is a contender." I was thrilled.
But my version was far from acceptable. Jackie went to work, removing the hat and shoes, and correcting the color. We wanted a faded Kodachrome look to give it more of a retro mood. Here's the concept she came up with.
I loved it. Everyone else seemed to be on board as well. But my brilliant agent, William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates, thought the dock looked a little empty. He said he'd like to see something else there to set the period. He suggested a transistor radio. Jackie worked her magic, found the perfect radio, and slipped it in. It was a home run.
And so the Heart of Stone cover was born. It's sexy without being sexist. It's fun and consistent in style with the covers of the previous books in the series. It even features an article of women's clothing. And it evokes the appropriate time and suggests the nude bathing I wanted. If Heart of Stone fails to set the world on fire, it won't be the fault of the cover.
Heart of Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery arrives in stores and online June 7, 2016. (Seventh Street Books
James W. Ziskin is the Anthony-, Barry-, and Lefty-nominated author of the Ellie Stone mysteries Styx & Stone, No Stone Unturned, Stone Cold Dead, and Heart of Stone. Look for Cast the First Stone in summer of 2017.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
What’s a Writer to Do When Her Villain Turns Over a New Leaf? / Felicia Bridges
Writers tend to think of themselves as the creators of worlds and characters, to some degree or another. But what happens when your characters take on lives of their own? How do you realign your expectations and allow them, and your story, to develop organically? In this week’s guest blog, author Felicia Bridges explores those questions and shares her advice.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
What’s a Writer to Do When
Her Villain Turns Over a New Leaf?
By Felicia Bridges
Writing fiction is a process of discovery as much as creativity for many writers, myself included. My creative process begins with a main character in a predicament, possibly facing a villain, and then allows the characters to lead me down the paths they choose. I usually have a rough outline of my plot in mind, but sometimes my character’s path leads in directions I never expected and really changes my idea of how the story will play out.
In my current work in progress, BoliviaKnight, I started with a character named Hector that I identified as the villain: a drug-dealing, human trafficker who is witnessed at the scene of a murder by my protagonist. Then I discovered he was the younger brother of my damsel in distress, Ranza, and equally a victim despite the opening scene that depicts him as a murderer. He turns out to be a good guy who rescues his sister and helps bring down a human trafficking ring.
So what’s a writer to do when her villain turns over a new leaf?
I started by allowing Hector to reveal who he was. When it first occurred to me that he was Ranza’s little brother, I spent some time interviewing him about his childhood to understand how he ended up where I found him on the first page of BoliviaKnight in an alley with a dead body at his feet. Hopefully this doesn’t sound as crazy as I think it does. Basically, I pose a series of questions about the character and my imagination responds with the answer. It’s a little bit like a psychological test where you respond with the first thought that comes to mind following a prompt, but the initial thought is just a lump of clay that you may shape, refine, crush and reshape until it becomes usable.
Some of the questions I thought through to understand Hector were: What had happened in their early years that led him to work for a crime boss? Why didn’t he try to escape the control of this kingpin? What would have to happen in order for him to stand up to the real villain and overcome evil with good? What would the consequences be if he did stand up to the villain? How does he feel about his sister and why? What experiences has he shared with his sister that impact their relationship now?
As the story unfolds, I gradually reveal to the reader the relationship that I’ve discovered and the backstory that brought them to this predicament. I sprinkle in hints of the relationship before the big reveal to entice the reader along the path. Understanding the history that led my erstwhile villain to get involved with the wrong crowd helps the reader move from a perspective of judgment and condemnation to empathy for the character. In the end, the story becomes more powerful and the character gains greater depth and dimension as the reader recognizes that, like all of us, every villain has a history and often times, the villain was once the victim. It also communicates an important truth: Each of us is capable of good and evil.
Once I’ve completed the first draft, I go back through the story from the first page and revise the scenes so that any reference to this character shows his behavior and character is consistent throughout the book, even if aspects of his character aren’t revealed yet. I look for opportunities to add subtle clues that will give the reader a sense of discovery and the thrill of solving the puzzle before the relationship is made clear, without making them feel as if they’ve been clobbered over the head with it.
I have at times tried to stick with my original plan despite the character revealing something different. It resulted in the dialogue and action sounding forced and mechanical instead of flowing naturally from what I know of the character. Regardless of whether it is your villain, your heroine, or a side character, understanding their history is essential to writing a story that will resonate with readers and will sound believable. Numerous character interview guidelines are available online to suggest questions for you to walk through in order to better understand the psychology of a character. Not all writers are psychologists, but the more you understand why your character is who he or she is, the more plausible their words and actions will seem.
So when your villain turns over a new leaf, pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea and ask them to tell you all about it.
Felicia Bridges began writing as an Army BRAT learning to enjoy life overseas. Her nomadic childhood created a passion for missions and travel that energizes her writing. Felicia will release CzechMate: The International Mission Force Series on May 16, a thriller that reflects stories as dangerous and frightening as tonight’s world news with a healthy dose of God’s sovereignty and supernatural power and a dash of romance. She is a contributing author for Then Along Came an Angel: Messengers of Deliverance and God’s Provision in Tough Times, a finalist for the 2014 Selah Awards.
Serving in ministry for over twenty years alongside her husband, and the mother of four children, Felicia’s vision is to inspire the next generation to carry the gospel to all nations. Her blog focuses on living on mission wherever life’s adventure leads and is at: www.AdventuresThatInspireAction.wordpress.com.
BoliviaKnight will be the second book in the International Mission Force series, and is scheduled for release in December 2016. CzechMate, the first novel in the International Mission Force series, will be available May 30, 2016.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
What’s a Writer to Do When Her Villain Turns Over a New Leaf? / Felicia Bridges
Writers tend to think of themselves as the creators of worlds and characters, to some degree or another. But what happens when your characters take on lives of their own? How do you realign your expectations and allow them, and your story, to develop organically? In this week’s guest blog, author Felicia Bridges explores those questions and shares her advice.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
What’s a Writer to Do When
Her Villain Turns Over a New Leaf?
By Felicia Bridges
Writing fiction is a process of discovery as much as creativity for many writers, myself included. My creative process begins with a main character in a predicament, possibly facing a villain, and then allows the characters to lead me down the paths they choose. I usually have a rough outline of my plot in mind, but sometimes my character’s path leads in directions I never expected and really changes my idea of how the story will play out.
In my current work in progress, BoliviaKnight, I started with a character named Hector that I identified as the villain: a drug-dealing, human trafficker who is witnessed at the scene of a murder by my protagonist. Then I discovered he was the younger brother of my damsel in distress, Ranza, and equally a victim despite the opening scene that depicts him as a murderer. He turns out to be a good guy who rescues his sister and helps bring down a human trafficking ring.
So what’s a writer to do when her villain turns over a new leaf?
I started by allowing Hector to reveal who he was. When it first occurred to me that he was Ranza’s little brother, I spent some time interviewing him about his childhood to understand how he ended up where I found him on the first page of BoliviaKnight in an alley with a dead body at his feet. Hopefully this doesn’t sound as crazy as I think it does. Basically, I pose a series of questions about the character and my imagination responds with the answer. It’s a little bit like a psychological test where you respond with the first thought that comes to mind following a prompt, but the initial thought is just a lump of clay that you may shape, refine, crush and reshape until it becomes usable.
Some of the questions I thought through to understand Hector were: What had happened in their early years that led him to work for a crime boss? Why didn’t he try to escape the control of this kingpin? What would have to happen in order for him to stand up to the real villain and overcome evil with good? What would the consequences be if he did stand up to the villain? How does he feel about his sister and why? What experiences has he shared with his sister that impact their relationship now?
As the story unfolds, I gradually reveal to the reader the relationship that I’ve discovered and the backstory that brought them to this predicament. I sprinkle in hints of the relationship before the big reveal to entice the reader along the path. Understanding the history that led my erstwhile villain to get involved with the wrong crowd helps the reader move from a perspective of judgment and condemnation to empathy for the character. In the end, the story becomes more powerful and the character gains greater depth and dimension as the reader recognizes that, like all of us, every villain has a history and often times, the villain was once the victim. It also communicates an important truth: Each of us is capable of good and evil.
Once I’ve completed the first draft, I go back through the story from the first page and revise the scenes so that any reference to this character shows his behavior and character is consistent throughout the book, even if aspects of his character aren’t revealed yet. I look for opportunities to add subtle clues that will give the reader a sense of discovery and the thrill of solving the puzzle before the relationship is made clear, without making them feel as if they’ve been clobbered over the head with it.
I have at times tried to stick with my original plan despite the character revealing something different. It resulted in the dialogue and action sounding forced and mechanical instead of flowing naturally from what I know of the character. Regardless of whether it is your villain, your heroine, or a side character, understanding their history is essential to writing a story that will resonate with readers and will sound believable. Numerous character interview guidelines are available online to suggest questions for you to walk through in order to better understand the psychology of a character. Not all writers are psychologists, but the more you understand why your character is who he or she is, the more plausible their words and actions will seem.
So when your villain turns over a new leaf, pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea and ask them to tell you all about it.
Felicia Bridges began writing as an Army BRAT learning to enjoy life overseas. Her nomadic childhood created a passion for missions and travel that energizes her writing. Felicia will release CzechMate: The International Mission Force Series on May 16, a thriller that reflects stories as dangerous and frightening as tonight’s world news with a healthy dose of God’s sovereignty and supernatural power and a dash of romance. She is a contributing author for Then Along Came an Angel: Messengers of Deliverance and God’s Provision in Tough Times, a finalist for the 2014 Selah Awards.
Serving in ministry for over twenty years alongside her husband, and the mother of four children, Felicia’s vision is to inspire the next generation to carry the gospel to all nations. Her blog focuses on living on mission wherever life’s adventure leads and is at: www.AdventuresThatInspireAction.wordpress.com.
BoliviaKnight will be the second book in the International Mission Force series, and is scheduled for release in December 2016. CzechMate, the first novel in the International Mission Force series, will be available May 30, 2016.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Bailey Harris, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
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