KN Magazine: Articles
Why not you? The best lessons I’ve learned as a writer / Julia McDermott
As writers, one of our most valuable resources are our fellow writers. It's what makes conferences, like Killer Nashville, so beneficial. While technical knowledge is crucial, whats just as important is staying motivated and having a positive state of mind. This weeks Killer Nashville guest blogger, Julia McDermott, discusses how you can learn from your mistakes, stay motivated, and better yourself while you learn the craft of writing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The same year that quarterback Russell Wilson led the Seattle Seahawks to win the Super Bowl (2014), I signed a publishing contract for my first suspense novel, Underwater. Wilson, a “short” quarterback by NFL standards, famously quoted his dad as inspiring him by asking, “Why not you?” When the acquisitions editor at a major mystery/thriller imprint discovered my self-published novel and approached me with an offer, I was surprised and thrilled. Then I thought, “Why not me?”
Years earlier, I sat down to write the first page, and I’m still learning the craft of writing. But I’ve learned some lessons along the way:
To keep focused. To work every day. That, as Woody Allen said, 80 percent of success is just showing up. So I show up even when it’s hard. If I don’t write, I work on plot or characters, do research, or just revise what I wrote yesterday. No matter what, though, I stay focused on my work in progress.
To remember the most important ingredient in my story: conflict. Bad things happening. Personally, I don’t like confrontation, but professionally, I need it. Some people have a hard time getting along with others, and in maintaining relationships. Those people inspire characters in my novels. In Underwater, that character was Monty, the villain; in Daddy’s Girl, my latest suspense novel, it was Valerie, the protagonist.
To be humble. To throw out whatever doesn’t work. To change characters’ ages, personalities, backstories, etc. To understand what readers liked about my last book, and what they didn’t like. And to discard the elements that fell short or disappointed.
To try new things–and when they work, to stick with them. I joined writers critique groups and organizations, and other groups where I might meet readers, artists, or other authors. I accepted invitations to speak to groups about my books, and I got active on social media. I asked bookstores and merchants to host me to do book signings. The best part about them is serendipity, not sales. At a signing in Roswell, Georgia, last spring, I struck up a conversation with AJC sports writer Jeff Schultz after he bought one of my books. Weeks later, I was talking to his friend, AJC editor Suzanne van Atten, about writing a “Personal Journey” article for a Sunday edition of the paper. It was published on July 10, 2016.
To remember that my book is a product. I want people to buy my content–flock to my content–in whatever format they want to read it in. I want them to like it so much that they tell all their friends about it so they will buy it, too. But it’s not as much about the money as it is the readers.
That whether I submit my work to traditional publishers, self-publish, or do both (and I have), to make sure I’m proud of my work. But to be open to my editor’s comments, to trust her, and to make all the necessary changes.
To get my log lines down and to keep it short. I served on a panel once where an author was asked for the log line for her first and only book. She uttered a rambling, run-on sentence that was more a paragraph than a line. When she was done, I blurted out, “That’s a long log line!” Here’s my log line for Daddy’s Girl: A spoiled, entitled princess risks it all to join a technology startup, loses it all, and then embarks on a mission of revenge and retribution. Here’s my two-sentence one, for Underwater: An Atlanta CEO is guilted into funding an expensive spec home by her devious brother, who plans to flip it. Then the market plunges and sends the family into a downward spiral of deceit and danger.
That “authors look like normal people, but aren’t,” according to one of my readers at a book festival. I dress for the job, and for me, that’s usually a dress or something nice. For others, it may be more casual. I met author Grant Jerkins at a multi-author reading I was invited to participate in last summer, and before the event began, I spied him perusing my books. I didn’t know who he was. I spoke to him as if he were a potential buyer, and judged him based on his clothing, which was casual. When he got up to read as the final author, he brought the house down with his phenomenal, funny story. He may have looked like a normal person, but he isn’t. He’s a talented author.
Not to pay attention to negativity or indifference. Maybe some people doubted whether you could even write a book. Maybe they discounted your accomplishments, or weren’t impressed when you got your first book deal. Maybe they didn’t read your book, or only skimmed it. Maybe they scoffed at the fact that writing a book takes work and time. Some of the above has happened to me. But I pushed through it and didn’t pay attention. I’ve learned to gravitate to those who are supportive and to disregard the rest.
I’ve got more to learn, and I’m drawn to others who will share what they know. I met Georgia author Terry Kay at a literary festival that we both participated in, and he’s become a mentor to me. I’m committed to challenging myself as a writer, and to producing my best work. And I keep asking myself, “Why not me?”
Julia McDermott is the author of psychological thrillers Daddy’s Girl and Underwater, French travel/romance Make That Deux, and creative nonfiction All the Above: My Son’s Battle with Brain Cancer, awarded Finalist - 2016 Georgia Author of the Year Award. Underwater was a Nominee for the 2015 GAYA, and for the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. Julia grew up in Atlanta, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and spent her junior year in the south of France. A member of Sisters in Crime and the Atlanta Writers Club, she lives in Atlanta with her husband and family. Visit her online at juliamcdermottbooks.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.
Why not you? The best lessons I’ve learned as a writer / Julia McDermott
As writers, one of our most valuable resources are our fellow writers. It's what makes conferences, like Killer Nashville, so beneficial. While technical knowledge is crucial, whats just as important is staying motivated and having a positive state of mind. This weeks Killer Nashville guest blogger, Julia McDermott, discusses how you can learn from your mistakes, stay motivated, and better yourself while you learn the craft of writing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The same year that quarterback Russell Wilson led the Seattle Seahawks to win the Super Bowl (2014), I signed a publishing contract for my first suspense novel, Underwater. Wilson, a “short” quarterback by NFL standards, famously quoted his dad as inspiring him by asking, “Why not you?” When the acquisitions editor at a major mystery/thriller imprint discovered my self-published novel and approached me with an offer, I was surprised and thrilled. Then I thought, “Why not me?”
Years earlier, I sat down to write the first page, and I’m still learning the craft of writing. But I’ve learned some lessons along the way:
- To keep focused. To work every day. That, as Woody Allen said, 80 percent of success is just showing up. So I show up even when it’s hard. If I don’t write, I work on plot or characters, do research, or just revise what I wrote yesterday. No matter what, though, I stay focused on my work in progress.
- To remember the most important ingredient in my story: conflict. Bad things happening. Personally, I don’t like confrontation, but professionally, I need it. Some people have a hard time getting along with others, and in maintaining relationships. Those people inspire characters in my novels. In Underwater, that character was Monty, the villain; in Daddy’s Girl, my latest suspense novel, it was Valerie, the protagonist.
- To be humble. To throw out whatever doesn’t work. To change characters’ ages, personalities, backstories, etc. To understand what readers liked about my last book, and what they didn’t like. And to discard the elements that fell short or disappointed.
- To try new things–and when they work, to stick with them. I joined writers critique groups and organizations, and other groups where I might meet readers, artists, or other authors. I accepted invitations to speak to groups about my books, and I got active on social media. I asked bookstores and merchants to host me to do book signings. The best part about them is serendipity, not sales. At a signing in Roswell, Georgia, last spring, I struck up a conversation with AJC sports writer Jeff Schultz after he bought one of my books. Weeks later, I was talking to his friend, AJC editor Suzanne van Atten, about writing a “Personal Journey” article for a Sunday edition of the paper. It was published on July 10, 2016.
- To remember that my book is a product. I want people to buy my content–flock to my content–in whatever format they want to read it in. I want them to like it so much that they tell all their friends about it so they will buy it, too. But it’s not as much about the money as it is the readers.
- That whether I submit my work to traditional publishers, self-publish, or do both (and I have), to make sure I’m proud of my work. But to be open to my editor’s comments, to trust her, and to make all the necessary changes.
- To get my log lines down and to keep it short. I served on a panel once
where an author was asked for the log line for her first and only book. She uttered a rambling, run-on sentence that was more a paragraph than a line. When she was done, I blurted out, “That’s a long log line!” Here’s my log line for Daddy’s Girl: A spoiled, entitled princess risks it all to join a technology startup, loses it all, and then embarks on a mission of revenge and retribution. Here’s my two-sentence one, for Underwater: An Atlanta CEO is guilted into funding an expensive spec home by her devious brother, who plans to flip it. Then the market plunges and sends the family into a downward spiral of deceit and danger.
- That “authors look like normal people, but aren’t,” according to one of my readers at a book festival. I dress for the job, and for me, that’s usually a dress or something nice. For others, it may be more casual. I met author Grant Jerkins at a multi-author reading I was invited to participate in last summer, and before the event began, I spied him perusing my books. I didn’t know who he was. I spoke to him as if he were a potential buyer, and judged him based on his clothing, which was casual. When he got up to read as the final author, he brought the house down with his phenomenal, funny story. He may have looked like a normal person, but he isn’t. He’s a talented author.
- Not to pay attention to negativity or indifference. Maybe some people doubted whether you could even write a book. Maybe they discounted your accomplishments, or weren’t impressed when you got your first book deal. Maybe they didn’t read your book, or only skimmed it. Maybe they scoffed at the fact that writing a book takes work and time. Some of the above has happened to me. But I pushed through it and didn’t pay attention. I’ve learned to gravitate to those who are supportive and to disregard the rest.
I’ve got more to learn, and I’m drawn to others who will share what they know. I met Georgia author Terry Kay at a literary festival that we both participated in, and he’s become a mentor to me. I’m committed to challenging myself as a writer, and to producing my best work. And I keep asking myself, “Why not me?”
Julia McDermott is the author of psychological thrillers Daddy’s Girl and Underwater, French travel/romance Make That Deux, and creative nonfiction All the Above: My Son’s Battle with Brain Cancer, awarded Finalist - 2016 Georgia Author of the Year Award. Underwater was a Nominee for the 2015 GAYA, and for the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. Julia grew up in Atlanta, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and spent her junior year in the south of France. A member of Sisters in Crime and the Atlanta Writers Club, she lives in Atlanta with her husband and family. Visit her online at juliamcdermottbooks.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.
Why not you? The best lessons I’ve learned as a writer / Julia McDermott
As writers, one of our most valuable resources are our fellow writers. It's what makes conferences, like Killer Nashville, so beneficial. While technical knowledge is crucial, whats just as important is staying motivated and having a positive state of mind. This weeks Killer Nashville guest blogger, Julia McDermott, discusses how you can learn from your mistakes, stay motivated, and better yourself while you learn the craft of writing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The same year that quarterback Russell Wilson led the Seattle Seahawks to win the Super Bowl (2014), I signed a publishing contract for my first suspense novel, Underwater. Wilson, a “short” quarterback by NFL standards, famously quoted his dad as inspiring him by asking, “Why not you?” When the acquisitions editor at a major mystery/thriller imprint discovered my self-published novel and approached me with an offer, I was surprised and thrilled. Then I thought, “Why not me?”
Years earlier, I sat down to write the first page, and I’m still learning the craft of writing. But I’ve learned some lessons along the way:
- To keep focused. To work every day. That, as Woody Allen said, 80 percent of success is just showing up. So I show up even when it’s hard. If I don’t write, I work on plot or characters, do research, or just revise what I wrote yesterday. No matter what, though, I stay focused on my work in progress.
- To remember the most important ingredient in my story: conflict. Bad things happening. Personally, I don’t like confrontation, but professionally, I need it. Some people have a hard time getting along with others, and in maintaining relationships. Those people inspire characters in my novels. In Underwater, that character was Monty, the villain; in Daddy’s Girl, my latest suspense novel, it was Valerie, the protagonist.
- To be humble. To throw out whatever doesn’t work. To change characters’ ages, personalities, backstories, etc. To understand what readers liked about my last book, and what they didn’t like. And to discard the elements that fell short or disappointed.
- To try new things–and when they work, to stick with them. I joined writers critique groups and organizations, and other groups where I might meet readers, artists, or other authors. I accepted invitations to speak to groups about my books, and I got active on social media. I asked bookstores and merchants to host me to do book signings. The best part about them is serendipity, not sales. At a signing in Roswell, Georgia, last spring, I struck up a conversation with AJC sports writer Jeff Schultz after he bought one of my books. Weeks later, I was talking to his friend, AJC editor Suzanne van Atten, about writing a “Personal Journey” article for a Sunday edition of the paper. It was published on July 10, 2016.
- To remember that my book is a product. I want people to buy my content–flock to my content–in whatever format they want to read it in. I want them to like it so much that they tell all their friends about it so they will buy it, too. But it’s not as much about the money as it is the readers.
- That whether I submit my work to traditional publishers, self-publish, or do both (and I have), to make sure I’m proud of my work. But to be open to my editor’s comments, to trust her, and to make all the necessary changes.
- To get my log lines down and to keep it short. I served on a panel once
where an author was asked for the log line for her first and only book. She uttered a rambling, run-on sentence that was more a paragraph than a line. When she was done, I blurted out, “That’s a long log line!” Here’s my log line for Daddy’s Girl: A spoiled, entitled princess risks it all to join a technology startup, loses it all, and then embarks on a mission of revenge and retribution. Here’s my two-sentence one, for Underwater: An Atlanta CEO is guilted into funding an expensive spec home by her devious brother, who plans to flip it. Then the market plunges and sends the family into a downward spiral of deceit and danger.
- That “authors look like normal people, but aren’t,” according to one of my readers at a book festival. I dress for the job, and for me, that’s usually a dress or something nice. For others, it may be more casual. I met author Grant Jerkins at a multi-author reading I was invited to participate in last summer, and before the event began, I spied him perusing my books. I didn’t know who he was. I spoke to him as if he were a potential buyer, and judged him based on his clothing, which was casual. When he got up to read as the final author, he brought the house down with his phenomenal, funny story. He may have looked like a normal person, but he isn’t. He’s a talented author.
- Not to pay attention to negativity or indifference. Maybe some people doubted whether you could even write a book. Maybe they discounted your accomplishments, or weren’t impressed when you got your first book deal. Maybe they didn’t read your book, or only skimmed it. Maybe they scoffed at the fact that writing a book takes work and time. Some of the above has happened to me. But I pushed through it and didn’t pay attention. I’ve learned to gravitate to those who are supportive and to disregard the rest.
I’ve got more to learn, and I’m drawn to others who will share what they know. I met Georgia author Terry Kay at a literary festival that we both participated in, and he’s become a mentor to me. I’m committed to challenging myself as a writer, and to producing my best work. And I keep asking myself, “Why not me?”
Julia McDermott is the author of psychological thrillers Daddy’s Girl and Underwater, French travel/romance Make That Deux, and creative nonfiction All the Above: My Son’s Battle with Brain Cancer, awarded Finalist - 2016 Georgia Author of the Year Award. Underwater was a Nominee for the 2015 GAYA, and for the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. Julia grew up in Atlanta, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and spent her junior year in the south of France. A member of Sisters in Crime and the Atlanta Writers Club, she lives in Atlanta with her husband and family. Visit her online at juliamcdermottbooks.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.
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers / Christina Morgan
When writing a legal thriller, few things are more important than keeping the reader immersed in the story, and nothing can break immersion faster than inaccurate statements presented as truths. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Christina Morgan discusses how to make sure your legal thriller is both believable and fast-paced, and she does precisely that in her Flesh and Blood Trilogy. Following these tips and tricks will ensure that your reader truly believes that what they are reading is possible.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers
By Christina Morgan
On television crime dramas, DNA comes back in three minutes, crimes are solved in less than forty-two minutes, and defendants always buckle under the pressure of the prosecutor’s ceaseless and dogged examination, melt down, and confess to everything right there on the stand in front of judge and jury. While I can find entertainment value in these types of shows, I often want to hurl my remote at the television. Why? Because none of it is real, and they are very rarely an accurate portrayal of the judicial system and how it works. As a legal professional myself, it’s beyond frustrating.
So, if you’re planning on writing a novel with a protagonist who works in the legal field and/or where a majority of the plot revolves around the justice system, it is imperative you get the facts right. Not only will members of the legal community know you’ve got it all wrong, but even lay readers will be able to tell you didn’t bother to learn about you character’s chosen profession. This will ruin your credibility as an author and you want to avoid this no matter what it takes.
If you’re wondering if there’s a market for legal thrillers, I have a prime case study which proves legal thrillers can make a killing (pun intended). John Grisham has sold over 250 million books, makes an average of $20 million per year, and his net worth is a whopping $220 million[1].
So what does it take to write such prolific legal thrillers? Talent. Practice. Determination. Research. First, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already determined you have the talent to write great fiction. And if you’re doing it right, you’ve been practicing and honing your craft for quite a while. You must be determined to never give up and to keep on keeping on, even when the going gets tough. And finally, by research, I don’t just mean perusing the internet and reading Wikipedia (though there is a wealth of information out there in cyber space and you can learn quite a bit). I’m referring to actual, hands-on, in-person research. By this, I mean find yourself an attorney willing to answer all of your questions and tell you exactly what you need to know to pull off a convincing legal thriller. If you don’t already know one, call your city’s Bar Association. Tell them you’re an author seeking advice and/or information to assist in writing your novel. Tell them what field of law your character works in (criminal, civil, etc.) and they will almost always find one for you.
Now that you’ve found your attorney partner in crime, make a list of questions to ask them. Make sure your list includes procedural questions as well as substantive law questions. If you’re unclear on the difference, procedural would include legal how-to’s such as: how would my attorney protagonist file an appeal in a death penalty case; how would he/she conduct themselves at trial; how does a grand jury work, etc. Substantive law would include questions such as: what is the law on appeals; are wiretaps illegal in this state; what is the statute of limitations on armed robbery, etc.
Further, I advise that you ask your new attorney friend for a copy of a deposition transcript (redacted, of course). You will learn a lot from a deposition, including how objections really work, as well as legal terminology, and attorney lingo. Even better, call your local court clerk and ask when the next civil or criminal trial will be held. Trials are open to the public so you could sit in the gallery and take extensive notes on everything you hear and observe. I truly believe this is the best way to learn how the legal system works.
When I was writing my Flesh and Blood Trilogy (especially book one, Like Father, Like Daughter), I chose to have my protagonist work as a paralegal because with almost twenty years of experience as a paralegal myself, I felt I could write a convincing novel with believable characters and a compelling legal subplot. But even with my extensive experience, there were still things I was unsure about, so I leaned on my attorney buddies, court clerks, and judges to cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s.
Legal thrillers are fun, fast-paced, exciting reads, even for people not “in the industry.” You want to do your characters and your novel justice so the reader truly believes what they are reading is correct and possible. You don’t want to have any glaring errors. That could kill your book. So take your time, learn the biz, and get to work. Your readers will thank you.
Christina Morgan is the author of The Flesh & Blood Trilogy (Like Father, Like Daughter/Family Ties/Brother’s Keeper) and Confessions of an Old Lady. She lives in Nicholasville, Kentucky with her husband and two teenage daughters, three dogs (one of which is blind and has only three legs), and three cats (one of which is still relatively feral.) To learn more about Christina and her books, please visit her website at www.christinamorganbooks.com
[1] Source - http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/john-grisham-net-worth/
(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, Jessica Crone, 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.
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers / Christina Morgan
When writing a legal thriller, few things are more important than keeping the reader immersed in the story, and nothing can break immersion faster than inaccurate statements presented as truths. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Christina Morgan discusses how to make sure your legal thriller is both believable and fast-paced, and she does precisely that in her Flesh and Blood Trilogy. Following these tips and tricks will ensure that your reader truly believes that what they are reading is possible.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers
By Christina Morgan
On television crime dramas, DNA comes back in three minutes, crimes are solved in less than forty-two minutes, and defendants always buckle under the pressure of the prosecutor’s ceaseless and dogged examination, melt down, and confess to everything right there on the stand in front of judge and jury. While I can find entertainment value in these types of shows, I often want to hurl my remote at the television. Why? Because none of it is real, and they are very rarely an accurate portrayal of the judicial system and how it works. As a legal professional myself, it’s beyond frustrating.
So, if you’re planning on writing a novel with a protagonist who works in the legal field and/or where a majority of the plot revolves around the justice system, it is imperative you get the facts right. Not only will members of the legal community know you’ve got it all wrong, but even lay readers will be able to tell you didn’t bother to learn about you character’s chosen profession. This will ruin your credibility as an author and you want to avoid this no matter what it takes.
If you’re wondering if there’s a market for legal thrillers, I have a prime case study which proves legal thrillers can make a killing (pun intended). John Grisham has sold over 250 million books, makes an average of $20 million per year, and his net worth is a whopping $220 million[1].
So what does it take to write such prolific legal thrillers? Talent. Practice. Determination. Research. First, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already determined you have the talent to write great fiction. And if you’re doing it right, you’ve been practicing and honing your craft for quite a while. You must be determined to never give up and to keep on keeping on, even when the going gets tough. And finally, by research, I don’t just mean perusing the internet and reading Wikipedia (though there is a wealth of information out there in cyber space and you can learn quite a bit). I’m referring to actual, hands-on, in-person research. By this, I mean find yourself an attorney willing to answer all of your questions and tell you exactly what you need to know to pull off a convincing legal thriller. If you don’t already know one, call your city’s Bar Association. Tell them you’re an author seeking advice and/or information to assist in writing your novel. Tell them what field of law your character works in (criminal, civil, etc.) and they will almost always find one for you.
Now that you’ve found your attorney partner in crime, make a list of questions to ask them. Make sure your list includes procedural questions as well as substantive law questions. If you’re unclear on the difference, procedural would include legal how-to’s such as: how would my attorney protagonist file an appeal in a death penalty case; how would he/she conduct themselves at trial; how does a grand jury work, etc. Substantive law would include questions such as: what is the law on appeals; are wiretaps illegal in this state; what is the statute of limitations on armed robbery, etc.
Further, I advise that you ask your new attorney friend for a copy of a deposition transcript (redacted, of course). You will learn a lot from a deposition, including how objections really work, as well as legal terminology, and attorney lingo. Even better, call your local court clerk and ask when the next civil or criminal trial will be held. Trials are open to the public so you could sit in the gallery and take extensive notes on everything you hear and observe. I truly believe this is the best way to learn how the legal system works.
When I was writing my Flesh and Blood Trilogy (especially book one, 
Like Father, Like Daughter), I chose to have my protagonist work as a paralegal because with almost twenty years of experience as a paralegal myself, I felt I could write a convincing novel with believable characters and a compelling legal subplot. But even with my extensive experience, there were still things I was unsure about, so I leaned on my attorney buddies, court clerks, and judges to cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s.
Legal thrillers are fun, fast-paced, exciting reads, even for people not “in the industry.” You want to do your characters and your novel justice so the reader truly believes what they are reading is correct and possible. You don’t want to have any glaring errors. That could kill your book. So take your time, learn the biz, and get to work. Your readers will thank you.
Christina Morgan is the author of The Flesh & Blood Trilogy (Like Father, Like Daughter/Family Ties/Brother’s Keeper) and Confessions of an Old Lady. She lives in Nicholasville, Kentucky with her husband and two teenage daughters, three dogs (one of which is blind and has only three legs), and three cats (one of which is still relatively feral.) To learn more about Christina and her books, please visit her website at www.christinamorganbooks.com
[1] Source - http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/john-grisham-net-worth/
(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, Jessica Crone, 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.
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers / Christina Morgan
When writing a legal thriller, few things are more important than keeping the reader immersed in the story, and nothing can break immersion faster than inaccurate statements presented as truths. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Christina Morgan discusses how to make sure your legal thriller is both believable and fast-paced, and she does precisely that in her Flesh and Blood Trilogy. Following these tips and tricks will ensure that your reader truly believes that what they are reading is possible.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Writing Believable, Accurate Legal Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers
By Christina Morgan
On television crime dramas, DNA comes back in three minutes, crimes are solved in less than forty-two minutes, and defendants always buckle under the pressure of the prosecutor’s ceaseless and dogged examination, melt down, and confess to everything right there on the stand in front of judge and jury. While I can find entertainment value in these types of shows, I often want to hurl my remote at the television. Why? Because none of it is real, and they are very rarely an accurate portrayal of the judicial system and how it works. As a legal professional myself, it’s beyond frustrating.
So, if you’re planning on writing a novel with a protagonist who works in the legal field and/or where a majority of the plot revolves around the justice system, it is imperative you get the facts right. Not only will members of the legal community know you’ve got it all wrong, but even lay readers will be able to tell you didn’t bother to learn about you character’s chosen profession. This will ruin your credibility as an author and you want to avoid this no matter what it takes.
If you’re wondering if there’s a market for legal thrillers, I have a prime case study which proves legal thrillers can make a killing (pun intended). John Grisham has sold over 250 million books, makes an average of $20 million per year, and his net worth is a whopping $220 million[1].
So what does it take to write such prolific legal thrillers? Talent. Practice. Determination. Research. First, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already determined you have the talent to write great fiction. And if you’re doing it right, you’ve been practicing and honing your craft for quite a while. You must be determined to never give up and to keep on keeping on, even when the going gets tough. And finally, by research, I don’t just mean perusing the internet and reading Wikipedia (though there is a wealth of information out there in cyber space and you can learn quite a bit). I’m referring to actual, hands-on, in-person research. By this, I mean find yourself an attorney willing to answer all of your questions and tell you exactly what you need to know to pull off a convincing legal thriller. If you don’t already know one, call your city’s Bar Association. Tell them you’re an author seeking advice and/or information to assist in writing your novel. Tell them what field of law your character works in (criminal, civil, etc.) and they will almost always find one for you.
Now that you’ve found your attorney partner in crime, make a list of questions to ask them. Make sure your list includes procedural questions as well as substantive law questions. If you’re unclear on the difference, procedural would include legal how-to’s such as: how would my attorney protagonist file an appeal in a death penalty case; how would he/she conduct themselves at trial; how does a grand jury work, etc. Substantive law would include questions such as: what is the law on appeals; are wiretaps illegal in this state; what is the statute of limitations on armed robbery, etc.
Further, I advise that you ask your new attorney friend for a copy of a deposition transcript (redacted, of course). You will learn a lot from a deposition, including how objections really work, as well as legal terminology, and attorney lingo. Even better, call your local court clerk and ask when the next civil or criminal trial will be held. Trials are open to the public so you could sit in the gallery and take extensive notes on everything you hear and observe. I truly believe this is the best way to learn how the legal system works.
When I was writing my Flesh and Blood Trilogy (especially book one, 
Like Father, Like Daughter), I chose to have my protagonist work as a paralegal because with almost twenty years of experience as a paralegal myself, I felt I could write a convincing novel with believable characters and a compelling legal subplot. But even with my extensive experience, there were still things I was unsure about, so I leaned on my attorney buddies, court clerks, and judges to cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s.
Legal thrillers are fun, fast-paced, exciting reads, even for people not “in the industry.” You want to do your characters and your novel justice so the reader truly believes what they are reading is correct and possible. You don’t want to have any glaring errors. That could kill your book. So take your time, learn the biz, and get to work. Your readers will thank you.
Christina Morgan is the author of The Flesh & Blood Trilogy (Like Father, Like Daughter/Family Ties/Brother’s Keeper) and Confessions of an Old Lady. She lives in Nicholasville, Kentucky with her husband and two teenage daughters, three dogs (one of which is blind and has only three legs), and three cats (one of which is still relatively feral.) To learn more about Christina and her books, please visit her website at www.christinamorganbooks.com
[1] Source - http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/authors/john-grisham-net-worth/
(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, Jessica Crone, 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.
First Page Punch / Lynette Eason
When writing a mystery or a thriller, writers strive to have the reader on the edge of their seat, eager to turn the page and learn more. According to this week's Killer Nashville guest blog author Lynette Eason, it's crucial to have that engagement with the reader from page one. Eason immediately drops the reader into nail-biting action, as shown in her most recent work, A Killer Among Us, When A Heart Stops, and Without Warning. With these tips and tricks, learn how to engage your reader from the opening page and have them struggling to put your book down.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
First Page Punch
By Lynette Eason
As a writer, I’m deathly afraid of writing a book that a reader is going to pick up, read the first page, and be bored to death. Keeping that fear in mind as I write, my first goal is to immediately engage the reader in the story. That’s where the First Page Punch comes in. (Yes, I made that up.) What I mean by this is, my first scene starts off with action. And I don’t mean boring action.
You don’t necessarily have to have a car chase with bullets flying and bodies dropping, although that’s great if you do, but you do need to have something happening. Save the backstory and introspection for later.
For example, in my books, nobody is driving into town thinking what a wonderful family reunion she’s going to have and no one is sitting on the front porch pondering life and drinking sweet tea—unless he’s a serial killer and he’s just worked up a thirst, you know what I mean?
Here’s one of my first page openings. In A Killer Among Us, I open the story with a hostage situation. Detective Kit Kenyon is trained in hostage negotiation and is trying to talk the hostage taker into giving up. Here’s how the story opens:
Detective Kit Kenyon stared past the barrel of the gun and fixed her eyes on the man before her.
The forty-four-year-old blinked against the sweat dripping into his hazy green eyes. A thick tongue swept out against dry lips, and his gaze darted from her to the door to his wife, who sat on the floor under the window weeping softly.
Melanie, his twelve-year-old daughter, winced at the harsh hand ensnaring her long brown ponytail and never took her terrified gaze from Kit.
“Virgil?” Kit pushed gently. “Right now you haven’t hurt anyone. In fact, you’ve cooperated nicely.” Except for the part where she’d asked him to end this peacefully.
But they were getting there.
“I’ve got a clean shot.” The voice whispered in her earpiece.
Another example of a First Page Punch would be in my book, When A Heart Stops:
If she moved, would she die? Serena Hopkins kept her eyes shut and lay as still as possible in the king-size bed, doing her best to keep her breathing even.
Which was becoming more impossible by the second.
As her fear increased, so did the rate of her heartbeat and respirations.
Was he still there?
A slight rustle to her left answered that question.
I’ve given you two examples. Do you think if you picked up either book in your local bookstore and scanned the first page, you’d want to read more? If you said no, I’m not writing this post for you. If you said yes, why? Because I’ve dropped you right into the danger, right? I’ve given you someone to care about, someone who’s in trouble and needs help.
These two opening pages set the tone for the story. The reader doesn’t know the characters yet, but usually if someone innocent such as the twelve-year-old girl in example one is in danger, we’re rooting for her and the people trying to help her, right?
In example two, we have a woman who is in danger from an intruder. Our first instinct is to hope the intruder doesn’t discover that she’s awake and if he does, we hope that she’ll be unharmed. At least I hope that’s your first instinct!
All that to say, as an avid reader, I remember picking up books, reading the first page and going, “meh” and tossing the book aside.
Some authors may argue that their story gets better as you get into it. My response to them is that they should start the story where it starts to get better. Seriously. Ditch all the other stuff before it. The reader who picks up the book then tosses it aside because she can’t get past the first chapter isn’t going to know she should keep reading because things get interesting in chapter eight. Things have to be interesting on page one.
When I decided to write, I studied the craft, I attended writer’s conferences and I knew that I wanted to write stories that kept readers on the edge of their seats. In order to that, I had to keep them turning the pages. The best way to do this is to grab those readers on the first page and keep it going from there.
All the best with your writing as you deliver a powerful punch right on the first page!
Without Warning is the second book in the Elite Guardians Series. If you read it, I hope you’re immediately hooked and lose lots of sleep because you can’t put the book down!
Lynette Eason is the bestselling author of the WOMEN OF JUSTICE series, the DEADLY REUNIONS series, and the HIDDEN IDENTITY series, as well as Always Watching in the ELITE GUARDIANS series. She is the winner of an ACFW Carol Award, a Selah Award, and an Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. She has a master’s degree in education from Converse College, and she lives in South Carolina. To learn more about Eason and her work, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
First Page Punch / Lynette Eason
When writing a mystery or a thriller, writers strive to have the reader on the edge of their seat, eager to turn the page and learn more. According to this week's Killer Nashville guest blog author Lynette Eason, it's crucial to have that engagement with the reader from page one. Eason immediately drops the reader into nail-biting action, as shown in her most recent work, A Killer Among Us, When A Heart Stops, and Without Warning. With these tips and tricks, learn how to engage your reader from the opening page and have them struggling to put your book down.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
First Page Punch
By Lynette Eason
As a writer, I’m deathly afraid of writing a book that a reader is going to pick up, read the first page, and be bored to death. Keeping that fear in mind as I write, my first goal is to immediately engage the reader in the story. That’s where the First Page Punch comes in. (Yes, I made that up.) What I mean by this is, my first scene starts off with action. And I don’t mean boring action.
You don’t necessarily have to have a car chase with bullets flying and bodies dropping, although that’s great if you do, but you do need to have something happening. Save the backstory and introspection for later.
For example, in my books, nobody is driving into town thinking what a wonderful family reunion she’s going to have and no one is sitting on the front porch pondering life and drinking sweet tea—unless he’s a serial killer and he’s just worked up a thirst, you know what I mean?
Here’s one of my first page openings. In A Killer Among Us, I open the story with a hostage situation. Detective Kit Kenyon is trained in hostage negotiation and is trying to talk the hostage taker into giving up. Here’s how the story opens:
Detective Kit Kenyon stared past the barrel of the gun and fixed her eyes on the man before her.
The forty-four-year-old blinked against the sweat dripping into his hazy green eyes. A thick tongue swept out against dry lips, and his gaze darted from her to the door to his wife, who sat on the floor under the window weeping softly.
Melanie, his twelve-year-old daughter, winced at the harsh hand ensnaring her long brown ponytail and never took her terrified gaze from Kit.
“Virgil?” Kit pushed gently. “Right now you haven’t hurt anyone. In fact, you’ve cooperated nicely.” Except for the part where she’d asked him to end this peacefully.
But they were getting there.
“I’ve got a clean shot.” The voice whispered in her earpiece.
Another example of a First Page Punch would be in my book, When A Heart Stops:
If she moved, would she die? Serena Hopkins kept her eyes shut and lay as still as possible in the king-size bed, doing her best to keep her breathing even.
Which was becoming more impossible by the second.
As her fear increased, so did the rate of her heartbeat and respirations.
Was he still there?
A slight rustle to her left answered that question.
I’ve given you two examples. Do you think if you picked up either book in your local bookstore and scanned the first page, you’d want to read more? If you said no, I’m not writing this post for you. If you said yes, why? Because I’ve dropped you right into the danger, right? I’ve given you someone to care about, someone who’s in trouble and needs help.
These two opening pages set the tone for the story. The reader doesn’t know the characters yet, but usually if someone innocent such as the twelve-year-old girl in example one is in danger, we’re rooting for her and the people trying to help her, right?
In example two, we have a woman who is in danger from an intruder. Our first instinct is to hope the intruder doesn’t discover that she’s awake and if he does, we hope that she’ll be unharmed. At least I hope that’s your first instinct!
All that to say, as an avid reader, I remember picking up books, reading the first page and going, “meh” and tossing the book aside.
Some authors may argue that their story gets better as you get into it. My response to them is that they should start the story where it starts to get better. Seriously. Ditch all the other stuff before it. The reader who picks up the book then tosses it aside because she can’t get past the first chapter isn’t going to know she should keep reading because things get interesting in chapter eight. Things have to be interesting on page one.
When I decided to write, I studied the craft, I 
attended writer’s conferences and I knew that I wanted to write stories that kept readers on the edge of their seats. In order to that, I had to keep them turning the pages. The best way to do this is to grab those readers on the first page and keep it going from there.
All the best with your writing as you deliver a powerful punch right on the first page!
Without Warning is the second book in the Elite Guardians Series. If you read it, I hope you’re immediately hooked and lose lots of sleep because you can’t put the book down!
Lynette Eason is the bestselling author of the WOMEN OF JUSTICE series, the DEADLY REUNIONS series, and the HIDDEN IDENTITY series, as well as Always Watching in the ELITE GUARDIANS series. She is the winner of an ACFW Carol Award, a Selah Award, and an Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. She has a master’s degree in education from Converse College, and she lives in South Carolina. To learn more about Eason and her work, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
First Page Punch / Lynette Eason
When writing a mystery or a thriller, writers strive to have the reader on the edge of their seat, eager to turn the page and learn more. According to this week's Killer Nashville guest blog author Lynette Eason, it's crucial to have that engagement with the reader from page one. Eason immediately drops the reader into nail-biting action, as shown in her most recent work, A Killer Among Us, When A Heart Stops, and Without Warning. With these tips and tricks, learn how to engage your reader from the opening page and have them struggling to put your book down.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
First Page Punch
By Lynette Eason
As a writer, I’m deathly afraid of writing a book that a reader is going to pick up, read the first page, and be bored to death. Keeping that fear in mind as I write, my first goal is to immediately engage the reader in the story. That’s where the First Page Punch comes in. (Yes, I made that up.) What I mean by this is, my first scene starts off with action. And I don’t mean boring action.
You don’t necessarily have to have a car chase with bullets flying and bodies dropping, although that’s great if you do, but you do need to have something happening. Save the backstory and introspection for later.
For example, in my books, nobody is driving into town thinking what a wonderful family reunion she’s going to have and no one is sitting on the front porch pondering life and drinking sweet tea—unless he’s a serial killer and he’s just worked up a thirst, you know what I mean?
Here’s one of my first page openings. In A Killer Among Us, I open the story with a hostage situation. Detective Kit Kenyon is trained in hostage negotiation and is trying to talk the hostage taker into giving up. Here’s how the story opens:
Detective Kit Kenyon stared past the barrel of the gun and fixed her eyes on the man before her.
The forty-four-year-old blinked against the sweat dripping into his hazy green eyes. A thick tongue swept out against dry lips, and his gaze darted from her to the door to his wife, who sat on the floor under the window weeping softly.
Melanie, his twelve-year-old daughter, winced at the harsh hand ensnaring her long brown ponytail and never took her terrified gaze from Kit.
“Virgil?” Kit pushed gently. “Right now you haven’t hurt anyone. In fact, you’ve cooperated nicely.” Except for the part where she’d asked him to end this peacefully.
But they were getting there.
“I’ve got a clean shot.” The voice whispered in her earpiece.
Another example of a First Page Punch would be in my book, When A Heart Stops:
If she moved, would she die? Serena Hopkins kept her eyes shut and lay as still as possible in the king-size bed, doing her best to keep her breathing even.
Which was becoming more impossible by the second.
As her fear increased, so did the rate of her heartbeat and respirations.
Was he still there?
A slight rustle to her left answered that question.
I’ve given you two examples. Do you think if you picked up either book in your local bookstore and scanned the first page, you’d want to read more? If you said no, I’m not writing this post for you. If you said yes, why? Because I’ve dropped you right into the danger, right? I’ve given you someone to care about, someone who’s in trouble and needs help.
These two opening pages set the tone for the story. The reader doesn’t know the characters yet, but usually if someone innocent such as the twelve-year-old girl in example one is in danger, we’re rooting for her and the people trying to help her, right?
In example two, we have a woman who is in danger from an intruder. Our first instinct is to hope the intruder doesn’t discover that she’s awake and if he does, we hope that she’ll be unharmed. At least I hope that’s your first instinct!
All that to say, as an avid reader, I remember picking up books, reading the first page and going, “meh” and tossing the book aside.
Some authors may argue that their story gets better as you get into it. My response to them is that they should start the story where it starts to get better. Seriously. Ditch all the other stuff before it. The reader who picks up the book then tosses it aside because she can’t get past the first chapter isn’t going to know she should keep reading because things get interesting in chapter eight. Things have to be interesting on page one.
When I decided to write, I studied the craft, I 
attended writer’s conferences and I knew that I wanted to write stories that kept readers on the edge of their seats. In order to that, I had to keep them turning the pages. The best way to do this is to grab those readers on the first page and keep it going from there.
All the best with your writing as you deliver a powerful punch right on the first page!
Without Warning is the second book in the Elite Guardians Series. If you read it, I hope you’re immediately hooked and lose lots of sleep because you can’t put the book down!
Lynette Eason is the bestselling author of the WOMEN OF JUSTICE series, the DEADLY REUNIONS series, and the HIDDEN IDENTITY series, as well as Always Watching in the ELITE GUARDIANS series. She is the winner of an ACFW Carol Award, a Selah Award, and an Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. She has a master’s degree in education from Converse College, and she lives in South Carolina. To learn more about Eason and her work, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller / Catherine Finger
Both in real life and on the page, a characters faith can be tested during difficult times. This can be especially the case for characters set in the thriller genre. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Catherine Finger, masterfully incorporates faith-based characters into a dark, gritty setting in her Jo Oliver Thriller series. Finger personifies emotions such as betrayal, guilt, and shame to bring her characters beliefs to a breaking point in Cleansed by Death and Shattered By Death.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller
By Catherine Finger
What do Stephen King, Lee Child, Kevin O’Brien, and Jude—author of his own little New Testament Epistle—have in common? Everything, as it turns out. In addition to recounting blood-chilling events in true thriller style, their stories are packed full of the human failures and hopes of the heart that keep us hungry and thirsting for more.
My goal as an author is to paint a picture of a real God, who offers us a future and a hope, in the midst of calamitous times. Writing faith-based thrillers challenges me as I strive to write compelling novels chock full of grit, while keeping the gratuitous gore to a minimum. Oh, and skipping the monkey sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with either— rather, I know myself and what makes my mind, body, and spirit happiest on any given day. My mind is my best feature, and I work to keep it free from imagery that has the capacity to chip away at my sense of personal safety or otherwise hurt my heart. Add to that my belief that a solid character arc comes only accompanied by a side dish of a genuine faith experience, and you get a sense of my essential story ingredients.
Are you snoozing yet? I hope not. I strive to find creative ways to tie these two big ideas together — faith and thrillers — and come up with one fantastic story. Weaving these pieces into a tapestry of intrigue led me to create the Jo Oliver Thriller series.
I’ve been accused of trying to destroy my own protagonist — Police Chief Jo Oliver — by throwing a series of overwhelming circumstances at her from every possible direction in each book. And while I do enjoy creating messed-up lives for my characters, my secret goal is to stir up as much trouble as I possibly can, and then see how my characters respond. I want my readers to feel the tension of wondering whether tough circumstances will serve to make my characters better — or bitter.
I delight in watching my characters experience some of the heaviest human emotions as they face escalating personal and professional catastrophes. Betrayal, guilt, and shame are The Big Three in my mind as I write and I want my reader to feel their presence, almost as if they were a character in their own right. What will these powerful forces drive my characters to choose? How will guilt and shame impact their current relationships? Who will they ultimately become after tangling with The Big Three?
Playing with key questions designed to help me frame the spiritual element in my books as I write helps keep me focused and fresh. Authors interested in adding their own unique brand of faith to their stories might find this practice beneficial. Questions I return to as I continue with my Jo Oliver Thriller series include the following:
How does a hardened police chief find faith in the midst of a gritty murder investigation? And how is that faith manifested in a real way that resonates with my readers?
What difference does faith make in the lives of my chief and others having faith experiences along the way?
What does her growing faith look like, and how does it inform her choices and impact her behavior as the novels progress?
In Cleansed by Death, book one of the Jo Oliver Thriller Series, our heroine faces private battles at the hands of an abusive husband in her personal life—while hunting a serial killer. Escalating conflicts incite a personal crisis forcing her first encounter with ‘my Magnificent Being’—God, as she then understands Him—during an intense moment of spiritual warfare. This unexpected encounter shifts her inner landscape, and while her external circumstances don’t improve, she discovers within herself a renewed sense of life, hope, and peace.
In book two of the series, Shattered By Death, Chief Josie’s fledgling life of faith is severely tested as her world is threatened by The Big Three—especially betrayal. In addition to dealing with her inner demons, she faces a cunning foe that might just be strong enough, and smart enough to outwit her as the kill list mounts. Circumstantial evidence causes her once stalwart companions to doubt Josie’s innocence and she is forced to defend herself within her own department while pursuing a killer. The story begins with betrayal of another stripe as her philandering, soon to be ex-husband is found brutally slain alongside his mistress.
Where could God be in that complex mess? Isn’t that the question many of us face in our own daily lives? I delight in illustrating that question against the backdrop of impossible circumstances, and then watching Chief Josie walk through them, hand-in-hand with her Magnificent Being.
In addition to these internal struggles, let’s not forget that there’s a world of hurt going on externally as my Police Chief fights crime and hunts killers in a race against time in every novel. And — spoiler alert — people die! In creative ways! One of the things I love about this genre is that it lets me play with the notions of Good and Evil. I find it great fun telling stories about doing the right thing — or not — through an extreme medium with inherently high stakes. Writing faith-based thrillers allows me to take readers to the edge of their seats, while examining their hearts—hopefully while keeping them up at night.
Like Police Chief Jo Oliver, Dr. Catherine Finger is committed to protect and serve. But instead of handcuffs and handguns, she uses her wit and wisdom as a high school superintendent and church and community volunteer in northern Illinois. Shattered by Death is her second novel. For more information about Catherine, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller / Catherine Finger
Both in real life and on the page, a characters faith can be tested during difficult times. This can be especially the case for characters set in the thriller genre. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Catherine Finger, masterfully incorporates faith-based characters into a dark, gritty setting in her Jo Oliver Thriller series. Finger personifies emotions such as betrayal, guilt, and shame to bring her characters beliefs to a breaking point in Cleansed by Death and Shattered By Death.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller
By Catherine Finger
What do Stephen King, Lee Child, Kevin O’Brien, and Jude—author of his own little New Testament Epistle—have in common? Everything, as it turns out. In addition to recounting blood-chilling events in true thriller style, their stories are packed full of the human failures and hopes of the heart that keep us hungry and thirsting for more.
My goal as an author is to paint a picture of a real God, who offers us a future and a hope, in the midst of calamitous times. Writing faith-based thrillers challenges me as I strive to write compelling novels chock full of grit, while keeping the gratuitous gore to a minimum. Oh, and skipping the monkey sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with either— rather, I know myself and what makes my mind, body, and spirit happiest on any given day. My mind is my best feature, and I work to keep it free from imagery that has the capacity to chip away at my sense of personal safety or otherwise hurt my heart. Add to that my belief that a solid character arc comes only accompanied by a side dish of a genuine faith experience, and you get a sense of my essential story ingredients.
Are you snoozing yet? I hope not. I strive to find creative ways to tie these two big ideas together — faith and thrillers — and come up with one fantastic story. Weaving these pieces into a tapestry of intrigue led me to create the Jo Oliver Thriller series.
I’ve been accused of trying to destroy my own protagonist — Police Chief Jo Oliver — by throwing a series of overwhelming circumstances at her from every possible direction in each book. And while I do enjoy creating messed-up lives for my characters, my secret goal is to stir up as much trouble as I possibly can, and then see how my characters respond. I want my readers to feel the tension of wondering whether tough circumstances will serve to make my characters better — or bitter.
I delight in watching my characters experience some of the heaviest human emotions as they face escalating personal and professional catastrophes. Betrayal, guilt, and shame are The Big Three in my mind as I write and I want my reader to feel their presence, almost as if they were a character in their own right. What will these powerful forces drive my characters to choose? How will guilt and shame impact their current relationships? Who will they ultimately become after tangling with The Big Three?
Playing with key questions designed to help me frame the spiritual element in my books as I write helps keep me focused and fresh. Authors interested in adding their own unique brand of faith to their stories might find this practice beneficial. Questions I return to as I continue with my Jo Oliver Thriller series include the following:
- How does a hardened police chief find faith in the midst of a gritty murder investigation? And how is that faith manifested in a real way that resonates with my readers?
- What difference does faith make in the lives of my chief and others having faith experiences along the way?
- What does her growing faith look like, and how does it inform her choices and impact her behavior as the novels progress?
In Cleansed by Death, book one of the Jo Oliver Thriller Series, our heroine faces private battles at the hands of an abusive husband in her personal life—while hunting a serial killer. Escalating conflicts incite a personal crisis forcing her first encounter with ‘my Magnificent Being’—God, as she then understands Him—during an intense moment of spiritual warfare. This unexpected encounter shifts her inner landscape, and while her external circumstances don’t improve, she discovers within herself a renewed sense of life, hope, and peace.
In book two of the series, Shattered By Death, Chief Josie’s fledgling life of faith is severely tested as her world is threatened by The Big Three—especially betrayal. In addition to dealing with her inner demons, she faces a cunning foe that might just be strong enough, and smart enough to outwit her as the kill list mounts. Circumstantial evidence causes her once stalwart companions to doubt Josie’s innocence and she is forced to defend herself within her own department while pursuing a killer. The story begins with betrayal of another stripe as her philandering, soon to be ex-husband is found brutally slain alongside his mistress.
Where could God be in that complex mess? Isn’t that the question many of us face in our own daily lives? I delight in illustrating that question against the backdrop of impossible circumstances, and then watching Chief Josie walk through them, hand-in-hand with her Magnificent Being.
In addition to these internal struggles, let’s not forget that there’s a world of hurt going on externally as my Police Chief fights crime and hunts killers in a race against time in every novel. And — spoiler alert — people die! In creative ways! One of the things I love about this genre is that it lets me play with the notions of Good and Evil. I find it great fun telling stories about doing the right thing — or not — through an extreme medium with inherently high stakes. Writing faith-based thrillers allows me to take readers to the edge of their seats, while examining their hearts—hopefully while keeping them up at night.
Like Police Chief Jo Oliver, Dr. Catherine Finger is committed to protect and serve. But instead of handcuffs and handguns, she uses her wit and wisdom as a high school superintendent and church and community volunteer in northern Illinois. Shattered by Death is her second novel. For more information about Catherine, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller / Catherine Finger
Both in real life and on the page, a characters faith can be tested during difficult times. This can be especially the case for characters set in the thriller genre. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Catherine Finger, masterfully incorporates faith-based characters into a dark, gritty setting in her Jo Oliver Thriller series. Finger personifies emotions such as betrayal, guilt, and shame to bring her characters beliefs to a breaking point in Cleansed by Death and Shattered By Death.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Opposites DO Attract: Writing the Faith-Based Thriller
By Catherine Finger
What do Stephen King, Lee Child, Kevin O’Brien, and Jude—author of his own little New Testament Epistle—have in common? Everything, as it turns out. In addition to recounting blood-chilling events in true thriller style, their stories are packed full of the human failures and hopes of the heart that keep us hungry and thirsting for more.
My goal as an author is to paint a picture of a real God, who offers us a future and a hope, in the midst of calamitous times. Writing faith-based thrillers challenges me as I strive to write compelling novels chock full of grit, while keeping the gratuitous gore to a minimum. Oh, and skipping the monkey sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with either— rather, I know myself and what makes my mind, body, and spirit happiest on any given day. My mind is my best feature, and I work to keep it free from imagery that has the capacity to chip away at my sense of personal safety or otherwise hurt my heart. Add to that my belief that a solid character arc comes only accompanied by a side dish of a genuine faith experience, and you get a sense of my essential story ingredients.
Are you snoozing yet? I hope not. I strive to find creative ways to tie these two big ideas together — faith and thrillers — and come up with one fantastic story. Weaving these pieces into a tapestry of intrigue led me to create the Jo Oliver Thriller series.
I’ve been accused of trying to destroy my own protagonist — Police Chief Jo Oliver — by throwing a series of overwhelming circumstances at her from every possible direction in each book. And while I do enjoy creating messed-up lives for my characters, my secret goal is to stir up as much trouble as I possibly can, and then see how my characters respond. I want my readers to feel the tension of wondering whether tough circumstances will serve to make my characters better — or bitter.
I delight in watching my characters experience some of the heaviest human emotions as they face escalating personal and professional catastrophes. Betrayal, guilt, and shame are The Big Three in my mind as I write and I want my reader to feel their presence, almost as if they were a character in their own right. What will these powerful forces drive my characters to choose? How will guilt and shame impact their current relationships? Who will they ultimately become after tangling with The Big Three?
Playing with key questions designed to help me frame the spiritual element in my books as I write helps keep me focused and fresh. Authors interested in adding their own unique brand of faith to their stories might find this practice beneficial. Questions I return to as I continue with my Jo Oliver Thriller series include the following:
- How does a hardened police chief find faith in the midst of a gritty murder investigation? And how is that faith manifested in a real way that resonates with my readers?
- What difference does faith make in the lives of my chief and others having faith experiences along the way?
- What does her growing faith look like, and how does it inform her choices and impact her behavior as the novels progress?
In Cleansed by Death, book one of the Jo Oliver Thriller Series, our heroine faces private battles at the hands of an abusive husband in her personal life—while hunting a serial killer. Escalating conflicts incite a personal crisis forcing her first encounter with ‘my Magnificent Being’—God, as she then understands Him—during an intense moment of spiritual warfare. This unexpected encounter shifts her inner landscape, and while her external circumstances don’t improve, she discovers within herself a renewed sense of life, hope, and peace.
In book two of the series, Shattered By Death, Chief Josie’s fledgling life of faith is severely tested as her world is threatened by The Big Three—especially betrayal. In addition to dealing with her inner demons, she faces a cunning foe that might just be strong enough, and smart enough to outwit her as the kill list mounts. Circumstantial evidence causes her once stalwart companions to doubt Josie’s innocence and she is forced to defend herself within her own department while pursuing a killer. The story begins with betrayal of another stripe as her philandering, soon to be ex-husband is found brutally slain alongside his mistress.
Where could God be in that complex mess? Isn’t that the question many of us face in our own daily lives? I delight in illustrating that question against the backdrop of impossible circumstances, and then watching Chief Josie walk through them, hand-in-hand with her Magnificent Being.
In addition to these internal struggles, let’s not forget that there’s a world of hurt going on externally as my Police Chief fights crime and hunts killers in a race against time in every novel. And — spoiler alert — people die! In creative ways! One of the things I love about this genre is that it lets me play with the notions of Good and Evil. I find it great fun telling stories about doing the right thing — or not — through an extreme medium with inherently high stakes. Writing faith-based thrillers allows me to take readers to the edge of their seats, while examining their hearts—hopefully while keeping them up at night.
Like Police Chief Jo Oliver, Dr. Catherine Finger is committed to protect and serve. But instead of handcuffs and handguns, she uses her wit and wisdom as a high school superintendent and church and community volunteer in northern Illinois. Shattered by Death is her second novel. For more information about Catherine, visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Cozying up to Mystery / Ann H. Gabhart
There are specific elements of a story that delineate a standard mystery from a cozy mystery. When writing in the mystery genre, its important to understand your target audience, and create a world that is enjoyable to the reader. This week's Killer Nashville guest blog by Ann H. Gabhart explores the world of the cozy mystery and gives advice of how to make your cozy stand out. Take an inside look at her fictional town of Hidden Springs and see how her novels Murder at the Courthouse and Murder Comes by Mail take cozy mysteries to the next level.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Cozying up to Mystery
By Ann H. Gabhart
I cut my reading teeth on The Hardy Boys mysteries. Those stories made me want to be a detective too. So, at age ten when anything seems possible, I grabbed a pencil and started writing my first book starring me as a mystery-solving sleuth. Even then, I knew writing fiction meant you could make things up. That let me make my fictional self smarter, cuter and much less shy than my real self.
Since I still enjoy reading mysteries, it’s a little mysterious that I had twenty-eight novels published before one was actually labeled a mystery. Over the years, I slipped plenty of mystery threads into my stories, but Murder at the Courthouse was my first full-fledged, let’s put murder in that title, mystery.
You’ve probably heard the writing advice “to write what you know.” I’m not sure exactly how that’s supposed to work with mystery writers. Personal experience with murder can be deadly! I’m relieved to say I don’t know about murder, but I do live in a world where the baser human emotions of greed, anger, envy, hate and fear are often on display and can sneak into all our thoughts at times. Those feelings magnified can push a person down some wrong paths toward crime, even murder. When that happens with your fictional bad guys, then a writer can come up with a good guy character to solve the mystery.
I didn’t totally ignore the write-what-you-know advice with my mystery. Most of my books have small-town settings. That’s because I’m a country girl. Take me to a big city like Chicago or New York and I’m lost. But drop me down in a Main Street, two stoplight town and I’m right at home. That’s why, when I stepped onto the mystery writing trail, I created the small town of Hidden Springs where murder isn’t supposed to happen but does. That small town setting put my Hidden Spring mysteries into the cozy mystery genre.
Online I discovered at least fifteen varieties of mysteries from cozies to noir which were labeled as gritty mysteries as far from cozies as you can get. So what makes a cozy cozy? First and especially true with my Hidden Springs books is that small town setting with the kind of colorful characters a reader expects to find on those Main Streets. In a cozy mystery, the murder takes place off page. Bodies are found, but generally the victim is either a character nobody liked anyway or someone the reader barely knows.
That is true in my stories even though my hero does land in some dangerous situations. It’s not all only a puzzle for my hero, Michael Keane. In the first Hidden Springs mystery, Murder at the Courthouse, Michael uncovers some disturbing secrets from the past to solve the mystery. Then in Murder Comes by Mail, evil comes to call on his small town bringing more suspense and perhaps more bodies too than are usually found in cozy mysteries.
Normally a cozy sleuth is an amateur who stumbles into mystery, perhaps a middle-aged woman running some small business like a book shop. But sometimes a writer doesn’t read the rules until after she’s written the books. That must have happened with me because Michael is a good-looking deputy sheriff in my little town of Hidden Springs. Also, romance rarely plays a big part in cozies, but Michael is carrying a torch for a woman he thinks will never marry him. While the mystery is the main thrust of the Hidden Spring books, Michael and Alex’s seemingly impossible romance is a continuing storyline for readers.
But perhaps cats are why my mysteries ended up on the cozy mystery shelf. If you check out any bookstore’s mystery section, you can pick out the cozy mysteries by the great covers that often feature a cat or dog. My covers have a different cat for each story – Two Bits, the barber’s cat in Murder at the Courthouse, and Grimalkin, the cat on the mailbox in Murder Comes by Mail.
So if you happen to take a fictional visit to a small town where murder and mayhem happen, it’s likely you have stepped into a cozy mystery. A few smiles and thrills later, the killer will be unmasked and you can feel safe in that little town once again. At least, until the next cozy episode of murder.
Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including the 2015 Selah Book of Year,Love Comes Home, her Shaker novels and The Heart of Hollyhill series. As A.H. Gabhart, she writes the Hidden Springs Mysteries set in a small town much like her hometown. Ann and her husband enjoy country life on a farm in Kentucky. Learn more about Ann here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Cozying up to Mystery / Ann H. Gabhart
There are specific elements of a story that delineate a standard mystery from a cozy mystery. When writing in the mystery genre, its important to understand your target audience, and create a world that is enjoyable to the reader. This week's Killer Nashville guest blog by Ann H. Gabhart explores the world of the cozy mystery and gives advice of how to make your cozy stand out. Take an inside look at her fictional town of Hidden Springs and see how her novels Murder at the Courthouse and Murder Comes by Mail take cozy mysteries to the next level.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Cozying up to Mystery
By Ann H. Gabhart
I cut my reading teeth on The Hardy Boys mysteries. Those stories made me want to be a detective too. So, at age ten when anything seems possible, I grabbed a pencil and started writing my first book starring me as a mystery-solving sleuth. Even then, I knew writing fiction meant you could make things up. That let me make my fictional self smarter, cuter and much less shy than my real self.
Since I still enjoy reading mysteries, it’s a little mysterious that I had twenty-eight novels published before one was actually labeled a mystery. Over the years, I slipped plenty of mystery threads into my stories, but Murder at the Courthouse was my first full-fledged, let’s put murder in that title, mystery.
You’ve probably heard the writing advice “to write what you know.” I’m not sure exactly how that’s supposed to work with mystery writers. Personal experience with murder can be deadly! I’m relieved to say I don’t know about murder, but I do live in a world where the baser human emotions of greed, anger, envy, hate and fear are often on display and can sneak into all our thoughts at times. Those feelings magnified can push a person down some wrong paths toward crime, even murder. When that happens with your fictional bad guys, then a writer can come up with a good guy character to solve the mystery.
I didn’t totally ignore the write-what-you-know advice with my mystery. Most of my books have small-town settings. That’s because I’m a country girl. Take me to a big city like Chicago or New York and I’m lost. But drop me down in a Main Street, two stoplight town and I’m right at home. That’s why, when I stepped onto the mystery writing trail, I created the small town of Hidden Springs where murder isn’t supposed to happen but does. That small town setting put my Hidden Spring mysteries into the cozy mystery genre.
Online I discovered at least fifteen varieties of mysteries from cozies to noir which were labeled as gritty mysteries as far from cozies as you can get. So what makes a cozy cozy? First and especially true with my Hidden Springs books is that small town setting with the kind of colorful characters a reader expects to find on those Main Streets. In a cozy mystery, the murder takes place off page. Bodies are found, but generally the victim is either a character nobody liked anyway or someone the reader barely knows.
That is true in my stories even though my hero does land in some dangerous situations. It’s not all only a puzzle for my hero, Michael Keane. In the first Hidden Springs mystery, Murder at the Courthouse, Michael uncovers some disturbing secrets from the past to solve the mystery. Then in Murder Comes by Mail, evil comes to call on his small town bringing more suspense and perhaps more bodies too than are usually found in cozy mysteries.
Normally a cozy sleuth is an amateur who stumbles into mystery, perhaps a middle-aged woman running some small business like a book shop. But sometimes a writer doesn’t read the rules until after she’s written the books. That must have happened with me because Michael is a good-looking deputy sheriff in my little town of Hidden Springs. Also, romance rarely plays a big part in cozies, but Michael is carrying a torch for a woman he thinks will never marry him. While the mystery is the main thrust of the Hidden Spring books, Michael and Alex’s seemingly impossible romance is a continuing storyline for readers.
But perhaps cats are why my mysteries ended up on the cozy mystery shelf. If you check out any bookstore’s mystery section, you can pick out the cozy mysteries by the great covers that often feature a cat or dog. My covers have a different cat for each story – Two Bits, the barber’s cat in Murder at the Courthouse, and Grimalkin, the cat on the mailbox in Murder Comes by Mail.
So if you happen to take a fictional visit to a small town where murder and mayhem happen, it’s likely you have stepped into a cozy mystery. A few smiles and thrills later, the killer will be unmasked and you can feel safe in that little town once again. At least, until the next cozy episode of murder.
Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including the 2015 Selah Book of Year, Love Comes Home, her Shaker novels and The Heart of Hollyhill series. As A.H. Gabhart, she writes the Hidden Springs Mysteries set in a small town much like her hometown. Ann and her husband enjoy country life on a farm in Kentucky. Learn more about Ann here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Cozying up to Mystery / Ann H. Gabhart
There are specific elements of a story that delineate a standard mystery from a cozy mystery. When writing in the mystery genre, its important to understand your target audience, and create a world that is enjoyable to the reader. This week's Killer Nashville guest blog by Ann H. Gabhart explores the world of the cozy mystery and gives advice of how to make your cozy stand out. Take an inside look at her fictional town of Hidden Springs and see how her novels Murder at the Courthouse and Murder Comes by Mail take cozy mysteries to the next level.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Cozying up to Mystery
By Ann H. Gabhart
I cut my reading teeth on The Hardy Boys mysteries. Those stories made me want to be a detective too. So, at age ten when anything seems possible, I grabbed a pencil and started writing my first book starring me as a mystery-solving sleuth. Even then, I knew writing fiction meant you could make things up. That let me make my fictional self smarter, cuter and much less shy than my real self.
Since I still enjoy reading mysteries, it’s a little mysterious that I had twenty-eight novels published before one was actually labeled a mystery. Over the years, I slipped plenty of mystery threads into my stories, but Murder at the Courthouse was my first full-fledged, let’s put murder in that title, mystery.
You’ve probably heard the writing advice “to write what you know.” I’m not sure exactly how that’s supposed to work with mystery writers. Personal experience with murder can be deadly! I’m relieved to say I don’t know about murder, but I do live in a world where the baser human emotions of greed, anger, envy, hate and fear are often on display and can sneak into all our thoughts at times. Those feelings magnified can push a person down some wrong paths toward crime, even murder. When that happens with your fictional bad guys, then a writer can come up with a good guy character to solve the mystery.
I didn’t totally ignore the write-what-you-know advice with my mystery. Most of my books have small-town settings. That’s because I’m a country girl. Take me to a big city like Chicago or New York and I’m lost. But drop me down in a Main Street, two stoplight town and I’m right at home. That’s why, when I stepped onto the mystery writing trail, I created the small town of Hidden Springs where murder isn’t supposed to happen but does. That small town setting put my Hidden Spring mysteries into the cozy mystery genre.
Online I discovered at least fifteen varieties of mysteries from cozies to noir which were labeled as gritty mysteries as far from cozies as you can get. So what makes a cozy cozy? First and especially true with my Hidden Springs books is that small town setting with the kind of colorful characters a reader expects to find on those Main Streets. In a cozy mystery, the murder takes place off page. Bodies are found, but generally the victim is either a character nobody liked anyway or someone the reader barely knows.
That is true in my stories even though my hero does land in some dangerous situations. It’s not all only a puzzle for my hero, Michael Keane. In the first Hidden Springs mystery, Murder at the Courthouse, Michael uncovers some disturbing secrets from the past to solve the mystery. Then in Murder Comes by Mail, evil comes to call on his small town bringing more suspense and perhaps more bodies too than are usually found in cozy mysteries.
Normally a cozy sleuth is an amateur who stumbles into mystery, perhaps a middle-aged woman running some small business like a book shop. But sometimes a writer doesn’t read the rules until after she’s written the books. That must have happened with me because Michael is a good-looking deputy sheriff in my little town of Hidden Springs. Also, romance rarely plays a big part in cozies, but Michael is carrying a torch for a woman he thinks will never marry him. While the mystery is the main thrust of the Hidden Spring books, Michael and Alex’s seemingly impossible romance is a continuing storyline for readers.
But perhaps cats are why my mysteries ended up on the cozy mystery shelf. If you check out any bookstore’s mystery section, you can pick out the cozy mysteries by the great covers that often feature a cat or dog. My covers have a different cat for each story – Two Bits, the barber’s cat in Murder at the Courthouse, and Grimalkin, the cat on the mailbox in Murder Comes by Mail.
So if you happen to take a fictional visit to a small town where murder and mayhem happen, it’s likely you have stepped into a cozy mystery. A few smiles and thrills later, the killer will be unmasked and you can feel safe in that little town once again. At least, until the next cozy episode of murder.
Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including the 2015 Selah Book of Year, Love Comes Home, her Shaker novels and The Heart of Hollyhill series. As A.H. Gabhart, she writes the Hidden Springs Mysteries set in a small town much like her hometown. Ann and her husband enjoy country life on a farm in Kentucky. Learn more about Ann here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it’s vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it's vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week's Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it's vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week's Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters / Debra H. Goldstein
Writing a mystery piece is like playing an intricate game with the reader. While the writer might know how the cards will fall, they have to keep a poker face and leave the reader in suspense. This week’s Killer Nashville guest blogger Debra H. Goldstein is well versed in both strategic games and mystery writing and uses that to her advantage in her newest book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Goldstein pours her real life experiences into character development, making the plot feel that much more natural to the reader. Her blog details some methods of balancing character traits with an intense murder/mystery plot.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters
By Debra H. Goldstein
I love to play games. Whether cards, Mah jongg, board games, it doesn’t matter, my competitive streak comes out. Can’t help it — besting my opponents becomes my goal. Not only do I accomplish this through strategic moves, but by observing and taking advantage of the other players’ body language while maintaining a poker face. It’s a perverse kind of entertainment. I use the same techniques in writing mysteries because I believe readers want mysteries to be engaging and FUN.
On a personal note, I am part of a regular Thursday Mah jongg game. After months of playing with the same women, I know their quirks. When one has a good hand, she tends to lean forward in her chair, eyes intent on the tiles being thrown. Another, when frustrated by her tiles or unable to settle on a hand, picks up her ever-present beverage and sips at it while glancing aimlessly around the room. If they watch me when I’m waiting for one last tile, they would notice I tend to rest my left arm on the table while I pick and discard with my non-dominant right hand — the only time I use that hand during the game. It is a subconscious giveaway habit I consciously am trying to break.
When I plot a mystery, I give my characters their own particular features to help advance the plot. The plot is simply the tale with its twists and turns. The addition of the character’s individual characteristics puts meat on the plotline.
In my new book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, the protagonist, Carrie Martin is a young lawyer whose mother reappears in her life after a twenty-six year absence. She leaves Carrie with a sealed envelope and the knowledge she once considered killing Carrie’s father. Before Carrie can fully process this information, her mother is murdered at the retirement home where her father resides. Compelled to solve her mother’s murder, Carrie’s efforts put her in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren’t always what she was taught to believe.
Carrie is a serious protagonist. At twenty-nine, she doesn’t know everything which allows other characters to educate her in ways that may or may not be true. She can be impulsive, but tries to appear polished. This image is repeatedly shattered when she does things like blurting out to the Detective assigned to her mother’s case, Carrie’s former live-in lover, that except for when she visits her father, she works nonstop seven days a week. As she notes, “Great, I’ve just told him I am a workaholic with no social life.”
A serious protagonist must have moments of humor for the reader to identify with her, but the plot itself requires a greater amount of comic relief. The pink-haired Sunshine Village Mah jongg players are Carrie’s comic foil. From the ring-leader whose hair, nails, and lipstick are the same shade of pink to the one who is either sharp as a tack or completely out to lunch, each player has an identifying characteristic that moves the plot forward. It may be something the character says, a physical action involving a prop like a cane, or a way of behaving. Each identifying quirk helps establish red herrings and definitive clues.
The key is to work the trait into the story so that it amuses the reader, but also subliminally triggers the reader’s mind. The outcome may result in believing something false is true, ignoring a blatant fact, or understanding the link to the next part of the story. It also serves to distinguish each of the characters.
Without individual characterization, any story would be one dimensional which translates to boring. By contrasting the humorous characters against my more serious protagonist, my hope in Should Have Played Poker is to make its reading FUN – sort of like playing a game.
Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star Publishing – April 2016) and the 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murderand The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. Debra serves on the national Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter and Alabama Writers Conclave boards and is a MWA member. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters / Debra H. Goldstein
Writing a mystery piece is like playing an intricate game with the reader. While the writer might know how the cards will fall, they have to keep a poker face and leave the reader in suspense. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger Debra H. Goldstein is well versed in both strategic games and mystery writing and uses that to her advantage in her newest book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Goldstein pours her real life experiences into character development, making the plot feel that much more natural to the reader. Her blog details some methods of balancing character traits with an intense murder/mystery plot.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters
By Debra H. Goldstein
I love to play games. Whether cards, Mah jongg, board games, it doesn’t matter, my competitive streak comes out. Can’t help it — besting my opponents becomes my goal. Not only do I accomplish this through strategic moves, but by observing and taking advantage of the other players’ body language while maintaining a poker face. It’s a perverse kind of entertainment. I use the same techniques in writing mysteries because I believe readers want mysteries to be engaging and FUN.
On a personal note, I am part of a regular Thursday Mah jongg game. After months of playing with the same women, I know their quirks. When one has a good hand, she tends to lean forward in her chair, eyes intent on the tiles being thrown. Another, when frustrated by her tiles or unable to settle on a hand, picks up her ever-present beverage and sips at it while glancing aimlessly around the room. If they watch me when I’m waiting for one last tile, they would notice I tend to rest my left arm on the table while I pick and discard with my non-dominant right hand — the only time I use that hand during the game. It is a subconscious giveaway habit I consciously am trying to break.
When I plot a mystery, I give my characters their own particular features to help advance the plot. The plot is simply the tale with its twists and turns. The addition of the character’s individual characteristics puts meat on the plotline.
I
n my new book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, the protagonist, Carrie Martin is a young lawyer whose mother reappears in her life after a twenty-six year absence. She leaves Carrie with a sealed envelope and the knowledge she once considered killing Carrie’s father. Before Carrie can fully process this information, her mother is murdered at the retirement home where her father resides. Compelled to solve her mother’s murder, Carrie’s efforts put her in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren’t always what she was taught to believe.
Carrie is a serious protagonist. At twenty-nine, she doesn’t know everything which allows other characters to educate her in ways that may or may not be true. She can be impulsive, but tries to appear polished. This image is repeatedly shattered when she does things like blurting out to the Detective assigned to her mother’s case, Carrie’s former live-in lover, that except for when she visits her father, she works nonstop seven days a week. As she notes, “Great, I’ve just told him I am a workaholic with no social life.”
A serious protagonist must have moments of humor for the reader to identify with her, but the plot itself requires a greater amount of comic relief. The pink-haired Sunshine Village Mah jongg players are Carrie’s comic foil. From the ring-leader whose hair, nails, and lipstick are the same shade of pink to the one who is either sharp as a tack or completely out to lunch, each player has an identifying characteristic that moves the plot forward. It may be something the character says, a physical action involving a prop like a cane, or a way of behaving. Each identifying quirk helps establish red herrings and definitive clues.
The key is to work the trait into the story so that it amuses the reader, but also subliminally triggers the reader’s mind. The outcome may result in believing something false is true, ignoring a blatant fact, or understanding the link to the next part of the story. It also serves to distinguish each of the characters.
Without individual characterization, any story would be one dimensional which translates to boring. By contrasting the humorous characters against my more serious protagonist, my hope in Should Have Played Poker is to make its reading FUN – sort of like playing a game.
Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star Publishing – April 2016) and the 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murder and The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. Debra serves on the national Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter and Alabama Writers Conclave boards and is a MWA member. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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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