My Plot Walks In

~ Janet Dawson ~ 2 Comments

I recently returned from a trip to Italy. I started in Naples on my own, then headed to Rome to join a Road Scholar tour that took me through Rome, Florence and Venice. I enjoyed art, architecture, the countryside, the history, the people, the street life—also the pasta and gelato.

As a writer, I am constantly on the lookout for story ideas. I was sure that my sojourn in Bella Italia would provide. Indeed, it did.

The tour included lectures by various experts who discussed everything from the Forum and the Colosseum in Rome, to the Duomo in Florence, and the Bridge of Sighs that spans a canal in Venice.

In the middle of one such lecture, my plot walked in, giving me that wonderful feeling. The feeling that says: That’s it! Here’s where I can hang my novel!

I’m not going to tell you what it is. I don’t discuss my ideas before I have a chance to develop them further. Suffice to say, it’s a good idea. An excellent excuse to take another trip to Italy.

Hmm, does one really need an excuse to go to Italy?

I write a historical mystery series featuring Jill McLeod, who is a Zephyrette, or train hostess, traveling on the old California Zephyr, a streamliner train that ran between the Bay Area from 1949 to 1970. For this series, my character walked in first. Once I learned about Zephyrettes, I had to write a mystery with one as a protagonist.

The plot of the third book walked in when I took an excursion on a private Pullman sleeper car similar to those found on the California Zephyr. In this case the car was attached to the rear of an Amtrak train and we were making a trip from Los Angeles to San Diego.

When we were parked in the station at San Diego, the rail car’s owner told the passengers a tale about another excursion. The passengers on that trip had commented that there was something odd happening in one of the sleeper. They were hearing voices and hearing bells rings. Maybe he had a ghost, we said.

That idea walked into my fertile mystery writer’s brain. Soon my fictional Zephyrette Jill was returning to her onboard compartment late at night when she encountered something she couldn’t explain. And that’s how I came to write The Ghost in Roomette Four.

I was planning a trip to Paris at the same time I was working on the Jeri Howard novel Witness to Evil. Well, if I was going to Paris, so was Jeri.

Why would an Oakland private investigator take a trip to Paris and wind up investigating a case? I could think of two reasons for Jeri’s trip to La Belle France:  because she is paid to do so, to retrieve something—or someone. Turns out the someone is the catalyst. Seventeen-year-old Darcy, a problem child if ever there was one, swiped Mom’s credit card and flew to Paris. Darcy’s parents hire Jeri to find her and bring her back.

Jeri thinks that these two people have more money than sense, but hey, a job’s a job. She flies to the City of Lights and searches for Darcy, interested in the teenager’s why as well as her whereabouts. I figured once I got to Paris, I would figure out what I needed for my plot.

I kept bumping up against the Holocaust.

On the Île de la Cité, tucked behind Notre Dame, is the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation. It’s a sobering place to visit, honoring the 200,000 French citizens deported to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Later during that visit, I wandered through the Marais, the historic district of Paris that includes portions of the Third and Fourth Arrondissements. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this district had a thriving Jewish community. I was looking for a museum. I didn’t find that particular museum. But I found something else—an exhibit about the deportation of the French Jews.

What stays with me all these years later are the posters that family members put up after the liberation, searching for news of family members who disappeared during the war.

How does that figure into the plot of Witness to Evil? Read the book and find out.

The Truth, The Lie, and The Cozy by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 6 Comments

My name is Heather Haven; I am 28 years old, and weigh 123 pounds. The first statement was true. If you saw me in person, you would know immediately the last two statements were a bald-faced lie. But that’s okay. I am allowed to lie. I write fiction.

 As a writer of fiction, I get away with making stuff up. In fact, it’s encouraged. I can lie like a rug covered in cat hairs. And do. Of course, at one time I was 28 and weighed 123, so I did ‘ground’ myself in the truth. Or did I ‘grind’ the truth?

In the happy world of fiction, the truth is not all it’s cracked up to be, anyway. I mean if it was, would fiction be so prevalent? Would it be so clamored for? Would Agatha Christie’s book sales be second only to the Bible?

As we know, fiction shines a light on the truth. Fiction writers get rid of the flotsam and jetsam floating in a sea of facts, obscuring real issues. As for me, I also try to throw in a few laughs along the way.

All my books are grounded in truth. They have to be. When I started writing the 9th book of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, The Drop-Dead Temple of Doom, I did eight months of research before I could write a word. It was a crash course in the ancient Mayans, the jungles of Guatemala, and the worlds of orchids and coffee. Not only did the book win a prestigious award, but most importantly, several archeologists wrote to tell me how spot on the information included inside was.

The award, frankly, was just the icing on the cake. There are wonderful books out there that never receive any accolade whatsoever. But if you’re in the right place at the right time and get lucky, it can happen.

The real reward for research and banging on the keyboard for months and months, was hearing from people who lived the life I wrote about. They were appreciative I’d gotten things right, that I didn’t confuse the reader with misinformation. While I didn’t overload the story with facts, when I did relay something, I tried to keep it real.

Being a fiction writer can often be like walking a tightrope, But I come from a circus background, my parents being performers at Ringling Brothers Circus back in its heyday.

Whoops! Did I just give a clue as to my real age? Well, rats.

IN WHICH I INTERVIEW MYSELF

~ dzchurch ~ 5 Comments

In honor of all of us who have questions we wish interviewers asked us, I ask myself a few.

What possessed you to write the Cooper Quartet?

I served as an officer in the Navy at the bitter end of the Vietnam War. I was surrounded by Navy pilots on shore duty. Some of them were fresh home, as was a special SEAL, and my friends at Lemoore Naval Air Station, a mix of carrier pilots and rescue pilots. And they needed to talk. I often think that if the woman officers provided no service other than listening to and absorbing their tales before they went home to their loved ones, we deserved Purple Hearts. The moment I started writing Dead Legend was the moment I began to free myself. If you wonder whether the stories are true, I can assure you that Robin Haas speaks for me.  

Why aren’t they more widely read?

I suspect because they don’t fall into ‘the military thriller where SEALS win the war we lost’ genre that is so popular. Rather, despite some intense military action, the four books are about Vietnam’s effects on our country. Whether you were spat on, held a sign or just didn’t give a damn, the War fundamentally changed our society, our music, and our generation. I hope through the series, a reader sees the full arc of the War’s impact through one family’s eyes.

Why are your standalone thrillers set where they are?

I have always loved books in which the setting is a character, so naturally I was drawn to places I knew well.  

My first book, Perfidia, takes place in Barbados in 1972, shortly after its independence from England, and shortly after I lived there. It is a beautiful place, but, like most Caribbean islands, it has a darker side to its history. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park provides a frame of reference. In Perfidia, one of the few remaining Barbadian plantations is caught in a tug-of-war over its existence.

Saving Calypso. I live part-time in the Sierra foothills, eleven miles from Yosemite National Park. When the idea for the story ripened, I needed a place for Calypso Swale to hide off the grid. It was only natural that the beauty and ruggedness that surround me would become a character in the book. It is more than a backdrop for what happens; it becomes a weapon when it is discovered that Calypso is alive.

As for Booth Island, my husband’s family owns an island in the middle of Bob’s Lake, Ontario. Families of French, English and Scots descent farmed this region of Canada since before the War of 1812. Post-World War I, Pennsylvanians surged in and bought up most of the available lakefront property and islands. It mattered a lot to the rural families, especially to those who didn’t benefit. And there you have a plot, hidden and roiling beneath the lake’s surface.

Why write a cozy mystery series set in the Midwest in the 1870s?

Madness. I was spawned in northwestern Illinois, about thirty-five miles due east of the Mississippi River. My father’s family farmed: my mother’s family lived in a small town, one that burgeoned with immigrants and industry after the Civil War. I couldn’t shake the thought that another small town, in the same place, would make a great setting for a series about a country in flux. So I did it.

If Cora Countryman had a theme song, what would it be? I Want to Be Free (Monkees) And Sebastian Kanady? You Belong to Me (Jo Stafford). What about Calypso Swale? I Need a Hero (Bonny Tyler), though I’m not sure why. Calypso is plenty self-sufficient. And Grieg Washburn? Can’t Get You Off of My Mind (Lenny Kravitz) I could go on, but I’ll stop here, no I won’t. One more: Laury Cooper? Paint it Black (Mick Jagger)

Why do you write?

I can’t help myself, never could. I worry that if I didn’t, all the voices in my head might rebel. And then, where would I be?

Find me and my books at https://dzchurch.com. 

CHAPTER JINGA

~ Kimila Kay ~ 4 Comments

Happy Memorial Day, Ladies ~

I’m writing this blog from our new place in Mesa, Arizona, where it’s already eighty degrees at eight am in the shade. While I love sunshine, I’m seriously not a fan of melting.

I keep reminding myself that being here in May is an anomaly this year since we’re just here to set up our new place. While I traipse through our small one-thousand-square-foot abode, making a list of what goes and what stays (the place came furnished and not in a good way), my husband, Randy, follows behind saying things like, “Oh, come on, all that fur-covered chair needs is to be shampooed.” Insert picture of me gagging.

At this point in my life, I don’t want to live with other people’s castoffs, shampooed or not. I want a new queen-size sofa for future guests, and a matching recliner for my thrifty husband. The list of things I want or need is long, and I remind myself that I don’t have to buy everything at once. Creating a list and making a plan will be enough for this trip. Come up with a plan, make a list, check it twice.

One thing I’m good at is lists! I make a list for everything, including one for the novel I’m working on. I add things like making sure a character’s eye color is the same throughout the book. How many women have gone missing? Two or Three? And, for God’s sake, check the spelling of “wisp,” which my brain seems to think is spelled “whisp.”

Another tool I use to create my books is to calendar the chapters and scenes. Nothing is worse than publishing a book and then finding out a few scenes are out of order. I’ve completed the first draft for “Fatal Falls” and am in the process of listening to the manuscript after reading through the book twice. As I listen via my laptop, I also read along, checking my list as I go … and … I check my chapters against my calendar for an accurate timeline.

As I reached the end, only twenty-four chapters to listen/read/check, I found it. To my dismay, I have scenes out of order. Normally, I’d laugh and start brainstorming on how to realign the scenes or remove/add situations that will bring everything back in sync.

But I had the misfortune of discovering the out-of-order chapters the night before we flew to Phoenix. No problem. I’ll just add “Chapter Jinga” to my ever-growing list of things to do while settling into our new place.

Have you ever heard the saying? “If you want to give God a good laugh, tell him you have a plan.”

When we arrived on Saturday, there was a snafu in getting our car rental. This would normally send Randy into a tizzy, but he remained calm, and we finally were on our way to Mesa. We were starving, so after unloading our luggage, we used the facilities, and Randy discovered one of our toilets was leaking. Oh, boy!

Time to get a larger sheet of paper for our To-Do list.

As I go about the process of unpacking and setting up each room, I find my mind drifting back to Stoneybrook. I clearly need to move my cattle drive scene backward in the book so that the scene where my villain’s location is discovered makes sense to the reader, which may even require a new chapter or two …

So I’m not continuing my blog in the afternoon. I was drawn into helping with the leaking toilet, which required more work than we thought, so off to Home Depot we went. Armed with all the things we need, we set out to fix the leak.

But just like my out-of-order chapters, we forgot plumber’s tape, which needs to come before attaching the new fitting, just like the cattle drive needs to occur before the location of my villain is revealed. We also bought the wrong size flapper for the tank, so it looks like we’ll need a larger size. Just to be sure, we probably need to buy a couple of sizes to ensure we have the right flapper to prevent any more water leaks from the tank.

My apologies for this blog being posted late in the day, but oh what a day it has been!!!

Happy writing, Ladies ~

A New Short Story Form

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

Annual meetings of library associations are always a fun way to meet librarians from your state or region, and my local chapter of Sisters in Crime (New England chapter) signs up for every one of them in our area. We make new contacts and catch up with colleagues, and I always learn something. 

I make a point of wandering the exhibitors’ room to find out how libraries are changing and what’s new in how things are done. This year turned out to be an eye-opener. I met Susan Ostrowski, co-founder and owner of Reading2Connect, who talked about her work with Alzheimer’s patients, and this is where my eyes were opened.

People with Alzheimer’s are losing their short-term memory but they’re not losing their level of intelligence and intellectual curiosity, which can make once pleasurable activities like reading frustrating and disappointing. The purpose of Susan Ostrowski’s program is to provide these readers with books tailored to their interests and limitations. 

The typical “book” published by Reading2Connect is 4,000 words in 30 pages and approximately five chapters, along with illustrations. The stories are written and structured to accommodate the specific limitations of fading short-term memory. The program has published dozens of stories in various genres but none in mystery fiction. They hope to change that, and to that end Susan Ostrowski explained at length the requirements for one of their books.

Each story will have only two to four named characters, and few or no other proper nouns such as the names of towns, streets, businesses, special buildings. The story is written linearly, with no flashbacks. Each chapter opens with a summary of what has gone before, and what the reader needs to know moving forward. A mystery must still include clues and all the other features of a mystery—crime, motive, clues, investigation, conclusion. The syntax is straightforward, with short sentences in basic declarative form with some variation. Susan stressed that they can take a short story and modify the syntax to meet their needs if the writer overall understands and fulfills their other requirements.

Her description brought to mind the short “Solve-it-yourself” mystery stories in Woman’s World magazine. Through the Short Mystery Fiction Society chat group I’ve met several writers who have published stories there, and appreciate the purity, if you will, of their construction. Although those stories are under 700 words (or thereabouts), they are clear, concise, few characters, usually one setting, etc. The language, though, is probably not exactly what Reading2Connect is looking for, but as I indicated Susan and her editors can work with that.

It’s rare to come across a new genre or even a new publisher today—more often they’re going out of business—but this one is intriguing. Over the years I’ve written short and long fiction, academic articles, nonfiction long and short, reviews, advertising, essays, themed stories and essays, brochures, research grants, fundraising appeals, and probably a lot of other stuff I can’t recall. But this Reading2Connect format is different and something of a challenge. 

Like many other people, the thought of Alzheimer’s is daunting, but I hadn’t stopped to think about it from the person’s point of view—to continue with the same level of intellectual ability and interest thwarted by an unreliable memory. I remember my grandmother at 85 working so hard to pull out of her brain something she knew she knew and just couldn’t find. She was a great reader and continued to read until it became too confusing and frustrating to bear, but she still kept a book nearby.

Susan Ostrowski changed how I look at Alzheimer’s patients in the early stages when they still should be able to enjoy as many of their former pleasures and activities as possible. Finding books written so they can enjoy them must be a great delight.

A final word on Reading2Connect. They have recently received a grant that will enable them to buy short stories for their program. They will pay $300 per mystery story (and perhaps other genres as well).