February 2016 – Page 2 – Ladies of Mystery

SH Mug Art (2)

I’m not a forensic coroner or a lawyer or even a law enforcer. I’m the wife of a rancher and I write murder mystery.

As I write this next book in my Shandra Higheagle Mystery Series I’ve come across questions that have required answers by professionals. When I start a book I know how the victim will die and where. But I ultimately need to know what their injuries would look like say if they fall off a cliff or are stabbed with a blunt object or shot at close range with a small caliber gun.

These are all things coroners have seen and can tell me. But how do I get a coroner on speed-dial or in my case speed e-mail? I’m part of a yahoo loop that is filled with every kind of occupation a mystery or murder writer might need expertise about. The yahoo loop is crimescenewriter@yahoogroups.com

That’s how I connected with a coroner who not only answered my question I put on the loop but also emailed back and forth with me as I asked more questions and what-if’s. She has lots of knowledge and being a budding writer is willing to help out fellow writers.

Writing the opening and how the victim is killed and what is discovered went well, knowing I had the correct information and knowledge. Then I brought in some secondary characters and a sub-plot. For the sub-plot I needed some legal information. I turned to my niece who is a para-legal and what she couldn’t answer she knew where to send me to find the information. After my niece and I discussed the issue I wanted brought up in my book and how I wanted it dealt with, she suggested I contact a law enforcement officer. I happen to have one in the family. 😉

I sent off an email explaining what I wanted to do, how would it be handled, and after some back and forth ,that element of the sub-plot was worked out.

Writing mystery books is my favorite writing experience. Not only do I have to puzzle out a mystery that will keep the reader thinking, I have to make sure the forensics and laws will work in the story and enhance the overall realness of the crime and the killer.

Have you read books where you could tell the writer hadn’t researched the laws or forensics? Did it bother you while reading the book or is that something that doesn’t bother you?

~*~

Award-winning author Paty Jager and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. All Paty’s work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Her penchant for research takes her on side trips that eventually turn into yet another story.

You can learn more about Paty at:

her blog; Writing into the Sunset

her website; http://www.patyjager.net

By Sally Carpenter

To a writer, computers are a necessity, our instrument if you will, just as a saxophone is to a blues musician, a brush to a painter or a costume to an actor.

But do we love our computers? In museums one can see the typewriters of famous authors, but has any author put her computer on display? We seldom have a chance to get “attached” to a computer, as we must purchase a new one every few years to keep up with technology.

Few of us want to return to the days of carbon paper and Liquid Paper (except Woody Allen who still writes his screenplays with literal cut and paste) but has all those electronics really us smarter?

Here’s a brief history of my experience with computers.

In high school I was trained as a touch typist, learning not to look at the keys or the paper in the roller as I typed. So I can’t look at a computer screen when I compose. It slows me down and stops my thoughts.

I earned my bachelor’s degree with a portable manual Smith-Corona. Later I moved up to an electronic typewriter with a memory so I could backspace and make corrections without erasing. Now that was cool.

The first computer I ever saw was in 1976. It was a small grey box that operated by inserting five-inch floppy discs. At the time I didn’t think it was an improvement over the typewriter.

The computer lab in the basement of the college library had big, bulky computers that ran on FORTRAN or some such program. One had to type long, complex commands to make it work. Printouts were barely readable dot matrix on long rolls of green-and-white striped paper with sprocket holes along the sides. One had to tear the pages apart and remove the holes. How cumbersome.

For a while I did temp work in various offices. Computers had not yet been standardized, so every business had its own unique word processing program. I hated having to learn a new system with every assignment. I remember the Wang software. To run spell check, one had to first completely exit out of a document.

On one assignment I became proficient in WordPerfect. I liked it so much that when I bought my first computer–a Brother DOS–I set it up with WP. The commands were made by holding down two keys at once–the alt, shift or control key along with a number or letter key. For a fast touch typist (I can do 75 wpm) I could keep my fingers on the keyboard and not slow down to reach for a mouse. I loved the clickety-clack of the keys. I wrote a slew of fiction as well as graduate school papers on this machine.

I’d still be using that workhorse except for one thing–the Internet. DOS cannot support the web. For a while I used a second computer a laptop with Windows for web surfing and email but I continued writing on the Brother. However, the laptop constantly broke down and when the motherboard gave out after only 2.5 years, I was through with it.

I finally had to give up the Brother about the time I started writing mysteries because many publishers (and now, all) were only taking electronic submissions. A friend gave me his old antiquated iMac when he upgraded. Now I could write, send emails, and use the web on one computer-sort of. The machine is limited in its web capabilities and can be ghastly slow with emails, but it works.

And when I can upgrade to a modern computer, I’ll be going for retro. The QwerkyWriter is a keyboard that hooks up to any tablet or monitor but looks like a manual typewriter keyboard with “clickety clack” and a “return” lever that’s the “enter” key. Everything old is new again.