Month: January 2023

Guest Blogger ~ Heather Weidner

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

With a Little Help from Some Friends

Heather Weidner, Author of the Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries and the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries

I am extremely grateful for all the authors who have shared their ideas, advice, and successes with me through the years. Writing is mostly a solitary process, so it’s nice to know that you’re not alone and that others have experienced what you’re going through. Here are some tidbits that I’ve picked up through the years that have helped me improve my craft and to stay focused.

When I’m working on a new novel, I plot out a simple outline. I learned from Donna Andrews to color-code the different kinds of action in your outline, so you can see it over the course of the book. For example, I mark all romantic elements with pink, humorous items are orange, clues are green, etc. It helps create a visual as you write, and it shows you where you’re missing elements or when you’ve overloaded the story.

I learned from Mary Burton to keep a running list of over-used words. Add to it as you write, and then at the end of each revision cycle, search your document and remove the culprits. She also calls your first draft the “sloppy copy.” Typing “the end” doesn’t mean you’re finished. It’s the beginning of the revision cycle.

I learned from the late Kathy Mix to keep a list of character names for each book. Her rule was to name each character with a different letter of the alphabet. If she already had a Krissy, then she couldn’t have another character whose first name started with a “K.” I build a chart of characters for each book and note where the characters appear. I also create a list of key locations. I enter all the important facts, so I can keep track of the details.

Mary Miley gave me some great advice about honing dialogue. She recommends cutting out the unnecessary pleasantries and chitchat that don’t move your story forward.

Elaine Viets said to know your genre and who is publishing in it. Do your research and know the conventions before you query agents or publishers.

Lynda Bishop recommends that authors keep a timeline for each book to make sure all events are in order and make sense. This helps with pacing. This helps me keep the days straight (so the character doesn’t have lunch two times in the same day).

Tina Glasneck suggests that authors create a calendar for each book launch. Mine starts three months before the launch and runs three months after. Plan all events, interviews, blogs, and media campaigns. Make sure that you track the details.

Jane Friedman tells writers that their platform grows from their body of work. An author’s website and blog should be at the center of all of your marketing.

Frances Aylor and Alan Orloff gave me the best advice for writing. Butt glue (Frances) or BICFOK (Alan). They’re essentially the same. If you want to be a writer, put your Butt in the Chair and Fingers on the Keyboard.

Hollywood has come to Fern Valley, and the one stoplight town may never be the same. Everyone wants to get in on the act.

The crew from the wildly popular, fan favorite, Fatal Impressions, takes over Jules Keene’s glamping resort, and they bring a lot of offscreen drama and baggage that doesn’t include the scads of costumes, props, and crowds that descend on the bucolic resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Added security, hundreds of calls from hopeful extras, and some demanding divas keep Jules’s team hopping.

When the show’s prickly head writer ends up dead under the L. Frank Baum tiny house in what looks like a staged murder scene with a kitschy homage to the Wizard of Oz, Jules has to figure out who would want the writer dead. Then while they are still reeling from the first murder, the popular publicist gets lost after a long night at the local honky-tonk and winds up strangled. Jules needs to solve both crimes before filming is canceled, and her business is ruined.

Book Links

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1685122000

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHLSYBZ9?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

Barnes and Noble: Film Crews and Rendezvous: A Jules Keene Glamping Mystery by Heather Weidner, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

BookBub: Film Crews and Rendezvous: A Jules Keene Glamping Mystery by Heather Weidner – BookBub

Books a Million: film crews and rendezvous : : Booksamillion.com

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/shop/heatherweidner

Fantastic Fiction: Film Crews and Rendezvous (Jules Keene Glamping Mystery, book 2) by Heather Weidner (fantasticfiction.com)

Goodreads: Film Crews and Rendezvous by Heather Weidner | Goodreads

Kobo: Film Crews and Rendezvous eBook by Heather Weidner – EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United States

Scribd: Film Crews and Rendezvous by Heather Weidner – Ebook | Scribd

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. She writes the Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries, and the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries.

Her short stories appear in the Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Deadly Southern Charm, and Murder by the Glass, and her novellas appear in The Mutt Mysteries series.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and a pair of Jack Russell terriers.

Social Media Links

Website and Blog: http://www.heatherweidner.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherWeidner1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeatherWeidnerAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heather_mystery_writer/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8121854.Heather_Weidner

Amazon Authors: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00HOYR0MQ

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/HeatherBWeidner/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-weidner-0064b233?trk=hp-identity-name

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/heather-weidner-d6430278-c5c9-4b10-b911-340828fc7003

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heather_weidner_author?lang=en

Research for a Setting

~ susanoleksiw ~ 5 Comments

In fiction I like a strong sense of place, where the environment has shaped people and their problems. Before I begin a story, I want to have a clear idea of the real place where I’m locating my characters. I may change the name, add buildings and roads, but I begin with something real.

For the stories set in central Massachusetts, I chose the town and surrounding area where my family lived for many years. This was a farm community that had once had an industrial base at the end of the nineteenth century. The mills, small compared to some in other area cities and towns, were small, and the empty brick buildings prone to decay, as well as fires. The village where my family lived is at the northern end of the town. I know the community fairly well, since I visited my family often, but I wanted a better sense of its history, the kind that comes from having grown up there. I listened to people’s stories, looked over historical maps, but the absolute best resource was something I came across by accident.

In 1923, the local Reunion Association authorized the publication of a history of the town, which appeared either in 1924 or soon thereafter, in a sturdy cloth-bound book. The history is interesting, but more interesting from my perspective are the notes. Someone took pen in hand and added names and comments on several of the homes and what happened to them. She (and I think it was a woman) added a few historical notes as well. There was apparently a toll on the road through the hamlet, and she’s marked that page and added dates.

Several buildings marked and annotated are no longer there, but the notes give me a good idea of what kind of tiny hamlet it was—more than homes and a church. The shoemaker’s shop is gone, but I know where it was, and the post office and store are also gone. A chapel was replaced by a library, and a small school disappeared. Not included in the book is the last business in town, a second-hand bookstore that closed down probably in the 1990s. The house is noted in the book, and I visited the bookstore, but now it is only a home.

The former bookstore was also the toll house. According to the writer, “The position of toll-taker was not free from danger, as some persons denied the right of the corporation to tax persons for the use of the highways and at times insisted on passing the barrier without payment of the customary toll. This led to bodily encounters which sometimes ended with the shedding of blood.”

The history is not without its odd characters. “Uncle” Calvin Mayo “insisted that Tully mountain was at one time located where the Lily pond now is, but that some great force of nature took it from there, turned it over and gave it its present location.” The note in the margin says “Can you beat this?” Another story concerns an old cannon that was hauled up a mountain to help the miners, and brought a quick end to their work and part of the mountain.

This little book is giving me more than I had expected. First is the history, some of which is obscure; second is the tone of the writer, Mrs. Ward, who graduated from the Salem Normal School and taught in Lynn, MA. And third is the writer or writers who added details on when a house was auctioned, and who lived in it more recently. One writer made several more personal notes, such as “We lived on this road.”

I’m not sure how much of this history will make it into the next Felicity O’Brien book, but it’s already giving me ideas for a few more stories. It also has me thinking about writing an historical mystery—with lots of humor.

On Husbands, Fellow Writers, and Cats

~ dzchurch ~ 3 Comments

As we drove across the San Joaquin Valley watching for high water, my husband asked me about a plot I was developing. He is a great listener, asks the kinds of questions that lead to better plots, and as someone who rammed through most of his nine lives, has a fine background in adventure. So, he was all on board with my plot involving three boys disappearing from school in hopes of floating down a tributary or two to the Mississippi River. Mind you he used up one of his lives on a homemade raft in a river at flood stage when a mite older than the boys in question.

Spoon River

He asked why the boys hadn’t chosen the closest tributary to their hometown. I explained it was across open ground and farmland. A far more romantic river was nearer, treelined, and wound around for miles before merging with the Illinois River, then the Mississippi. Besides, who wouldn’t want to float down Spoon River?

Then he asked what happened to the boys. When I told him. He gave me that look. You know the one, somewhere between are you mad and don’t do that, just don’t.

Holy smokes. I immediately began to retool the plot. I’d like to say this was the first time I’ve received the look, but it isn’t.

As for the rafting part, he is an expert on being swept off a self-made raft, driven under trees, and pounded on the bottom of a river dashing to the ocean.  And if I ever need to know what it is like to leap off a cliff onto a beach, I know where to go.

Writers/readers who read a few drafts…

… and gently steer. Having read my latest book, two readers made the same comment. I responded to each that the paragraph in question foreshadowed the book’s conclusion.

Then, I read it again.

Here it is: “I believe I did. But, Cora, if you know who struck down that poor girl, you must tell me true. You must bear witness to it!”

When what was meant was: “I believe I did. But, Cora, I, too, have heard the Railtown men grousing that Eliza had another suitor. If you suspect a second suitor and know his name, if he exists, you must tell me.”

Notice any difference?

And later, another character says: “Constable McKie is but one who believes you know the killer’s name. And there is one man who will do anything to stop you from revealing it. Now, do you understand?”

Versus: “Constable McKie is but one who believes you think Michael Thomas innocent but are less sure of Eliza’s other suitor. Even if innocent, that man might wish to stop you from discovering his name hoping for a future in this town. And if he is Eliza’s killer? Now, do you understand?”

Thank heavens for readers, right?

Cats

I have a Russian Blue named Blue because it is a lot better than Do-do which was his given name. He is not the sort of cat who sleeps on computers or printers, but he is compulsive about his schedule like the Germans operating the Louisa in The African Queen.

At 9:15 he picks out his canned food. This entails walking up the hall, tail up, to the cupboard, waiting for me to open it, then sticking his head in for a look.

At 2:15 he demands I pick him up, hug and lug him to the sliding door so that he has a better angle from which to watch the birds on the deck. Mostly, he wants hugs.

At 4:15 he demands, in a loud Russian Blue voice, that his soup be stirred. I go to the kitchen and stir his wet food so that it is refreshed, or if he is having one of those gravy sorts of things, add water to make more gravy.

When he seeks my attention, he sits next to me, staring up until I respond. And in so doing provides me a bit of time to refresh my thinking, ponder my next sentence, and edit my next word.

I simply cannot imagine writing without all three. And, so you know, the book above, Unbecoming a Lady, will land in ebook and paperback formats around the Ides of March.

Looking Back

~ marilynm ~ 3 Comments

As an author, one of the biggest rewards for me is all the wonderful people I’ve met over the year. Famous authors, not so famous authors, and so many wonderful readers who’ve become my friends.

On the famous author list is Mary Higgins Clark who I met at my first mystery weekend, a small conference at a rustic venue in the hills. She seemed a bit out of place dressed stylishly in a suit and high heels. Didn’t matter, she was charming and friendly and willing to share so much with the handful of hopeful writers. I didn’t see her again until years later at an Edgar award cocktail party. She greeted me with a big hug and treated me like an old friend as she introduced me to her—at the time—new husband.

Another famous author, Ian Rankin, invited my husband and me to sit with him and his two agents, and various others of his entourage when we couldn’t find seats at a Bouchercon luncheon. He included us in his conversations.  Charming man.

I was a panelist with Lee Childs at another big mystery convention (why I was put on it I’ll never know) and it was nearly impossible to understand the questions asked by the moderator. It was obvious, the panelist were having troubles. When it was my turn, I just said whatever came into my head. After it was over, I was in an elevator with Childs and he asked me how I knew what he was asking. I told him what I’d done. He laughed, and said he wished he’d thought of that.

Me and William Kent Krueger

Wonderful writer, William Kent Krueger, became friends with my husband and me at Mayhem in the Midlands in Omaha. Hubby and he competed several times to be the best actor (over acting) in the annual mystery play sponsored by the Omaha Library.

Before Craig Johnson became as popular as he is now, I was on a panel with him and the room overflowed. Some of the other panelists had no idea who he was and thought people had attended because our topic was writing about Native Americans. Johnson was oh so charming and made sure everyone on the panel had their time to shine.

Twist Phelan and I connected at a mystery conferences in Idaho. We had a great time, and I remember we laughed a lot. At other conventions where she was on several panels, she always made sure to point out my husband and I were in the audience.

There are so many other not quite as famous mystery writers I’ve become friends with over the years, some were roommates at conferences and conventions. I met several publishers who became friends. Some I’m still in contact with—though Covid put a halt to a lot of opportunities to reconnect with these folks.

Best of all are the readers I’ve made friends with over the year including the wonderful Alaskan who invited me to stay with her when I had several days after a Bouchercon and was supposed to visit schools but somehow was left out of the planning. And another woman from Alaska found a school for me to talk to, drove me around, and showed me the sights.  What started out as a disaster became a wonderful adventure. Husband and I connected with so many other mystery lovers and hung out with them at other conventions, and are still in touch with a few.

I have lots of wonderful memories of time spent with mystery writers and readers.

Marilyn

Guest Blogger ~ A.M. Reade

~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

I recently took an online quiz designed to determine whether I am a right-brained or left-brained person. There were probably a thousand other things that might have been a better use of my time, but I was intrigued (Clickbait, you’ve come to the right place). In a nutshell, right-brained people tend to be the more creative types, whereas left-brained people tend to be more analytical.

You may have seen this quiz, or recall one very much like it from 2015. People are shown a photo of a sneaker and asked what they see: is it gray and teal, or is it pink and white? Back in 2015, it was the dress. Did you see a blue and black dress or a white and gold one? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it. You’ll see what I mean.

In a brilliant illustration of what it’s like to be me, the sneaker and dress quizzes indicate that I fall into both right-brained and left-brained camps—or neither, depending on how you look at it.

In all seriousness, though, everyone has both right- and left-brain capabilities, though one side or the other happens to be dominant in most people. I honestly don’t know which is my dominant side.

I used to consider myself a left-brained person: verbal, analytical, and (somewhat) organized. That makes sense—I practiced law before turning to writing fiction, and the law is very logic-based. I know, I can hear you laughing from here, but it really is true, at least in a courtroom setting. Writing a novel requires a certain amount of logic, too. A writer’s job is to come up with a plot and a story arc that make sense to the reader.

The longer I’m away from the law, though, the more I find myself doing things like handicrafts and gardening and artwork and experimental cooking (I like to tweak or make up recipes just to see what will happen) in my spare time. These are typically considered right-brained activities.

This got me thinking: where does that leave the zealous lover of mystery fiction?

And here’s what I’ve decided: writers and readers of mysteries get to experience the best of both worlds (both sides of the brain) simultaneously.

The act of writing satisfies and exercises both analytical and creative muscles, as does the act of reading. Is there anything better than finding yourself immersed in a story, following along as if you’re part of the action? Whether you’re writing that story or reading it, you’re using both sides of your brain. You’re walking the logical path of the plot from beginning to end, puzzling out the clues, and you’re using your imagination to experience the sights, sounds, scents, and tactile sensations of the setting.

If you’re a writer, you’ve done your job if a reader comes away with a feeling of satisfaction. If you’re a writer of historical mysteries, as I am, you’ve done your job if the reader also learns a little something in addition to enjoying the mystery.

If you’re a reader, you’ve done your job if you’ve simply paid attention to the story. You’ve very likely used your imagination without even realizing it. This is left- and right-brain exercise at its best.

It turned out to be a good thing for me to take that sneaker quiz because it led me down the rabbit hole of research into how people use different parts of their brains. It got me thinking of the ways in which I use my own brain.

If you’re reading this post, you probably love mysteries. You use your whole brain when you read. So where do you see yourself on the left-brain/right-brain spectrum? What do you do in addition to reading? Are you a stock analyst? Are you a painter? Does (or did) your day job exercise a different part of the brain than the part you use when you read? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks to the Ladies of Mystery for hosting me here today. It’s been a fun post to write and I hope it got you thinking.

CAPE MENACE

The year is 1714. Two years have passed since Ruth Hanover vanished into the wilderness of the New Jersey colony without a trace, leaving behind her husband, William, and their daughter, Sarah.

Though William and Sarah have never stopped hoping Ruth will return, as time goes by it becomes less and less likely they will ever see her again.

Now William is acting strangely. He won’t tell Sarah why he’s conducting business with a mysterious stranger in the middle of the night, he won’t explain the sudden increase in his income, and he won’t share with her what people in town are saying about her mother’s disappearance.

When the time comes for Sarah to face her father’s secrets and figure out why her mother never came home that December day in 1712, what she learns will shock her tiny community on the New Jersey cape and leave her fighting for her life.

KINDLE: https://www.amazon.com/Cape-Menace-Historical-Mystery-Collection-ebook/dp/B087PJWX7Y

APPLE IBOOK: https://books.apple.com/us/book/cape-menace-a-cape-may-historical-mystery/id1511409624

KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/cape-menace-a-cape-may-historical-mystery

BARNES & NOBLE NOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cape-menace-amy-m-reade/1136964165

GOOGLE PLAY: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Amy_M_Reade_Cape_Menace?id=P3zkDwAAQBAJ

PAPERBACK: https://www.amazon.com/Cape-Menace-Historical-Mystery-Collection/dp/1732690782

Amy M. Reade is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of cozy, historical, and Gothic mysteries.

A former practicing attorney, Amy discovered a passion for fiction writing and has never looked back. She has so far penned three standalone Gothic mysteries, the Malice series of Gothic novels, the Juniper Junction Holiday Cozy Mystery series, the Libraries of the World Mystery Series, and the Cape May Historical Mystery Collection. In addition to writing, she loves to read, cook and travel. Amy lives in New Jersey and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

You can find out more on her website at www.amymreade.com.

BLOG: https://amreade.wordpress.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/amreadeauthor

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Amy-M.-Reade/author/B00LX6ASF2

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8189243.Amy_M_Reade

BOOKBUB: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/amy-m-reade

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/readeandwrite

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/amymreade PINTEREST: https://www.pinterest.com/amreade/