Month: November 2024

Guest Blogger ~ Susie Black

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

How I Develop My Characters and Plan My Mysteries

By nature, I am a people person, so, developing characters is where I begin when planning a story. Once the characters are created, the plot is built around them, not the reverse. So, how do I develop my characters? I have kept a daily journal chronicling all the interesting, difficult, and oddball people I have encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of during my apparel sales career.  The journal entries are the foundation of my mysteries. All my characters are based on people I have encountered in my career as a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. I take the characteristics, quirks, traits, and personalities of these real people as the foundation and then build upon them to create the cast members I want in the tale. Basing my characters on people I know has given my cast a ring of authenticity and that believability has translated into memorable characters readers root for or boo at, but either way, invest in.

To illustrate my character development technique, I’ll detail how I created Holly Schlivnik, the protagonist of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. Holly Schlivnik is based on me. She is the me I always wanted to be and more. She is fearless, loyal to a fault, and smart. 

Holly is infused with me in every respect- from her physical description to her personality to her life experiences, career, family, friends, the kind of car she drives, and where she lives.

Physical Description:

Holly is slim as I am and is my height- 4 feet 8 inches to be exact. I have made the consequences of her height lack of it, a key component of the messes she gets herself into and the adjustments she’s had to make in her everyday life to accommodate her height. These situations add to her personality and turn into some of the funniest schticks of the series. She has brown eyes and short brown hair like mine.

Personality:

Like me, she is funny, sarcastic, stubborn, wise-cracking, and irreverent.

Idiosyncrasies, and inherited traits:

I inherited a fear of death from my maternal grandmother that we both overcompensated with the nervous habit of laughing, often inappropriately. I incorporated this idiosyncrasy into Holly’s personality and made it one of the main characteristics that identify her. I also inherited my grandmother’s rapier wit and a love of perfume and jewelry. I blended these into Holly’s personality as well.

Family: My dad was a ladies’ apparel manufacturer’s representative and I started my career working for him and so is Holly’s dad. I got into the rag biz by accident and so did Holly.  Holly also started her apparel career working for her father. My parents were complete opposites who had a very successful marriage and so are Holly’s. Holly’s parents, bigger-than-life maternal grandmother, and siblings were all based on my family. 

Religion: Like me, Holly is Jewish and the traditions and history are woven throughout the series and add to the richness and authenticity of each story.

Love Life: While I lived in the South, I did have two men in my life one of who I have introduced into Holly’s life.  Unlike Holly, I have never had a personal relationship with a police detective.

Pets: Sigmund Freud, Holly’s wildly popular standard poodle/psychiatrist and amateur sleuth, is based on the personalities of my own two springer spaniels. While he can’t talk, like my two hounds, Siggie gets his point across. He shakes his head yes and no, rolls his eyes, barks if he disagrees with Holly, and has been known to pull her in the opposite direction if he doesn’t think Holly is going the right way.

Health and habits: To keep my girlish figure, I am a dedicated walker I walk three miles every day- and have made Holly’s daily walks with Sigmund to the Washington Street Pier an important part of her routine. “Pop,” the senior citizen fisherman she has befriended and shares morning coffee with on the pier has helped her solve several murders.

Hobbies: I have been an avid stamp collector since my pre-teen years. In book number six, which was recently released, it is revealed that Holly is a stamp collector. She encounters someone tangentially involved in a murder while at her stamp dealer’s store.

Car: I have owned convertible cars throughout my driving career. I incorporated my love of convertibles into my stories by having Holly drive a bubblegum pink classic convertible passed down to her by her mother. 

Home: I lived on a houseboat in Marina del Rey for ten years. I loved living on the water in a houseboat and amalgamated that into the series by having Holly live on a houseboat in Marina del Rey, California. I have used Holly’s houseboat and marina locale as an integral part of Holly’s personality as well as the site of her adventures and misadventures as an amateur sleuth. 

Age: Holly is on the shady side of her twenties when she is promoted from a sales rep to a management position. This is the same age when I made the leap from sales rep to executive management.

Friends and colleagues:  Like me, Holly is in a traditionally male-dominated industry and is one of the very few females in a management position. I surrounded her with a group of female professional colleagues and friends who supported her and mentored her like the ones I was fortunate enough to have had to do the same for me. The Yentas are based on that group of wonderful women.

Career:

Holly is the same successful ladies’ swimwear sales exec based in the Los Angeles apparel center as me. 

Employment: Ditzy Swimwear and Mermaid Swimwear are based on two swimwear companies I worked for.

I have created a fictionalized me that has been fun to bring to life. Fortunately, unlike Holly Schlivnik, I have never discovered a murdered person or hunted down a killer…at least, not yet!

Death by Jelly Beans

“Brings a whole new meaning to the rabbit died.”

Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Jelly-Beans-Swimsuit-Mystery/dp/B0D88FNBSS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-jelly-beans-susie-black/1145804565?ean=2940186124580

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212700868-death-by-jelly-beans?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=PWl56Hmfkz&rank=1

https://www.bookbub.com/books/death-by-jelly-beans-holly-swimsuit-mystery-book-5-by-susie-black

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at:

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Book Bub: www.bookbub.com/authors/susie-black

Facebook:    https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=susieblack&qid=MDCXK0T4FC

Instagram:   Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1_saved/

Twitter:    http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit

Falling In Love With Your Characters

~ janispattersonmysteries

by Janis Patterson

Don’t worry – this isn’t a post about romantic love, though show me a woman who writes romance (as I do sometimes) who doesn’t get all hot and bothered over writing the perfect hero. Just imagine… you can create the perfect man with muscles, a twinkle in his eye, a rugged but handsome face, sensitivity, strength… the perfect Build-A-Hunk kit.
That said, however, we all know there are many kinds of love, so for this post, at least, let’s forget the idea of hearts-and-flowers romantic love.


Do you believe writers should love their characters? I do. Now I will admit that any competent professional writer can create a believable character on technique alone, without anything empathetic or sympathetic or even liking between writer and character. I’m not talking about whether this character is a villain or a hero – we’ve all either written or read a story where the villain is the most likable character. I’m talking about a deeper connection – an instinctual, inner knowing how the character feels/reacts opposed to declaring through technique how the character will feel/react.


Personally, I am all for the empathetic (it’s more than that, but we need to give it a codeword for this essay) approach than the purely technique-driven format. You and the character – perhaps all the major characters, and yes, it’s possible to jump from head to head – almost meld into one. You know what he is going to say. You know what he is going to do. It is almost as if you were doing it yourself.


By contrast, the technique way is very one sided. You have created a character, maybe even using the old trick of the character interview – a questionnaire which you answer as your character. This is supposed to give you an insight into the character’s mind and being. There are the standard questions of name and age and eye color, but some are so detailed they go in to truly deep (and in my opinion useless unless there is a direct tie-in to the plot) question such as the maiden name of the character’s grandmother and his favorite flavor of Jell-O. My personal reaction is this creates a Frankenstein-like character – everything is there, everything works, but it isn’t really alive.


Most of my writer friends look at me askance when we talk about character development. Many of them use some version of the character interview model, whether or not they use a written sheet of questions or just keep the information in their head. Some brainstorm with other writers. I’ve never heard of anyone using my method, which really isn’t a ‘method’ at all.


I get a wisp of an idea – a situation, a relationship, sometimes a thing – and start to build from there. Then the characters come. They just walk in, tell me their names and a little something about them (but not everything, as they like to keep surprises for me for later in the book, mischievous little creatures that they are) and the story starts to grow.


And they are not always little darlings, either. One hero in particular had a name that I just hated, so in a moment of hubris I decided that I was the writer, I was in control, and I could change his name to something I liked. Except I couldn’t. He shut up and for at least a week refused to talk to me. The story died. Oh, I wrote every day, and then spent the next morning tearing up what I had written the day before.


Finally I caved and gave him back the name he liked – the name I hated – and from that moment on the book was one of the easiest I’ve ever written. I liked the book, but I didn’t like that character, which was a shame, as he was a great protagonist – strong, smart, courageous, with just enough flaws to make him totally human. My readers loved him and I’ve gotten requests to put him in another book.


Perhaps the reader won’t realize the difference between an empathetic and a created character, and with a skilled writer they shouldn’t be able to, so some people will ask if it makes a difference. To the writer it makes a lot of difference, the difference between being a collaborator and a puppet master. Each technique has its adherents, and a writer can use either or both according to his need. Thank goodness there are no hard and fast rules in how to write – other than the obvious dictate to produce the best book you can.


Now you know I can’t go without a commercial, and this is a good one – Christmas is coming, and I’ve got news of a great sale for you! I have blogged for years with a wonderful group of women mystery writers called Ladies of Mystery and this year to celebrate the season we’ve put together a bunch of 29 books about Christmas. Some are mysteries, some are romance, some are on special sale, some are not, but they’re all good stories by proven and popular writers. The sale begins 15 November, so you’ll have a good long time to read and enjoy a bunch of Christmas stories! Go take a look – here’s the link:

Ladies of Mystery Catalog

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Life has made changes in my writing style.

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

When I started writing to get published over 30 years ago, I would sit down and knock out words for an hour or two a day. That was when the kids were in school and I’d finished all my outside and household chores. Back then I hadn’t attended more than a college class on fiction writing and a community Ed class on writing for hire.

I had one children’s story published in a parenting magazine and I was working as a freelance reporter for first the Redmond Spokesman and the the Bend Bulletin. These didn’t pay much but they showed me I could write.

The first novel I wrote was a murder mystery. I’d read the first three Kinsey Millhone Mysteries by Sue Grafton and felt I could write a mystery novel. I loved the main character and enjoyed writing about a divorced mother of two who made her living with freelance photography helping her ex-husband prove he didn’t kill someone. I used a book I’d heard about on a television talk show that would help you be your own detective. Great premise! I did my homework looking through the tombs of agents in the books you couldn’t take out of the library and thought I’d found the right one.

Back then I didn’t know you didn’t pay them to read your books. I was already working on the second book in the series when I received the rejection letter that said mystery books in first person didn’t sell. I stood open-mouthed as I read it. But the very books that had set my muse on fire were in first person and they were selling well. I changed the book into third person and resent it, without any money, and never heard back from the agent.

In the meantime, I’d heard on a television talk show ( this was back in the day when I watched television as I cleaned, folded clothes, and did all the household chores) that homemakers were writing romance books and making money. I started writing a historical romance. I attended what I realized, after the fact, was a literary writer’s event. The two workshops I wanted to take were reasonable and I could stay with my parents. I went to the first class and enjoyed learning more about writing. The second workshop was with an editor from New York. We were to read a section of our work to her. The first person started reading and I thought, wow, where is the plot in this? Then the second one read and I was completely lost. Then the third had the moon as the protagonist. I was clearly feeling like I didn’t belong in this group. Then it was my turn and I started reading from my historical romance. Everyone leaned back and stared at me. The agent stopped me and asked if I’d heard of RWA. I hadn’t and then she told me to come see her after the workshop.

From the RWA organization I learned the craft of writing. I learned to make my characters flawed and likeable. I learned how to use villains and tragedy to draw the reader in. I learned about suspense and crafting a good hook. During that time, I wrote every week day. I became published in historical Western romance. After I became published I wrote seven days a week, for three to four hours. I decided to make this a career.

Ten years ago I decided to get back to writing mystery books. That’s when I started writing the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series.

I have written at least 2-4 hours every day since I became a published author.

Until this year.

This year I decided to indulge in life more. Which had me not writing for days, weeks, even a month when I went on my Europe trip.

I take that back, I did write every day because I kept a journal of my trip. But I didn’t work or even think about the next book, which is unusual for me. I usually have two books in my head, the one I’m working on and the next one. I had neither for a whole month.

When I returned, I set a goal for myself. To finish Gabriel Hawke, book number 13, titled Wolverine Instincts, this month. The plan on my whiteboard is for it to publish in January. Right now I’m thinking late January and possibly early February. However, I am writing my 3k a day on this book since November 1st and my goal is to have it ready to go to critique partners and beta readers by the first of December.

This is the second book this year that I’ve given myself a month to get written. I was able to get that book written in the month, but there weren’t two book-selling events and a holiday during that month.

My character Dela Alvaro in the Spotted Pony Casino mysteries is a disabled veteran. The audiobook for Down and Dirty will soon be available. But today, on Veterans Day, you can download a free copy of Poker Face, book 1 in the series using this link from Bookfunnel. https://dl.bookfunnel.com/xlsrf57q4l

Thank you to all Veterans!

And don’t forget that starting November 15th through December the Ladies of Mystery have our Cavalcade of Books available for you to get deals or gift books to people on your Christmas list. Each of us is offering three books, some at special prices just for you! Ckick HERE to see what’s what, once again starting November 15th!

T Is for Thanksgiving – and Tea

~ Margaret Lucke

By Margaret Lucke

’Tis the season for gratitude, and I hope that as you sit down later this month at your Thanksgiving table, you’ll have plenty of things to be grateful for. For me, one of the main entries on this year’s things-I’m-glad-to-have-in-my-life list is tea.

In fact that’s on my list every year, in fact every day. Each morning as I sit down at my desk to write, I give thanks to Shen Nung, who gave humanity one of its greatest gifts.

Shen Nung was an emperor of ancient China, revered for teaching his people the art of cultivating grain and for researching the medicinal value of herbs. He believed drinking water should be boiled to make it clean and healthy.

Legend says that one day in 2737 BC, while traveling through a remote region, he rested in the shade of a wild bush while his servants boiled a pot of water for him. A gust of breeze blew some leaves and twigs into the water, but the thirsty emperor drank it anyway. To his delight, the brew had a wonderful aroma and flavor.

The bush was Camellia sinensis, and the drink he discovered was tea. Shen Nung proclaimed it to be a beverage of many virtues. He claimed the person who consumed it would gain “vigor of body, contentment of mind, and determination of purpose.”

Who can argue with an emperor?

I would add one more benefit to the list—tea stimulates creativity. My creativity, anyway.

A mug of tea is my constant companion through the workday. In the morning I like to be fueled by one of the breakfast teas, like English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast, or by Newman’s Own Organic Black, which I favor because it tastes good and the company gives its profits to charity. I’ll take mine black, thank you—no milk, sugar, or lemon.

Later on I often invite the distinguished Earl Grey to join me at my desk. His namesake tea is the perfect pick-me-up in the late afternoon. For my birthday one year a friend gave me a fun present, an Earl Grey tasting: six packages of Earl Grey tea, each a different brand. I was surprised to discover how dissimilar they were—six very different flavors, even though they were all made to the same basic formula: black tea permeated with oil of bergamot.

Sometimes I vary my routine by indulging in something more exotic. Oolong, Darjeeling, Kilgiri, Keemun, Assam, Russian Caravan—the names alone are enough to spark the imagination.

I stop drinking tea around 6 p.m., in deference to my desire for a good night’s sleep. Tea does contain caffeine. Pound for pound it has more caffeine than coffee. However, tea gives you many more cups from a pound than coffee does, so cup for cup there’s less caffeine in tea. I’ve never noticed that drinking black tea in the evening really inhibits my sleep. But I prefer to err on the safe side, so my bedtime libation isn’t real tea but something herbal, like ginger or mint.

My kitchen cupboard holds several delicate porcelain teacups with matching saucers, and the cupboard is where they stay. You have to fill one of them three times to get enough tea to taste. I prefer a mug that has a generous capacity and a wide curve to the handle so it’s easy to hold.

I consider tea to be one of the most important tools of the writer’s trade, right up there with my writing software program and my solitaire game. A tool is something that helps you accomplish a task. Without tea, I’d never get any writing done. Uh-oh, my mug is empty. Excuse me while I go and refill it. Thanks again, Shen Nung!

~

Here’s something else to be thankful for this season—the Ladies of Mystery Cavalcade of Books! This catalog goes live from November 15 through December 31, 2024 and features books by all of the Ladies, some at special prices just for you! A great opportunity to get wonderful gifts for your favorite readers or yourself (you deserve some gifts too). You can find our Cavalcade of Books by clicking here.

When The Time Has Come and Gone by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 7 Comments

There was a song from 1960 called “Good Timin’” by Jimmy Jones. If you’re my age, you might remember it. Hit the link in either the title of the song or the album cover and sing along with Jimmy and me:

Oh, you need timin’
A-ticka, ticka, ticka, good timin’
A-tocka, tocka, tocka, tocka
Timin’ is the thing, It’s true
Good timin’ brought me to you
(Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo)

Ah! They don’t write them like that anymore. I think this rock and roll song speaketh the truth about one of Life’s important things. Timing is everything. Would I have poo-pooed the love of my life, a man I’ve been with for 44 years, at an earlier time because I wasn’t ready to meet him yet? Would he have poo-pooed me if he hadn’t met me at the right time? Oh stop, Heather. You’re being ridiculous. He would have adored you no matter when he met you. That’s what Mom said, and she was always right, even when she wasn’t.

Moving on, would I have stayed in the acting business and never written a word, if I’d gotten that last audition, the one I didn’t want in the first place, but at the time, it seemed an easier career path? Would I have had that nose job if I hadn’t decided to spend the money on a French Poodle that came my way instead? Fleur was a great dog, so right decision made that day.

When I started writing the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, I couldn’t find any other series about a successful, upper-crust Mexican American family of detectives. That was in 2005. People have often asked what inspired me to write the Alvarez Family Mysteries. The answer is I’m intrigued by the dynamics of familial relationships and America’s history of immigrants rising to heights often unattainable in their native countries.

That lofty statement made – and pahdon me while I play the grand piano – the truth is there’s something about a family who does their darnedest to be supportive and positive no matter what, that can be heartwarming and often hilarious. So, enter the Alvarez Family, owners of Discretionary Inquiries Inc., a Silicon Valley based detective agency.

The lineup includes Liana (Lee), protagonist and in-house detective; Lila, CEO, aristocrat, and never-had-a bad-hair-day mother; Richard, head of the IT department, a brilliant but goofy computer-nerd kid brother; Tío, uncle and retired executive chef who gives unconditional love while frying up the best tortillas in town; and, of course, Tugger, the foundling kitten. The family drifted apart after the unexpected death of Roberto Alvarez, much-loved patriarch two years previous. But never underestimate a cat. Tugger helps reunite the family in his passive yet feline way.

Regarding Lee Alvarez, I wanted the protagonist of the series to be an intelligent, quirky, and flawed woman, but not so much she can’t learn and grow. Mainly, Lee’s happy to be in the world. She loves life. She strives to be a B&BP (bigger and better person), even while she’s spilling coffee all over herself. I adore her and hope it shows. Also, and this is important to me, she’s of blended heritage, half Mexican immigrant (her father’s side) and half Palo Alto Blueblood (her mother’s side).

The Italian half of my family came to the States at the turn of the 20th century, when it was difficult to be an Italian in the new world. Traditionally, the newest ones in are always the ones most challenged. But most immigrants work hard to integrate, to become useful and respected members of our society. No pity, just hard work, with love and good times thrown in. Olé! The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries show a family managing to capture the American dream today while stumbling over dead bodies and solving crimes in one of the most technically savvy places in the nation, Silicon Valley. All with a few laughs.

The series has been under option at two large subscription-based streaming services for about eight years, first one then the other and back at the first one again. The option money has been lovely, the idea of the stories being turned into a television series has been lovely, but in my humble opinion, the time has come and gone for it to be offered to the television viewer.

I don’t think my assessment is based on the years gone by. After all, Fences, a 2016 film directed and co-produced by Denzel Washington, was based on August Wilson’s 1985 play. That’s thirty-one years! But that was a movie. Television tends to be more faddish, today.  Statistically, only one out of a thousand are going to make the transition from the written page to TV. I suspect I am one of the 999. Because timing is everything. A ticka, ticka.

But God bless the reader. The book reader, fortunately, is another kind of person, not so faddish and more loyal. I think this is due to the fact that reading a book is a highly personal thing. I hope if I continue to write a decent story with a laugh or two about a family that doesn’t always “get” one another but the love is always there, the readers will still be there.

But I do have a copy of the first option check on my bulletin board. It gives me a warm glow. Sort of like rum.

~

On another note, the holiday season is being celebrated starting November 15th by the Ladies of Mystery with our Ladies of Mystery Cavalcade of Books. Each of us is offering three books, some at special prices just for you! Please click on the image below to see what’s what, once again starting November 15th!