There are some strange pitfalls for those of us who write by the seat of our pants. And pantsers come in all sorts of varieties. There are those who start out knowing the beginning and end. Those who have specific emotions and adventures they want to tell. Those who do a brief outline, including chapters and chapter headings as hints. So, as you can see, a wide, wide variety of pants are involved.

I fall into the I know the mystery in the book, where I want my characters in the end, what I want to put them through, and, a real plus, I know what they were up to and how they were relating with each other at the end of the preceding book. Since I do not write detective stories, no one walks into my characters’ offices to hire one or the other or calls over the phone (especially since the telephone has just been invented).

Do you know how much I love The Rockford Files? Of course, that may be an enduring affair with James Garner, whom I first saw at the drive-in leaning on a Quonset hut in a movie that I was too young to see. The drive-in showed the kid-friendly movies first, then the adult movies. I never could sleep through the second feature, unlike my older sister, who could zonk out pretty much anywhere. All of which is off topic, but maybe not. When writing the first draft, which is really the world’s longest synopsis/outline, I distract easily. Especially when a new character pops into the tale, or when I find the perfect historical nemesis to worry my hero(ine), like James Garner in that movie, though I think Marlon Brando was the star.

Imagine then, the distractions when you are writing a historical mystery/adventure taking place on a Mississippi riverboat in 1877. So many possibilities for action, adventure, scoundrels and growing passion. Oh, my!

I have the perfect beginning, three riverboat tickets to find a missing person, and two men wooing the same woman (one believing he is in the lead), that being the ending to the preceding book. And what I hope is the perfect ending. Though, to be honest, I am still struggling because the ending as envisioned will cause upheaval in my little town of Wanee, not to mention complicating the rest of the series. Though I admit to being eager to give this particular complication a keen run for years.

I thought I had the tale in hand until I discovered a wonderful, magical, evil, talented man who became the first gang boss in Chicago. One with ties to New Orleans. The whole book went south, which was good since the boat was on its way to New Orleans.  By south, I mean, it was suddenly invigorated in unanticipated ways, which required rewiring some of the plot, then, while seeking adversaries to the boss, another historical discovery added yet more possibilities and whimsy.

Which means the passengers have been meandering toward the ending I wrote months ago. So long ago that the text disappeared from the end of my working draft, where I drape things like that. You know those bits and pieces that fit somewhere. Or, in this case, the destination for the entire book, like Memphis for my Waneean passengers, if they make it that far. I found it in an archived draft from last month, when it suddenly occurred to me that if I didn’t hang the ending off the paragraph I was writing, the book would never end. 

Now, part of the problem is that I enjoy my Waneeans, their characters, and their conniptions, and part of it is that the ending is a conundrum, because of what it means for the series in the future. As for the length, the Cora Countryman books average 84,500 words. The new one? Well, it sits at 90,000, meaning I have some trimming to do. Which, as any pantser knows, is what the second, third, fourth, fifth — draft is all about.

So, Sayonara for now (hint, hint).

Find out more about me at: https://dzchurch.com.

I haven’t posted five things in a while. These five issues (plus the bonus) pertain to the promises I made to myself when I conceived the idea for the Wanee Mysteries. And how that all worked out.

1. Main Character. When I think of the detectives (amateur and otherwise) that I love, they all have one thing in common. The detectives are not observers, but are affected and changed by what they see. They grow, they learn, they change. The secret, I think, is to create characters that are true to their own code, their education, and their upbringing, then allow them to grow with each outing, even if that means abandoning their basic precepts while bringing the reader along, knowingly or un. For instance, in “One Horse Too Many”, Doc Shaw, raised by abolitionists, discovers he is prejudiced.
2. Aging. One of my pet peeves as a reader is a series where no one ages. Come on! Am I to believe all that death and mystery happened in one place in one year? When I planned the Wanee Mysteries, I intended that the main protagonist, Cora Countryman, would begin as a girl unwilling to lose her short skirt and braid and grow into a fearless woman. I set my sights on each book occurring a minimum of three months after the book before, since one of my other goals was to have my stories unfold in a booming 1870s prairie town. To demonstrate its growth and incorporate the changes, both human and industrial, time could not be static, nor could people’s ages. So far, I’ve stuck to this goal, for why it is so important, read on.
3. Daily life. One of my goals was to have those who populate Wanee, Illinois, provide a backdrop, depth and fun to the mysteries. That means the characters, subcharacters, and even the Methodist owl have lives that include romance, marriage, babies, death, and everything in between. As a consequence, Wanee is rich in Cora’s lifelong friends, one pregnant, one attempting to forge a new life, a young doctor challenged daily, a man attempting to redefine himself, and old friends living their lives. Two of the above are suitors, only one of whom can win. Or maybe, none. I pray their lives help define the period, the mores, small town life, and Cora. A reviewer notes: “I love Cora and all the surrounding characters. The voice is so solid, and the details are so vivid that I am transported back to the small, Midwest town circa 1876 every time.”
4. The canvas. I set out to build a town grappling with growth and change as the backdrop for my stories. When the mysteries start, Wanee is a pretty sleepy place, or so everyone thinks. Yet the 1870s were anything but. The railroad opened up the country, and towns built water systems, bringing indoor bathrooms and electricity to the bigger cities. Small telephone companies sprang up, coal-fired boiler furnaces appeared, and people roamed, including hobos who stopped long enough to make money before moving on. Politics were raw as people continued to deal with the fallout of the Civil War. One reviewer notes: “Church populates the town with an array of fascinating characters and shows the upheaval of a changing society, as well as the lingering trauma of the Civil War.” So, I guess I can give myself a star for number 4.
5. Point of View. I envisioned that Cora Countryman would always tell the tale from her point of view. Frankly, I struggle with maintaining this. The reason is that I created three other characters who could easily carry any story and are often at the heart of big doings, leaving Cora to discover details from them. The decision to begin “A Confluence of Enemies” from Sebastian Kanady’s point of view broke my rule right out of the gate. But it was needed to make the book work. So, I guess the rule is, it’s Cora’s way unless it isn’t. I think in the future there may be more isn’t. But, then, again, it won’t be her story. Darn!
6. Bonus: To dangle or not to dangle. Let this bit of wisdom be a warning to us all. A reviewer writes: “This could have been the beginning of a great new series (in my humble opinion) if not for that bomb on the last page. Does it all go down the drain for a few more cents in future sales?” The truly unfortunate part of this is, if the reader had scanned the first pages of the next book, he would have discovered that his presumption was wrong. I guess it is my fault for ending with a joke between friends that was never intended as a dangle. I could always eliminate the offending bits, maybe I should? Accepting all thoughts on this, so feel free to comment.

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We have a gorgeous flow of Mule Ears (Wyethia) and Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) that swirls down the hillside behind our cabin, forming a river of color. While Mule Ears happily look like their sunflower cousins, Queen Anne’s Lace bears a striking resemblance to plants far less friendly. It brought to mind a 700-word mystery I wrote, featuring Cora Countryman (The Wanee Mysteries) and her brother Jess, on another summer day, 149 years ago on the Illinois prairie. I hope you enjoy it!

Queen Anne’s Lace

Cora Countryman sat on a rock in a fast-running stream that bisected her brother Jess’s farm, watching a stand of delicately flowering Queen Anne’s Lace bobbing white in the breeze. Cows grazed nearby, a fat catfish swam in the shadows of the hazelnut bushes, and bugs glistened on a summer breeze that wafted the perfume of carrot, parsnips, and timothy grass warmed by the sun.

Across the stream, a white fence boxed in three graves. One was fresh; two were not. Cora waded across the knee-deep water, the hem of her plain calico smock held high, her feet bare, and leaned on a fence post. The new grave was marked by a plank, two question marks and a date scratched into the wood.

Jess had found a man and a woman right here, their bodies near tied in knots, their heads in the flowing stream, the girl clutching flowers in one hand. He buried them, no postmortem by the town’s doctor, no undertaker, nothing but a few words muttered over their open grave.

Not that Cora was a romantic, far from it. As soon as she was able, she intended to leave her hometown, her brother, her mother (wherever she was), and her suitors to see the world. She spun in her bare feet at the possibilities – London in the fog, Boston in the rain, Egypt in the sun, dark men with dark ways. She would be fearless but carry a derringer for insurance.

She spun again and tripped. Checking her feet, she discovered a fire ring, its rocks jumbled. The fire had been doused by water, leaving a sheen on the charcoal. In the same rush that knocked rocks aside, a tin cup had tumbled under a neighboring bush.

“Cora,” Jess called from upstream, wiping his hands clean on a thick stand of grass. “Louisa has supper on the table.”

Cora held up the tin cup. Jess joined her, fingering the cup as she had, then shrugged.

“How old were they?” Cora asked, eyeing the fire ring for more clues.

“Young. He was in trousers over a red union suit, which served as his shirt. He’d pushed up his sleeves in the heat. The girl was young, maybe sixteen, in a plain blue calico dress, short like yours. They looked to be out on a picnic by the hamper I found.”

“When you found them side-by-side, their heads underwater, weren’t you curious?”

Jess handed her the cup, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Just wanted to get them in the ground. The boy had welts on his arms, and they had thrashed about before they died. I didn’t want what they had. No mystery there.”

“They might have been murdered or committed a lover’s suicide to be together forever. What about their families?”

“They were diseased, Cora. The best thing to do was get them buried.” Jess began picking Queen Anne’s Lace, gathering the tall stems in his left hand, the delicate white heads of the flowers forming a lacy umbrella. “There was a name in the basket. When I gave it to the Constable, he said he’d track down their folks.

“What flowers was she holding?” Cora asked, toeing the ground around the fire ring. When a tuber emerged from the coals, she lifted it from the ground with her toes. One end was cut. She let it fall, wiggling her toes in the charcoal.

“These.” As he shook the lacy flower heads, several ladybugs took flight.

“Not those?” Cora pointed to a stand of white lacy-headed flowers downstream.

Jess grinned. “Do you find mystery everywhere?”

“You missed it, but I’m right, right?”

“The girl dug a tuber to make tea for their picnic.”

“Believing it was parsnip by the smell,” Jess said, holding the cup to Cora’s nose.

“Purple spots will kill you lots.”

“As our thieving mother used to say,” Jess said, turning for the farmhouse and supper.

Find me at: https://dzchurch.com, where you can sign up for my newsletter and discover more about my books. To follow Cora Countryman, find the series at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPW5H3LM

It’s no secret that actors and writers have one big, big thing in common. Well, at least in my book. When faced with a tough scene, actors draw on their own memories and emotions to emote and draw us all in so that we believe in their every breath. There are so many great examples of this, but one that has stuck with me since I first saw To Kill a Mockingbird is the scene where Atticus (Gregory Peck) and Scout (Mary Badham) discuss her mother’s pearls. The emotion was so genuine, the theater so dark, and the patrons next to me so enraptured that I was present in that moment.

Like actors, writers seek the motivation and moment in our past to make what we write as real as the scene in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was to me. We aren’t always successful, nor are actors, but it is in the trying.

One might ask, what could a successful businessperson know about poverty, worry about the next meal, or a place to sleep, well? While waiting to hear if yet another job interview with another ad agency would end in employment, I opened the linen closet in my roommate’s apartment (actually, I bunked on her couch). I spent several sleepless months there, the folks across the hall were the noisiest lovers in the entire frigging world. To this day, I suspect kink, when they stopped, about three, I slept.

On the day in question, I went to the cardboard box where I kept my money and was reminded that I had $79.00 left to my name. I owed my more-than-gracious roommate rent, gas for her car (the one she let me drive to my interview), and money for the phone bill. If I got the job, I had barely enough money left to ride rapid transit until I received my first paycheck. I sat with a plunk on my roommate’s couch and stared at the wall. The ad agency called the next day. I never looked back, but to this day, every time one of my bank accounts ends in $79, I freak out so badly that I sometimes transfer money from account to account just to change the final digits.

And where do I go when I need to describe action? The same place every writer does, the part of our brain where we stow our wild and risky adventures.

When I was eight, my family took a road trip in our massive aqua and white Nash Rambler. The one with the Nash seat, the front seats dropped all the way down, making the inside of the car into a king-size bed. It was a wonderful beast. To this day, I think of it and grin until it hurts. One night, we arrived at the campground on the Suwanee River very late and, rather than pitching the tent, dropped the seats, and the four of us—Mom, Dad, and sister Lynn slept four abreast.

In the morning, the air was so dense with moisture that it formed a haze. A few minutes in it and your clothes felt moist. My sister, a notoriously robust sleeper, was still sleeping, and Mom was wrestling with the coffee pot, when Dad held up the Frisbee and motioned for me to follow him to an open field.

Dad sent soft passes my way, I’d grab them, that is, until a Great Horned Owl swooped out of the early morning mist, grabbed the hair on the top of my head, and tried to fly away with me. Dad threw the Frisbee at the owl and ran toward me, maybe to grab my feet as I was lifted into the air. The owl flapped its wide wings and flew away with a hank of hair in its talons. That memory of how scared, fascinated, and small I felt was available when I needed to describe the owl attacks in “Unbecoming a Lady,” the first book in the Wanee Mystery series.

Writers keep these moments in their back pockets. It is remembering, applying, and interpreting them that results in the descriptive words on the page, just like actors rely on their past to create character. And, like them, we never know what tidbit from the past will meet the need and allow us to leave our readers gasping, or sobbing, or in wonder, as Atticus and Scout do every single time I rewatch ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’

Find me at https://dzchurch.com, where you can discover all my books and sign up for my newsletter.

First, I write mysteries and thrillers, not romances. So, although romance plays a part in my thrillers, they are, in fact, not romantic thrillers. One features three suitors, all a bit shady. Another antagonist is a teen, now a man, sent to war for another teen’s death. And finally, the only man who can save the heroine just happens to have killed her parents. Indeed, a motley crew. As for the heroine of each. One discovers she isn’t who she thought she was. One seeks closure for her teen brother’s death. And one holds a patent that can change the world. Come on! Mix the guys with the gals, and you have a veritable hotbed for romance. How does it all turn out? The best answer I can give without issuing huge spoiler alerts is to read Perfidia, Booth Island, and Saving Calypso.

Favorite first meet lines from each:

Saving Calypso. “Last time I saw those shoulders, the owner stumbled drunk out of the car he used to kill my mother?” she snarled. “Turn and face me, Washburn. Just do it!”  

Booth Island. Sturdevant’s eyes roved over my shirt and down my shorts to my sandals. Meanwhile, I studied the jagged scar over his left eye that continued into his hairline. It was new since he was cuffed and taken into custody, as were the glasses he now wore.

What if there is more than one suitor? Here’s a first meet with one of the three scoundrels in Perfidia: Feron grabbed my hand. I was pretty sure I hadn’t accepted, but here I was, walking behind him as though his arm was a leash. The minute we gained the dance floor, he rolled me into his arms, one hand on the small of my back, the other holding my right hand. At the first step, I knew I was in trouble.  

The thing is, we all view romance through our own lenses. Oh, there are tropes we’ve come to know or are trained to expect, and even write. The meet cute. The sudden crisis or romantic misunderstanding. The happily ever after despite the odds ending. It’s what goes on between the tropes that matters, and further, isn’t it nice when the trope is just a wee bit off? I think no one truly likes the ongoing theme of a couple who never quite get together despite a heap of sexual tension. The one where something tears them apart, only to find them redefining their relationship endlessly across book after book after book. Move on, already!

I do love it when an ageless romance is sorted out over the course of the series, and the parties begin a life and partnership together. For instance, I’ve always admired how Elizabeth Peters handled Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson. Their admiration and love grow across tales seasoned by the spice of each partner’s oddities. It’s great stuff. And hard to accomplish and to maintain, especially in a series where each book provides a new challenge for the protagonist. A romance may not always fit in the telling. Partners can, in fact, get in the way. And readers’ expectations can be dashed. As in, I wanted him to win her heart, what happened, where is he?

Maintaining and growing relationships in historical novels or mysteries can be especially challenging. The norms were different way back when, when rules of comportment reigned. No wild parties but a few telling waltzes. A gesture. Standing close but not too close. The dance of language. It takes a deft touch to get it perfect, flirtatious enough but in keeping with the times. And, of course, retaining the mores as the relationship heats up. Come to think of it, maybe that’s the fun of it.

In the Wanee Mysteries, Cora Countryman has two suitors, Sebastian Kanady and Dr. Philip Shaw, despite her clearly and oft-stated intent to devote herself to a life of mystery, learning and adventure. Most in town refer to her suitors as her Mr. Kanady or her Doctor Shaw. In all instances, she responds, he is not my Mr. Kanady or he is not my Dr. Shaw. But … something is going on:

One Horse Too Many: Cora touched Kanady’s hat. His blue-blue eyes followed the movement of her hand as she ran her index finger lightly around the band.  

Oh, my!

And so it goes for Cora and Kanady. The most challenging bit of all is maintaining just the right tone. Cora and Kanady are light with each other. But their affection is always apparent and muted by Cora’s desire for a life without the weight of marriage or children. Despite being obstacles to her greatest wish, Kanady and her other suitor, Dr. Shaw, compete for her. Is there a way forward? I hope you’ll enjoy finding out. Ah — to romance amid thrills, mayhem, and murder.

Find out more about me at https://dzchurch.com and sign up for my newsletter.

See me at the NorCal Sisters in Crime Spring Showcase on May 18 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA. Here is a link if you’d like more information: https://www.bookpassage.com/event/norcal-sisters-crime-spring-showcase-event-2025-corte-madera-store