This is a question I ask myself every time I start a new novel. Giving reasons to a character for their behavior can be complicated. As the author, I need to justify why any of them do the things they do. But when they’re a louse, it needs to be double-justified. “Just because” doesn’t cut it. So bad guys can be tough.

And then there’s the fact that usually in each book the villain is new. It’s not a familiar character. Arriving at the who, what, and why often takes time and can be a problem. So I try to be methodical and logical. First I start with the dastardly thing I need them to do for the story. Kidnapping? Extortion? Theft? Murder? All of the above? When they are rotten to the core, I have them extend their evil intent to an animal. I DO NOT, however, allow any negative actions done to any animal in my books. It is intent only. I write Cozies. And this is one of the reasons why.

In Death Runs in the Family, Book 3 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, I have the villain catnap Baba and Tugger (the two cats belonging to Lee, the protagonist), with the threat of harming them if Lee doesn’t stop her investigation. This may have worked well for the book, but it did not work well for me.

I was interrupted by an urgent family matter and had to stop writing for three days directly after the villain put the cats in the back of a station wagon and started her journey to Las Vegas. I woke up in the middle of the night several days later distraught about these cats having no food or water for all that time. It didn’t matter they were fictional. It didn’t matter I was dog-tired. Excuse me, cat-tired. I leapt out of bed with a “No, no, no, no, no. I can’t stand it!” A shocked husband demanded to know what was wrong. I told him I had to rescue the cats NOW or I would never get back to sleep. Knowing me after decades of marriage, he merely nodded, rolled over, and started snoring again.

I sat down at the keyboard and for the next seven hours typed my heart out, only stopping now and then to stretch my legs and have more coffee. The storyline continued with Lee finding out where the station wagon was going by the microchips embedded in the cats (modern science can be a glorious thing). Lee then flew to Las Vegas to coincide with the arrival of the station wagon. Once there, she was joined by a fellow investigator. Together they rescued the cats from the back of the parked wagon while said villain was in a casino whooping it up. By now I hated this scumbag.

As it had only been a matter of hours in fictional time and not an actual three days, the cats were not starving or dying of thirst, but merely scared half to death. Thus, once Lee and the cats were reunited, there was a lot of hugging and purring. Then food and water for the felines and pizza for the protagonist. Peperoni. As Tugger and Baba were alright, Lee could concentrate on capturing this monster who not only catnapped her pets but, coincidentally, murdered somebody.

Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, by now this had become a very personal issue for Lee. Steal and threaten to hurt my cats, will ya? There is nothing like a hopping mad protagonist determined to bring a villain to justice to move a story along.

Back to me and that event. Late that morning, after I was satisfied that everyone in the story (except the villain) were happy, I went back to sleep. But I learned a valuable lesson. All my characters live in my head 24/7. I need to remember that. I need to be careful. I can only have my villains do so much before I start paying for it. They are part of my being. And for the record, this villain, a young woman in her mid-twenties, had all kinds of reasons for behaving the way she did. I wound up feeling sorry for her. But that didn’t stop me from putting her in prison for a very long time. After all, murder is murder.

The meaning of the word grit when used to described a person states “courage and resolve; strength of character.” At least, that’s what the Oxford Dictionary says. I like to think I have grit. But I don’t like the word so much. Grit. Naw. Not a great word.

Now grits. I can get behind grits. And often do. Back to the Oxford Dictionary: “A dish of coarsely ground corn kernels boiled in water or milk.” I like my grits in the morning with bacon and eggs. I like cheesy grits. I like buttery grits. Some people like their grits plain, just a little salt and pepper. I can do that, although I really prefer them with lots of butter or cheese. Whoops! I think I said that.

Moving on to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary on the word gritty. When applied to a person it means “Having strong qualities of tough uncompromising realism. A gritty novel.” Unfortunately, I don’t write gritty. I write cozy. I rarely read gritty, either. I like happy endings or at the very least, ones with justice. And I don’t like too much suffering, especially with an animal. If a novel gets too gritty for me (or a movie) I give it a toss. I try to protect myself.

I didn’t used to be like that, but I learned my lesson the hard way. After reading The Pawnbroker at sixteen years old, I didn’t sleep for three nights. I cried all the time. It’s the story of a WWII concentration camp survivor and it was beyond tough to read. In my teens, this book taught me that I don’t have the “4th wall” that most people do. I was traumatized by the book but in a way, it was a good thing. If I had any childish illusions about sadism, concentration camps, and human suffering, this book dispelled them. It also turned me into an adult overnight. I have never been the same after reading it. That is the power of a novel. That is the power of the written word.

Now in all fairness, The Pawnbroker was beyond gritty. But I find the older I get, the more precious life becomes. The more I respect goodness, kindness, and generosity of spirit. I’ve also been through enough gritty things in my own life that I don’t want to spend time reading about other’s grittiness. Plus, if I want to be scared out of my wits, despondent, or depressed I have but to turn on the six o’clock news or step on a scale.

So, I think I’ve covered the three words, grit, grits, and gritty. And give me grits every time.

Every time I start a new book, I wonder how my words and ideas will come together. Expressing myself sometimes can be tough. Can I do it? Because, let’s face it, it’s more than stringing a lot of pretty words together. Can I find the right ones to tantalize the reader into staying with me ‘til the end of the book? Or will the words and ideas become a mish-mash?

Remember Snoopy in the Peanuts comics? He used to sit on top of his doghouse and bang on a typewriter, writing the words, “It was a dark and stormy night…” Snoopy stole that line from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel, Paul Clifford. “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” Mr. Bulwer-Lytton himself stole it from the journal of the Doddington shipwreck that was published in 1757. Although Snoopy claims his great, great to the 15th power grandfather, Basil MacDoggal, was the originator of those words, written when he was aboard the Doddington as a mere pup. What it shows is you can’t keep a good sentence down.

What that sentence led to was a worldwide contest, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where writers would write marathon run-on sentences for the pure joy of doing so. And the tradition was carried on until the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest hung up its pen in 2025 after 42 years. Here is just a sampling of the yearly winners:

“On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.” — Rephah Berg, Oakland, CA

“The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, ancho chili glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelized onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed the body of the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but nearly empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent Inspector Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job.” — Bob Perry, Milton, MA

I’ve read a few books, particularly by novice writers with similar opening sentences, but I suspect they weren’t thinking of the contest when they wrote them. I may have mentioned this before, but one newbie went on about a building for an entire paragraph. This building had nothing to do with the plot and was never mentioned again. A paragraph is a long time to wax poetic about anything non-germane to the story, especially on page 1. However, as it had only been one sentence, he could have submitted it to the B-L contest and just might have won. I like to look on the bright side of bad writing.

Hmmmm. I wonder if I can write one of those danged sentences? How about: “It was a dark and stormy morning with drafts swirling around like clothes in the rinse cycle of a washing machine, white clothes, bleached within an inch of their lives because that’s what you do with white clothes, bleach them, even though it weakens the integrity of the fabric, especially cotton, and cotton-linen blends, and can turn them yellow, not blue the way bluing does.”

What do you think?

2025 is the 20th anniversary of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries. I created the family of detectives living in Palo Alto back in 2005, centered around protagonist Liana Alvarez, better known as Lee. The anniversary made me nostalgic, and I thought back on each story. Dumbfounded, I discovered that Lee was in one dangerous situation after another in every single book.

I had to face it. I like to have Lee in peril. Actually, I love it. And the more challenging the peril, the better. When I come up with a new catastrophe for her to endure in one of the books, I chortle in a way that would make Vincent Price feel right at home. When I think of another calamity, I shamelessly chortle louder.

I’ve stranded Lee at the top of a tree eye-to-eye with a territorial falcon. In another book, she crawls around inside a yucko garbage truck looking for a specific clue, ruining brand-new silk pajamas. In yet another, she’s chased by a woman armed with deadly poison darts, then held captive by said lunatic at her own wedding, a wedding at which nothing goes right. Lee’s been conked on the head, arrested for murder, trapped in an airless mine shaft, and even shot in the arm by a villain on a boat in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane.

What’s the matter with me? Why did I do twenty years of these things to a young(ish), charming woman, whose only fault was being in my books? As I look back on it, I’ve been merciless.

In my latest WIP, Cleopatra Slept Here, Lee reluctantly accompanies her entire family, pets included, on a private plane to Egypt for a working vacation. They are to join an archaeological dig, receiving no pay but having free room and board on a beautiful ship docked on the Nile in Luxor. The goal of the dig is to discover who Cleopatra’s real mother was. Apparently, they didn’t have birth certificates back then.

Once in Egypt, the Alvarez family is followed by unknown persons. Then Lee receives a warning note telling her to go back to where she belongs. But she soldiers on, looking forward to seeing ancient pyramids, temples, and museums, the sights that make Egypt one of the most magical countries in the world.

But I got in there, and in my own nasty way, made sure Lee doesn’t see any of the sights. Instead, she’s in and out of police stations, grappling with felons, crawling around in the ship’s hold seeking a missing youth, and leading a camel chase through the desert.

Wait! Maybe I can be absolved. She does manage to see the Nile River while on the elegant Blue Nile, the ship housing the dig’s personnel. On further thought, no absolution here. Lee sees the Nile a little too “up close and personal” when she has to jump in to save Tugger, her cat, thrown overboard by an unknown bad guy. Right after that, there’s an encounter with a deadly Egyptian Cobra hiding in the wardrobe closet of her cabin. And then there’s the – never mind. Sufficeth it to say, I’ve been coming up with messes for her to get into continually. Why, on why? Well, there’s only one explanation:

The devil made me do it.

As of late, I have been MIA from the writing scene. Actually, I’ve been missing from most of life. I’ve been through something that came out of the blue and lasted for 3 months. But I have no intention of writing about it. It involves pneumonia, a blood infection, and a nasty bacterium that landed on the aortic valve of my heart, damaging the valve. All of that led to open-heart surgery. Hmmm. Well, I guess I’ve just written about it.

But that’s about all you’ll read from me. No day-to-day happenings, no long-winded tales about the experience, other than one word: scary, intense, and mind-blowing.. But I have to acknowledge how miraculous it is that open-heart surgery exists, and it can save your life. Hmmm. Well, I guess I’ve just blown the one-word thing, too.

You see, I don’t do non-fiction. Not even my own. I’m not comfortable with it. Fiction is my game, and writing about real life, other than pulling out what I need for my made-up mysteries, is not for me. True crime novels and movies scare me. I really don’t want to think about real things that happen. Nope, give me fiction every time. And if you can make it light-hearted or funny, so much the better.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I follow the news every day, online, in newspapers, “ABC World News with David Muir,” and CNN. Then I gnash my teeth, pull out my hair, and wonder what the world is coming to. When I’ve had enough of that and my blood pressure is at an all-time high, I switch the station to “The Big Bang Theory,” “Mike & Molly,” or “Matlock,” depending on my mood. Here, I know justice will be served and, if I’m lucky, I will have a few laughs.

Every word of my work-in-progress, Cleopatra Slept Here, book 11 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, is made up. At the moment, it lies fallow, being a scriptus interruptus. But I plan to get back to this pack of lies as soon as possible. My bogus characters and storyline patiently await me. They will do nothing without me because, thankfully, they aren’t real. They exist only in my head. And that’s the truth.