Author: kshughart47

The Importance of Research by Karen Shughart

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 I recently attended a conference in Pennsylvania called Murder As You Like It that was for writers and readers of mysteries. I was fortunate to have been asked to participate with a group of other authors on a panel where we discussed the importance of research in our books.

My books are cozies that take place in the present in the fictional village of Lighthouse Cove, NY, modeled after the village where I live. Each has a historical backstory that provides clues as to why the murder occurred, all of them based on an actual period of history in our community.  Although for the most part my characters are fictional, King George, III; Abraham Lincoln; Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony are among real characters I name as part of each back story, and real universities, museums, and tourist attractions as they fit into each plot.

My sleuths follow clues that lead them to Rochester, NY; Niagara-on-the-Lake, Gananoque, and Toronto, Canada; London, England and Charleston, SC. I’ve visited these places and creative license aside; my descriptions are fairly accurate. While I don’t use the names of real newspapers, concerned that my reporters wouldn’t reflect their editorial policies and methods, I have used the name of one of our regional magazines, with permission.

When I started writing the series, I decided that it was also important to make the investigative procedures as accurate as possible, so the books had believability. I was fortunate to have been accepted into a citizen’s police academy sponsored by our local sheriff’s office – once a week for nine weeks, six hours each time- where I learned about the criminal justice system in our county. We ate lunch in the jail, watched K 9 demonstrations, and heard speakers who were experts in their fields.

My favorite research tool is talking with professionals who know how investigative procedures work. I’ve been able to interview our DA, a professor of criminal justice, a retired police officer, a commander for regional police force; medical professionals.  In book two of the series, Murder in the Cemetery, the sleuth has a friend who is with the CIA whom he calls upon for advice. It took a bit of chutzpah, but I decided to contact the real CIA to see if I could interview someone there with questions, and low-and-behold, it worked. They reviewed my credentials, and I got a call from their public affairs officer shortly after. It never hurts to try.

Yachts in present time and rumrunning boats during prohibition figure into the book I’m writing now. A friend of mine, after retiring, got his captain’s license and now appraises boats for insurance companies. He’s been a treasure-trove of information.

 Realistic research adds authenticity to the stories, and I think it’s the interplay between fact and fiction that’s so much fun for me to write and I hope, makes the stories interesting to my readers.

What’s Your Method? By Karen Shughart

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I recently read an article about renowned American author, John Steinbeck, who gave six tips on writing that were included in a letter he wrote in 1962 to a friend. These caused me to reflect on how I write my cozy mysteries, and I was astonished to realize how much of his advice applied to me. Below are the tips with my italicized notes beside them:

  1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised. I don’t write every day, but when I do I try to write at least a chapter or two. I don’t have pages in mind; instead, I aim for 60,000-75,000 words, the length for cozies.
  2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material. This one hit home. I write the entire story and revise and expand afterword, my first draft is typically too short.
  3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theatre, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one. Instead of picking a person, I write towards a targeted audience, mainly women (and some men) who are middle-aged or older. Cozies are called “clean” novels because they do not contain graphic language or violence or explicit sex scenes, something that appeals to my readers.
  4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole, you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there. I do this a lot. See below.
  5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing. I have a slash and burn mentality when it comes to writing. I may fall in love with a scene, but I’m brutal about cutting it if it doesn’t fit.
  6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech. I do this with every character. Sometimes when I’m writing dialogue for a male, I check with my husband to see if it sounds authentic.

So, there you have it. I hope you authors reading this blog take time to reflect on your own writing methods. For those of you who are our readers, perhaps you’ve gained a little insight into the writing process, at least for John Steinbeck and to a lesser extent, me..

What is it about the Great Lakes? by Karen Shughart

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A book I read as a child, set in the 1950s on Lake Superior, resulted in a lifelong fascination with the Great Lakes.  I can’t remember the title, I wish I could, but I do remember snippets of it: family gatherings that included winter sports and summer outings; homemade ice cream made with snow and maple syrup; berry cobblers when the sun was warm and the days long and bright.

I grew up in a city about two hours from Lake Erie, and I have happy memories of family trips there: beaches, amusement parks, and many attractions you’d find at the ocean, but without the salt or sharks. We went to the Jersey shore on the Atlantic, too, and I loved it, but for some reason I always felt drawn to that lake. Many years later, I attended college in Buffalo, NY, and when the weather cooperated spent weekends at a beach cottage owned by family friends in nearby Fort Erie, Canada.

As fate would have it, about 20 years ago my husband and I decided one weekend to explore Lake Ontario, north of where we lived in Pennsylvania.  We discovered a tiny village through the internet; found a charming B&B with water views that was a short walk to the lake, the bay, a small but bustling business district, museums and restaurants, and a quick drive to Finger Lakes’ wineries. Two weeks later we bought our house.

We never expected to live here year ‘round, we planned to use the house as a getaway, but as time went by we were drawn to the region’s many charms.  We worked diligently to restore our house, it had been built by a lighthouse keeper more than a century ago and needed loving care. There’s mystique here: shipwrecks; sightings of massive lake creatures; British ships invading our village during the War of 1812; the transporting of runaway slaves to Canada; a rumor that a tunnel under our backyard hid some of those slaves before they fled. And the brisk business of rumrunning during Prohibition.

Each season has its own appeal. Summer months we revel in the resort vibe enjoying concerts, fireworks, outdoor movies, days spent beachcombing, shopping at farm stands, and lots of gatherings on our deck. During fierce winter storms we snuggle safely in our sturdy home, fireplace burning and soup on the stove, drinking wine with friends. Spring and fall are glorious, too, with acres of fruit trees in fragrant bloom or ripened apples hanging heavily at harvest, and a clean, sweet smell in the air.

In truth, our journey here was serendipitous, and we’ve never regretted it. Like the village on Lake Superior in the book I read so long ago, it’s an enchanting place filled with warm, kind people, and a peaceful quality of life.

From the time I was a child, immersed in Nancy Drew books, I wanted to write mysteries. One night several years ago, I dreamed the plot of my first Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery, Murder in the Museum. Since then I’ve written three, published by Cozy Cat Press, all set on our lake with backstories that depict the history of this place we now call home. Writing has been a passion for me since I was young, but I never expected that someday my dream, coupled with a fascination with the Great Lakes, would become reality.

So Many Blogs…. by Karen Shughart

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This is my 45th blog for Ladies of Mystery. I started writing at this site in September, 2019, and I’m proud to say I haven’t duplicated a topic, not once. That’s a lot of blogs, and when I realized how many I’d written, I was surprised and took some time to reflect on this. Is it really possible to blog every month and avoid duplication? Why yes, it is.

Think about it. There’s a huge world out there, with infinite possibilities for observation and discourse. You can write about the seasons, or the place in which you live. You can write about writing, the writing process, your latest releases, the struggles, and challenges, of creating a book or a chapter or the characters in your books. About marketing and promoting. You can write about family and friends and animals. Music. A special outing. It’s an endless list if you just look around and observe.

You can write about gardening, beaches, swimming or snowshoeing. Trips taken, meals eaten, beverages sampled, and cultural events you’ve attended. Wine tastings. Memorials to loved ones and pets who have passed. You can write about rain and snow and sun and wind. You can write about suffering, loss, and experiencing joy. During Covid, one of my blogs was about kindness and the many ways it manifested itself in our community; another about what it’s like to live across the street from a large lake in the middle of apple growing country.

Sometimes I whiz through whatever blog I’m writing for the month. My rough draft gets tweaked a little, and then voila, it’s ready to publish. Other times it takes a bit longer, sometimes more than a bit longer, as I search for the right word or tone or to put a semblance of order into my thoughts. It depends on the topic, and my mood, but eventually it gets done.

When I first started writing blogs here, I carefully constructed a list of the topics I wanted to write about for each month during that particular year, and I stuck to it. It helped me focus and because I was new at it, it also helped alleviate some anxiety when faced with a deadline. Then, occasionally, I would scratch the blog I planned to write for something that seemed more appropriate at that time. As I’ve become more comfortable, I typically pick my topic on a monthly basis, depending on my mood and life experiences at the time.

The books in my Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series typically run (give-or-take) about 70,000 words. I try to limit blogs to no more than 500, they’re easy to compose; really, no more than a page in a book. Plus, readers don’t want to spend a whole day reading a blog. And that’s why I’m stopping here. There’s more to write about, but I just checked and I’m coming up on those 500 words.

Karen Shughart is the author of the maritime-themed Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series that includes historical backstories with a twist, and recipes provided by the sleuth’s wife, Annie, the head of the local historical society. Book three, Murder at Freedom Hill, is an International Firebird Book Award winner in the mystery and fiction categories.

Is April the Cruelest Month? by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 2 Comments

In the poem, The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot writes, “April is the cruelest month….”

The month of April is a time of birth and renewal, and a time of hope. April may bring showers, but we have a reasonable expectation that it will also bring spring flowers. For Eliot, at least when he wrote the poem, nothing was crueler than hope because for him it often led to disappointment. It was safer to hold on tightly to cynicism and pessimism, because then he wouldn’t get hurt.

For most of us, though, April is not cruel at all.  If you live where I do, in the north, April is a time of anticipation, a time when we believe that, as Alexander Pope wrote in An Essay on Man, “hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Hopefulness, despite our challenges and disappointments, continues to renew itself.  Even the holidays observed by various cultures and religions this time of year celebrate the themes of birth, renewal, and hope.

We rejoice when tiny buds start to swell on the trees, when we wake up to birdsong, and daylight lasts longer. We delight in the first sight of bright yellow daffodils and brilliant-colored tulips  as they stretch towards the sun.  And the sun, weak and pale in the winter, shines brightly now, warming our bodies and souls and expanding our hearts to ever so many possibilities.

Photo by Jacek Mleczek on Pexels.com

We know that when the daffodils and tulips finally end their run for the year, we have a reasonable expectation that they’ll be back next year, and other flowers will follow. When we plant our gardens, at some point we will harvest what we sow. Soon, we’ll be seeing baby birds peeping out of nests; ducklings, cygnets and goslings swimming with determination behind their attentive parents; and tiny, newborn animals scurrying about. April, the spring, symbolizes youth, but even those of us who are in the autumn and winter of our lives can feel happy, young, and energized.

In northern climates the weather in April is fickle. It rains, sometimes it snows, and at times it seems as though winter won’t quite lose its icy grip; then there are those intermittent grey, cloudy days. Regardless of what Mother Nature throws our way, I am compelled to put away the heaviest of winter clothes, clean out the closets, and plan menus around seasonal foods with lighter ingredients.  I start to make a list of things I want to do to get ready for summer. I always know the rain will stop, the snow will melt, and the grey, cloudy days will be followed by brilliant sun. If April isn’t quite what I expected, there’s always next year.

Cruel? I think not. After April comes May with more abundance,  even warmer days, and the anticipation of summer.

Karen Shughart is the author of the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series, published by Cozy Cat Press