Category: mystery

The Little Things

~ janegorman ~ 3 Comments

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A good book draws the reader in, makes her forget her own worries, the to-do list waiting on the fridge, the snow outside that needs shoveling (at this time of year, anyway!). How do the best authors achieve this? There are many ways, but certainly one is getting the little details right.

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If a reader has previously visited the town in which a book takes place — let’s say, Philadelphia — having the hero run up Broad Street and take a right onto Fourth would pull him right out of the story (for those not familiar with Philly, those streets don’t intersect). If a reader knows a little bit about history, having the murder happen in a historical location that gets its history wrong would be a buzz kill.

There are many resources available to mystery writers today, and I love to take advantage of as many as I can. As a member of the Sisters in Crime, as well as two local chapters (one in my area, the other online), I have access to online courses, in-person lectures, lists of helpful books, and of course experts themselves available to answer questions. I’ve listened to coroners, successful authors, and community workers share their stories. I’ve taken classes on crime scene investigation and firearms.

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Did you know there’s an email list just on forensics and crime scene investigations? It’s such fun! I can be checking my email — laughing at a joke from a friend, deleting unwanted ads for home loans and bodily enhancements — when I come across a detailed analysis of the decomposition rate of a dead body in a cold lake. Cool!

Sometimes my membership in these groups keeps me a little too busy, taking me away from my writing, particularly the group for which I serve as a board member. But it’s all worth it. It’s thanks to these groups that I have access to such fabulous information. And I know that when writing, sometimes the most important part can be the little things.

Learn more about Jane Gorman at janegorman.com, sign up for new release alerts at Bookbub, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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MY LETTER TO SANTA CLAUS

~ casojka123 ~ 2 Comments

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Dear Santa Claus,

I haven’t written to you lately, but I suppose you get enough mail at this time of year that you haven’t missed me. In fact, now that I think about it, I probably haven’t written to you since I was a kid and asked you for a Nancy Drew mystery for Christmas. I was a big mystery reader then, and I still am.

Well, I guess you’re wondering why I’m writing you now, especially since I’m not a little girl any longer. I’m a grownup (I guess), and now I write the mysteries I used to get for Christmas, but, Santa, I’m stuck. What I’m asking you for now is an idea for a story. I haven’t been able to write anything for a long time. I’ve run out of ideas.

I know you don’t usually carry packages of ideas in your sleigh. You usually bring toys and pretty dresses and books and computer games. But, Santa, before you say no, please hear me out.All I want is an idea for a story. That’s all. That should be simple for you. It’s not like a million dollars. Just an idea for a story, to get me writing again. That doesn’t seem like so much, does it?

Oh, and if you can, can you give me a really, really interesting main character–someone my readers will identify with and root for to find the answer to the puzzle. And, if it’s not too much trouble, maybe you could throw in a friend–you know, a sidekick–someone my main character can talk to and bounce ideas off. Of course I do need a villain, although I don’t suppose, being the good man that you are, that you have much experience with villains, but what’s a story without a good villain? I’m sure you can come up with someone evil and threatening, although not so obvious that the reader will guess his identity immediately.

Now, if you do this, give me an idea for a story and the characters, I’m sure I can take it from here. But, if you should be so inclined, maybe you could help by providing me with a good setting for the story. I know you’ve been all over the world, even if it’s only by sleigh on Christmas Eve,. but you know lots of places so you could give me a good place for the story to happen.

And, maybe the most important thing of all for a mystery story, I need a twist. That’s always the hardest part of the story–well, aside from the other things I asked for–but the twist in a mystery story is absolutely a necessity. No one wants to read a story that says that A met B and B hated A and then killed A and the police and everybody else knew it because they knew B didn’t like A. I need something new, something novel, a twist that will surprise my readers.

And, if you can also arrange that my story is accepted by some big name magazine, that would be terrific, too, but I can probably do that myself.

So, Santa Claus, I guess that’s it. That’s all I want for Christmas.

Lots of love,

Carole

 

Dear Carole,

That’s all you want for Christmas? You haven’t been in touch for years and years, and now that’s what you want for Christmas? Well, I’ve thought it over, and here’s my answer.

If I could come up with what you’ve asked for–a story idea, a protagonist, a sidekick, a villain, an interesting setting and a twist for the ending–if I could come up with all that, I’d write the story myself!

Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Mystery by Paty Jager

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

yuletide-slaying-5x8I hopped on the Amazon Kindle site and punched in Christmas Mysteries and several pages of free and $0.99 books popped up.  I was going to grab a few and put them up here, but hey, you may like  something different than me, so jump over to the Kindle Christmas Mysteries page and download a few for yourself. 😉

It appears from scanning the website that many mystery authors like to set mysteries around Christmas and even other holidays. It makes sense. Families are gathered. People who may only visit at this time of the year are back in town. This makes for past differences surfacing and the potential for a murder more likely.

And who wants to spoil Santa’s visit with a dead body in the chimney or in a snowdrift?  A mystery writer that’s who. 😉 In my mind I can make the most macabre scenario out of a mundane holiday happening.  A sprinkle of arsenic on a cookie made just for rich Uncle Marvin.  Or a bit of cyanide happens to spill into Grandma Velma’s hot toddy. Maybe the candy cane handed to cousin Zeb has been dipped in the sap of water hemlock.  Yes, I could come up with all kinds of ways to take out someone during the holidays.

Maybe a paper cut that happens to become infected and moves rapidly into gangrene and worse. Or a ski or sledding mishap? Oh yes, what evil lurks under this granny’s, gray hair the world may never know, but my readers will discover it as the Shandra Higheagle mystery series continues!

This will be my last post this year. Merry Christmas to all my fellow Ladies of Mystery and all our followers!  Beware the token treat from an estranged family member! 😉

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Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 25+ novels and over a dozen novellas and short stories of murder mystery, western romance, and action adventure. She has a RomCon Reader’s Choice Award for her Action Adventure and received the EPPIE Award for Best Contemporary Western Romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

blog / website /  Facebook / Paty’s Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest

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Cleaning out the cobwebs

~ sandyfairfax ~ 12 Comments

By Sally Carpenter

One of my at-home projects for long holiday weekends is to sweep and mop the floors. This may not sound like much, but to me it’s an ordeal. It involves chasing the cats outside and then picking everything off the floor and stacking them on either the bed or sofa, leaving me no place to sit down until the floors dry.

Of course the day after the mopping, rain came and my cats trod over the clean floor with little wet paws. All the work for nothing!

But this attitude toward mopping doesn’t mean I’m a slob. I’m actually a neatnick. Every object has its place and must be put there. My writing space is not strewn with papers or books. Papers are filed away and books are in neat piles or on shelves. When I need something, I know exactly where to find it.

 The down side is that I get cranky if things are misplaced. I love Christmas decorations, but I’m not happy until every item is hung or put out and the packing bins are put away.

My desk at the office is the same way; clear save for some framed cat photos and mementos. Papers are in the hanging folders in the drawer. Even the items on my bulletin board are hung in a methodical fashion.

What has this to do with writing? Some say house cleaning is a procrastination to keep from writing, but for me, I can’t concentrate when my house—or life—is a mess. Sometimes I’ll even stop working just to take care of the stack of dirty dishes in the sink.

I need a clear space so I can think clearly. If I’m distracted by financial or personal issues, I can’t be creative.

Two years I cut down on my writing obligations because I was getting distracted. My mind was in a jumble, hopping from one thing to do to the next and as a result accomplishing little—certainly not as far as writing the next book.

 Also, my mysteries are crafted in an orderly manner. The structure is solid and builds to a logical conclusion. My tidy house reflects my state of mind.

If I’m facing writer’s block or can’t get motivated to write, it’s often a sign that I need to slow down, rest and get focused. I need to put aside the other “to dos,” stop playing computer solitaire (the writer’s bane), sit down with my pen and clipboard, and start writing. That’s how this post was written.

And hanging up the colorful Christmas decorations helps as well.

What do you do to clear out the mental cobwebs?

 

Guest: Maggie King

~ patyjag ~ 10 Comments

Why Do I Write Mysteries? The short answer: I love reading them. The long answer is much, well, longer!

Like many young girls I was a huge fan of Nancy Drew and the Dana Girls. I’ll never forget the day my mother brought home The Hidden Staircase after a trip to the P.M. Bookshop in Plainfield, New Jersey. My friends and I started swapping tales of those intrepid girl detectives like mad. We loved the puzzles and the adventures. My parents were great role models for mystery reading with the stacks of Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner paperbacks atop their nightstands.

In sixth grade I started writing my own girl detective mystery and read installments to my friends while walking home from school. They enjoyed my creative efforts. I wish I still had those stories, for posterity.

By high school I had drifted away from writing and reading mysteries, finding an outlet for my considerable adolescent angst in poetry and journal entries. The journal entries (as well as the angst) continued throughout my life but it wasn’t until the nineties that I took up mystery writing again.

I joined my first mystery book group in Santa Clarita, California in 1993. I’d been devouring anything by Agatha Christie for years but there was a whole world of other mystery authors out there and I was ready to dive in. The women in the group were lovely—almost too lovely. I hadn’t yet started my writing career but I knew I was on my way when the what-if scenarios came to me unbidden—

What if these women weren’t really so nice?

What if this was all for show and they harbored secrets, agendas, hatreds?

But it wasn’t until 1996 when I moved to Virginia and took a creative writing course at the University of Virginia that I started writing in earnest. I didn’t forget those nice women—or were they?—from the Santa Clarita book group. I gave them backstories and they became the story prototypes for Murder at the Book Group.

Like many mystery writers, I have a strong need to see justice done and set the world right. Mysteries are the perfect vehicle for that. Mysteries are about relationships—relationships that have gone awry. I’m fascinated by family dynamics and how memories of my own family experiences have popped up throughout my life, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in disconcerting ways. Love and obsession intrigue me to no end, as does sin and how we’re impacted by it.

My short stories are morally ambiguous and I sometimes explore vigilante justice. I’m a law-abiding citizen, but sometimes I wonder if justice is better served outside the boundaries of the law. That’s why I write. It keeps me out of prison and my victim(s) safe. And I can create interesting characters I’d never want to know off the page.

It’s unlikely that I’ll ever solve a mystery—and I have no desire to—but my sleuths can do anything. Just like Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew was intrepid, talented, bright, and flawless (Okay, she was a bit uppity at times, especially in the early stories). My characters, like most modern day sleuths, are flawed but I get to pick and choose their flaws and their virtues.

To circle back to the original question, “Why Do I Write Mysteries?”

Because I love reading them.

And I love writing them.

Blurb for Murder at the Moonshine Inn:

murder-at-the-moonshine-inn-cover-lowWHEN HIGH-POWERED EXECUTIVE Roxanne Howard dies in a pool of blood outside the Moonshine Inn, Richmond, Virginia’s premiere redneck bar, the victim’s sister enlists Hazel Rose to ferret out the killer. At first Hazel balks—she’s a romance writer, not a detective. But Brad Jones, Rox’s husband, is the prime suspect. He’s also Hazel’s cousin, and Hazel believes in doing anything to help family. Never mind that Brad won’t give her the time of day—he’s still family.

Hazel recruits her book group members to help with the investigation. It’s not long before they discover any number of people who feel that a world without Rox Howard is just fine with them: Brad’s son believes that Rox and Brad were behind his mother’s death; Rox’s former young lover holds Rox responsible for a tragedy in his family; and one of Rox’s employees filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against her. The killer could be an angry regular from the Moonshine Inn—or just about anyone who ever crossed paths with the willful and manipulative Rox.

When a second murder ups the ante Hazel must find out who is behind the killings. And fast. Or she may be victim #3.

 Buy link: http://amzn.to/2dtozWa

maggie-king-author-photo-72Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including the recently-released Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She contributed the stories “A Not So Genteel Murder” and “Reunion at Shockoe Slip” to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies.

Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the American Association of University Women. She has worked as a software developer, retail sales manager, and customer service supervisor. Maggie graduated from Elizabeth Seton College and earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has called New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California home. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, Glen, and cats, Morris and Olive. She enjoys reading, walking, movies, traveling, theatre, and museums.

Website: http://www.maggieking.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieKingAuthr