Coloring in Characters

~ dzchurch ~ 3 Comments

I woke up in a cold sweat, dreaming that all the main male characters in my books were raven-haired and blue-eyed. Why raven hair; why blue-blue eyes? With a toss in bed, I divined that it was because my eyes are like cesspools. I envied every blue-eyed person I saw. I even married one. Reassured, I went back to sleep.

A few hours later, a vision of Grieg Washburn, from Saving Calypso, all five foot eleven, dark brown hair and blue eyes of him made me sit straight up in bed. I began inventorying .

Perfidia, one café au lait with brown hair and gray eyes and another with brown hair and deep blue eyes, so blue they appear black. Booth Island. Dark hair, dark eyes. “Beneath the black horn-rims, his eyes, noir, schwarz, beltza, svart, black in any language, absorbed the light in the room.” Glasses, too. Two wins.

The Cooper brothers of the Cooper Quartet, one tall, dark and blue-eyed, one red-headed with amber eyes. 50/50.

Doc and Kanady in the Wanee Mysteries, one with brown hair and gentle, soft brown eyes, the other with hair “the color of a shrew’s back” and sharp blue eyes. 50/50.

So, what was the crazy dream all about? Invention of character, I suspect.

As writers plot, we envision the emotional and physical strength the protagonists and antagonists will need. Should they stand out in a crowd or disappear? Does self-loathing or self-love color their world. Who are they ethnically, from where do they hale, what made them them? We see them in living color, dark, light, shadowed and paint them through their actions, other characters’ perceptions, or self-observation. To me, a character’s hair, eyes, complexion are tells that create an image and a touchstone for the reader, leaving the reader with a bias for the good or bad.

And off we go with a spot of good guy, bad guy:

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. Horn-rims. The left lens was as thick as my little finger. His black hair was shorn short on the sides, unmasking a thickly scarred depression above his left ear. Dark stubble stained his strong jawline and accented the hard lines of his mouth.  ☐ Good guy   ☐ Bad guy   ☐ Both

Saving Calypso. Rafe was tall, broad-shouldered and powerful from living off the grid or perhaps from his years in the U.S. Army. He had a generous nose, an engaging mouth, sweet blue eyes, and a square chin. He wore his dusty blond hair in a thick braid, uncut since he had hiked into the mountains.  ☐ Good guy  ☐ Bad guy  ☐ Both

Perfidia. He not only smelled male; he smelled like money, lots of it, as though he had been rubbed in it since childhood. His too-close-together eyes were a deep, dark blue with black corona. His umber hair would have been in ringlets if not for the expensive, stylish cut that left it long in the back and waving over his ears.  ☐ Good guy   ☐ Bad guy  ☐ Both

Dead Legend. Mike Bowen hadn’t changed in the twelve years since Byron had last seen him, still stocky, his sandy blond hair still in a butch. He had one of those faces that had battled its way through school. His nose had a slight drift to the left. He had a scar through the blond of his right eyebrow.  ☐ Good guy   ☐ Bad guy  ☐ Both

A Confluence of Enemies. Thime hunkered down on his wagon and offered his right hand, palm up, for the shake. A welted scar disfigured the soft side of his right forearm. Mr. Kanady glanced at it, his shoulders squared, his head bobbed back until he stared into Thime’s blue eyes. At that moment, Cora noted, the two men might pass for brothers. Except Thime was years older and inches shorter. It was their shared coloring and a certain sharpness in their eyes. ☐ Good guy   ☐ Bad guy  ☐ Both

For more on visit my website dzchurch.com where you can order a book, sign up for my newsletter, and learn more about each book.

Guest Blogger ~ Laury A. Egan

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Creating Jack & I

Ever since reading The Three Faces of Eve and Sybil (a case later reported to be a sham), I’ve been fascinated with Multiple Personality Disorder, now named Dissociative Identity Disorder. After additional contemporary research, I decided to create a character who suffers from this disorder, featuring the “host” Jack’s narration in first person and the “alter” Jack’s narration in third person, interchanging the two in each short chapter. This twin structure allowed for more intimacy with the beleaguered host and a slight distance from his sociopathic alter. Since we all have dark impulses that we subjugate (or mostly do), the novel gives the reader the opportunity to experience what it would be like if we acted on our more sinister desires in a kind of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde manner all the while maintaining our moral selves.

Jack Kennett is a character who slowly emerged in my mind as I wrote, whereas his alter appeared with immediate presence. Sometimes, the “bad guy” characters are easier to imagine, but as the words accumulated, the host teenager evoked more sympathy because he was dealing with the usual issues: shyness, peer discomfort, and his frustrated feelings for a girl, but also was struggling with dire problems: Jack had experienced severe trauma in infancy (the cause of the personality split), lived in a series of foster homes with some foster parents who re-traumatized him, and dealt with an alter who subsumed Jack and committed crimes, engaged in sexual promiscuity and prostitution, and constantly undermined his attempts to be a normal sixteen-year old boy. In addition, whenever his alter takes over, the host experiences memory loss, though on occasion he can piece together what his alter has done. These blackout states are an intriguing literary device for a writer.

In interviews, I’m often asked why I set most of my novels in the 90s. Simple. By doing so, I’m able to avoid the pesky problems of technology since most people didn’t have internet service or use cell phones until later. These tools allow others to access a character and learn where he or she is and for people to do quick research and be in constant communication with the world, thus making a writer’s job more difficult, especially in a suspense story. In Jack & I, the absence of technology let me concentrate on the interaction between the two primary personalities and those who come into contact with them. This would have been an entirely different story if set in current times. For example, Jack (the host) would have learned about his psychological condition by researching his symptoms on the internet and wouldn’t have had to struggle with many of the mysteries that plagued him.

Another common question: why do I frequently write in the psychological suspense genre? One of my first literary influences was Patricia Highsmith, who loved to devise innocent characters who become victims, usually due to entrapment by an antisocial, manipulative person such as her brilliantly conceived Tom Ripley. Taking a page from Highsmith, Jack & I combines the innocent and the sociopath in one body. An economical structure allowing for dramatic contrasts in behavior, personality, emotions, and thoughts.

This novel was tricky to create in many ways. Keeping the host Jack semi-ignorant of his alter’s activities meant I needed to find strategies for him to become aware of these actions despite his amnesiac states. So, although the reader has the full picture of what’s happening, for Jack to understand the extent of his dire circumstances proved to be a constant challenge as he dips in and out of presence.

I hope readers will be intrigued by the book’s psychological complexity but also by the suspenseful plot. Will Jack and his alternate personalities ever fuse or fine a way to live together? I welcome comments or questions via my website or social media!

A psychological suspense novel about two teenage boys. The twist? They’re both named Jack and both inhabit the same body. “Mostly I was relieved to put distance between Jack and myself, although this wasn’t possible because I am Jack, too. And sort of not Jack. I am I, or rather, I am me.”

1994. Jack Kennett is sixteen and suffers from un-diagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder). Abandoned at age two, Jack has been in the New Jersey care system all of his life: foster homes and once placed for private adoption with the Kennetts, a family he adored, especially their daughter, Cara. As the divisive war between the two personalities escalates, Jack (the host) is in despair and feeling powerless as he experiences amnesiac events and must deal with his alter’s promiscuity, truancy, and illegal acts. How will the war between the personalities end?

Amazon link: https://mybook.to/jackandi

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209445898-jack-i

Laury A. Egan is the author of fourteen novels, including suspense titles such as The Psychologist’s Shadow, Wave in D Minor, Doublecrossed, The Ungodly Hour, and Jenny Kidd as well as a collection, Fog and Other Stories. Four limited-edition poetry volumes have been published, and eighty-five of her stories and poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies. She is a reviewer for The New York Journal of Books and a 2024 recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award in prose.

Website: www.lauryaegan.com

LauryA.Egan@EganLaury

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Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 29 Comments

The Importance of Character Arcs

Every book needs two elements—a plot and characters. Most writers understand that their story is comprised of a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is about the Call to Action or what makes the protagonist get involved in the story’s events. In the case of mysteries, this is a murder or another crime. The middle details the steps the protagonist takes on her way to figuring out whodunit. The end is all about how the protagonist solved the crime—the finale, where the perpetrator is caught, and the denouement, where all the various strands of the story are satisfactorily explained.

What many newer authors don’t understand, though, is that the characters in a book must also have their own arcs. This is especially true in series where reader follows various characters through the course of many books. Character growth is essential. No character should be in the same emotional and mental place at the start of either a single title book or a series. When that happens in a series, the author is merely writing the same book over and over with only the names, places, and crimes changing in each subsequent story.

All recurring characters in a series need arcs, not just the protagonist. However, the arc doesn’t have to be in the reader’s face. An arc can be subtle and develop over time as the series progresses.

In Sorry, Knot Sorry, the recently released thirteenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, Anastasia’s relationship with Detective Sam Spader takes a major turn. Detective Spader was first introduced in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the series, when he suspected Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law Lucille of murdering her roommate at a rehabilitation center.

Readers of the series know there’s no love lost between Anastasia and Lucille. However, although Lucille has many flaws, Anastasia knows she’s all bark and no bite. So she sets out to find the real killer. Spader has continued to pop up in subsequent books in the series, and his relationship with Anastasia has grown from adversarial to one of grudging respect.

In this latest book, a man is gunned down in front of Anastasia’s home. There is little in the way of clues and no witnesses. The sheriff’s office is short-staffed due to vacations and a summer flu bug that has hit many county employees. Plus, there’s no money left in the annual budget to hire more officers. The detective admits he needs Anastasia’s help. He knows she has a way of seeing things that others often miss.

Over the course of eleven books, Spader has grown. He’s not the only one. The story arcs of many of the characters in the series have continued to develop. Some character growth has been for the better, some for the worse. But everyone changes in some way, making for a series that continues to grow beyond just the number of books.

Sorry, Knot Sorry

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 13

Magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack may finally be able to pay off the remaining debt she found herself saddled with when her duplicitous first husband dropped dead in a Las Vegas casino. But as Anastasia has discovered, nothing in her life is ever straightforward. Strings are always attached. Thanks to the success of an unauthorized true crime podcast, a television production company wants to option her life—warts and all—as a reluctant amateur sleuth.

Is such exposure worth a clean financial slate? Anastasia isn’t sure, but at the same time, rumors are flying about layoffs at the office. Whether she wants national exposure or not, Anastasia may be forced to sign on the dotted line to keep from standing in the unemployment line. But the dead bodies keep coming, and they’re not in the script.

Craft tips included.

Preorder Buy Links (releasing 6/4/24)

Amazon https://amzn.to/4a8JyVJ

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sorry-knot-sorry

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sorry-knot-sorry-lois-winston/1145047275?ean=2940186076698

Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/sorry-knot-sorry/id6479363569

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

You Just Feel It

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

I finished book 12 in my Gabriel Hawke series two weeks ago. This is the first book that when I finished, I didn’t have any doubts that I had forgotten something or that it dragged in places or that it wouldn’t sit with some of my readers. I finished this book with a smile on my face feeling as if it was a good book. Not all books feel that way when I finish.

Many writers understand this. There are very few books that when I have it ready to go to my CP and beta readers that I feel I captured everything I wanted and gave all the right clues and nailed the characters. Even the killer. I figure the places that I’m worried about they will see, and I can fix them.

As usual this was what I call my first draft. Over the decades of writing and having published 58 books, not counting the 7 that never made the cut to being published, this was the first time I finished without any doubts about the story. Having been writing this long, I have a system where I what I write the day before is where I start the following day. I begin where I started writing and read through, making changes to scenes, sentences, and words. So by the time I do type the last word in a book, it is the draft I send to my CP and Betas. After they read and send me their thoughts and suggestions, I do what I call the second draft. This one goes to my line editor. Who will also catch any wrong names, duplication of information, and my legal mistakes. From her, I go through it one more time, the 3rd draft, and send that to a proofreader. After I change what she finds, that is the final draft, and it is published.

Now I could be all wet and full of myself on this one, but so far, the beta readers have liked it and found little to comment on. Well, except for my retired police officer. And what he commented on wasn’t anything to do with police procedure. He didn’t like that Hawke kills a rattlesnake. He thought Hawke should have backed out of the cougar’s cave he was crawling into and waited for the snake to leave. I’ve thought about this since his text to me about enjoying the book other than that scene. I’ve bounced around different ways I could change the scene, but they don’t harken to the urgency that Hawke feels about finding more evidence.

My other beta reader liked the whole book. Didn’t see any problems with any of the story. She did catch some typos.

I’m waiting for my CP to get it back to me and see if she mentions the snake scene. I felt Hawke was doing what he needed to do to keep him and Dog safe while they finished their search of the cave. A small area that they couldn’t have avoided being bitten by the snake if they moved around inside upsetting it.

The scene will stay as is. And the book that when I finished felt right and made me smile, is available for pre-order.

This double cold case and current homicide have Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Trooper Gabriel Hawke calling in favors… and exploring a childhood he shoved into the deep recesses of his mind. 

While patrolling on the Snake River in Hells Canyon, Gabriel Hawke’s dog digs up a human bone. Hawke is confronted by an aunt he doesn’t remember, and he finds a canister of film when the rest of the remains are excavated. The film shows someone being killed and a rifle pointed at the photographer.

Going through missing person files, Hawke discovers the victims of the
decades-old double homicide. A person connected to the original crime is
murdered, giving Hawke more leads and multiple suspects.

Attending a local Powwow with his family, Hawke discovers more about his childhood and realizes his suspects have been misleading him.

Pre-order: https://books2read.com/u/bQGkXw

Following in the Path of Their (Gum)shoes

~ Margaret Lucke ~ 4 Comments

by Margaret Lucke

Jess Randolph, the star of my novels Snow Angel and A Relative Stranger as well as several short stories, is a private investigator and an artist, and she thinks of both of her twin professions as ways to search for the truth. Jess is following in the footsteps of a number of strong women who came before her, and I, as her creator, am doing that too. Some of our predecessors are well known, but these days others are too easily overlooked. So I thought I’d use this post to bring some of them to your attention.

Marcia Muller has been credited with launching the female private investigator in American mystery fiction in 1977 when she published the first Sharon McCone novel, Edwin of the Iron Shoes. Sara Paretsky (Indemnity Only, featuring V.I Warshawski) and Sue Grafton (A Is for Alibi, starring Kinsey Millhone) followed in her footsteps five years later. The three of them paved the way for many other mystery writers, including me.

No one can say these authors have been overlooked. They have many fans (including me), they’ve received high honors, and their series are landmarks in the mystery genre. All of them have been named Grand Masters by the Mystery Writers of America.

But what about their predecessors? It’s true that most fictional female sleuths prior to the 1980s were amateurs. Yet well before Muller, Paretsky, and Grafton published their first books, quite a few authors had written mysteries whose heroines worked as professional detectives — which was considered to be, as P.D. James pointed out in the title of her 1972 novel, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. The woman in question was James’s character Cordelia Gray, who appeared again in The Skull Beneath the Skin.

Okay, P.D. James doesn’t qualify as an overlooked author either. However, consider these. How many have you read—or even heard about?

Catherine Louisa Pirkis, creator of Loveday Brooke (The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, 1894). An unmarried woman from high society, Loveday has been forced by circumstances to earn her living. “Marketable accomplishments she had found she had none, so she had forthwith defied convention,” and signed on as an operative with a London detective agency. See her at left as she consults with a client.

Anna Katharine Green, creator of Violet Strange (The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange, 1914). A wealthy young debutante, Violet secretly works on occasion as a detective to earn money that her father doesn’t have to know about. She prefers cases “of subtlety without “of subtlety without crime, one to engage my powers without depressing my spirits.”

Jennette Lee, creator of Millicent Newberry (The Green Jacket, 1917, and two more). Middle-aged and middle class, Millicent starts her detective agency after working for another investigator. Interested in psychology, she is more interested in rehabilitating the wrongdoers she catches than in turning them over to the police.

Patricia Wentworth, creator of Maud Silver (Grey Mask, 1928, and 32 more books). A retired schoolteacher, Maud is a “private enquiry agent” who works with Scotland Yard. She uses her mild manner and appearance to her advantage, so that the villains in these cozy stories believe her to be harmless and unthreatening until it’s too late. Maud began as a secondary character and came into her own in The Case Is Closed, 1937.

Roswell Brown, creator of Grace “Redsie” Culver (20 stories in The Shadow Magazine, 1934-1937). Despite being create by a man (Roswell Brown is a pen name of pulp writer Jean Francis Webb), Redsie is a gutsy, independent, no-nonsense woman. She works for Big Tim Noonan’s detective agency and has a penchant for fast action and chocolate sodas. She’s “nobody’s bimbo,” notes Thrilling Detective Web Site, “and an important figure in the development of female private eyes.”

Maxine O’Callaghan, creator of Delilah West (“A Change of Clients,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, 1974; Death Is Forever, 1980 and five more books). Delilah’s appearance in print predated the debuts of Muller, Paretsky and Grafton. In the first novel in the series, ex-cop Delilah goes after the man who murdered her husband, only to have the killer be murdered in turn and herself to be framed for the crime. You wouldn’t go wrong inviting Delilah to the same party as Sharon, V.I., and Kinsey. The Private Eye Writers of America honored Maxine with The Eye, their lifetime achievement award.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. Can you think of other forerunners to today’s female private eyes who have been overlooked and deserve recognition?