Tag: writing

What’s in a Title? by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 7 Comments

A lot of times the story itself comes fairly easily to me, but the title often doesn’t. What to call my novel? How do I catch the reader’s eye and have them want to buy my book, just by reading that stellar title? How, how, how? Hmmmm.

And to make things worse, book titles seem to go through fads or phases. For instance, the word “girl” has been used in just about every best-selling book’s title in the last few years. While using that word may not have catapulted them to becoming a best-seller, the following books were best sellers: Girl Gone; The Girl on a Train; Girl, Interrupted; Girl with the Pearl Earring; The Other Boleyn Girl; and of course, Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played with Fire; and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  

Hence, I decided to use the word “girl” in the title of a book and see what happens. I came up with Girl, Girl, Girl (see book cover). Amazingly, it didn’t sell. Maybe my heart wasn’t in it? Besides, I don’t think of human females as girls unless they’re under the age of 17. I’m not sure why that’s my cut-off age, but it is. I think once you’ve graduated from high school, you’re a young woman. Girl-kid, Woman-adult.

Often the title lets the reader know what kind of book they will be reading. I hope I’ve done that with my books. Whoops. The exception to this was the title of the very first book of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, Murder is a Family Business. Looking back on it, I believe the title conveys a weightier book than mine. I had forgotten a famous crime syndicate called, Murder, Inc. was still in a lot of people’s minds. Guilt by association was my problem. Some readers, especially men, bought my book thinking it was going to be yet another exposé of the mob. Or possibly a written spin-off of the movie Murder, Inc, the film that launched Peter Falk’s career in his first major role as a contract killer.

Yikes. None of the above is anything like my book, a light-hearted romp through California’s Bay Area where not only is the murderer brought to justice but the shoes and handbags match. If I could, I would change the title, but the book has been hanging around for a certain amount of time, has had some small measure of success, and, besides, I can’t think of anything better. So, Murder is a Family Business it remains.

But since that goof with the first title, I tried to be careful in naming the rest. My latest book, a work in progress, has the working title, Bewitched, Bothered, and Beheaded. Hopefully, it conveys magic and murder. And if someone thinks of a guillotine, so much the better.

In closing, I should probably mention the title of an Elvis Presley movie, Girls, Girls, Girls. It has nothing to do with any of this, but I am a huge Elvis fan.

Words on the Page

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

In one of the longest-running writing groups I participated in, our discussions often wandered into related areas but never very far afield. They were always informative, at least to me. One discussion in particular has remained with me. 

The de facto leader of the group asked apropos of nothing if we ever wrote anything other than fiction. Aside from the occasional memo for work, everyone said no, except for me. As both a free-lance writer/editor and later an employee in a social services agency, I wrote all the time. When I was freelancing, I wrote chapters for textbooks, articles short and long, lots of book reviews, and edited dozens of books. As an employee I wrote countless fundraising letters, newsletters for our donors, and a never-ending list of grant applications and reports. For me the job search meant finding an opportunity to write.

I wrote a novel (incredibly bad) in college along with short stories (mostly so-so), and in my first job afterwards, as a social worker, I wrote long detailed reports of my visits to children’s homes, foster homes, family court sessions, and other agencies. My long-winded exercises in leaving nothing out sat alongside the terser reports of my colleagues, who managed to say much the same thing in a tenth of the space. 

This observation came to me recently when in the process of cleaning out old files and boxes I came across my original notes from an early job. All that writing, all those words, as though I just had to use as many as possible whenever possible. It reminded me of my answer to a question asked in high school. What do you want to do, a friend asked. I want to write, I replied. And so I have.

Note that I didn’t say, I want to be a writer. I don’t think I’ve ever said that, or thought it. I’m not sure what it even means. I wanted to write. I wanted to get my ideas down on paper, explore them and develop them, see those sinuous strings of letters spreading across the page, coalescing into images I didn’t know I had in my head until I saw them in blue ink on white paper. Writing was like putting seeds into the ground so they’d grow into something bigger, something unanticipated but welcomed even if at first it made no sense to me.

When I look at the various mystery series I’ve written, I can see the stories I’ve used to interpret the experience of living along the New England coast, or in India during the tumult of the 1970s with Indira Gandhi, or on a farm in an isolated rural community. Some of the things I’ve said now surprise me. Did I really think that? How interesting! Each writer has different goals for any work in progress. My goals are always to discover something, see something emerge that I didn’t expect. For me, writing is like breathing. Necessary but something more.

What is it about the Great Lakes? by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 3 Comments

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.

Keep It or Toss It?

~ susanoleksiw ~ 9 Comments

Like many other writers, I make a lot of notes and keep files on all sorts of things that I’m sure I’ll get to someday. But when the paper files start to spill out onto the floor or the desk, I know it’s time to cull the newspaper cuttings, scribbled notes for story ideas, and quotes from books that I was sure would prove useful or important.

This week I went through a three-ring binder where I’ve kept notes on the three series I’ve been working on beginning in 1991 and a few stand-alones that I never got to. Going through material I collected some years ago brought me back to ways I’d been thinking about writing—ideas for opening scenes or character sketches that no longer seemed strong or compelling. It was interesting to look over pages of ideas and see how much my thinking has changed. I was especially interested in how my ideas on craft had developed.

Included in all this were several ideas sketched out that meant nothing to me. I had no idea what I meant by some of it. So the question became, should I keep it or toss it? The answer was easier when I went through the news clippings that recorded peculiar people or bizarre incidents or twisted crimes. Most of them seemed blah to me now, so out they went. But one note was different.

I found a typed two-page single-spaced plot description for a thriller about a group of women who have been friends for years and sign up for an overseas tour. The tour is waylaid and the women and others held hostage. (Had I just read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett?) Hostages are killed, the police storm the site, and the women are saved. They head home and celebrate, glad to be alive. That seems like enough for a straightforward thriller, but the plot description goes on, covering the years after the women return to the States. 

This outline, neatly typed, stands out for its focus on plot, and the use of a story line that I had been thinking about over the years but never used. I couldn’t figure out a title, had named some of the characters, and wasn’t sure how to end it. That may be why it goes on for so long—because I couldn’t find a point of rest, of climax and recovery and ending. In some paragraph transitions it almost feels like I didn’t know where to stop or how to stop.

When I began this clearing-out I expected at most to find some of the story ideas I had set aside while I worked on other things, or at least some of the ideas that come when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to work on next. I like those because they get me thinking. They prime the pump, I suppose, and get the ideas flowing. 

But that typed outline is getting into my head. And now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with it. Write it or file it again? When other writers talk about writer’s block, I keep my mouth shut. It doesn’t happen for me. I have the other problem—way too many ideas to follow up on. And right now I have that big thriller idea, all neatly laid out for me to work on. As one of my friends in India used to say, What to do? What to do? Very great problem, madam.

So Many Blogs…. by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 6 Comments

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.