Gay Yellen: Weeding and Wording
Just found out that today is National Weed Your Garden Day, which couldn’t be more appropriate for me at the moment, though instead of culling crabgrass, I’m weeding out words.
vecteezy.com
The most common offenders I’ve dug up so far are: just, seemed, felt, but, winced, smiled, and a few other crutches a writer too often leans on.
The good news is that this exercise signals my last round of self-editing for The Body in the News, Book 3 in my Samantha Newman Mystery Series. Once this task is completed, I’ll be sending the manuscript to my publisher.
The bad news is, I’ve been so focused on finishing the new book that I completely forgot to plan a subject for this, my monthly Stiletto Gang post. So, in honor of this “national” day, let’s talk about weeds… oops, I meant words.
I was surprised when a friend commented that she thought I consciously chose to use more common language in my books than I use in my natural speech. Well, yes, and no. The characters in my books are not me, and even though I write their dialogue, the way they express themselves is their own.
When the writing is going well, I’m listening to Samantha and Carter and their supporting cast as they dictate their words to me. Older people use different words than younger adults and children do. Sticklers for facts, such as my detective, Buron Washington, are more clipped and precise when they speak. And so on, down to a new character whose vocabulary is unique unto itself.
However, the weeds in this manuscript are entirely my fault, and I must get back to yanking them out, one by one. But before I go, here’s a question:
Does the way a person speaks reveal something unique about their mood or character? How so?
Gay Yellen writes the award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and out later this summer, The Body in the News.
I Hate Packing
I Hate Packing by Debra H. Goldstein
Although I love traveling and have been cherishing the times that I once again have been able to get-together with family and friends, I hate packing. For me, it is a tortuous process.
First, I make sure everything I might possibly want to take is back from the dry cleaners, has been washed, or, if necessary, purchased. Then, I sit with pen and pad and contemplate the trip, so I can decide what outfits I need – from how many pairs of underpants to will there be any formal attire events. Once I address my clothing – indicating what should be worn on any given day – I add miscellaneous items to my list ranging from medications to computer cords. I stare at the list and decide to pack tomorrow when I’m not as tired or busy (this depends upon if I make the list at night or during the day).
The time to do the deed arrives but first I need the right sized suitcase. Am I carrying on? Do I have a dress I don’t want to crush? Am I going to a conference where I need to take extra books, bookmarks, or other swag? I choose a suitcase, but I’m so worn out from the process, so I take another break.
Finally, there is no way to put off packing. I pull everything out of my closet, drawers, or wherever. That done, I stare at the stack on my bed or the couch and decide to watch a TV show or allow myself thirty minutes of reading time before I tackle putting things into the suitcase.
An hour later, especially if the clothing is on my bed, I pack. It takes five to ten minutes.
Relieved, I soak in a long bath. I am exhausted. How about you? Do you have a packing ritual?
What I learned from my son’s meth addiction and death.
Dear Reader,
It’s been a chaotic and life changing year. I have accomplished to survive the pandemic, the loss of my only child, and to celebrate 30 years of marriage to my best friend. I learned a great deal about myself in the last four months.
1. I’m a true survivor and I will come back stronger for the future. More determined to make something of myself and my life and my son, Danny’s, life.
2. I come from a long line of survivors. My ancestors fought manifest destiny and being genizaros in Northern New Mexico during the Indian wars. If they had not survived their struggles, I would not be here today fighting my own struggles in this country divided by a wall.
3. My son taught me that love is unconditional and that means no matter what your child says or does, you love them the best you can and cherish the moments together. Even the bad days, the hard days, the happy days, the drugs, the illness, the addiction, the heart attacks, the strokes, the clinging to life but wanting to let go. Your love does not end when their life ends. It changes and becomes grief. The grief tries to kill you. You survive and make yourself get up every day and do the work. You use your anger and grief to make yourself stronger. You learn and teach how to survive the loss.
4. You are nothing alone. You need friends, family, therapists, doctors and support groups to tell your story and to share your grief and anger. You do not face these challenges alone.
5. The world is a beautiful, wonderous, magical place full of miracles and tears, laughter, heartache and bliss. You have to dig deep to find the path to the light and follow it all the way to the end never giving up hope for a better tomorrow.
6. Life is fleeting. One day you’re here. One day you disappear. But your spirit lives forever. And as long as someone says you name, you never die. You live on in the memories of loved ones and in books and in songs and poems and movies and dances.
7. Never give up hope. Never. Because just around the corner there waits your destiny. I’ve been around the world and seen many things but I haven’t seen everything. I’ve seen heart ache and joy and misery and success. I am blessed.
8. Your childhood is not over. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
9. Love.
10. One world. One prayer.
The 5-Letter Word that Sends a Shudder of Anxiety Through Most Authors
By Lois Winston
By nature, many authors are loners. We spend a good deal of our lives sitting in our writing caves, pecking at our keyboards. Survey any group of authors, and most will tell you the worst part of being an author is having to do promo. That’s the infamous 5-letter word of the title in this post.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an indie author, published by a small press, or with a major publishing house. Unless you’re one of the very elite (think Janet Evanovich, Nora Roberts, or James Patterson), you have to do most or all of your own promotion. Even the big names need to promote their books, but they do it through book tours with PR reps managing all the details and doing the heavy lifting.
I’m someone who has vowed to be the last person on the planet not sucked in by most social media. You’ll never find me on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. I do have a Twitter account, only because my former publisher insisted, but I rarely remember to tweet anything. When I do remember, it’s never anything controversial, political, or personal, so chances of one of my tweets going viral and resulting in new fans and increased books sales is as unlikely as a rose bush growing at the North Pole.
However, back when I was traditionally published, I used to enjoy giving talks to library groups, book clubs, and other organizations. Covid put an end to that but ushered in the age of Zoom talks.
I’ve participated in several of these Zoom events, and I’m participating in another at the end of the month. On Tuesday, May 30th at 7:30-9:30pm EDT, grab your favorite beverage, settle into your comfiest chair, and hop online for a fun evening of laughs, Q&A, games, prizes, and more with some of your favorite mystery and suspense authors. All are welcome. And best of all? It’s FREE! All you have to do is register.
During this fun event, you’ll be able to Zoom around the various “rooms” where you’ll find dozens of authors happy to chat with you. I’m pairing up in one room with my fellow Booklover’s Bench blogger Maggie Toussaint (appearing under her new Valona Jones pen name for this event.) You can find a list of other attending authors here. Scroll down the page for the registration form. Hope to see you there!
Post a comment for a chance to win one of several promo codes I’m giving away for a free download of the audiobook version of Decoupage Can Be Deadly, the fourth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.
A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, will release on June 16th. Learn about Anastasia’s new adventure, read the first chapter, and find pre-order links here.
~*~
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.
Whose Words Are These?
Does the rise of artificial intelligence make you want to scream, “AI, caramba!”? *
While there’s speculation that AI may cost some people their jobs, writers worry that AI will lead to rampant plagiarism. All of which reminds me of a time in the pre-digital era when an entire work of mine was plagiarized by a living, breathing human being. It happened in a manner so blatant, it was almost comical.
20th Century Fox Corp.
I was the editor of a national tennis magazine (my first full-time job in publishing). One day, a freelancer who was looking for an assignment stopped by my office to drop off some samples of his past articles.
We had a brief chat about his experience, which seemed fairly extensive, and we planned to talk more after I’d read his work.
Later that day, I looked through the material he’d left and noticed that one item was an interview he’d conducted with the manager of Jimmy Connors, who was a world-class champion at the time.
I had interviewed the same man some months before. So out of curiosity, I chose the freelancer’s interview with him to read first. Its format was a simple Q. & A.
I read the first question and the manager’s response. I read the next question and answer. It wasn’t until the third Q. & A. that something began to feel familiar.
I went to my back files, found the issue I was looking for, and flipped to the page with my interview on it. Everything was identical, down to the last comma and period, except for the photos and the freelancer’s name instead of mine in the byline.
At first, I was amazed at the audacity. It occurred to me that the thief might have stolen so many works from other writers that he never bothered to keep track of whose article he was submitting to whom.
The pilfered interview.
And then I got mad.
The magazine with the pilfered interview was based in Australia, a big tennis mecca back then, with its own national stars like Laver and Goolagong. I sat down and wrote to the publisher, informing them that they had published a stolen article. I included a copy of my original piece, along with my suspicion that there may be more of the same from that individual.
Two days later, the plagiarizer showed up again and asked me what I thought of his work. I let my fury fly while he sat there stone-faced. After I was through, this is what he said: “So, you won’t be hiring me?”
I kid you not.
I never heard from his publisher, and I never saw or heard from the pilferer again. But I’ll always think of him as a lazy, cheating son-of-a-gun, like a grownup and ever-unrepentant Bart Simpson.
Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of the Samantha Newman Mystery Series, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and the upcoming Body in the News.
*a nod to Bart Simpson, The Simpsons, Twentieth Century Fox Corp. Free use.
An Expert Disagreement
By Donnell Ann Bell
In December 2022, on The Stiletto Gang, I blogged about the importance of accurate research when creating our fictional stories. I also pointed out that the Internet is a great place to obtain plot information, but to rely exclusively on search engines is risky. I also mentioned in this blog that to double check my research, I consult experts.
Book three of my cold case series is a spinoff of book one, Black Pearl a Cold Case Suspense. In book one I read nonfiction books and 
consulted numerous psychological experts. The same is necessary for book three. In addition to reading everything I can about mental health and hospitals, I’m consulting with psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists.
SPOILER ALERT: In book one, my antagonist suffers from a particular disorder. Too late in the story, I learned the mental ailment is not an acceptable legal defense and, in most cases, doesn’t hold up in court. This caused a problem as I planned to use this character again in book three.
What to do? During the antagonist’s competency hearing, I wrote a scene whereby the judge, lawyers, doctors, and spectators witness an episode firsthand. No doubt about it, the antagonist belongs in prison. However, with doctors for both the prosecution and the defense present, the judge follows their recommendations and commits the antagonist to a mental hospital until he is deemed competent to stand trial.
After that plot fix, I thought I was ready to get to work on book three. However, another problem arose. One of the experts I consulted claimed not to believe in the disorder, while the other experts I consulted emphatically do.
Recognizing that the courts don’t accept the disorder and a psychiatrist doesn’t as well presented a major conundrum for me. I couldn’t just gloss over her viewpoint. I may write fiction, but it has to be honest; moreover fiction has to make sense.
Like any profession, there seems to be a disconnect among these learned professionals. One therapist I talked to said that psychiatrists treat the patient with the prescription pad while psychotherapists try to get to the root of the patients’ dysfunction. I’m sure psychiatrists would argue the point. In fact, one book I read explained the years of analysis a psychiatrist went into in helping his DID patient.
Knowing this feeling exists, however, allowed my muse to take over. I realized a way I could present both opinions and still hopefully make my story work!
I went to work writing a psychotherapist’s backstory. He’s newly retired and recently widowed. For years, he was in practice with his psychiatrist wife who adamantly rejected the idea of the mental illness, so much so she published articles in medical and psychiatric journals in support of her argument.
The widower, who still consults on occasion, is called to meet my antagonist. He is fascinated and later becomes convinced that my antagonist is a valid case. Retirement allows the character to devote longer therapy hours and his goal becomes not only to help but to publish papers on his findings later.
Incorporating these differing opinions helped me cement my plot. It’s now outlined and in draft form. Now the hurdle becomes–can I bring this story to life? Fellow authors, is my story at all familiar to you? Do you encounter roadblocks when writing. My roadblock was huge. How about you? Ever had one and do you work to go around them?
About the Author: Donnell Ann Bell is an award-winning author, her latest work, a series, includes Until Dead: a Cold Case Suspense, released in 2022, Black Pearl, a Cold Case Suspense 2020 Colorado Book Award finalist. Donnell’s single title books include, Buried Agendas, Betrayed, Deadly Recall and the Past Came Hunting, all of which have been Amazon bestsellers. Currently she’s writing book three of her cold case series. www.donnellannbell.com
So Many Novels to Read!
The novel – so abundant today was not always so readily available. In ancient times, novels were handwritten on papyrus paper, and they were super expensive.
Before I continue though, I should share the definition most scholars use for a novel:
- It must be fiction.
- It must be prose.
- It must be a narrative.
- It must be at least 50,000 words.
For more technically oriented folks, the definition might also include:
- It must have been written by a single author or a group of authors working in collaboration.
- It must have been written with the intent of publication in some form.
Early publications in the Western world often include:
- Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory, originally published 1485.
- Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes, originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1616.
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, originally published in 1719.
When it comes to early books, The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, written in the early eleventh century, is an extraordinary work yet it is Japanese, not Western. Then there are Greek novels written in the first and second centuries BCE. One is a historical romance about King Ninos, the legendary king of Assyria, who was in love with his cousin, Semiramis. The Ninos Romance exists in fragments, but apparently in sufficient fragments that experts qualify it as a novel. Then there are other ones, such as The Milesian Tale, that have completely disappeared but are referenced in other writings.
The likely reason it was referenced by early scholars is that a traveler arrived in the city of Miletos (located on the west coast of what is now Turkey), known in antiquity for the luxurious and debauched lifestyle of its inhabitants! Nothing like licentiousness to entice creation of a story!
Back to the present. With approximately 1,000,000 new titles being published every year in the US alone, it translates to 2,700 books per day or more than 100 books per hour. Readers must be choosy! Yet fans of the romance genre expect their favorite authors to produce a book every four weeks. Can writers have a life when their readers want twelve books a year from them? It that realistic?
Keep reading – there’s lots to read!
Have you read any of the older novels I’ve mentioned?
***
About Kathryn
Kathryn Lane is the award-winning author of the Nikki Garcia Mystery Series.
In her writing, she draws deeply from her experiences growing up in a small town in northern Mexico as well as her work and travel in over ninety countries around the globe during her career in international finance with Johnson & Johnson.
Kathryn and her husband, Bob Hurt, split their time between Texas and the mountains of northern New Mexico where she finds it inspiring to write.
Kathryn’s Latest novel:
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSHFRD11
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Diary-Kathryn-Lane/dp/1735463833/
Photo Credits:
All book covers from public domain. All photos are used for educational or editorial purposes.
How Intelligent is Artificial Intelligence?
By Lois Winston
AI is here to stay, and there is much to worry about. For instance, we’ve all heard about the scams where bad actors contact people and demand ransom for a kidnapped relative. Too many people act out of fear before thinking and wind up losing huge sums of money. Thanks to AI, scammers can now clone the actual voice of the “kidnap victim.”
Writers are worried they’ll become obsolete, that in the future AI will take over publishing. After all, if publishers can use AI to churn out novels, why pay authors? I wondered if authors’ fears are truly founded. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I went on ChatGPT and told it, “Write a manuscript in the style of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries by Lois Winston.”
Artificial Intelligence is supposed to be able to analyze text and produce a new work in the style of the author. There are currently eleven Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries and three novellas. First chapters and back cover copy are widely available online, both on e-retailer sites and my own website. It didn’t take AI long to churn out several chapters. Here’s the beginning of a book created by ChatGPT:
Murder and Mayhem in the Crafting World
Chapter One
Anastasia Pollack had been up since dawn, frantically stitching together a wedding dress for her best friend’s daughter. As a professional crafter and owner of the American Woman magazine’s crafting column, Anastasia was used to tight deadlines, but this one felt especially pressing. After all, she couldn’t let her best friend down, and she wanted everything to be perfect for the big day.
In the first sentence, there are glaring errors. I write in first person, not third person. How intelligent is ChatGPT if it couldn’t even discern this? Anastasia is the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. She’s not a “professional crafter,” and she doesn’t “own” a crafting column in a magazine.
It got worse:
Just as she finished the final stitches, her phone rang. It was her mother, who never called before noon.
“Anastasia, darling,” her mother’s voice came through the phone, “I need your help.”
Anastasia sighed, knowing that her mother’s definition of “help” was very different from her own. “What do you need, Mother?”
“It’s your uncle. He’s in trouble again.”
Anastasia’s heart sank. Uncle Ralph was always getting himself into some sort of scrape or another. “What kind of trouble?”
UNCLE Ralph? Ralph is a Shakespeare-quoting African Grey parrot! He makes his appearance on Page 4 of Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. ChatGPT scanned enough to know Ralph was a character but wasn’t smart enough to know the difference between a human and a bird.
I won’t bore you further, except to say that ChatGPT also came nowhere close to capturing my voice. I write humorous amateur sleuth mysteries. Anastasia is a Jersey girl with a Jersey girl’s outlook on life. Publisher’s Weekly compared her to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon from Thirty Rock, and Kirkus Reviews called her, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” ChatGPT obviously isn’t intelligent enough to understand and duplicate humor beyond the standard Knock-Knock joke.
Not to mention the fact that “mediocre” would be a generous description of the writing ChatGPT produced. I worked for a literary agency for a dozen years. If someone had submitted Murder and Mayhem in the Crafting World, it would have received a swift rejection letter.
However, perhaps I was partly at fault. I had asked the AI to write a manuscript “in the style” of my series. What would happen if I tried again, this time saying, “Create a book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series by Lois Winston”?
The results were no better:
A Deadly Yarn in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series
Chapter 1
Anastasia Pollack had been expecting a normal day at the office. She was going through the piles of paperwork that had accumulated on her desk when she received a call from her son, Alex.
“Mom, I need you to come to the yarn store. I think something’s wrong.”
Anastasia’s heart skipped a beat. She knew Alex wouldn’t call her unless it was something serious.
“I’m on my way,” she replied, grabbing her coat and keys.
When she arrived at the yarn store, she saw Alex standing outside with a group of people. He ran up to her as soon as he saw her.
“Mom, thank God you’re here,” he said, his eyes wide with worry. “It’s Catherine. She’s dead.”
Anastasia’s heart sank. Catherine was one of her closest friends and employees at the store. She couldn’t believe that she was gone.
As she flipped through the pages, she realized that Catherine had been keeping a diary. The entries were cryptic, but Anastasia could tell that something was bothering her friend.
Once again, ChatGPT had created a third person narrative. Once again, Anastasia is NOT a shop owner. And once again, ChatGPT wasn’t intelligent enough to tell the difference between a human and an animal.
In my series, “Catherine” is not Anastasia’s best friend. Her best friend is Cloris McWerther, the food editor at the magazine where they both work. “Catherine” is Catherine the Great, her mother’s cat.
Catherine the Great doesn’t show up until Chapter Five in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, but the AI had scanned enough of the text to find her name. If it were really intelligent, it would have picked up on the fact that she’s a four-legged creature, especially since she’s introduced as “Catherine the Great, my mother’s extremely corpulent white Persian cat.”
All ChatGPT would have had to do is scan any of my books’ Amazon pages where it would have found a large illustration of all three pets in the Pollack household. I’m wondering, if I tried a third experiment, would ChatGPT morph Anastasia’s mother-in-law’s French bulldog into yet another human? I decided not to waste my time.
Post a comment for a chance to win one of several promo codes I’m giving away for a free download of the audiobook version of Decoupage Can Be Deadly, the fourth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.
~*~
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.
The Mystery of Genre
Dear Readers: The Stiletto Gang is pleased to introduce to you its newest member, Author Joyce Woollcott. Please welcome and follow Joyce. We think you will be glad you did as her debut thriller is already racking up awards and creating quite a buzz! ~ The Stiletto Gang Team
The Mystery of Genre
by: Joyce Woollcott
Genre. That’s a word I rarely thought about before I started to write. Now I consider it fairly often. When someone picks up a book I daresay they don’t ask themselves––what genre is this? And to be honest I don’t think most people care, as long as the book is the kind of thing they enjoy reading.
And I don’t know very many people who read widely across genres. I used to, but these days I mainly read mystery and crime novels because that’s what I write.
So, I asked myself a few questions.
WHAT GENRE: MYSTERY, SUSPENSE, THRILLER, DOMESTIC SUSPENSE, ROMANCE, COZY, HISTORICAL, SCI FI, FANTASY, OTHER?
Mystery/suspense.
WHAT DO YOU PREFER, A MALE OR FEMALE PROTAGONIST?
Male I guess. Although I do like Karen Pirie, Val McDermid’s wonderful detective.
DO YOU PREFER PROFESSIONAL INVESTIGATOR OR AMATEUR?
Professional.
PETS? CATS OR DOGS?
Not necessary, but dogs if I had to choose.
A CRIME TO SOLVE, A MURDER OR SOMETHING ELSE, A BURGLARY OR VIOLENT ATTACK? MISSING PERSON.
Murder, have to have a murder, missing person works too.
GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, OR OFF THE PAGE DETAILS? OR NO VIOLENCE OR SEX?
A bit of violence and romance but not graphic.
LOCATION? N. AMERICA, EUROPE OR BEYOND.
Europe, preferably Ireland, England, Scotland or Wales. Don’t mind the Nordic books either.
CITY, TOWN OR COUNTRYSIDE? REMOTE OR DENSELY POPULATED?
Countryside, a small village, or on an island. Remote is good. Trips to the city are okay too.
GLOOMY OR SUNNY WEATHER?
Oh, gloomy is good. With a little sun from time to time.
DO YOU LIKE TO READ ABOUT RECIPES OR FOOD IN THE BOOK?
No to recipes, although I do enjoy reading about meals and cooking within the story.
COMPLICATED PLOT WITH SUBPLOTS, OR STRAIGHTFORWARD?
I like a few interwoven storylines. Love red herrings.
LIGHTHEARTED? SOME LIGHTER MOMENTS, OR DEADLY SERIOUS?
A serious plot with lighter moments to break up the tension.
A CONFLICTED PROTAGONIST OR NOT?
Oh, definitely conflicted, lots of angst!
So where does that leave me? It leaves me with my Debut Novel: A Nice Place to Die. And no, I didn’t form the answers to fit that storyline, it just turns out that that’s the kind of book I love to read.
A NICE PLACE TO DIE
A young woman’s body is found by a river outside Belfast and DS Ryan McBride makes a heart-wrenching discovery at the scene, a discovery he hides even though it could cost him the investigation – and his career.
Why would someone want to harm her? And is her murder connected to a rapist who’s stalking the local pubs? As Ryan untangles a web of deception and lies, his suspects die one by one, leading him to a dangerous family secret and a murderer who will stop at nothing to keep it.
And still, he harbors his secret…
A Nice Place to Die is available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon and at many other retailers. The audiobook is coming out in a few days on the 25th April from Tantor Media and will be read by a wonderful L.A. – based Irish actor, Alan Smyth.
But wait, there’s more to my survey!
I decided to take a quick survey amongst my friends and fellow writers and asked them what they enjoyed reading and if they read one kind of book exclusively, and guess what? Mostly, they did. And I was surprised to hear that in general, the writers gravitated to very specific subjects and storylines. Especially if they wrote in that genre. They knew what they liked and assumed if they picked up that kind of book they wouldn’t be disappointed. Of course this also helps with research, as a writer you are always learning about your craft, each time you read a new book. As a reader you want to be entertained and also want to learn.
A friend who is a reader, not a writer was much more general in her replies. She read both fiction and non-fiction and enjoyed a wide range of genres, didn’t care what she read actually. In fiction, her only preferences were, a straightforward plot, with a bit of humour, a conflicted protagonist and unusual locations.
As far as the other replies from writers, the only questions they agreed on were…
1/ MALE/FEMALE PROTAGONIST? Either.
2/ SEX AND SOME VIOLENCE? Yes, but not too graphic.
3/ LOCATION PREFERENCE? Anywhere interesting.
4/ CONFLICTED DETECTIVE/PROTAGONIST? Definitely.
5/ SOME HUMOUR, LIGHT MOMENTS? Yes.
Everyone had widely varying replies to all the others, so there you go. Why don’t you try it yourself, and see what kind of book you come up with?
About the Author: Joyce Woollcott is a Canadian writer born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After moving to Canada she worked in broadcasting design for many years, eventually leaving to travel and write. Her first book, A Nice Place to Die, introduces Police Service of Northern Ireland detectives DS Ryan McBride and his partner DS Billy Lamont.
In 2019, A Nice Place to Die won the Daphne du Maurier Award, Unpublished, for Mainstream Mystery and Suspense. Her first novel, Abducted, was long-listed in the 2018 CWC Arthur Ellis Awards. A Nice Place to Die was long-listed in 2019 and 2020 and in 2021 was short-listed in the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence.
A graduate of the Humber School for Writers and BCAD, University of Ulster, she is a member of Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers.