Tag Archive for: #fiction

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Settings

by Saralyn Richard

 

The five books I’ve written have three distinct
settings, all different, all places that I know and love. The two books in the
Detective Parrott mystery series take place in Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania.
I have family members who live there, and I’ve been privileged to visit many
times. A paradise for equestrians, artists, and nature-lovers, this is a landscape
filled with wide, beautiful, and peaceful vistas. Country mansions,
old-fashioned bank barns, horse stables, and wildlife abound, and many of the
people who live and work there are healthy, wealthy, resilient, and
independent. Brandywine is the last place you’d expect a crime to take place,
so when outsider, Detective Oliver Parrott, shows up to investigate deaths or
thefts or other crimes, he has an uphill battle.

            Along
the way, the books take readers to many of the unique attractions of Brandywine
Valley, including Longwood Gardens, The Brandywine River Museum of Fine Arts,
Kennett Square, incomparable horse trails, and outstanding restaurants. Many
readers have enjoyed these glimpses so much that they have traveled to the area
to experience it for themselves.



            By
contrast, the stand-alone mystery, A MURDER OF PRINCIPAL, is set in a far
different universe—the urban high school. Aside from the differences of
outdoor-indoor, wealthy-disadvantaged milieus, the worlds depicted in these
novels contain similar types of tension and drama. The urban high school is a
familiar and much beloved setting for me, since I spent many years as a
teacher, administrator, and school improvement consultant there. In this book,
readers are treated to an administrator’s view of the principal’s office, the
teacher’s lounge, the cafeteria, the football field, and the auditorium—a million
stories beyond the flagpole.


            A
third beloved setting is a coastal island, where the closeness of the community
and the intensity of the summer temperature can be sometimes comforting and
sometimes oppressive. My children’s book, NAUGHTY NANA, and my newest adult
mystery novel, BAD BLOOD SISTERS, are situated there. Having been born and
raised on such an island, I’ve enjoyed sharing the various sights, sounds, and
smells of this setting, and placing my protagonists there.

            Much
has been written about the importance of setting in a work of fiction.
Sometimes the setting is mere wallpaper, and other times setting is as
important as a character in telling the story. When I read novels, I learn from
and enjoy the settings. It’s hard to imagine GONE WITH THE WIND apart from the
South during the Civil War, THE POISONWOOD BIBLE without the African Congo, or
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in any other location besides the fictional Maycomb,
Alabama.

            As I
write, I cannot separate the setting from the plot or characters, and I hope my
readers sense how integral the setting is to the story.

            How
about you? When you read a wonderful book, how important is the setting?

 

Saralyn
Richard’s award-winning humor- and romance-tinged mysteries and children’s book
pull back the curtain on people in settings as diverse as elite country manor
houses and disadvantaged urban high schools. Saralyn’s most recent release is Bad Blood Sisters. A
member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America,
Saralyn teaches creative writing and literature at the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute, and continues to write mysteries. Her favorite thing about being an
author is interacting with readers like you. Visit
Saralyn here, on her Amazon page here, or on Facebook here.

 

           

I Dream in Science Fiction!

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By Kathryn Lane

Fiction
writers take ideas from everywhere, the reason a saying says, “Be careful what
you say around me – I’m a fiction writer.” To prove the point, I’ll paraphrase one of T.S. Eliot’s
quotes: “Good writers borrow; great writers steal.”

Dreams
offer me a favorite reservoir of ideas to borrow. I dream in full technicolor,
and in Spanish and English. Several short stories have come directly from stuff
obtained during my REM sleep.

However,
I was shocked when I had a science fiction dream, complete with language from
an Orwellian future. I read sci-fi, but I’ve never attempted to write it. I do
not have the grasp of physics, astrophysics, astronomy, chemistry, and artificial
intelligence to write convincing sci-fi, so I limit myself to simply reading
it.

Years
ago, I’d read a lot of Ray Bradbury, who said, “Anything you dream is fiction,
and anything you accomplish is science; therefore, the whole history of
humankind is nothing but science fiction.”

Now back to my sci-fi
dream. I was at a
party, complete with fireworks, set in futuristic surroundings. An older couple
left the party and drove away in a self-driving car. In the amorphous
environment of dreaming, I was concerned about them so I called to make sure
they were okay.

I heard an automated voice inform me
through my implanted earphone that “Public driver 00Z1921 was detained by a
squadron of public protectors for bypassing the self-driving controls of
00Z1921’s auto.”

“What’s
the accusation,” I asked.

“Reckless
speeding and endangering the disciples,” the automated voice responded. The voice further instructed me to
locate 00Z1921 at the hostile crisis center.

Still dreaming, I arrived at the center and found the small
self-driving car surrounded by ten hostile-looking storm trooper types.

Then I woke up! Unfortunately,
the dream ended before I learned the outcome of poor old 00Z1921.

Guess I’ve been reading too many futuristic articles
on the speeding up of technological advances resulting from our lockdown, and
those ideas zoomed me into a future time zone!

Or
maybe, as Ray Bradbury might have said, we are all living in a science
fictional world.

***

Do you dream in technicolor?
Do you have dreams set in a sci-fi future?

Kathryn Lane started out as a starving
artist. To earn a living, she became a certified public accountant and embarked
on a career in international finance with a major multinational corporation.
After two decades, she left the corporate world to plunge into writing mystery
and suspense thrillers. In her stories, Kathryn draws deeply from her Mexican background as well as her travels
in over ninety countries.

https://www.kathryn-lane.com

https://www.facebook.com/kathrynlanewriter/

The Nikki Garcia Mystery Series: eBook Trilogy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GZNF17G

Photo Credits:

Fireworks: “Looks like the Sky will
bleed with Colors tonight. Wishing everyone a wonderful evening of fun &
excitement!” by williamcho –
licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Waymo
self-driving car front view by Grendelkhan – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Storm
Trooper at Oxford by Sheng P. – licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Kathryn’s books – designs by Bobbye
Marrs

Where Do We Get Our Ideas?

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by Sparkle Abbey

People often ask authors where their ideas for particular books come from. And though it’s quite different from author to author, one thing we’ve discovered from hanging out with other authors is that most have no problem coming up with ideas for stories. In fact, most of us have far more ideas than we’ll ever have the time to write. Story ideas are everywhere.

Writers are innately curious and so a news story, a magazine article, even an obituary can spark a thought that turns into a possibility. The writer imagination is off and running and wondering what if. The news of the day may be a big fire at a local business. It could have been faulty electrical wiring, but the writer wonders what if it wasn’t. What if there’s more to the story? What if the fire was actually a cover-up?

Also writers are by nature observers. Yes, that’s us sitting quietly in the corner of the room or the park. That couple holding hands while their body language says there’s something else going on. What’s their story? The three girls in a whispered conversation whose foreheads are almost touching. What secrets are they sharing? The elderly woman with her purse clutched tightly on her lap who keeps checking her watch. Who is she waiting for? And the guy in a dark suit that looks oddly out of place. He’s too quiet. Is he an undercover cop? Perhaps a spy?

Or wait maybe the elderly woman is the spy. Would that be a great twist? The guy in the dark suit could be headed to a job interview. We imagine the three teen-aged girls in ten years. Will they still be friends? Still sharing secrets? What if they lose touch with each other? What if they don’t?

See how it works? There is drama everywhere, and secrets, and stories. As writers we are sponges for the bit and pieces that are story sparks. We get to bring those stories to life and give them twists and change them around. Ideas are everywhere. 

Now that you know how it works, the only thing to remember is when you’re having a conversation with a writer, and they get that far-away look, that there is a good chance they have spotted a potential story across the room and they’re already coming up with ideas. Or the other possibility is that something you’ve said has been the spark, and you’re the story idea.

Writers, is this how it works for you? Have you come across an interesting story spark that you’ve yet to write? Readers, how about you? Have you come across an idea that you thought would make a great story?

Do tell…


Sparkle
Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Woods aka Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write
the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends
as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder.
(But don’t tell the neighbors.) They love to hear from readers and can be found
on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. 


Their most recent book is The Dogfather, the tenth book in the Pampered Pets series.


Also, if you want to make sure you
get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website.

The CIA…and Gloria Steinem

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By Kay Kendall

Gloria Steinem said it best: “Writing is the only thing I do
that I don’t feel like I should be doing something else.”
I began writing fiction fifteen years ago. My first
manuscript was a literary novel that I worked on forever and put aside when I
failed to get an agent. That was important eight years ago, much less so now
under different publishing conditions. But I found I still was compelled to
write so I immersed myself in crime fiction, let the patterns of the genre seep
into my head, and then began to write my mystery.
Within the mystery genre, historical fiction is what I like
to read best. Many authors locate their sleuths and their spymasters during the
great wars of the twentieth century. The two world wars and Cold War are amply
represented in mysteries and spy fiction. The Vietnam War is comparatively not
“taken.” Besides it is the era I grew up in. I decided it was an historic niche
that needed filling and that I was the one to do the filling.
I wanted to show what life was like for young women of that
era, the late sixties—not the type who made headlines, the Angela Davises and
Hanoi Janes, but the moderates who nonetheless got swept along by the tides of
history during that turbulent time. All that turmoil lends itself to drama,
intrigue…and murder.
I don’t consider myself a daring or courageous person. My
heroine Austin Starr feels fear, is often anxious but keeps on pushing
regardless. I picture her as myself with more moxie.
Recently I gave a book reading and said that to my audience.
Imagine how startled I was therefore, when a long-time family friend said,
“That’s nonsense, Kay. You are so adventuresome. You went to the Soviet Union
for a summer when you were only twenty to study, you moved to a different
country (Canada), and you’re always trying new things.”
I must confess that opinion made me feel good, although I
still regard it as unfounded.
Still, I will tell you a secret.
Imagine how surprised that old friend would be if she
knew that the CIA training of Austin Starr was based on my own
flirtation with that spy agency. I really did interview with the CIA. When
offered a position, instead I chose to attend grad school and continue
studying Russian history…. Just as my protagonist Austin Starr does. 
Maybe I have more moxie than I give myself credit for after
all.
All that said, it’s no surprise that I’m excited for the
second season of the TV spy thriller The Americans to start up in a few days on
the FX Network.  Any movie or TV show,
put spies in it and some derring-do, and I will be there, front and center, for
the vicarious adventure.

 ~~~~~~~
Kay & house bunny Dusty

Kay Kendall is an international award-winning public relations executive who lives in Texas with her husband, five house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. A fan of historical mysteries, she wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Alan Furst does for Europe in the 1930s during Hitler’s rise to power–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age.

Discover more about  DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com