Tag Archive for: mystery

Getting the Setting Right

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by Shari Randall

Shari here, taking a bit of a break from writing Book Three in my Lobster Shack Mystery series. I just mailed in copy edits on Book Two, Against the Claw, which will be published on July 31. My kids love the fact that it comes out on Harry Potter’s birthday!
When I started writing the first book in my series, I thought about the ingredients I wanted to add to the story. What do I like in a mystery? I definitely wanted a play-fair puzzle with lots of possible culprits. I like a fast pace, in the snappy style of Murder, She Wrote. I love a fish out of water story, so I landed Allegra Larkin, my ballerina protagonist, in a lobster shack. Most especially, I wanted the setting to make the reader feel like they were taking a New England vacation.
Actually, of all the ingredients, the setting worried me the most. Even though I live in the area where my series is set – the Connecticut shoreline and I am just minutes from some great lobster shacks – I was concerned about doing justice to the feel, details, and history that make this such a great place to visit.
My fictional Lazy Mermaid lobster shack is a combination of several shacks that I visited when I did my Lobster Shack Tour last summer. From Connecticut to the Cape to Maine there are lots of lobster shacks. What do they have in common?  The sunburned diners at splintery picnic tables, the dive-bombing gulls, blue sky and blue water, the briny sweet taste of lobster, the long lines and jammed parking lots.
What does my fictional Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack have that they don’t? For a start: 
A cook who serenades the lobster with Broadway show tunes.
Walls decorated with not just the typical fishing nets and wooden lobster traps, but also shelf after shelf of a mermaid collection called “mermaidabilia.”
A shack set in a little village where the buildings are unchanged from the time they were built in the mid 1800s.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a note from a reader who told me that my book made her feel like she was a little girl again, right back in the seaside cottage her family rented on the Connecticut shore not far from New Haven. It was her family’s tradition to visit a lobster shack and get lobster rolls once every summer. She was sure that the shack in my book was the one that her family had visited all those years ago. She even sent me a picture of her family at the shack.
Well, I was thrilled that I’d captured the feeling of this reader’s childhood New England vacations, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my lobster shack was fictional.
But the lovely fan letter has given me some hope that I’m getting the setting right. I hope if you’re in the mood for a New England vacation, you’ll visit the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack in my fictional Mystic Bay, Connecticut. Let me know if you have a good time, okay?
Shari Randall is the author of Curses, Boiled Again, Book One of the new Lobster Shack Mystery series from St. Martin’s Press. Book Two, Against the Claw, will be published July 31, 2018. You can see what’s new with her at https://us.macmillan.com/author/sharirandall/.

 

Travel Plans aka Adventures

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by Sparkle Abbey

What’s that saying about the best laid plans? Oh, right…the full quote is “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” From the Scottish poet, Robert Burns.

It seems that particular quote is often true for us. And especially when it involves travel plans. Or as we like to call them travel adventures.

More times than we can count we’ve had flight delays, road construction delays and bad weather (ice, snow, thunderstorm) delays. Heck, we’ve even had a tumbleweed delay on a flight into Denver. Now, there have been a few times when the travel plans gone awry, were out own fault. We may or may not have missed a turn and ended up in Michigan. Twice.

Has anything like that ever happened to you?

We have, more than once, completely missed mystery conferences or apperances because our rebooking couldn’t get us on-site in time. Not good. So you can understand our trepidation as we booked our flight for the Malice Domestic conference at the end of this month. We love attending Malice Domestic. We love meeting readers, reconnecting with friends and fellow authors, and hanging out with book people. So, we’re thinking positive travel thoughts and hoping for smooth sailing…er…flying.

If you’re planning to be at Malice we look forward to seeing you there. In fact, if you see us at Malice we’re happy to share a cocktail or a coffee and hear some of your travel adventures. Or perhaps you’d like to share here?

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of mystery authors Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter. They’ve chosen to use Sparkle Abbey as their pen name on this series because they liked the idea of combining the names of their two rescue pets – Sparkle (ML’s cat) and Abbey (Anita’s dog).

The authors co-write the best-selling Pampered Pets Mystery Series which focuses on the wacky world of precious pedigrees, pampered pooches, and secrets in posh Laguna Beach, California. The main characters and amateur sleuths are Texas cousins, Caro Lamont, a pet therapist, and Melinda Langston, a pet boutique owner. The two would join forces and work together if they were speaking, but they’re not.  Midwest Book Review calls the series “A sassy and fun mystery!”

At Malice Domestic this year Sparkle Abbey (aka Anita and Mary Lee) will be on the Murderous Wit panel at 3:00 PM on Saturday along with Paula Gail Benson, Ginger Bolton and Lida Sideris.

Movie Stars Merry & Bright

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by Sparkle Abbey

Judy posted earlier in the week about the traditions of holiday movies and we couldn’t help but add our two cents worth on the topic because we love holiday movies. Do you like holiday movies? Do you have a favorite (or two or three) that you look forward to each year as they start appearing in the television line-up?

We love It’s a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street, The Bishop’s Wife, The Holiday, and oh so many others. Such great stories and so many wonderful stars!

There’s nothing like Zuzu Bailey proclaiming, “Teacher says, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel get his wings.'” Or Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. Or Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, and Jude Law and all the madcap mixups in The Holiday.

But we have to tell you, there’s a new kid on the block. A new entry in our favorite holiday movie must-see list. The Man Who Invented Christmas with Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as Charles Dickens, and Christopher Plummer as Scrooge was a surprise as we hadn’t heard much about it. But this telling of how Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol did not disappoint!

Perhaps some of the charm for us was the protrayal of Dickens, the writer, and the difficulties he encounters as he tries to work out the plotline and get his characters to behave. And deal with real life difficulties at the same time. We won’t give away any details, but if you get a chance, check out this new movie that’s on our list of favorites.

Speaking of stars, we’ve been busy with the launch of our latest installment in the Pampered Pets mystery series, Barking with the Stars, and we’d love to give away a special holiday gift packet to celebrate. Just leave a comment below before midnight December 9th and we’ll draw from among those commenting for a free Sparkle Abbey book and some other Christmas goodies.

Please share your favorite holiday movie, if you have one. Or if you’re not into holiday movies, is there a movie that you re-watch each year?

Wishing you all things merry & bright and a great holiday season!
Sparkle Abbey

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series.


They love to hear from readers and you can find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. And if you want to make sure you’re up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

Book Fog

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by Sparkle Abbey

We’ve all experienced it, right? That feeling when you’ve been so immersed in a story that you come up for air and the real world seems a little foggy.

As a reader, those are the best books aren’t they? The author has succeeded at taking us on a journey. We’ve lived in the world they’ve created and spent time with characters who seem like real people.

What readers might not realize is that writers experience book fog, too, but in our creative role, in a slightly different way.

Writers have many different approaches to writing a book – some plot extensively, others just jump in and write, and some revise as they writer. But regardless of the process, when we complete a book, we have lived with these characters, in this world we’ve created, living their hopes and dreams and conflicts, for a very long time.

We’re often asked: How does it feel when a book is done? Are you excited? We have to say, we’re almost always in a book fog. We’re tired, we feel that writing “the end” euphoria, but mostly we feel that a part of us is still in that book world.

Writers, we’re sure you’ll recognize what that’s like. Readers, the best way for us to explain it is that it’s like the feeling you get when the story captures you so completely that, for a little while after you finish the book, you’re still in – 1920s Australia, 1740 Scotland, or modern day Laguna Beach.

So readers, we have to ask, what was the last book that gave you book fog?

Leave a comment and we’ll draw for a prize in the next week!

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Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of mystery authors Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter. They write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series which combines murder, zany characters and the wacky world of pampered pets. Their latest book, Barking with the Stars, will be released November 17th and can be pre-ordered right now on Amazon, Kobo, and iBooks.

Perry Mason, You and Me by Debra H. Goldstein

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Perry Mason, You and Me by Debra H. Goldstein

Looking back, I can identify many people who made me the person I am.  There were family members, teachers, and people who passed through my life for a moment, but one “person” stands out. Perry Mason.
During junior high and high school, my routine was to attend class, participate in after school activities and plop on our den’s couch at five p.m.  That’s when Perry Mason went on.  During the first commercial, I’d empty the dishwasher; at the second commercial, I’d set our dinner table; my dad got home from work during the third commercial and our family sat down for dinner when the show ended.
I thought Perry Mason/Raymond Burr was perfect.  He creatively thought outside the box, was considerate, had cute dimples when he smiled, treated Della, his secretary, well, and had an office and décor that appealed to me.  Perry Mason influenced me to become a lawyer. Of course, reality was different.  I don’t have dimples. Although I was a litigator for twelve years, a secretary neither physically shared my desk all day nor sat at counsel’s table with me, and my witnesses didn’t consistently confess.
The original and in my mind “real” Perry Mason show was on from 1957-1966.  Considering my age and the time of day I watched it, the episodes I was glued to were re-runs. Recently, I discovered Perry Mason running twice a day on an oldies channel.  Using modern technology, I set my DVR to capture “first run” episodes. This has allowed me to binge watch it from its beginning episodes.  To my surprise, the show holds up.
Maybe it is the fact that I’m not used to seeing television shows in black and white.  Maybe it is the simplicity of the sets, but I think the real reason is that it is written to a formula. Because characters, conflicts and a relationship to Perry are introduced in the first few minutes, I am engaged by the first commercial.  By the second commercial there is a dead body, an accused party who Perry knows isn’t telling him everything, and some fancy footwork between Perry and Lt. Tragg.  The next segment takes place in the courtroom.  Things look bad for Perry’s client, but a word or a scene triggers something in Perry’s mind that results in him figuring out the real culprit.  Through spectacular questioning (which might be considered leading), he elicits a confession from a witness on the stand or a bystander sitting in the courtroom (and the judge never cuts that person off). The final moments are the weakest of the show – it is always a scene where Della and Perry or Perry, Della, and investigator Paul Drake discuss how Perry figured it out and go over the motive and unseen actions that explain the murder. 
From a writer’s perspective, the show’s formula almost works.  Scene 1 – set up the conflict and the murder; scene 2 – the deadly middle where everyone becomes suspect; scene 3 – the solution. The only weak point is the final segment. It is always the writer’s sin of being a contrived dump of information. Still, there are plenty of things for a writer to take away from each Perry Mason episode.

1) Write a good story.
2) Set up the plot and then have pacing ups and downs in terms of scenes with conflict, and tension.
3) Make characters realistic, but give them traits that when the character comes back on the scene, the reader or viewer immediately associate a positive or negative feeling with them.
4) Keep dialogue on point.

In retrospect, I realize there also were many subtle things I took away from the show. 

1) Common curtesy can exist between characters – even when Burger and Mason were on opposite sides of an issue, they might get sarcastic, but they did it with a tone of respect.
2) Women could be anything they want – Perry always went up against a male lawyer, but if one watched carefully, one realized the sex of the judges was evenly divided between males and females. In a way, this was radical.  In real life, women were barely represented in law school classes until the mid to late 1970’s.  When I became a judge in 1990, it was still a novelty. (ask me the stats sometime)
3) Precise use of language is key to effective communication – and sometimes omission of words can be the friend of a mystery writer.

There is no question that Perry Mason played a big role in my life.  Were you influenced by any TV shows or books?  How?

Glossed Cause

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by Bethany Maines

Today I’m excited to announce that the fourth book in my
Carrie Mae Mystery series—GLOSSED CAUSE—is available for pre-order!  (Available August 8th!)
In the Carrie Mae Mysteries you’ll enter a world where the
Carrie Mae Cosmetics Corporation has decided that helping women form their own
home-based cosmetics sales businesses isn’t enough.  They want to help women everywhere, and
sometimes that requires more than the protection of waterproof
mascara—sometimes that takes a silenced .38 and the ability to kick more than a
little ass.
In Bulletproof Mascara
we met the red-headed, hot-tempered Nikki Lanier and followed her through
training and a first mission with partner, turned traitor, Val Robinson. And in Compact
with the Devil and High-Caliber
Concealer, we learned more about Nikki, her staunch team of friends, and
her tempestuous relationship with the drop-dead-sexy and drop-dead dangerous
boyfriend Z’ev Coralles, but in Glossed Cause we’ve come full circle.  Val is back and she’s brought nothing but
trouble…
GLOSSED CAUSE: Top Carrie Mae
agent Nikki Lanier’s nemesis and ex-partner Val Robinson has returned from the
dead and she wants Nikki’s help. When Val said that Phillipe Lanier—Nikki’s
long-absent father—had been kidnapped, Nikki dropped everything—friends,
family, boyfriend, to fly to the rescue. But soon Nikki realizes that her
father’s kidnapping may not be what it seems and she may have just tanked her
life for one of his ridiculous schemes. As Nikki and Val arrive in Amsterdam,
Nikki realizes that if wants to her life back, she’s going to have to not only
stop an international arms dealer, but convince her boyfriend, CIA Agent Z’ev
Coralles, that she’s not the bad guy and that Carrie Mae isn’t a terrorist
organization. But with Philippe refusing to be rescued, and an INTERPOL agent
gunning for Val and Nikki, as well as making moves on Z’ev, Nikki is starting
to doubt her own abilities. Can she do it, or is it a Glossed Cause?

PRE-ORDER GLOSSED CAUSE




***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Retreating In Order to Move Forward

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by Sparkle Abbey

To retreat is an act or a process of withdrawing. At least according to our handy Merriam Webster Dictionary app.  However, it has also come to mean a place you go to get away from it all. A place to relax, reflection and recharge.

This past weekend we participated in a different kind of retreat. This was plotting retreat with three other writers – the members of our critique group. We try to do this at least twice a year. It’s especially helpful at the start of a new project.

We started with a great dinner and discussion Friday night and then Saturday morning after breakfast we were ready to go. Each writer gets a two-hour time slot where we all focus on their story. Although we call this a plotting retreat, it’s up to the individual writer how their two-hour session is used. It may be actual plotting, or help with a story problem, or perhaps just brainstorming. There’s a wonderful synergy that happens when we put our five heads together.  It’s intense, it’s productive, and it’s also great fun.

There are several tools that we’ve found work well for us – a big whiteboard, flip charts, markers, reference books, and, of course, plenty of chocolate!

We been doing this for several years and at this past weekend’s retreat we worked on the plot for the 10th book in our Pampered Pets mystery series. We think you’ll enjoy what we’ve cooked up this time!

What about you? Have you ever attended any kind of retreat?

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series. The pen name was created by combining the names of their rescue pets–Sparkle (Mary Lee’s cat) and Abbey (Anita’s dog). If you want to make sure you’re up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

By the way, beginning today the 5th book in Sparkle Abbey’s mystery series, FIFTY SHADES OF GREYHOUND is on sale for only $1.99 for a limited time in all ebook formats.

Murder, I Write

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Not too long ago, an author friend and I sat down for lunch. He was kind enough to tell me about the book he was working on. A book about war and his heroine’s descent into evil.

He finished speaking and looked at me expectantly.

I sat in stunned silence.

He waited.

I stalled with a sip of water then said, “It doesn’t sound very redemptive.”

His lip curled into a slight sneer. “It’s not redemptive. There’s nothing redemptive about war.”

I was too busy enjoying my shrimp, grapefruit, and avocado salad to argue that there might not be anything redemptive in war, but there should be in fiction.

It’s a conversation I’ve thought of often. I do not have an MFA. I do not write literary fiction. I do write to promote a political agenda. I write to entertain.

And to me, part of being entertained is an ending that keeps the story’s promise. If it’s a mystery, the murdered will be caught. If it’s a romance, the two star-crossed lovers will find happiness. If it’s historical fiction, the protagonist will learn and grow against an interesting backdrop.

Can I tell you a secret? I didn’t like Gone Girl. Not one bit. Why? SPOILER!!! Because for all that Nick goes through, he is not redeemed. His life is going to be awful. Maybe worse than when the book began. Gillian Flynn writes an engaging novel but to my mind, the ending broke its promise with its readers.

A reader who picks up a Country Club Murder knows Ellison will find a body (or two). They also know that Ellison will have to deal with her difficult Mother and a host of other problems as she struggles to unmask the killer. Finally, they know that at the end of the book, the murderer will be revealed and order will be restored (until Ellison finds the next body–but that’s another book).

It’s a story promise I vow to keep.

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. 

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean–and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is–she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.


Her latest book, Watching the Detectives, releases May 23.

Swooning for Strawberries with Special Guest Sharon Farrow

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We (Sparkle Abbey) are thrilled to welcome our special guest, Sharon Farrow aka Sharon Pisacreta, to The Stiletto Gang today. We can’t wait to hear more about Dying for Strawberries, the first book in her new Berry Basket series. Take it away, Sharon!

The fruity inspiration for my new Berry Basket series was twofold. First, I love all things berry. As someone on a continual diet, they’re my go-to healthy snack. Once the season for fresh berries has passed, I stock up on the frozen variety.  The winter months see me making a staggering number of breakfast berry smoothies in my NutriBullet. Second, I’m a big fan of The Blueberry Store in a nearby lakeshore town. Each time I visited the shop, I couldn’t help but think about creating a similar store for a fictional heroine who loves berries as much as I do. Only I decided to add every sort of berry and their related products to the store shelves, not simply blueberries. I also live in Michigan’s fruit belt. A berry business set here seemed an ideal premise for a cozy mystery series.

Since each book will feature a specific berry, I needed to figure out which berry should kick off the series. It took me about one minute to decide that strawberries should take center stage in my debut Berry Basket book Dying for Strawberries. A favorite since childhood, they are literally the first berry I remember. And I can trace my love of strawberries back to my paternal grandmother.

When I was little more than a toddler, we visited her home in Beacon, New York. As it was the depths of a Hudson River Valley winter, there were no fresh strawberries in the house. However, her kitchen table was draped each morning with a white tablecloth decorated with little red strawberries. I was fascinated by that tablecloth. Years later when I moved into my first apartment, I chose a wallpaper dotted with tiny strawberries for my kitchen. Although many years had passed since my visit to Beacon, the wallpaper seemed an exact match to my grandmother’s berry tablecloth.

Because of that tablecloth, I’ve long been drawn to anything strawberry related, including the Beatles’ song Strawberry Fields Forever. I own a strawberry charm bracelet – with earrings to match. My keys dangle from a red crystal strawberry key ring; I even bought a duplicate, in case this key ring breaks or is lost. But strawberry ice cream may top the list. My dad adored ice cream and often took my sister and me out for ice cream treats; his favorites were butter pecan and strawberry. I never warmed up to butter pecan, but for several years I refused any ice cream but strawberry. During one of several childhood bouts with tonsillitis, my mom served me strawberry ice cream throughout the day. It was almost worth the pain my tonsils were causing me.

While I enjoy the sweet taste of strawberries, another reason I have a fondness for them is due to its color. I love red. In college, I wore red clothing so often, other students  nicknamed me ‘The Lady in Red’. And yes, my all-time favorite shoes were a pair of red leather flats which I wore until they literally fell apart. After I graduated, one of the places I applied to for a job in my field of historical archaeology was the history museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire called Strawbery Banke. It may have been for the best that they didn’t hire me. I don’t know if I ever would have overcome my frustration that the museum spelled their name with only one ‘r’.

 Although I’ve travelled to Europe several times, I haven’t yet visited Belgium. When I do, my Must See list includes the Musee de la Fraises de Wepion, aka the Strawberry Museum of Wepion. Strawberries are almost as big a deal in Belgium as tulips are in Holland. The strawberries grown in the region surrounding the town of Wepion are regarded as especially desirable. And, be still my strawberry loving heart, they also offer tours of Jardin des Petits Fruits, a 35-acre garden filled with fruits, both local and exotic. With tastings included!

Of course, I also enjoy many other types of berries. I recently discovered how tasty cloudberry jam is. And I look forward to writing future stories that spotlight different berries: blackberries in Book Two and blueberries in Book Three.  But I am happy I was able to pay tribute to my favorite berry in Dying for Strawberries. While I wouldn’t actually die for this delicious fruit, I will admit that strawberries have brought me much pleasure since I first sat down before that tablecloth. Thanks, Grandma.

Sharon Farrow is the latest pen name of award winning author Sharon Pisacreta. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Sharon has been a freelance writer since her twenties. Published in mystery, fantasy, and romance, Sharon currently writes The Berry Basket cozy mystery series. She is also one half of the writing team D.E. Ireland, who co-author the Agatha nominated Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins mysteries. Visit Sharon at sharonfarrowauthor.com, on Facebook www.facebook.come/SharonFarrowAuthor, or Twitter @SharonFarrowBB.

Back Cover Copy – Dying for Strawberries
With seasonal crowds flocking to its sandy beaches, lively downtown shops, and The Berry Basket, a berry emporium with something for everyone, the lakeshore village of Oriole Point is ripe for summer fun—and murder.

Much has changed for Marlee Jacob since she returned to Oriole Point, Michigan. Between running The Berry Basket, dodging local gossip, and whipping up strawberry muffins, smoothies, and margaritas to celebrate the town’s first annual Strawberry Moon Bash, the thirty-year-old hardly has time for her fiancé, let alone grim memories of her old life in New York . . .

But unfortunately for Marlee, Oriole Point is muddled with secrets of its own. First her friend Natasha disappears after an ominous dream. Next the seediest man in town threatens to crush her business. Then an unknown person nearly kills her on the night of the Bash. When she discovers a dead body, Marlee realizes she’ll have to foil a killer’s plot herself—before the past permanently stains her future.

Lourey/Baker Double Booked Tour

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by  Shannon Baker and Jess Lourey


Today our guest bloggers are the amazing Shannon Baker and Jess Lourey. We’re so glad you’ve stopped by! Take it away ladies!

A big hello to the Stiletto Gang from me (Shannon Baker) and Jess Lourey. Thanks to Sparkle Abbey for inviting us to chat today. We’ve been zooming around the Internets on this crazy, month-long prelaunch blog tour and we’re tuckered out. Or, at least, I am, Jess is much younger so can probably still dance all night. I’m not nearly as pooped, though, as if I’d had to go it alone. Take my word for it, traveling with a friend is so much better. As our host(s), Sparkle Abbey, well know.


Shannon Baker

Shannon: I’m all giddy with excitement to tell you about my new Kate Fox mystery series. The first book, due out September 6th but available for preorder, is Stripped Bare. Set in the Nebraska Sandhills, it’s been called Longmire meets The Good Wife.


Jess: I’m thrilled to talk about Salem’s Cipher, my political suspense novel which is not coincidentally also releasing on September 6th and also available for preorder. Salem’s Cipher features Salem Wiley, an agoraphobic cryptanalyst who must crack codes Emily Dickinson hid 100 years earlier in order to save the first viable female presidential candidate from assassination. USA Today bestselling author Alyson Gaylin kindly calls it “a bona fide page turner.”


Shannon: Together, Jess and I have published 19 books so supposedly, we know something about writing novels. However, I’m plotting another book in the Kate Fox series and would love some expert advice. So today, we’re going to talk about plot and see if Jess can get me out of my mess.


I’ve always been a plotter, as opposed to a pantser (magicians who start on the novel highway and only see as far as their headlights but drive the whole trip that way—to paraphrase E.L. Doctorow) I know Jess is a plotter, too. 


I used to use an Excel spreadsheet and plotted every scene, along with detailed notes. I found I usually jumped away from the outline but having it made me less psychotic. Slightly less. 


In the past I’ve used all kinds of models, from Laura Baker’s Discovering Story Magic, to Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, and most recently, Larry Brooks, Story Engineering.
But I really admire writers who stay more flexible and I felt like the Universe was trying to tell me to trust myself more. So with my last book, I started with way less planned out. 


As it happened, I got bogged down, wound around, tangled up, and right before I got to the climactic segment, I realized I’d skipped a whole book. So I quit right where I was and now, am backtracking to the lost book.
And I’m taking more time to plot.



Jess: Shannon, I feel your pain. Or at least I see it. I don’t feel it because I’m too chicken to go without a plot, though I know I’d be happier if I was more laidback across ever area of my life. I think about writing novels much like I thought about coloring back in kindergarten, though. I liked to outline the coloring book picture with a dark line of crayon first, and then fill in the middle with a lighter version of the same shade.

Jess Lourey



Similarly, I like to trace the shape of a book before I write it, creating an overarching rhythm by not getting into the details. I usually write a one sentence summary of each scene (and my novels average around 70 scenes), one sentence per note card, and then I lay them all out in a room to make sure they’re all necessary and all in the right order. Once I determine they are, I start writing, leaving room for surprise and rearrangement. You can do something similar to my notecard plotting exercise using Scrivener, which I like, but which I don’t entirely trust in a “I’m going to save my money in a mattress” kind of way.


So Shannon, with the book that you pantsed before realizing you’d skipped a book—was that experience worthwhile for you? Is it helping you to write the book you are writing now, or does it feel like wasted time?

Shannon: I think all writing helps. I believe the more words a person writes, the better she gets. So, no, I don’t think it was wasted. And I will probably use much of it later on. At least I know where I don’t want to go.


In my new series, Kate has several issues going on. She’s got to figure out a whole new life, after she’d thought she had it all planned out. She’s got a beloved niece on the run and is trying to figure out why. And, of course, in every book there is a crime to solve. It’s fun trying to puzzle out where she’s going next and what she needs to do, but keeping all the subplots and threads weaving together can be a challenge. 


Jess, Salem has personal issues, historic, cryptologic and crime going on. That makes for a complicated story. Did your notecard method help you to keep it all running smooth? 


Jess: Yep. Not only that, it kept me sane. In Salem’s Cipher, Salem Wiley, the protagonist, has to crack codes left by Emily Dickinson to find out why powerful women throughout history have been systematically killed. It’s the only way to save her mother as well as the first viable female presidential candidate the U.S. has ever seen. I had the race-against-time plot to crack the codes, the go-back-in-time plot to set up the codes as well as to develop characters, and the across-time plot to set up relationships real time in the book. That’s why I took my notecard game to a new level with this book and color- and shape-coded the cards. Colors signaled whose point of view the scene was being told from, and shape (no corners cut, one corner cut, or two corners cut) indicated which plot thread I was handling. Laying them all out on the floor was a quick and easy way to make sure nothing was getting bunched up or neglected. I have so much admiration for a writer who can weave all those threads with no map!




A little about our books:

Salem’s Cipher: Salem Wiley is a genius cryptanalyst, courted by the world’s top security agencies ever since her quantum computing breakthrough. She’s also an agoraphobe shackled to a narrow routine since her father’s suicide. When her intelligence work unexpectedly exposes a sinister plot to assassinate the country’s first viable female presidential candidate, Salem finds herself both target and detective in a modern day witch hunt. Drawn into a labyrinth of messages encrypted by Emily Dickinson and codes tucked inside the Beale Cipher a hundred years earlier, Salem begins to uncover the truth: an ancient and ruthless group is hell-bent on ruling the world, and only a select group of women stands in its way.

Stripped Bare: Just when everything seems about perfect, someone leaves the barn door open and all hell breaks loose. At least, that’s what it feels like for Kate Fox. Born and raised in the Nebraska Sandhills, smack in the middle of eight interfering siblings, related to everyone in the county by one degree of separation or less, Kate’s managed to create a her perfect life.


A shattering phone calls hits Kate like a January blizzard. A local rancher is murdered and her husband, the sheriff, is shot. When her husband is suspected of the murder, Kate vows to find the killer.


Jess and I are both giving away a copy of our new books, Salem’s Cipher and Stripped Bare. For a chance to win, share one of your plot tricks or leave a comment. 




Not only that:


If you order Salem’s Cipher before September 6, 2016, you are invited to forward your receipt to salemscipher@gmail.com to receive a Salem short story and to be automatically entered in a drawing to win a 50-book gift basket mailed to the winner’s home!


If you order Stripped Bare before September 6, 2016, you are invited to forward your receipt to katefoxstrippedbare@gmail.com to receive a Kate Fox short story and be entered for a book gift basket mailed to your home. 




Join us tomorrow as the Lourey/Baker Double Booked tour trips over to Mysteriastas, where we’re going to talk about recipes. (really)