Scams, Spams & Caveat Emptor!

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Two years ago, when we moved from New Jersey to Tennessee, my husband and I cut the landline cord. We’d only kept our landline for as long as we had because cell service in our NJ home was spotty at best. If I had to guess, I’d say that at least 75% of the calls that came in on the landline were from spammers and scammers. Now, instead of receiving at least half a dozen spam and scam calls a day, I receive one or less a week.

I never answer the phone unless I recognize the caller’s name or number. Most spammers don’t leave a message because the calls are robocalls made by bots. Answering the phone alerts the call center that the bots have struck gold and they’ve got a live person on the line. If you’ve ever answered one of these calls, you’ll notice a short pause between saying, “Hello” and someone on the other end responding. That’s the time it takes for the system to switch over to a live operator.

Scammers, on the other hand, are usually people, not bots. If you don’t answer, they’ll leave a message, often an intimidating one that threaten you with criminal action if you don’t return their call because you either owe money to the IRS or are a wanted felon. Once you return the call, you’re told they can make the problem go away by paying a fine—in the form of a gift card. Amazingly, too many people fall for this.

A few weeks ago, I received an unusual scam call. Three calls came in within a few seconds, all from the same number, supposedly originating in New York. I didn’t answer, but the caller left a message between the second and third calls. In a very thick Indian or Pakistani accent, he said he was trying to reach Lois Winston, author of Guilty as Framed, because he wanted to invite her to a book festival his company was putting together in a few months in Los Angeles. If I was that Lois Winston, I should call him back as soon as possible for more information.

In the background, I heard lots of chatter. The caller was obviously calling from a call center, and I seriously doubt the call came from New York, no matter what the display on my phone read. New York City real estate is too pricey for call center operators.

I’ve known many authors who have been ripped off by unscrupulous people out to make a buck off them. I have no doubt this was just another scam in a long line of scams that have preyed on authors and would-be authors over the decades.

Back in my early days of writing, before I sold my first book, I even fell for a scam. I had queried a literary agency about my manuscript and received back a response stating that they were interested in seeing the first three chapters. Within days of sending the chapters, I received a note saying my manuscript needed polishing, and if I paid fifty dollars, they’d provide me with a professional critique of the pages I’d sent. If I followed their instructions from the critique, they’d consider representing me.

What I got back were two or three penciled comments, all of a personal nature and having nothing to do with my plot, characters, or writing prowess. One of the comments I remember was, “I knew a person like this.” I later learned I wasn’t the only person to fall for this scam. It was a family operation, and some of the members wound up serving prison sentences.

Unfortunately, scammers have become much more sophisticated since the onset of the Internet and social media, and many of them operate overseas, out of the reach of US law enforcement. Caveat emptor is a Latin phrase that means “buyer beware.” There’s also a saying in English: “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

I have no idea how the book fair scammers planned to relieve me of my hard-earned dollars, and I wasn’t going to return the call to find out. But I’m sure they had a script filled with carrots to dangle in front of me. And unfortunately, there are probably some authors out there who are at this moment falling for their scam. In the age of spam, scams, fake news, and now ChatGPT, more than ever it pays to be skeptical. Caveat emptor!

What about you? Have you ever fallen for a scam or know someone who has? This month I’m giving away several promo codes for a free download of the audiobook version of Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Post a comment for a chance to win.

~*~

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 Writer’s Juggling Act When Writing Two Series

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Hey Gang and Stiletto Gang friends, as my wrist is in the final stages of healing, I’ve invited Author Kassandra Lamb to take my spot today. Kassandra is as disciplined as they come. I think you’ll agree when you read the following. See you next month! ~ Donnell

The Writer’s Juggling Act (When Writing Two Series)

by Kassandra Lamb

Author Kassandra Lamb

Some of the most stressful, and most exciting times I’ve encountered as a career author were when I am winding down one series and starting another. This is the second time I’ve done it and I’m a little more organized about it this time. But it is still a writer’s juggling act.

I know a couple of authors who have several series running concurrently. My hats off to them (I’m lookin’ at you, Edith Maxwell 😉 ). I could never keep up the juggling act for that long.

The hardest thing to juggle is the main character’s voice. This past year, I was working on Book 2 of my new series, and also the last two books in my cozy mystery series. The cozies had a fairly young protagonist—in her early thirties at the beginning of the series—who is a bit flip at times, and sometimes downright snarky.

She’s matured a fair amount during the course of the series and is now a first-time mother (late thirties). In the last story (recently released), she is forced to face down evil in her own small town and struggles with how to protect her little family, her friends, and neighbors.

The new series’ protagonist is a tough-as-nails veteran cop. She is thrown off kilter though, when she moves to Florida to take a job as the chief of police of a small city department. She’s mid-forties, no-nonsense, and thought she had a pretty thick wall around her heart.

But she soon discovers several unsettling things. One, she’s lonely in this new place with all her acquaintances—some of whom she is now acknowledging might actually be friends—hundreds of miles away. And two, the learning curve is steep as she struggles to run an entire department, while having two major cases thrust at her in as many months. She’s used to feeling confident about her work, sure of what to do, but now she’s in uncharted territory.

So in the old series, I had Marcia, a soft-hearted, somewhat neurotic and snarky young woman who needed to grow up some. And in the newer one, I have Judith, a mature woman who needs to learn to lighten up some and let people in more readily, and not be so hard on herself when she makes mistakes.

Their voices are very different. But not quite different enough that it was easy to keep them straight. I discovered that the line between Marcia’s snarkiness and Judith’s no-nonsense approach was not always all that clear. I had to rewrite more than one scene to make Marcia a little less no-nonsense, or make Judith a little less snarky.

Part of the juggling act has been the timing, i.e., when should I write/edit which book? Most recently, I was editing and polishing Book 2 of the new series, while finishing the first draft of Book 13 of the old one. I found that if I was editing one in the early part of the day, I really shouldn’t try to write more of the other that afternoon or evening, or vice versa. It was too hard keeping the characters’ personalities and voices separate.

I also had to adjust, back and forth, to very different settings. Marcia lives in a small (fictitious) town, with less than a thousand residents. Some of her family and friends live in other small towns (some fictitious, others real), scattered across the countryside of central Florida. Judith is chief of police of a small (fictitious) city, which borders the much larger (real) city of Jacksonville.

I found I had to stop sometimes and carefully calculate how long it would take people to get from one place to another in these different locales. Plus, small towns and cities have very different vibes.

The exciting part of this juggling act is the fun of writing a new series. Nothing like new characters and new story ideas to get the creative juices flowing. I found that even when I was working on the last book for the cozy series, I was more into the writing process than I had been recently. The words were flowing easier because my muse had been invigorated by the new series.

Now the cozy series is done, and it’s been a bittersweet experience letting go of those characters and their town. But I’m relieved that the juggling act is over, for now, and super excited about writing Book 3 in the new series.

About  Fatal Escape: Two months on the job and barely recovered from a serial killer case, Chief of Police Judith Anderson is called out to the scene of what looks like a suicide—or is it? There’s no ID on the woman, and her abandoned car has been partially wiped clean of fingerprints. Judith’s search for answers leads to a human trafficking ring operating in her city…and the realization that she’s up against more than one ruthless foe, perhaps even someone on her own force. Can Judith stop the traffickers and find a killer…before more lives are destroyed?

Landing page with buy links:

https://misteriopress.com/bookstore/fatal-escape-a-c-o-p-on-the-scene-mystery/

—

Kassandra Lamb

Retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer, lover of all things

chocolate, and author of the Kate Huntington Mysteries and the Marcia Banks & Buddy Cozy Mysteries

Co-founder of misterio press LLC <https://misteriopress.com>  ~ Author

Website <https://kassandralamb.com>

 

Plotter vs. Pantser

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When is a Plotter a Pantser?

I recently participated in a fun podcast where I debated the old writing argument of whether to plot out a novel in detail or whether or to simply dive in and wing it. I was arguing for the plotter side.  As a former pantser, I can attest to the joy of just flinging oneself into a project, but sooner or later there has to be an actual plot. In general, if you want to write a book, you’re not allowed to spend endless amounts of time hanging out with your imaginary friends and not have anything happen, or only a series of unconnected events.  If you do that, people call you crazy.  If you have a plot, they call you a writer.

But Pantsers Write Books Too!

But somehow pantsers do manage to get books written. Books in which events occur in a coherent manner even. So how do they do it? Well, eventually they find themselves a plot and the meet an editor.  I would argue that most pantser have internalized story structure to the point that they can move forward with a story and know generally what they want to have happen.  Sadness over here.  Shocking twist over there.  Smoochy faces at the end.  The specifics, they fill in as they go. And then an editor comes along and shakes out all the inconsistencies.

So which one is better?

One of the great things about being on a podcast is talking to writers that I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to spend an hour with.  It was lovely to hear some of the reasons for pantsing and I think it becomes quite obvious that all any writer is looking to do is make it easier to write. Some people have to lure their muse with wine and chocolate and some say welcome to my spreadsheet.  The plotters want to contain the chaos so that it doesn’t stress them out and the pantsers want to free themselves from the stress of checklists.  The answer is not which one is better but which one is better for you and even which one is better for your right now.  Finding the answer can mean the difference between proceeding with a project and getting stuck in the hell of writers block.

Listen / watch to the Plotter vs. Pantser Podcast at Hidden Gems.

 

 

 

**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

AI Writes Novels?

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Three years ago, I wrote a blog about the probabilities of writers being replaced by artificial intelligence apps that would write faster, better books. I cited an article in The Guardian stating that AI’s capability to write creative, coherent novels was still decades in the future. I slept well after reading that article.

It now appears “decades in the future” is shrinking to basically being around the corner.

This past December, Ammaar Reshi used readily available computer apps to create Alice and Sparkle, a children’s picture book. He has not hit any best seller lists and the book is controversial, especially with graphic designers who feel portions of their work can be plagiarized since the apps use composites of what is online from designers who created the digital art from scratch.

Jennifer Lepp writes paranormal cozy mysteries under the pen name Leanne Leeds. She completes a manuscript in 49 days. “This pace,” she said, “is just on the cusp of being unsustainably slow.”

Recently Lepp was behind schedule, and she turned to Sudowrite¹, an app designed for fiction writers, to complete her novel by her 49-day deadline. She pasted a few paragraphs of her novel into the app, added instructions, and was so amazed by the results, she tweeted exuberantly about the experience.

Lepp quickly learned to steer the AI by outlining a scene, pressing expand, and letting the program do the writing. She edits the output, pastes it back into Sudowrite, and prompts the AI to continue. She is more productive than ever and continues to use the app though she claims to keep it on a short leash.

Obviously, I’m not sleeping well after reading articles on the adaptation of AI for increasing an author’s productivity. We’re not speaking of going from handwritten manuscripts to the typewriter to a Word document. It’s about an assembly line using a word-smithing computer robot.

Call me old-fashioned, but AI enhanced novels are not what I want to read. And I certainly don’t plan to use computer enhancement in my own work.

Yet the technology will continue to improve, and I can envision a time, not too far away, when authors will rely more and more on AI. I can also envision an Orwellian not-too-distant future when robots will develop more creative stories than the writers themselves using these apps. Or AI will write for the AI universe while humans merely clean and dust the abodes of fully conscious robots.

***

¹Amit Gupta and James Yu, developers turned sci-fi authors, designed Sudowrite.

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:

Alice and Sparkle – Public Domain

Illuminated manuscript photo by Kathryn Lane

Stolen Diary Book Cover by Tim Barber

New Year’s Resolution: Read a Short Story a Day

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by Paula Gail Benson

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope it has been healthy, comfortable, and prosperous for all.

Barb Goffman

If you are still considering resolutions and have any interest in short story craft, may I suggest a recommendation by well-known, award winning writer and editor Barb Goffman? Why not read a short story a day? Debra H. Goldstein has already made an excellent suggestion to get started: the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime’s latest anthology, Hook, Line, and Sinker. In addition, there are plenty of online and periodic publications to choose from, all featuring outstanding authors. Many of the Sisters in Crime Chapters have organized and released anthologies to showcase their members and give newer authors a chance not only for a writing credit, but also to learn how to promote their work.

Even if you are not interested in writing the short form, seeing how it is put together can help you strengthen skills for longer efforts. With a short story, characters, setting, and mood must be established quickly, in only a few carefully chosen words. It has to be wrapped up concisely, without leaving loose ends or unsatisfied questions. Those elements are important for novellas and novels, too. Figuring out how to develop a story and keep a reader engaged is a primary focus for shorts.

If you are interested in writing short stories, please consider the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable’s Annual Short Story Contest. This year, submissions must include a holiday element, from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. They must be 2000 words or less and submitted as provided in the description of rules. An entry fee of $15 is required for each submission. The top awards are: First Place, $200 and publication in the Bethlehem Writers Group’s anthology Season’s Readings; Second Place, $100 and publication in the Bethlehem Writers Group’s online quarterly, the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable; and Third Place, $50 and publication in the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable.

Maybe the best news about the contest is that this year’s celebrity judge is Barb Goffman. Here’s a link with an interview where Barb talks about the most appealing aspect of writing short stories, how her careers as a journalist and lawyer have influenced her writing, what some of the most frequent mistakes she sees writers make, and what’s her best advice for submitting to an anthology or contest.

Start you New Year right: reading and writing shorts!

Bethany Maines drinks from an arsenic mug

Rewrite Time

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Time for a Rewrite

With Christmas just past and the long stretch of post holiday free time ahead (that’s a joke, there’s no free time, just more gray skies) it must be time to launch into a new project.  Or perhaps just rehash, reimagine, and rewrite an old one. I’m mid-way through turning my Christmas novella Winter Wonderland into a feature script. With plenty of Christmas magic and romance it’s a Christmas love story with missing diamond and a mystery in the middle. Which I think would make a great not-quite Hallmark movie.

So How Does That Work?

So how do you turn a novella into a movie? Rewrite! Not everything in a book can go directly into a script. The reason we love an actor who can convey a full range of emotion and the internal workings of their mind with just their face is because we don’t get to hear what’s going on in their heads the way we can in a book.  So for a script I have to find ways to translate some of those internal moments into external dialogue and events.  And sometimes that means changing up events, adding characters or giving existing characters some new dialogue.

Other People Have Thoughts Too

I’m still exploring the world of scripts and figuring out the process, but one of the things I have learned is the need to determine who I want to produce my script and then tailor it to meet their standards. Hallmark has pretty specific thoughts on swearing (no!) and Christmas (put it in every scene!).  But the format it’s filmed for can also affect the script.  If it’s intended for TV I might want to look particularly hard at some of the scene endings to make sure they’re a little bit of a cliff hanger to pull people back after commercial breaks.  And all of this means that my perfect little gem of a novella will need… (you guessed it) rewrites.

And How Does That Make You Feel?

Well, I can’t say that rewrites are something I look forward to. But sometimes they offer an opportunity to rethink something I wasn’t quite happy with, or flesh out a side character that didn’t get the time they deserved. Trying to reconfigure a story for a new format can be a challenge, but it can also be pretty fun. I’ll let you know what this one turns out to be.

Learn More About Winter Wonderland

When a Marcus Winter, a photographer with a bah humbug take on the holidays, meets Larissa Frost, a set designer who loves all things Christmas, sparks are destined to fly, but when a famous diamond goes missing from the shoot they’re working on Larissa finds that Marcus may be the only one who can keep her from being framed for a crime she didn’t commit.

BUY NOW: https://books2read.com/Winter-Wonderland

**

Bethany Maines drinks from an arsenic mugBethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay).  You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

They Can’t All Be Red Herrings, Right?

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By Lois Winston

I’m currently writing my 12th Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. This one is tentatively titled A Crafty Collage of Crime. As some of you may remember, I moved from New Jersey to Tennessee a year and a half ago. Since then, many people have asked if Anastasia will eventually make the move south. My answer is an emphatic, “No!” Anastasia is a diehard Jersey Girl and will remain firmly planted in the Garden State.

However, I have decided that in this book, Anastasia and Zack will take a trip to Middle Tennessee wine country. Yes, there are wineries in Tennessee. Who knew? Certainly not me until I moved here, but it turns out that there were quite a few wineries in the area before Prohibition, and after Prohibition ended, the wine industry slowly began to revitalize. It’s now once again thriving.

Anastasia and Zack find themselves in Tennessee because Zack has accepted an assignment to photograph the local wineries for a spread in a national wine publication. Anastasia travels to Tennessee with him. Of course, she immediately discovers a dead body. (Doesn’t she always?)

Now, here’s my dilemma: I have a basic plot and characters fleshed out, but I have so many potential suspects, that I’m finding it difficult to choose which will be the killer. Any one of them would work. I’m thinking I may have to write the book several ways, with a different killer for each version, before I settle on the real killer. That’s a lot of extra work. So I’m hoping that as I continue to work on chapters, the killer will eventually reveal himself to me.

If you’re a reader, have you ever read a mystery where you thought one of the other characters should have been the killer? If you’re an author, do you always know right away who your killer will be, or does the killer sometimes change as you write the book?

Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, is now available as an audiobook through Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. If you’d like a chance to win a promo code for a free download, post a comment.

~*~

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.

Best Advice: Do You Know or Do You Think You Know?

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By: Donnell Ann Bell

Years ago, I belonged to an online mystery critique group in which I met my good friends Annette Dashofy, Rosemarie Szotak, as well as various critique partners in Australia, Canada, and beyond. There was one individual in our group who was a terrific writer and well versed in geography and military affairs. His protagonist was a military officer, and he and his sidekick went everywhere to complete their missions.  In fact, his first working title was, “To the Ends of the Earth.”

I confess I’m not a world traveler. The most international travel I’ve done has been as far as Canada and Mexico. So, I was rather intimidated when he wrote about places like East Timor, Somalia, and Egypt.

The reason I mention my writing colleague is he often challenged me when reading my work by saying, “Is this true?”  “Do you know, or do you think you know?”

That always gave me pause and made an impression. Perhaps that’s why when I research, I double check and often triple check facts from alternate sources to get my story as correct as humanly possible.

Which sadly can be a challenge. I don’t think it’s any secret that the world is a v-e-r-y opinionated place. Thanks to social media, twenty-four-hour news cycles, and provocative information designed as clickbait, it’s so easy to read a headline (that often has little to do with the article), peruse said article, and believe we’re coming away with the truth.

I watch The Good Fight (admitted fictional entertainment), and on a couple of episodes it showed how easy it was to post videos on the internet that appeared well-documented and authentic. It’s astounding how much data comes at us daily. Time is money, sensationalism sells, and media outlets have more competition than ever—professionals and amateurs alike—are writing, filming, and posting. Breaking news attracts viewers and boosts algorithms. Readers copy links. Others forward to their friends and family, and so on, and so on . . . .

I believe my first job as a storyteller is to check my research. I may be writing fiction, but I’m not writing fantasy. What I publish should believable fiction. Often, if I’m unsure, I’ll abandon articles and seek out experts.

Back to that long-ago critique partner, when emailing our chapters back and forth, I admitted how little I knew about world geography. He responded with, “Go get your globe.” I did, then via email, he said, “Now using your finger, follow my lead.” That method was better than any geography class I could have taken. To this day, when reading international articles where I’m unsure of the location, I enlist my globe.

My critique partner’s advice, “Do you know? Or do you think you know? influences my writing to this day. Have you received a  piece of advice that has stayed with you for years?

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

 

 

 

 

Growing as a Writer: My Trek Down Memory Lane

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Author Donnell Ann Bell

By: Donnell Ann Bell

Years ago, when I left my newspaper job and turned to fiction, I was forced to become educated in a short amount of time. I also can assure you during that period, the self-assured nonfiction writer was humbled (Please note:  I’m already pretty humble!).

WHAT I LEARNED:

There is a huge difference between fiction and nonfiction.

In journalism we’re taught not to editorialize, even when we are outraged, the topic turns personal, or we are particularly moved. While in fiction, we’re encouraged to do the opposite. Develop interesting characters, express their points of view, and show emotion on the page. Whether you’re writing science fiction, historical, fantasy, mystery, romance, the list goes on, in fiction, if your reader can’t relate to your character (or to put it bluntly—couldn’t care less), you’ve lost your reader.

To stress my point, as a new fiction writer, I once entered a contest in which New York Times Bestselling Author Suzanne Brockmann was my judge. She scribbled on my entry the following words, and trust me, she got her point across. “You write well BUT HOW DO THEY FEEL?”

There’s this thing called genre

Quite soon after I switched to fiction, I was told I should join a local writing group. To become a member, however, I would need to join the parent organization Romance Writers of America®. Both organizations during my tenure were stellar, and I credit both with my early fiction education. During my time with Pikes Peak Romance Writers, I attended something known as Open Critique (an avenue provided to writers not in a person’s regular critique group to provide fresh insight.) Here, I discovered another anomaly about fiction.

Fiction is broken into genres. To complicate matters, subgenres are often attached to the genre, oftentimes subs attached to the subgenres! On one Sunday afternoon, I submitted my perfectly written chapters, waited for the accolades, only to be met by the confused faces of my peers. “Why is this person skulking about? Who is he, and why should we care?” the OC leader demanded.

“I’m writing a mystery,” I stammered. “I can’t tell you that yet.”

That’s when I learned I was surrounded by romance writers who didn’t read my favorite genre. Further, they obviously couldn’t relate to what I was writing. One by one, in a chorus of agreement, members of the critique group asked me to explain upfront what my character was up to. Hardly conducive to my mystery plot. Imagine in The Cask of Amontillado, if Montressor had to reveal his plans for Fortunato in Chapter One. Edgar Allan Poe’s distinguished career would have been short lived, indeed!

Fortunately, I found a romantic suspense chapter in RWA® and remained in that group for many years.

But then I learned . . . .

Genres and subgenres evolve.

Much like society, authors change their mores and preferences. Romantic Suspense, which I enjoyed writing (and still do), began heating up the pages. Readers obviously adored the added sizzle, and publishers and their marketing departments noticed. Management conveyed those statistics to their editors. Editors spoke to the agents, and naturally my agent listened closely.

She asked me to spice up my unpublished novel, which back then was winning awards. The unpublished title was Walk Away Joe, and as an aspiring author who wanted to sell, I did my best.  Unfortunately, I found I didn’t enjoy writing hot and steamy; I preferred suspense. Don’t get me wrong, if my book called for a sex scene, I was all in. I just didn’t enjoy writing copious amounts of it. Further I don’t do gratuitous anything—whether it be violence or sex.

Around this time, my agent and I parted ways. By then, my second unpublished novel, DEADLY RECALL Deadly Recall | Romantic Suspense Thriller | Author Donnell Ann Bell, finaled in a major contest, and I queried BelleBooks, who is my publisher to this day. Pat Van Wie bought the book and would become my first editor. Still, in my editorial letter she told me to get rid of so much sex. We’re buying you because of your suspense. Not very flattering about the added sex scenes I’d worked hard to include. But truth be told, I was vastly relieved.

Walk Away Joe became THE PAST CAME HUNTING. It still includes a couple of sex scenes, and the chapters are loaded with romance and sexual tension. In my opinion, though, I left the critical scenes that belong in the book.

Years have passed since my debut book was published, but it remains one of my most popular books. And . . .  as it turns out my publisher has put it on sale for .99, but the sale ends tomorrow, November 15! So, if you’re interested, grab yours quick!

These days I belong to Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. My editor is Debra Dixon, one very smart woman and the touted expert on Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. I write task force suspense and single title romantic suspense and my learning trek continues every day.  https://www.donnellannbell.com

As I close out this blog, I’m curious about my fellow Stiletto Gang authors and others who may be weighing in. Was your journey anywhere close to mine? What early lesson(s) did you take away that led to what you write today? In other words, how have you grown as a writer?

Till next time!

 

Creating (and Eliminating) Secondary Characters by Judy Penz Sheluk

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Delighted to welcome Judy Penz Sheluk as my guest this month. The characters in her books are always so realistic and fun that I was thrilled she picked them to talk about. Enjoy! – Debra

Creating (and Eliminating) Secondary Characters by Judy Penz Sheluk

Several years back I had the pleasure of attending an event that featured Giles Blunt, author of the much-lauded Detective John Cardinal mystery series (if you haven’t read him, or watched the TV series, Cardinal, based on his novels, you must). At one point in the evening, an audience member asked Blunt why he’d killed off Cardinal’s wife, Catherine, in By the Time You Read This, the fourth book in the series. Blunt had laughed and then said, “Truthfully, I got tired of writing about her.”

Maybe it’s “fourth book syndrome,” but I felt the same way about the cast of secondary characters I’d created for my Marketville Mystery protagonist, Calamity (Callie) Barnstable as I started to write Before There Were Skeletons.

If you’re not familiar with them, they included: Misty Rivers, a self-proclaimed psychic; Chantelle Marchand, Callie’s best friend, also a personal trainer and budding genealogist; and Shirley Harrington, an archives librarian. All three of them served important roles (with varying degrees of involvement) in the first three books, but with the last book (A Fool’s Journey) released in 2019, it just seemed to me that by 2022 their lives would have changed.

Of course, I didn’t ditch them without a mention—that would be unfair to the characters, as well as to followers of the series—and unlike Blunt, I wasn’t ready to kill them off. After all, I might want to bring one or more of them back some day. And so, I gave Misty a very small, but important role, allowed a glimpse into Chantelle’s new life, and retired Shirley (literally), sending her to winter in Florida (hey, she’s Canadian and snowbirds love Florida).

Dispatching those characters felt liberating, but it also left me with a hole to be filled. Enter a tech-savvy twenty-four-year-old woman currently employed as a waitress at her stepbrother’s diner, Eggstravaganza, and, thanks to an ex-boyfriend who drained their joint bank account, is also living in an apartment above the diner.

What this new character lacks in investigative experience will be made up for in her enthusiasm to learn from Callie while doing boring grunt work, like digging through newspaper archives. This works well in two ways: it frees Callie up to tackle more interesting avenues, and since the story is told from Callie’s point of view, I can also spare readers the tedium of the archival research.

In addition to creating a past and a present for my new character, however, I also needed to come up with a name. I had the last name, Hopkins (in homage to a late friend), but hadn’t quite come up with a first name. And then, while reading the closing credits of Yellowstone, I spotted the name Denim Richards (a fabulous actor who portrays ranch hand Colby Mayfield).

Denim Hopkins, I thought. No reason Denim couldn’t be female. In fact, it was perfect. And her half-brother, the one who owns the diner? Levi, of course. As Denim explains to Callie, “I guess you could say my mama liked the blues.”

Early readers of Before There Were Skeletons seem to like Denim, and as an author, I can envision several directions to expand on her role in the future. What those directions are, only time, and my imagination, will tell.

 

About Before There Were Skeletons: The last time anyone saw Veronica Goodman was the night of February 14, 1995, the only clue to her disappearance a silver heart-shaped pendant, found in the parking lot behind the bar where she worked. Twenty-seven years later, Veronica’s daughter, Kate, just a year old when her mother vanished, hires Past & Present Investigations to find out what happened that fateful night.

Calamity (Callie) Barnstable is drawn to the case, the similarities to her own mother’s disappearance on Valentine’s Day 1986 hauntingly familiar. A disappearance she thought she’d come to terms with. Until Veronica’s case, and five high school yearbooks, take her back in time…a time before there were skeletons. Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mqXVze.

 

About the Author

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including the Superior Shores Anthologies, which she also edited.

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served as Chair on the Board of Directors. She lives in Northern Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior.

 

Photo (if you choose to use it) is of Denim Richards, the inspiration behind the name of Denim Hopkins.