It's All In Your Point Of View

by Janis Patterson

People who don’t write don’t believe that stories and characters take on a life of their own, and if you don’t agree with them the story stops. Writers know what I mean. 

Now my writing process, I have been told, is different from most others’. There are many ways to write - plot wheels, detailed outlines, multi-page character interviews, etc. To me personally, that is the fastest way to kill a story. By the time I have plotted it I am bored with it. Now I do have a general idea of the basic construction of the story - a beginning, a probable end, a couple of major plot points - and then the characters come. Yes, come, just like real people. They walk into my mind, tell me their names and all about themselves. The stories come to life through the interactions of these people.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve had characters - fully formed, believable people - not like a turn the story has taken and shut down the entire process. One hero, who was perfect for the story, was insistent on a certain name. A name I hated, and immediately changed. He didn’t like that, and refused to talk to me. The story stalled and none of the techniques I’ve learned over the last decades made it work. Finally I surrendered, changed his name back to the one I hated and the story flowed like warm cream. It is one of my best sellers.

But there is more to a good story than storyline and characters. There is viewpoint. Is the story told in first person or third? Or even in that modern horror - second? I have been known to return a book when I find it is told in second person. Is it traditional indefinite past tense (I went to the store...) to the other modern horror, present tense (I go to the store)? I always return a book when it is in present tense. A most definite personal choice.

Once I was working on a story - a novella - with a good strong storyline, good visuals, great characters and even a good moral. Working is the right term. Normally I’m a very fast writer. This time ... not. I was struggling. Oh, I was writing, but slowly. Word. By. Painful. Word. Sort of like pulling long-rooted teeth.

Life happens, though, and everyday things must be done. One day I was running errands and a traffic back-up from a wreck kept me sitting in the same spot for a quarter of an hour. Well, a writer is always writing, so while my body waited for the wreck ahead to be cleared my mind went to work on the story.

How, I thought, would I feel in such a spot? What if the man I loved was in such danger? I’d...

Then it hit me. I was using the wrong person for the book. I had been writing in third person, and it just didn’t work. This book should be in first person. 

Now my personal preference is and always has been first person; to me it is more engaging and intimate, making the reader a part of the story whereas third has an inherent distance. However, there seems to be such a backlash of dislike of first person that I often write in third. This story, though, demanded first.

I had a little over 12,000 words already written. Not necessarily very good words, but a good solid first draft. It had taken me several weeks to get that far, and the deadline was approaching with the delicacy and hesitancy of a runaway train. Still, I had a feeling...

It took me two days to rewrite that 12,000+ manuscript into first person and then it took less than a week to finish the book. It worked. And it’s still one of my most popular books!

For those of you following my republishing blitz, all is going just as planned. I think we’re all defeated by the heat, so both September’s releases are Christmastide Regency romances - September 13ths was called THE RESURRECTION OF REGINA and  CHRISTMAS TANGLE comes out on September 27. Believe it or not, this blitz is almost over - next month is the end of it. And... if you’re in the mood for Halloween I’m fortunate enough to be part of the wonderful Kate Hill’s Halloween promotion which goes live October 1st! The link is https://kate-hill.com/halloweenpage/participating-authors/janis-susan-may/

Taming the Crowd

by Janis Patterson

It's funny, but as a writer one of the most consistent reactions I get is "How do you keep all the characters in a whole book straight?"

I don't understand. Each character is a separate and distinct person, albeit just not in concrete form. How can I mix up a separate and distinct person with another separate and distinct person, even if they exist only in my imagination and a collection of pixels?

The non-writers always look at me weirdly as I answer, but usually don't scoff openly unless I tell them that I normally have three or four projects going more or less simultaneously. Then they are absolutely astonished - and again they wonder how I not only keep all the characters straight, but keep all of them in their own books.

Only a few, usually writers, scoff  when I explain. (And I really don't see how they can work on only one project at a time without becoming fatally bored! But - chacun à son goût!) I ask them if they have a job, then if they go to church, then if they have extended family they don't see every day. Most everyone answers yes. Then I ask them if they ever get someone from their extended family mixed up with someone from their church, or their job. Every single time (almost!) they answer "Of course not!" rather indignantly ... then the light begins to dawn behind their eyes. Sometimes it dawns slowly, but it does dawn. Most of the time.

The Husband says I live only half-way in the world of reality, and I guess he's right, because my characters are as real - and sometimes more so - than the biological specimens with whom I interact. Everyone knows that writing is a lonely profession - just the writer and his computer and the stories in his head. Still - I'm never lonely. My characters are always there, and sometimes working alone in an empty office can get very crowded.

Beginnings, Endings and In Between

                                                                                                                  by Janis Patterson

There are few things more wonderful than starting a new book. A whole new world full of promise and excitement beckons, along with a new population of characters who are eagerly anticipating your bringing them to life and giving them directions to a satisfying resolution.

There are few things more terrifying than starting a new book. An unfamiliar and possible dangerous world lies in wait, along with a possibly hostile population of characters who will block and frustrate you at every turn and go their own way no matter what you have planned.

The truly frightening thing is that both statements are absolutely true. Like the Red Queen, it really is possible to believe two absolutely impossible things at the same time.

One of my favorite exercises in masochism is to compare the book that actually got written with the book that was so carefully planned. There are usually, however, a few points of congruency; most of the time, though, they’re two totally different books.

I’ve written at length about how my characters simply will not behave. They walk in, take over and pretty much run things the way they see fit, and perhaps that is rightly so. This is their life I’ve created, and they should have some say in how it works out. On the other hand, so should I, as I am the one who has made all this up, but that doesn’t seem to count. It’s odd, but I have come to believe that perhaps my characters are better writers than I…

Now if I could only find out a way for them to create their own stories, worry with foreshadowing and motivation and plausibility and get the whole thing down in a readable form… Then perhaps while they’re doing that I could go take care of housework and laundry and all else that needs to be done!

I’m not holding my breath, though. In the meantime, I have a new book to begin, a new land to create/explore and a new population to deal with. Maybe this time I will actually get the upper hand. But – like I said, I’m not holding my breath.

There Are Those Nights....

by Janis Patterson

There are those nights. You know the kind I mean, the nights you just can’t sleep. Nothing’s wrong – the house is a comfortable temperature, the covers aren’t too heavy, you aren’t worried about anything, your spouse isn’t snoring any more than usual – but you just can’t sleep. You don’t have any of those nasty little aches and pains that don’t seem to appear anytime except when you go to bed, you haven’t had anything with caffeine since that Dr. Pepper with lunch many hours ago, you’ve done the nightly lock-and-alarm routine just like always – but you just can’t sleep. There isn’t even a noisy party in the neighborhood.

But you just can’t sleep.

The Husband is an ideal sleeper. After we go to bed it’s kiss-kiss, breathe-breathe, snore-snore and he’s out like the proverbial light. I have always had a much more difficult time going to sleep, perhaps because I have regarded sleep as a waste of time. My late mother always loved to sleep and said with much regret that after the age of three months I never took a nap. For years I took that as a point of pride, but as I get (much) older, I begin to sympathize with her. Naps can be wonderful, invigorating things. They can always refresh and revitalize – especially when you’re trying to work through a particularly knotty plot problem. However, I had not taken a nap that day, nor for several days previously.

So the writer-me took over. Sometimes when this happens I simply get up and get back to work, but not this night. I was too physically tired. So while I lay there in perfect Sleep-Number comfort, I decided to think, which is as we all know the hardest part of writing.

Except it didn’t work. My characters just wouldn’t behave. I guess I drifted close enough to sleep to shut down my brain-control, but not enough to really be asleep, and the darker side of my imagination got the upper hand. Oh, the things those characters did! They morphed into completely different creatures (and I use that word advisedly, as some were most definitely not human) and ran riot through my poor, sodden brain.

Sometimes that can be a good thing. You can get a fresh perspective, an idea of new plot twists or even completely new plots. Sometimes it is not a good thing. Sometimes I find it frightening what is lurking in the dark corners of my supposedly civilized brain. (And The Husband wonders why I find TV boring…)

Needless to say I didn’t get any work done last night. Neither did I get any sleep. Now I have to drag my protesting body down to the local internet café to get this scheduled for tomorrow, as for reasons too personal and too complicated to go into we have not had the internet in our home for the last month. (Never marry an overly-analytical man, ladies. It can get ugly.) It is terrifying, though, how quickly we can become dependent on technology. I wrote my first books on an ancient manual typewriter. When I needed information, I looked it up in a book, because that was the only way to find it.  Just the thought of that now is enough to give me nightmares, which might not be too bad a thing – at least then I would be asleep!

The Final Stretch

by Janis Patterson

There’s a certain feeling when you’re almost through writing a book. 

No, that’s wrong. There are lots of feelings when you’re almost through writing a book. Delight that the d*****d thing is almost done and you don’t have to wrestle with tying things up any more. Fear that there are things you haven’t tied up. Sadness that you’re on the verge of leaving a world and characters you created, ones that feel familiar. Happiness that you don’t have to work with these uncooperative and headstrong people in a suddenly tiresome setting again. Anticipation that after the polishing and editing are done you can move on to a new idea, a better idea, a bright shiny enticing idea that will be better and easier to write than this one.

Having always been enticed by bright, shiny things, I’m inevitably looking forward to the new project. That’s also the reason I never have less than four projects going at a time. The new shiny thing is always a better idea, and it will be easier to write, and sometimes it makes me feel better to get it started and even just a little bit written. It’s a new world and new people, all just waiting for me to explore, just as soon as I finish this horrible, uncooperative piece of junk I’ve been wrestling with.

It’s very easy to forget that I felt the exact same way about this book when winding up the one before it.

From talking to other writers I gather that most of them feel the same way close to the end of each book. I cannot comprehend the thought processes of those who write series – especially long-running series – when faced with yet another story in the same world utilizing a lot of the same characters. I would die of boredom. However – it seems I am in the minority, as series are very popular now both with readers and writers. It escapes me how people could be so in love with a set of characters in the same general setting that they demand story after story about the original hero’s brothers and cousins and such. Not that there’s anything wrong with that kind of series, though it boggles the mind how one set of characters can believably stumble over body after body. I think it’s called the Jessica Fletcher syndrome. After someone discovers their fourth or fifth body, I would do my best to keep me and my loved ones far away from that murder-magnet. However, if people like that sort of thing – and they obviously do – then I say joy go with them.

Because I am basically a weakling – and because I need to perk up my sales – I have sort of changed direction and am considering writing a series. This will be a different sort of series, though – there will be one central character, but with a different setting and a different set of people in every book. Some of the characters from other books will appear, usually very briefly or only in phone calls or that sort of thing, just to have some sense of continuity and my character’s world. Each book will take place in a different part of the globe and will have its own feel. It’s a very different and exciting concept, and I am gleefully looking forward to working on it.

As soon as I finish this complicated, uncooperative tangle I’m working on now, that is.

Learned Helplessness

Most of my inspiration for this post came from a video on this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPzDiraNnA&feature=em-subs_digest) that impressed me when I first saw it.

Here are the basics of what it’s about. The term “learned helplessness” was coined during (or after?) an experiment with dogs, a pretty cruel experiment. Two groups of dogs were given shocks. One group could not avoid them, the other group could jump over something and get away. After that session, both dogs were permitted to get away, but the first group did not do it! They had “learned” to be helpless. Only after lifting those dogs away at least twice, were they able to unlearn the behavior.

There’s much more to the video, but I’d like to use this part and relate it to two aspects of mystery writing.

First, our characters. We can use this knowledge to understand why abused women and children don’t escape their environment. They’ve been well taught that they can’t get away. If you ARE writing characters in similar situations, this gives you what you need to know to portray their plights realistically.

Second, we, the mystery writers. We’ve been given a certain amount of learned helplessness, too, Another part of the video deals with people and their roles as employees or managers. We tend to stick to our roles. The writers write. Only a few years ago we were completely dependent on agents and publishers. The employees, not the managers. And not in charge of our future. If we want to go that route, we still are.

However, many of us have learned to take advantage of opportunities that weren’t there those few years ago: small press publication and self-publication. None of us are dependent on agents or big publishers any more unless we wish to align with them. We have almost too many options! It’s hard to choose which route to follow. (I won’t go into it here, how I’ve followed all the routes at once. That makes me either ambitious or insane. Sometimes I don’t know which.)

We can not only choose how to get our work published, we can choose who to market it to and how to do that. We can hire a publicist or do it all ourselves. We can use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, giveaway contests, giveaway strategies, conferences, writing organizations, webpages, blogs, newsletters, and probably some other avenues I’ve left out.

Of course, no one human can do all that AND write more books. And stay sane.

But all we have to do as writers today is decide our path and follow it. We don’t have to wait for someone else to grant us permission.

The video ends with this quote, so I will, too.

Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

All pictures from morguefile.com

Remembering Cinderella

by Janis Patterson

I don’t suppose there’s a one of us unfamiliar with the story of Cinderella – the rightful heiress to her papa’s wealth and mistreated stepchild of her father’s second wife and her ugly daughters who ended up marrying the Handsome Prince. It’s a fairy tale that has – in one form or another – enchanted millennia of little girls.

And has also been one of the worst role models for little girls ever written.

I can already hear the outraged cries of those who love Cinderella – and I love her too, but that doesn’t stop me from being honest. Think about it. She is quiet, obedient, unfailingly kind to the step-family that mistreats and abuses her and works unquestioningly like a slavey. She shows no spine or protest or anything – she is a doormat. Her only reaction to this grossly unfair situation is to weep as she sits in the kitchen fireplace trying to keep warm.

But it’s worth it, her fans cry. She ends up marrying the Prince.

Agreed – but through no action of her own. She just allows things to happen to her. In the commonly accepted versions, the mice and birds help her and the Fairy Godmother provides everything else. Dear little Cindi is acted on, but never acting, simply trusting to others to make things right for her. Hardly a good role model for anyone.

Yet the archetype persists – good girls win by doing nothing. Good girls win by being sweet. Good girls win by being passive. Thank goodness this view of womanhood is changing. I do believe in good manners and good behavior (but not to the extent of extreme doormattishness). I applaud some of the strong, self-responsible heroines who get into messes and pretty much get themselves out. I even like some of the kick-ass heroines who belong to the FBI or CIA or fight their way to their goal – to a point. Some are undeniably vulgar and some – to my mind – are downright psychotic. These are as bad in their own way as Cindi is in hers. Extremes are never good.

So what got me started on this rant? I was reading a book, or trying to, and it kept ending up against the wall. Three times. I try to give writers some wiggle room, so I kept trying. I have officially given up.

The heroine is a Mary Sue. She is just too totally perfect. She’s gorgeous, but of course doesn’t realize it. She speaks several languages fluently and knows everything from how to bake a cake from scratch to how to field-strip a 50mm rapid fire gun. She is unfallably kind, thinks of everyone else before herself and holds only the most politically correct ideas. She would never dream of holding a grudge or creating a scene or demanding anything. Everyone she meets loves her, in fact the villain hates her only because she won’t love him back with equal fervor.

In other words, she is a complete bore. I’ve seen paper dolls with more believability than this creature. There is no depth, no touch of real humanity in her. (And guys, this is not a purely feminine thing. There are plenty of books in which the male protagonist is just as revoltingly, boringly perfect.)

There is a place for fairy tales; they are part of the archetypes of our culture, but as a people we must progress beyond such animate homilies into the world of real (albeit fictional) people. If we are to make our characters real, if the people we make are to resonate with readers, they must be human. Perhaps a little prettier, a little smarter, possessed of a wider range of knowledge, but still with recognizably human foibles and flaws. Perfection is boring. 

Villains and the Nature of Evil

by Janis Patterson

I admit it. I’m a cartoon junkie. I love watching weird little animated creatures dancing across the screen in all kinds of improbable story lines. In my opinion, the older cartoons are preferable, with better storylines. And better art. Give me a Rocky and Bullwinkle marathon and I am in pure heaven.

Something I have never understood, though, is the villain – human, hybrid, alien or animal – shouting that he is doing whatever he is doing solely for the sake of evil. Skeletor of the lamented He-Man franchise did that a lot.

Now I believe in evil. I know it is real, and I’ve actually seen it a time or two. But I must also believe that doing something solely for the sake of evil makes no sense, at least not in a mystery or thriller novel. Even the darkest dye villain does what he does for a reason, and in my opinion doing evil just for the sake of evil is not a reason. People do bad things, yes, and they do them for money, or power, or love, or some distorted and ugly thing in their brain, but to them it is a logical (sort of) and effective way to fulfill their vision… whatever twisted form that might take.

For example, a man who slaughters a schoolbus load of children is definitely evil, but is he doing it solely for the sake of purposefully serving evil? Or is he doing it to get publicity so that people will have to think of him? Or to avenge a real or perceived wrong? The end result is the same, but that’s a totally different thought process and rationale.

We believe in and accept heroes because in our culture it is accepted that it is right and desirable to do the ‘right’ thing. As a people we find it difficult to believe that one can do evil simply for no other reason than it is evil, and therefore we must attribute motives and desires to our villains. This renders them understandable to us – in our minds, at least.

But in our books do our villains really do evil, or do they merely go after what they want in a way that is unacceptable to our culture? Does the villain rob the store simply because we are not supposed to rob stores, or is it because they want something the store has – goods or money or whatever? Or, in a horrible extension, the life of someone in the store, perhaps in return for some real or perceived slight? Perhaps when looking in the news media you find stories of someone saying they wanted to do a crime just to have done one, or some similar rationale of evil, but that is real life. We deal in fiction, and fiction has rules. Real life doesn’t.

Genre writers have worked long and hard to make their heroes (and heroines) real and believable people with flaws and dreams and quirks. We can do no less for our villains, for if we don’t we run the risk of having our corporate raider morph into Snidely Whiplash, a two-dimensional sketch who twirls his mustache and threatens to foreclose the mortgage. Just pick the villainish cliché of your choice.

A hero who is real deserves an antagonist who is real, and it is our job as writers to make them both as believable as possible. 

Putting Yourself in Your Book

By Chester Campbell

I'm not talking about making yourself a character in your book, but consciously or not we usually include a lot of ourselves in our writing. Back in the days when I made a lot of public appearances (a voice problem limits my talking these days), I would talk about my Greg McKenzie mysteries and someone would invariably ask, "Is Greg really you?"

My standard reply was, "He's bigger and bolder and more confrontational than me, but we think a lot alike."

A lot of my characters have no relationship to me, either in size or demeanor or thought processes. But at least one of the key personalities is bound to express my sentiments about the situation. It just comes flowing out of my fingers naturally. I choose to write about subjects that interest me, which means I have feelings that get expressed in one way or another.

There are other ways we put ourselves in our novels. One is to use experiences we've had some place or another. I've done that countless times. In my first post Cold War political thriller, Beware the Jabberwock, I had my two principal characters, Burke Hill and Lori Quinn, ride the Star Ferry across Hong Kong Harbor. I described it as I remembered from my visit to Hong Kong back in 1987 (the story takes place in 1992).

In the second of the thriller trilogy, The Poksu Conspiracy, I had Burke Hill visit Chiangmai, Thailand. I used the Top North Guest House where my wife and I and our son and his wife stayed during our Far East tour. It was more like an early American motel with limited amenities. I also used places we visited such as the Chiangmai Night Bazaar and Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, a Buddhist temple high on a mountain west of the city.

My first Greg McKenzie mystery was based largely on a tour I took of the Holy Land in 1998. Greg and Jill make a similar journey as the book begins, and several of the characters were based on people I met during the trip. One who played a key role was our tour guide in Israel, an American who had lived in Jerusalem for several years. I used a lot of her characteristics but changed her sex for plot reasons.

I think most writers put a lot of themselves in their books in one way or another. Do you find your thoughts, your preferences, your characteristics, your experiences showing up in your prose?

Visit me at Mystery Mania or my website ChesterDCampbell

Characters Gone Wild

Okay. You've just written a couple of pages...things are going okay. Maybe not the best writing day you've ever had, possibly a few bits where the story isn't flowing or the dialogue seems clunky. Or maybe you're having one of those days where nothing is working and you feel like tossing a brick through your computer monitor. So you decide to take a break, leaving your characters and story to percolate for an hour or so. You go for a walk, maybe have something do eat or slam back a shot of Jack Daniels - whatever constitutes a break in your world. Ideas start percolating, the creative juices are flowing and you can't wait to get back to your work. You sit back down in front of your computer, open the document and...

Huh?

"Wait a minute," you say to one of your characters. "Didn't I leave you in a juice bar?"

"Yup, sure did," replies said character, whom we'll call Nick just for the heck of it.

"Erm...so mind telling me what the hell you're doing a bar?"

Nick shrugs. "Got bored. Only so much to look at in a Jamba Juice." He takes a sip of what looks and smells like booze.

"Hey! Is that alcohol you're drinking?"

"Best Manhattan in the city." Nick toasts the bartender. "Thanks, pal."

"But...you're a health nut! A vegan, fer crissake! You don't drink anything harder than raw carrot juice, remember?"

Nick wrinkles his nose in distaste. "Yeah, well, about that. I've decided I hate friggin' carrot juice, I like red meat and I have a drinking problem. Don't smoke though. I hate the smell."

"What, what, WHAT?!" You stare at him in outraged disbelief. "That's not how I wrote you!"

"Yeah, well, tough shit." Nick takes another long draught of his Manhattan and signals the bartender for another one. "And make one for the lady here. She needs to relax."

"I do NOT need to relax!" you sputter. "You are a vegan, non drinking, health nut and that's final!"

Nick looks at you, one eyebrow raised in a sardonic expression that has no place on his face. At least not the way you originally wrote his character. "Look, lady," he says after a long pause. "It wasn't working. No offense, it's not like you're a bad writer or anything...but there's no way the Nick you wrote will work for the story you want."

You start to protest, a knee-jerk reaction to someone daring to tell you what will or won't work for YOUR creation. Then you stop yourself because...well...it wasn't working, was it?

Nick nods, his expression this side of smug. The bartender places a fresh Manhattan in front of both of us. "Think about it for a minute," says Nick. "Have a drink. Then we'll talk."

You think, you drink, and then the two of you discuss the story at length. Damned if Nick isn't right. It'll mean some rewriting, but ultimately you know the changes will result in a better story.

Moral of the story?

We may create these characters, but they really can and do take on a life of their own. And in my personal experience, allowing them the space to grow and change rather than try to keep them in a tightly sealed box of my creation helps me grow as a writer.

Making Characters Come to Life by Chester Campbell

I think we all agree that characters are chief ingredients that make our mysteries come to life. “Cardboard characters,” as the terms implies, leave stories flat. I thought it might be instructive to peel away the layers and see how a protagonist comes into being.

The person in question is Gregory McKenzie, the lead character in four Greg McKenzie Mysteries. When I came up with the idea for Secret of the Scroll, I wanted a man who would do anything to save his wife from a murderous group of terrorists. I preferred someone with investigative experience who could track down hostage-takers without taxing the reader’s credibility. Since I had an Air Force background, I decided a retired Office of Special Investigations agent would be an interesting departure from other protags.

I wrote two-and-a-half single-spaced pages of background for Greg, which also included basic information on his wife, Jill. I put his age at sixty-five, hers a few years younger. One of my intentions was to show retired seniors as the competent individuals that I know them to be. I was tired of reading blundering caricatures of my age group.

Re-reading my notes from ten years ago, I found a lot of information that has never come out in the books. I also noted more than a few incidents that appeared in the book originally, but were dropped after being axed by my editor. I may find a place to use some of them eventually.

To make him sort of Joe Average, I set Greg’s birth in St. Louis. For a good Scottish background (after all, I am a Campbell), I made his father a burly, garrulous, red-faced Scotsman who emigrated at age fifteen and became a master brewer for Anhauser-Busch. His mother also contributed some Highland blood from her side of the family, as did my own.

Greg retired as a lieutenant colonel, held down in the ranks by his penchant for stepping on as many toes as necessary while pursuing the truth in criminal investigations. He angered a brigadier general early in his OSI career who came back later as a three-star general to stop him in his tracks. His doggedness is a characteristic that hasn’t changed over four novels.

I have added more background to the character as different stories came along. One involved his family’s military history. This is how Greg described it in a paragraph from the second book in the series, Designed to Kill:

When the 98th Argyllshire Highlanders were first mustered in 1794 at Stirling Castle, north of Glasgow, there were sixteen McKenzies on the roster, one of them an ancestor of mine. After the unit was re-designated the 91st, other McKenzies followed him on down to 1881 when the 91st was merged with the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders to form the regiment my grandfather fought with in the Boer War and World War I. My dad, Rob McKenzie, was a little less combative, serving as a U.S. Army cook in World War II.

One of Greg’s little idiosyncrasies, seemingly unlikely for a former Air Force officer, is his fear of flying. This despite the fact that his wife, Jill, is a licensed commercial pilot who owns a Cessna 172. It makes for interesting scenes when they need to fly somewhere on a case as private investigators, which they become in books three and four.

Family backgrounds, personal foibles, and other intriguing aspects of character help mold our protagonists and antagonists into real people for the reader. And our protags become our personal friends as well. It makes life at the keyboard more interesting.

Chester Campbell’s website
His Mystery Mania blog

A Mystery to Me

It's still a mystery to me how the plotters do it! I so admire their discipline and their technique. I'm a pantster writer and always have been, except when writing exams in university, where I plotted out point form notes for the essay questions!

For me, writing fiction is like watching a movie and I'm just recording what's happening -- which can get me into point-of-view problems because I'm seeing everything. (Thank you to my fantastic editor.) I guess my way is kind of like what the director of a movie does by seeing all the scenes, knowing all the characters, but letting them express themselves, in a director's case through the actor, and in my case, through the words.

It also means sometimes my characters surprise me by going off on a tangent I hadn't expected...and I can worry I don't know how they'll get back, but they always do. Nevertheless I think it can add a bit of zing to a hero to have a wobble toward wimpdom from his strong, silent stoicism or the heroine having a shoe or purse fetish that leads her to finding out more about leather production and thus to a slaughterhouse, and changes her to a vegan. Which I didn't know about her when we started out!

I generally know who the good guys and bad guys are, what the mystery to be solved will be (a death, kidnapping, robbery or whatever) and that the bad guys will lose in the end, even if they seem to have the upper hand at some stage of the story. But I let my characters lead me along their path. It's a fun way to write and why it never, ever gets old for me.

Libby McKinmer
Romance with an edge
www.libbymckinmer.com
http://www.twitter.com/LibbyMcKinmer
libby@libbymckinmer.com