IT'S A MYSTERY TO ME

    You haven't seen me blogging here very often. It's a mystery to me, but lately it seems I'm more interested in writing romances. Since this is a mystery blog, I can't pretend my current romance books could be classified as mysteries.

    Still, I can share one mystery about writing. It seems many books are geared toward a younger generation. That's not me anymore. True, some older people want to escape and pretend they're younger while immersed in fiction. 

    Often I find when a book does contain an older person as a main or secondary character, the author uses depictions of people that may have been true years ago, but not anymore. It's time for some writers to look around and discover that the older people of today are not cardboard cutouts, but people much like themselves, just older. 

    Granny, Grandma, Grandpa, etc. to describe a character is missing the essence of what today's older folks are really all about. We're not all sitting around knitting, though I don't knock that hobby for those who have the talent. We're not sitting around in rocking chairs all day and imparting wisdom when called for. 

    Sure, some of our clothes don't fit like they used to, but they're not much different than anyone else's. We don't need a younger person to help with computers. We can do fine on our own.  

    Many, depending on our age, can still drive. We attend festivals, even participate at times. Some of us even know how to play instruments, such as pianos or guitars. Others decorate, paint or do repairs. We like going to Fitness Classes to stay in shape. We go out to eat when we feel like it.

    Shopping is a fun sport for many of us, though finding the right clothes to fit is sometimes a challenge. We bond with our neighbors. Some of us still have jobs, though in my case I'm retired and just write books when I feel like it. 

    Many of us own dogs or cats, even both, or birds or other animals. We like to read, watch movies and TV. Some of us even like cooking, though I admit that long ago I did, but now it bores me. Luckily, I have a hubby who likes taking over that chore. 

    Yes, some are married still, while some have lost their spouse. Others are looking for a soul mate or don't want one. Anyway, you get the picture. We're normal people, not stereotypies.     

    Now that I've had my say, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in Found At the Pound, A Senior Romance Featuring 2 Dog Lovers, you'll find ordinary people, who just happen to be seniors. I'm also in the midst of a spinoff on one of the characters in that book.

https://www.amazon.com/FOUND-AT-POUND-Romance-Featuring-ebook/dp/B08W2FTF74

Thanks for letting me vent a little. 

                               Morgan Mandel

https://www.morganmandel.com

 

Somewhere Over My Rainbow

Once achieving “senior” status, new worlds open up. The term senior discount becomes user-friendly. Ticket prices, restaurant food and geriatric aids are reduced. This is easily accepted as a deserved benefit earned by merely surviving. A bit of tarnish, also accepted, is the next plateau, reached when you are no longer asked for an ID to verify senior status.

Spattered among these benefits are inescapable side effects. Joints and muscles don’t react as they once did before seniority. Aches and pains become companions instead of occasional visitors. Doctor visits become necessary, as opposed to only valid when bones are broken. You spend an inordinate amount of time searching side effects, and then weighing the pros and cons.

But a pet peeve is the addition of an abundance of pills to the medicine cabinet. They come in a rainbow of colors. What I call the over-the-hill-take-your-pills stage of life. My wife and I have our own separate shelves for medication and supplements. We have familiarized ourselves with Omega oil (sounds much better than fish oil), CoQ10, one a day vitamins (which now irritatingly have a “senior” product), Red Yeast Rice, Niacin, and aspirin. Aspirin used to be for a rare headache. Not any more.

In the morning I take an oval orange vitamin, and a pretty gold Omega oil tablet. At night with a meal a small baby aspirin, orange flavored no less. I wonder if the term baby aspirin is like the name change for calf to veal – roasted baby calf would not be good to put on a menu, but veal is delicious. Before bed I get a pink pill which I was warned could induce flushing. I knew not what flushing was. Until I flushed. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t hurt. You are just HOT. And uncomfortable. My sympathy now blossoms when my wife emits the hot flash warning. So, I have a rainbow of colors I ingest. My wife takes some of the same pills and additional little white ones for a variety of problems. Oh, and an oval canary yellow pill for high blood pressure.

For those of you still in your youth - to me that’s under 60 - and refuse to take pills, get ready. If you cannot physically swallow a pill, I suggest you research the Kevorkian method of termination. In my younger days I bragged about not having to take a pill. I vowed never to take any – period. Be careful about vowing anything.

This is supposed to be a mystery blog. Well, the mystery is how the heck did I get to this point so quickly? Watch out, you’re next if you’re not there already. Peek over your shoulder every once in a while. Seniority is coming. It ain’t for sissies.

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