Why Write About a Female Law Enforcement Officer?

 

What the reader wanted to know was why I chose to write about a female law enforcement officer when those in my family are all male.

When I was growing up, my uncle was a Los Angeles police officer--motorcycle cop, and later a detective. My son-in-law was both a police officer and a sheriff's deputy. Right now, my grandson is a police officer and my grandson-in- law is a deputy.

To be fair, my son-in-law, who was killed in the line of duty, was the one who started me writing about men in law enforcement and their families. He contributed a lot to my Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series, especially the first one: Final Respects.  At the time we lived in a beach community with some similarities to the fictional Rocky Bluff. In  the books that follow, female officers appear. 

I didn't start writing about my DeputyTempe Crabtree series until after I moved to Springville and went on a ride-along with a female cop, met a female deputy sheriff, and an Indian woman who grew up on the nearby reservation. The three of these great gals combined became my Tempe.

Though the majority of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree books are in the mountain setting of Bear Creek (much is borrowed from the area where I'm living now) in several Tempe goes other places to solve crimes. The latest in the series, The Trash Harem, is set in the city of Temecula.

The fact that when I began writing about males in law enforcement, I heard a lot of interesting tales from my son-in-law. When we first moved into our neighborhood in the beach community, we had several police officers as neighbors. I became friends with them and their wives--and I heard  a lot from them too. 

Frankly, I didn't think much about writing from the point-of-view of male characters. Whoever is the best one to tell the story is the one I write about.

Marilyn who also writes as F. M. Meredith

The Danger of Shiny

by Janis Patterson

Let’s be honest - there’s no such thing as a life without distraction. However you do things, however you plan for a good long stretch of uninterrupted time to write, something happens.

You go on a quiet vacation to a remote spot where you think it will be free from distractions and interruptions. Maybe it is, but suddenly your own mind becomes the interruption, putting something new and enticingly shiny in front of you such as plotting another book, sending you down the rabbit hole of intense research, or just daydreaming and de-pressurizing from your everyday life.

If you still have to work at a regular job, it gets harder. Even during your theoretical down time, there are still chores to do, family to be with, and you can bet your employer will call with an emergency just about the time you sit down in front of your computer.

We’ve just gotta face the fact that life gets in the way, sometimes deliberately and gleefully.

My life used to be simple - get up in the morning, feed the dog, make The Husband’s lunch and - once he was on his way - get to work. I could mix household chores in between my writing spurts and since we are supposed to get up and move around every so often during the day, that was perfect.

Then The Husband retired. I do love him and in many ways it’s great having him home all the time. Other ways... as the old joke goes, I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch!

He is learning to be respectful of my working time; he has even fixed a couple of lunches for us and, after seeing how hard I work at my writing (it is a full-time job, after all!) he takes me out to eat more often. He has even started learning how to do my advertising.

If that were the only distraction! No, there’s always something... The laundry. The dinner. The dishes. Vacuuming. Something breaks and the repairman must be summoned and dealt with. Shopping. Cooking. A million little things. The Husband will learn to deal with such, but not totally and not right now. I’ve had decades to learn the various protocols and minutiae of running our home efficiently; it will take him a while to get into the swing of it.

There are other distractions, too. The siren lure of a new story whispering in your ear while you’re struggling with the uncooperative middle of the one that has to be finished now. The ever-enticing rabbit hole of research; you start up by searching for a relatively mundane fact, such as does a Glock 9mm have a manual safety or not, and two hours later you’re happily submerged in the history of smelting. Or the invention of buttercream icing. Or why calico was so named. Research is a labyrinthine seduction where you never know where you’ll end up. 

So is there an answer? I hope there isn’t. All writing and no play (or life) makes Jane not only a dull writer but a dull (and tired!) person. Perhaps the best answer is both balance and discipline - the balance of life and work, and the discipline to know how much and how far to indulge both in writing and in non-writing. It doesn’t sound easy, because it isn’t. But it has to be done. It really has to be done. I hope someday I master it.

#19 in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree Mystery Series

 

When I wrote the last book in the series, End of the Trail, I, along with many of my readers, thought it was the last one. The title was certainly perfect for the end of the long series.

But, guess what, ideas started popping into my head after I made a trip to visit my daughter and her husband. It was a great trip, and I went to see family--besides my daughter and son-in-law, two married grands and their families.

It was extra special because one of my great-grands was home from college to recover from bronchitis, and another grand who moved to Pittsburgh and started her own business was there with her new husband. 

As the days evolved, and I watched how my daughter and her husband enjoyed living in a 55-and- older gated community and how their days transpired, the ideas began flowing. 

This is a short tale, but I think a fun one. I know I had a great time writing it.

It's available from Amazon on Kindle or in paperback.

Marilyn

To purchase:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096KZDPH8?pf_rd_r=N7DBZKK2MBSG684X7TEA&pf_rd_p=5ae2c7f8-e0c6-4f35-9071-dc3240e894a8&pd_rd_r=c07bc177-fab2-46f8-b86b-64e113b95079&pd_rd_w=C7E2u&pd_rd_wg=SAth5&ref_=pd_gw_unk

Slowly Coming Back

 

My first book signing in two years happened!

Was  it a great success? I wouldn't say that, except for family only two people showed up. One was someone I don't know very well, but she's all about reading series from beginning to end. And though she reads on a Kindle, she bought two books for a friend.

The other non-relative was a good friend who I hadn't seen since the pandemic began. She'd purchased my latest two book from Amazon and brought them for me to sign. And she also bought a book for a friend.

My granddaughter purchased 5 books in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series for something she's doing for her 5 grand-kids--who are really little and won't be reading them any time soon. 

How many books I sold really has nothing to do with the best part of the two hour signing. Both of the women came at different times and so I had a chance to really visit with each of them--truly worth the effort I put into putting on the event. (And I had plenty of help doing that.)

And guess what? I'm ready to do another book signing, where I have no idea, but I'm ready. It is so heartwarming to meet readers and talk about books. 

I've also signed up for the PSWA writing conference--first one in two years. /https://policewriter.com

This is my favorite writers' conference, great for mystery writers. Plus, it's small with only one track so you don't miss anything, and you'll meet a lot of interesting people.

Marilyn Meredith, who also writes as F. M. Meredith

https://fictionforyou.com

Book Reviews

 by Linda Thorne

About five years ago I wrote a version of this post for a blogspot now inactive. Being late for my post today, I thought I’d bring this topic to Make Mine Mystery.

Ah, reviews. Authors yearn for the good ones, will take the reasonable ones, and hopefully learn from those negative, but none want those posted by meanies with nasty unnecessary attacks. 

For the most part an author will welcome almost any type of review: the ever steady one with an accurate ending and a trustworthy opinion, but even a shallow review of three words: “I enjoyed this book,” brings a smile to my face. And I love to see the total numbers of the review count go up.

It's my understanding that Amazon will do a little more promotion for an author with twenty reviews, then maybe more at fifty. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but I have heard it several times.

Some people who read my book, volunteer to put up a review without my asking, but then never do. Maybe if I showed my true emotions when they first mentioned it—chanted cheers and did somersaults—they may have followed through. This happens more often than not.

I asked my publisher to add a blurb at the back of my book asking for consideration of a review. I’ve seen it in other books. I’m not sure it helps, but I don’t think a reminder can hurt.

In the January 2017 issue of Writer's Digest. Barbara Solomon Josselsohn wrote in the “5-Minute Memoir” section a short article on book reviews. She titled it “The Review Rat Race" and said, "...many authors will attest, customer reviews have become the holy grail of novel publishing." She also confessed wishing she could simply appreciate a compliment about her books without the drama of the sought-after book review jumping to the forefront.  

What about you? Do you go after reviews or just hope that they come? Do you have other resources that help you bring them in or are you relying

solely on those folks who read your books?

Buy Link: Just Another Termination

Author Website: Linda Thorne Website

Coincidence - Friend or Foe?

by Janis Patterson

While there are those who say coincidences don’t happen, we all know they do. In real life, that is. In fiction one has to be very suspicious of them, especially if they providentially happen just in time to resolve all the complications of a book and bring about a happy ending. That’s cheap writing. 

Yes, I will say that again - coincidence to wrap up a complicated story in a quick, neat and tidy bow is cheap writing. I don’t care if your Great-Aunt Edna on the way to her reasoned but passionless marriage to a man she didn’t love just happened to run into her high school flame who had moved to Australia years before or a real-life detective on vacation in a far-away country just happened to meet the one real witness to an unsolved crime which happened two years before. I know things like that do happen (albeit rarely) but that’s real life. You see, fiction has rules; real life doesn’t.

That said, a coincidence can be a great starting point for a story. There’s no backstory to consider, no chain of events necessary to make the coincidence happen, no complicated explanations, no convoluted chain of action. Coincidences do happen. Two people from the same small town in Texas can meet on the Spanish Steps in Rome after many years without seeing each other. (This happened to my mother.) When stranded in a tiny Mexican coastal town you can run into a local frog-leg farmer who just happens to have been a member of the Boy Scout troop you began in North Texas over 40 years previously. (No kidding - this actually happened to my father.) But just try putting either of them into a book!

While admittedly coincidences do happen, at least in real life, imagine all the work and machinations and plot-twisting it would take to make a plausible ‘coincidence’ wrap up all the plot threads at the end of a story. That would be the worst kind of plot-driven story and every crack and seam would show. The ancients used to do it, of course, with the Deus ex Machina. The story would become so convoluted and so knotted that it would never work out. Thus the Deus ex Machina, a god who conveniently comes down from wherever and, rather like a second grade teacher with an unruly class, ruthlessly give orders that would sort out all the problems and misunderstandings. Such a device does get the story to the desired, but how very unsatisfying to a modern reader.

So feel free to use your chosen coincidence - but just to start a book. Be very leery of using one to end a book. And stay away from meddling gods! 

A Few Things That Drive Me Crazy

 When I'm reading a book, I want to know where things are taking place. Where in the world are the characters? 

Over the  years I've judged a lot of writing contests--and ever so often I've read a book with a good plot but had no idea where it was taking place. Or when the characters are who knows where, having a conversation.

Then there's the other problem where the author gives far too much description of everything, slowing down the plot. I think it depends upon the genre too. Readers of historical fiction love the details of the setting and characters. A fast-paced Western, detective novel, thriller needs to have the plot moving along at a quick pace. 

Though the reader doesn't need a weather report, weather can add a lot to the suspense of a story and problems for the main character. 

We do need to know what the main characters look like--but it isn't necessary to let the reader know everything all at once. When it comes to the taxi driver or some less important character, the reader needs to know very little unless that person is going to turn up again. 

Then some of the things in dialogue that are strange. One of the biggest is when one character tells another something that person already knows. The sentence often begins, "As you know...."  When the information could be given in the narrative.

How about having a person laugh a sentence? Or gasp a sentence? What I mean is something like this, "What kind of a get up is that," he laughed. Or, "I heard something," he gasped. Both would be fine as a sentence following the dialogue. The best kind of dialogue tag if you want to cut down on the he said, she said, is to use an action.

"Get out of my way." Jenny shoved her way through the crowd. 

Grandma put down the tea cup. "That was lovely, my dear."

And what about the heroine who knows there's a killer loose, hears a noise in the basement, and goes down there all alone?

So there are my pet peeves--what are yours?

Marilyn

https://fictionforyou.com/