Keep Me In Suspense

Interview with Lisa Harris

2008-09-30T13:39:00.004-05:00

The winner of last week's contest is Ruth Dell. If you'd like to win a copy of Final Deposit please post a comment below. Remember to leave us a way to contact you.

Final Deposit, Lisa Harris' first romantic suspense for Love Inspired Suspense releases this month. Lisa was kind enough to answer a few questions about her book, and about writing.

First, a little teaser about Final Deposit:

"BECOME AN INSTANT MILLIONAIRE!"

It's just another scam, sent via e-mail to thousands. Yet Lindsey Taylor's elderly father has fallen for it and lost his life savings. He's even gone off to claim his promised fortune. Lindsey knows he'll never see a penny. Worse, she's worried she'll never see him again. Frantic, she turns to financial security expert Kyle Walker. Kyle has his own vendetta: he lost his brother to an Internet mail-order-bride scheme. He's promised to help Lindsey find her father, but first he has to get them close to the scam artists. And the closer they get, the more danger they find….

Lisa, please tell us how you got the idea for Final Deposit.

I’ve always been interested in scams and how a person could fall for one. Once I started researching various internet scams I knew I had a story. The amount of money individuals lose every year is huge, so delete all those emails that deal with expediting money out of another country, lotteries, and other get rich scams! Anything too good to be true IS too good to be true. Which is exactly what my heroine, Lindsey, finds out when her father is taken for everything he has.

How do you try to constantly raise the level of suspense and/or danger in your suspense novels?

Every chapter needs to build on the previous chapter and end in a page turning hook. We all know that it’s important to raise the suspense level with great twists, but they also have to be believable. I’ve found that if I simply sit back and think of the next logical twist, it often works better than if I try and force a hook. Sometimes simple is best.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Everything. I love action, fast dialogue, and an underlying romance. It’s what I love to read and what I love to write.

What was the biggest challenge in writing Final Deposit?

Making sure that all the danger fit in with the overall plot. At one point I added a break in to my heroine’s father’s house just to add to the suspense. It worked much better when I added another underlying plot connecting the break-in to the scam. It gave the story the extra layer it needed.

What do you read when you’re not writing?

Sadly, I don’t have the time to read as much as I used to. But as I said above, my favorite is romantic suspense and mysteries, though I read a bit of everything including historicals and fantasy. I just finished One Night with the King and am now rereading John Grisham’s The Testament.

What’s next after Final Deposit? Any more mysteries or romantic suspense lined up?

My third cozy in my Barbour series will be coming out in March. I’m also working on a couple additional projects for editors in the same genre.

What advice can you give to aspiring mystery and suspense writers?

Let your dialogue and action ring true. Don’t force the danger. Write strong hooks at the end of every chapter. Build the tension as you progress both with the suspense and the romance. And most of all, have fun with your stories.

Thanks, Lisa, for being our guest today.

Followup Note: A few days after conducting this interview, we learned that Lisa was just offered a contract by Zondervan for her international romantic suspense, Blood Ransom, and another novel. Congratulations, Lisa!

Interview with Megan Davis

2008-09-20T12:47:00.004-05:00

Last week we interviewed Susan Page Davis on her latest cozy Treasure at Blue Heron Lake. Susan is writing this series with her daughter, so this week, we'd like to highlight Megan who has not only recently married, but also moved to England.

We'll draw a second winner of Treasure at Blue Heron Lake from the comments below. Luann was the winner of last week's drawing. Please contact us with your mailing address here.

Lisa: Welcome to KMIS, Megan and congrats on your recent marriage. You've just made some huge changes in your life. Can you tell us a bit about life in England?

Megan: Yes. People like their homes to look like hotel rooms, clothes are more interesting, food is delicious, honey is cheaper, baccon is bigger, and there is no space for anything on the bathroom sink. Some things are very different from life in Maine, but some things like lots of rain and tea are nearly the same. Probably the hardest thing for me to get used to is the pace of life. People are busy all the time in the city.

My favorite things about England are the sweets, the countryside (which I do get to see sometimes), rhubarb yogurt, and the fact that there's always something to learn. It used to scare me how little I was learning once I was through with college, but that's certainly not true anymore!

Lisa: Has living overseas given you any ideas for more mysteries?

Megan: Well, not yet I suppose since I've only been living here a few weeks. I've had little time for writing with all that's going on, so even when I have ideas they aren't full blown plots, they are little intriguers like a character who wants to be put in a story, or a line for a poem. But I am sure that once we've settled down a bit more I will have lots more ideas and get back to writing regularly.

Lisa: Tell us a bit about your latest cozy, Treasure at Blue Heron Lake.

Megan: Emily and Nate go to spend a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend at their friend's hunting lodge and wind up in the midst of another big mystery. But this time it involves romance, murder, suspense, and a long lost treasure. Who could ask for more?

Lisa: I'm actually in the process of co-writing a book. What are you suggestions for making it work?

Megan: Decide ahead of time who is writing what and when. Make sure you both understand the plan, and that when it's your turn to write you make it a priority. It can be very hard when you are already busy!

Lisa: What are you reading right now?

Megan: A Little Princess and Salad Days (a cook book) to myself, and The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie to my husband.

Lisa: Any writing plans for the future?

Megan: Yes. I'm always planning. Now if I would only do some writing! I hope to do some more journalism and write juvenile or young adult adventure/fantasy/humor novels.

And now my quiet library corner has been invaded by two rather loud, very tiny British school boys, so that will be all! I take that back, only one is tiny, the other is a bit chunky. (Did I say I was going to stop?)

Lisa: Great interview, Megan. Thanks so much for joining us and giving us a peak into your new life!

You can find out more about Megan and her mom's cozy series here along with a beautiful wedding photo.

Susan Page Davis Interview

2008-09-15T11:44:00.004-05:00

Beth: The ACFW conference is coming up this month. How long have you been attending? What do you think about the conference overall? Do you have a success story that you can share from attending?

Susan: This will be my third ACFW conference, and I’m looking forward to it eagerly. The first year I went (2006) was bittersweet. My first LARGE conference. I was blown away by the depth of teaching, the variety of topics, and the fellowship with authors at all levels of professionalism. There were newbies like and multi-published people whose names were household words (at least in our household). I met my new agent there. I’d never heard of Chip MacGregor before (but he’s now a household word around here, too). I met several of my editors, including Susan Downs of HP Mysteries (whom I loved instantly) and Kim Moore of Harvest House (ditto), who brought me my first glimpse of the cover of my first “big book,” Frasier Island. You know, I don’t think I met one person I didn’t like. And one week after I came home, I had to admit my Dad to the hospital. He’d been suffering from cancer for a long time, and we knew it was coming, but of course we still weren’t ready. He died five days later. So my first ACFW conference was a time of changes and growth. I’m still thankful for the opportunity to go.

Beth: You’re teaching a workshop. Tell us about that.

Susan: Yes, I mustered the proverbial courage and submitted a proposal for a workshop this year. It’s called “Multiple Deadlines: Blessing or Bane?” I chose it because it sums up my own joy and frustrations on any given day as I look at my writing calendar. Yes! I have several contracts right now. Ooooh! That means I have to deliver. I hope my presentation can help some other authors in my situation to get a grip on this delightful but scary circumstance.

Beth: Can you offer a few quick tips or teasers taken from the workshop?

Susan: Planning is critical. With that said, there are always things you can’t plan for. So how does one schedule in the unexpected? It’s a challenge, but it can be done.

Beth: Tell us a bit about your next book coming out with your daughter, Megan.

Susan: Treasure at Blue Heron Lake is the second book in our MAINEly Murder Series, from Heartsong Presents: Mysteries! We’ve loved writing this series together. In “Treasure,” the hero and heroine, Nate Holman and Emily Gray, become engaged while staying at a friend’s wilderness hunting lodge. Strange things are going on there, and they try to help the owner, Jeff Lewis, discover the cause. They also learn about a hundred-year-old mystery surrounding the man who owned Lakeview Lodge when it was the barracks for a lumbering camp. A present day murder heats things up, and soon it becomes obvious that the old lumber baron’s treasure is still causing mayhem on the shores of Blue Heron Lake.

Beth: How did you come up with that story idea?

Susan: I think a seed was planted about 35 years ago. My father was a game warden, and for a while he served as a supervisor in northern Maine. When I visited him and my mom up there, Dad took me to a place where a large, old ramshackle building stood. It had been part of a thriving lumber camp many years earlier. I imagined it restored as a sporting camp. When Megan and I needed a second plot for our northern Maine series, that old lumber camp came to mind.

Beth: Can you share some tips about co-authoring?

Susan: I think Megan spoiled me by being easy to work with. We finished our third book in the series about six weeks ago. She got married August 16 and moved to England, so I’m not sure if we’ll do any more collaborations or not. If the MAINEly Murder Series does well, who knows?
Anyway, Megan’s bedroom (when she lived at home) was directly above my office. That made it easy to yell, email, or tap on the ceiling (didn’t really do that last one) if I needed her. We sometimes had differing ideas of how the story should go, but we hammered out a synopsis we both could live with for each book, and pretty much stuck to it. I was amazed at the depth she was able to bring to the characters (the hero and heroine are close to her age, not mine!). And she had some great ideas for plot twists.
For the first two books we basically alternated chapters. Book 3 (Impostors at Blue Heron Lake) was a little harder, as we were preparing for her wedding and had several trips and family crises tucked in there. For instance, my husband had his appendix out while we were writing it. When the going got tough, one of us would take the manuscript and write as much as we could—sometimes half a chapter, sometimes two or three chapters. It worked, and I think our input was about equal in the end. We love the story—it may be the best of the three. You just have to be flexible and do what works for you.

Beth: You’ve just returned from Alaska. What’s that all about?

Susan: Did I mention multiple deadlines? I’m under contract for three Alaska contemporary romances for the Heartsong Presents line. The first one is due on editor Joanne Simmons’ desk January 1. God has blessed richly in allowing me to make a quick research trip to Anchorage and Homer, Alaska. The first book is tentatively titled Always Ready, which is the Coast Guard motto, and the hero and heroine serve in the U.S. Coast Guard. This trip reunited me with an old friend, LuAnn Nordine, who used to be in my home-schooling group in Maine. LuAnn and I had a memorable road trip together to Homer amidst what is arguably the most spectacular scenery on earth.

Beth: Anything else you’d like to share.

Susan: I just inked a contract with Barbour for a long historical book, the first in what we hope will be The Ladies’ Shooting Club Series. Release isn’t until early 2010, but I’ll start writing it very soon. I love to hear from readers and other authors. Come visit me at www.susanpagedavis.com.

Thank you for the interview, Susan. And thank you for joining us. If you'd like to win a copy of Treasure at Blue Heron Lake please post a comment. Remember to leave a way for us to contact you.

Blessings!
Beth

Creating Unforgetttable Characters

2008-09-10T22:31:00.003-05:00

This week we're privileged to have an article written by DiAnn Mills (www.diannmills.com). Look for her new book next spring. . .Breach of Trust in the Call to Duty series. A Tyndale release.

What books have touched your life in such a way that you will never be the same? What grabbed your attention and lifted you onto a magic carpet and carried you away to an unforgettable adventure? You already know the answer. The writer created credible, colorful, compelling characters. Have you ever asked how the writer managed that feat? Is there a secret to characterization? Have you ever challenged yourself to create characters that are dynamic and real?

We all love the characters in our favorite books. And we want to incorporate the same genius strokes in our own novels. This article will give you a foundation to think beyond the page to three-dimensional characters who will make your stories unforgettable.

Developing characters is a two-fold process: first, the external landscape, the easy and fun part of putting physical descriptions on the people of your story. However, some of the physical attributes of your characters can affect the way your character views life, others, and himself. Second is the internal landscape or the characteristics that propel your story along – sort of like the gasoline in the vehicle of your story’s journey. From the internal landscape, you will develop the motivation that fires up your plot.
Characterization takes time, imagination, brain-storming, people-watching, listening to dialogue from others, and studying the craft from respected authors.

A writer describes his characters in dialogue, appearance, setting, plot, strengths, values, victories, defeats, weaknesses, and in flaws. The internal landscape is all those things that make your characters and their story compelling, credible, and colorful. It establishes motivation. I suggest you spend less time dressing your characters and more time getting to know what motivates them.

*Note, I put a lot of emphasis on motivation. After all, motivation is what nudged you to read this article. It is the key to superb characterization. There is more than one way to develop your characters. Some use the four personality traits as explained by the Litthauers. Others prefer using the Myers-Briggs testing. Still others pick up a psychology book. I have a stack of resources that help me determine the inner landscape of my characters.

If I asked you to list all the things you want, I would imagine you could fill several sheets of paper with those items that you felt certain would bring you joy. But if I asked you what you needed, you might not be able to list those things. The reason is that we all know what we want, but we don’t always know what we need. Our “wants” motivate us. Our “wants” shove us out of bed in the morning. Our “wants” keep us moving all day until our bodies give in to sleep. Our “wants” become our goals, and we are motivated. (That word again.) Just ask a child who has been instructed to share a toy. Stand aside as that child shows you the meaning of wants, needs, and high-impact motivation.

Pit your characters against worthy opponents. A writer does not want to bore the reader with weak heroes, wimpy heroines, or unlikely villains. Pack your stories with powerful action and events that are emotional, spiritual, and physical. Involve your characters in scenes, which show the characters making a variety of decisions that reveal their attitudes and reasoning in the sequels. Consider this: your total life experiences have formed you into the person you are today.

Character growth and strength are the key factors in making sure your story is real. Keep those characters dangling at the end of a rope with believable incidents – and show them holding on to their faith in God. According to their traits, a character might stand and fight or he might run from involvement, but give him the courage to try. Allow your characters to attempt what looks impossible, beyond his/her reach, the forbidden, or devastating.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller

John Gardner, a writer who wrote about writing, recommended that we create the best possible characters and allow the worst possible things to happen to them.

All of your favorite characters – whether in books or movies, have three things in common:

1. Unique perspective toward life, the world, and the people around them.

2. Guts to do whatever it takes to reach their goals

3. Shock value - the ability to do the unexpected

I have another question for you. What happens when you don’t get what you want? Nancy Kress states “the most important emotion in fiction is frustration.” How are your characters going to express their frustration when they can’t get what they want?

Kress gives the following reactions:
Anger
Tears
Determination to try harder
Blaming the closest persons
Blaming the whole universe
Blaming oneself
Drinking and or drugs
Venting to a trusted friend
Giving up
Seeking revenge on whatever is causing the frustration
Prayer
Affected stoicism
Depression

This is just one exercise to deepen your characterization. While developing your characters, go through various emotions to establish their reactions and responses.

The following are a few tips to help you in the characterization process.

1. You can leaf through magazines and catalogs – Country Woman magazine has real women; so do year books,

2. If you know for example that an actor/actress was in a certain movie but you don't know that person's name, you can go to www.imdb.com (Internet Movie DataBase) to find out the name.

3. http://www.photos.com for character pics. You can type in what you want and get pages and pages of people and often various shots of the same person with all kinds of facial expressions. When you first go to the site, it looks like you have to be a member, but the search field works without signing on. As long as you aren’t publishing the photos, you don’t have to pay to join or to use the photos. You can print these off and put them in a file folder or stick them on a bulletin or story board. I found out about this site from my author friend Deb Raney.

4. You can also follow the same procedure for house plans and furnishings. I particularly like www.southernliving.com

5. Another author friend who writes chick-lit simply googles for engagement photos or wedding photos to find pics for the 20 – 30 year old woman.

6. And if finding pics of men is a problem for you, check out http://www.internationalmale.com/

7. You can also go to your search engine and type in “picture of red-hair boy with freckles” and see what you can find.

8. Here are a few great resources for characterization:
http://www.gettymages.com
SPIRIT-CONTROLLED TEMPERAMENT – Tim LaHaye
GETTING INTO CHARACTER – Brandilyn Collins
CHARACTER NAMING SOURCEBOOK – Sherrilyn Kenyon
BUILDING BELIEVABLE CHARACTERS – Marc McCutcheon
THE WRITER’S GUIDE TO CHARACTER TRAITS – Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D.
CAREERS FOR YOUR CHARACTERS – Raymond Obstfeld and Frank Neumann
I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING – Lillian Glass, Ph.D.
THE POWER OF BODY LANGUAGE - Tonya Reiman
WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL – Donald Maass
DYNAMIC CHARACTERS: HOW TO CREATE PERSONALITIES THAT
KEEP READERS CAPTIVATED – Nancy Kress

9. A site for developing personality is: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

10. Be careful of the sites – some could be racy

If you are like many writers, your best inspiration comes in the shower, in the middle of the night, or while you’re driving. Keep notepads with you at all times and keep pad and paper in every room. Consider investing in a small hand-held recorder to keep track of your moments of inspiration. For those of you who are always looking for a clever device to help you in the writing process, there is available a shower AM/FM radio and recorder. I use a white board especially for the shower. J Live with your characters: interview them about life and their views, find out their favorite restaurants, and why their goals are so important.

"A writer begins by breathing life into his characters. But if you are very lucky, they breathe life into you." --Caryl Phillips

If you'd like a characterization sketch to begin the foundation work for your characters, e-mail me at diann@diannmills.com. Check out my website at www.diannmills.com.

Chatting with Carol Steward

2008-09-01T01:34:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Rae Ann who won a copy of Dana's Killer Cargo, and Monica, who won a copy of Ramona's The Face of Deceit. Monica, please contact us here so we can get your mailing information.

Today we want to welcome Carol Steward to KMIS! Let's jump in and see what she has to say about life and writing.

What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

It was tax day, April 15, 1997. I'd sent in my manuscript about 9 months before, and in the meantime, my brother-in-law had died from leukemia, my father had had a heart attack, and we all desperately needed some good news. I had pulled myself together enough to inquire about the status, and the editor had said she'd get back to me in a few weeks. Even when the phone rang and it was the editor, making an offer, I couldn't believe it.

My whole family celebrated at dinner that night. I called a few published authors I knew from my local chapter and asked what I needed to ask and think about. I really wasn't prepared for a sale, I realize now. I truly hadn't thought too seriously about a pen name, or found out how to deal with negotiations. The next day, when I called the editor back to discuss the business details, it was still very much like walking in someone else's shoes.

In that respect, I feel certain God had this in HIS plan, because it was never mine. I was living my dream of being a full-time mother as a child care provider. I was very happy with that when God shoved me into writing. I've always loved writing, but unlike so many authors, it wasn't my life's dream. I never realized becoming a published author was really something "ordinary" people could achieve. I still think that I'm going to wake up one day and this bubble is going to burst.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

My second book was my first chance to write what I love, suspense, with a police officer as a hero. The story was born from an incident in my real life, when I was delivering newspapers to an apartment building at 2 a.m. I had put the van into park, grabbed a couple of papers and jumped out of the vehicle. I started to run between two parked cars, and a young man jumped out in front of me and ran off.

Crazy as it seems, I actually tried to throw the papers. I failed, I was shaking so badly, and finally went back to my car and left the complex to go to the nearest pay phone and called the police. In those days, I didn't have a cell phone.. My husband returned with me after we met up at the end of the routes and we threw the apartments. That afternoon I found out that the police did arrive in time and caught the kid, who'd broken into ten vehicles that night and stolen stereos and valuables. That one incident was enough to keep my brain going for hours. I went home a couple of days later and wrote the entire synopsis in one sitting.

In my current suspense, thankfully, I'm not doing my own "personal" research. I am always listening to news and reading odd stories about criminals and justice. Unfortunately, the research is plentiful. My father was in law enforcement, so understanding the police "mind" is easy for me. Still, I was shocked when my son decided to go into police academy. It makes perfect sense now, looking back, and though it's dangerous, I know he's followed God's calling.

My current series, In the Line of Fire is about three siblings working in different areas of the justice system who find love while struggling to keep peace in their communities and in their family. Drugs, assault, and corruption are all part of the Matthews family’s daily battles. Someone is terrorizing Northern Colorado communities throughout the series; assaulting, kidnapping, and eventually killing female victims and threatening even the heroes’ and heroines’ safety.

Guardian of Justice was a January 2008 release. Social worker, Kira Matthews is on a ride along with Officer Dallas Brooks when a domestic disturbance turns violent. She's caught between a drug dealer and his girlfriend's children, trying to keep the kids safe. Throughout the book, Dallas works to keep her safe from the drug dealer, his suppliers, and two frightened children while all of their lives are threatened.

Badge of Honor will be on the shelves in September 2008. Former FBI agent Sarah Roberts and detective Nick Matthews are trapped in a web of difficult decisions when Nick is assigned as Sarah's training officer. Nick is back from administrative leave, scars still raw after dirty cops implicated him in their drug ring. Sarah has returned to Colorado just before her sister is assaulted. Sarah unravels clues to the serial attacks, an internet predator - but is prohibited from the case is. Can he count on her to follow orders, or is her involvement in the online predator case going to cost them both their jobs, their lives–or possibly both?

In November Shield of Refuge closes the In the Line of Fire series. No one takes the gorgeous party planner, Amber Scott seriously, even when she witnesses the murder of a young woman and they can’t find the body. Garrett Matthews is determined hire into one of the federal agencies and has no room for mistakes in his career, so Amber’s case turns his life upside down, literally, when she crashes into his police car. His faith is challenged when Garrett is ordered to protect Amber. When he follows his gut and openly supports her story, they both become targets of the serial killer. Amber struggles to keep her business afloat throughout the investigation. When Amber's “imaginary” victim is finally found - dead, it's a race to find the killer before he finds their only witness. Is their faith strong enough to tear down the barricade his career builds between them?

I love the premise of your stories! I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an impact on your life?

My heroines are all pretty strong-willed, and have a LOT to learn—in all ways, a lot like me. When I am writing, I push them and torment them, to the breaking point, and I'm learning those emotional and spiritual lessons right along with them. Most of my books deal with some kind of control issue. Most commonly, learning to rely on God, and not take charge on my own, I mean, on their own. ;o)

What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

I always wonder how I can balance my family and writing, and it always surprises me that when I give up control and turn it all over to God, the words come. When I'm done with a book, I'm worn out. This year I finished 4 books in about 20 months, and I was exhausted. I look back and still don't know how God managed to pull me through it. He's an AWESOME God!

I understand exactly what you are saying about the struggles of balance. A wonderful reminder! Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

I've done far more than I ever "planned" with my writing, and God keeps telling me He's not done yet. I count every published book as a blessing and never stop coming up with more ideas. Some are sweet, some suspense, and some are totally outside my box, so I do plan to keep stretching my wings to see where they take me. After all, if you don't spread your wings, you can't ever soar. I love writing. I love including faith in my stories so readers can see that God doesn't expect perfection,
He works with us just as we are. I'm not comfortable witnessing in person, yet when it's "someone else" talking it isn't quite as overwhelming.

Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published?

Let God be your guide. Learn as much as you can about every genre you're trying to write. READ as many books as you can from the lines you're targeting to see if what you are writing "sounds" like what they are publishing. Don't ever give up trying new styles until you find what fits you best. That applies to learning from other writers and trying other genres of writing. Finding your own "voice" takes time, experience, and willingness to grow.

Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

Gail Gaymer Martin's Writing the Christian Romance is a terrific new resource. I've found all of the Writer's Digest books on all plot elements very helpful, but the absolute best investment I've made is buying and listening to the RWA conference tapes and CD's. If money's an issue, remember to utilize libraries to find the resources and see which ones resonate.

Thanks so much for the wonderful interview, Carol. Be sure and check out Carol's website and look for her upcoming interview for her next release, Shield of Refuge, right here in November!

And don't forget to leave a comment below with a way to contact you. We'll draw a name next Monday for the winner of Carol's latest romantic suspense!

Double Hitter!

2008-08-26T03:21:00.005-05:00

Today we've got two interviews with two great suspense authors, so be sure and not only read what they have to say about their latest books, but leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy of their books!

Before we jump into the interviews, congrats to Carolynn for winning of copy of Baker's Fatal Dozen! (You could be a winner next week, so leave a comment!)

Welcome, Ramona! Tell us about your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

I had published nonfiction before, but getting The Call for my first Love Inspired Suspense left me screaming like a kid. I missed the first call – the editor left a message for me to call her. My fingers shook when I dialed so much I almost misdialed. When I hung up, I just screamed and jumped up and down. The champagne came later.

Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

The idea for suspense stories set around a writer’s colony first occurred to me about 20 years ago, but I wasn’t mature enough as a writer to complete them. The first one, A MURDER AMONG FRIENDS, came out last year, and THE FACE OF DECEIT releases September 9th.

The idea for THE FACE OF DECEIT came after I visited a pottery studio and saw a plaque with the raised image of a face on it. I asked the pottery whose face it was, and she said, “No one in particular.” By the time I got home, I had the basic plot about a potter who witnessed a murder as a child, and as an adult, the face of the killer begins appearing in her art. That’s how my heroine’s “face vases” were born.

I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

In the beginning of THE FACE OF DECEIT, my hero, Mason, is quite lukewarm in his faith. Over the course of the novel, he has to face that part of himself and decide why and how he needs to change that. I found that part of his arc reminded me of all the times I’ve let criticism or rejection distract me from what I really need to do in my life as well as in my faith.

What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

To never give up. This year at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, we had a final panel of all the instructions…more than 40 of us. When we went down the line to state how long we wrote before being published, the answers ranged from 6 months to 20 years.

You never get too old to get The Call for the first time.

Great advise. Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

I would love to create an ongoing series heroine, like Sue Grafton or Margaret Maron. But I also want to keep writing romantic suspense because I love the idea of bringing two people together in the midst of a wild, suspenseful ride.

Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published?

To persevere, to network, and to trust yourself. About 25 years ago, I heard Harlan Ellison say that “Any writer who CAN be discouraged, SHOULD be.” His point was that if you are driven to write, no amount of rejection or criticism will deter you. You take what you can from the criticism, understand that rejections are never personal, and you keep working. And keep learning.

I have also learned the amazing value of networking with other writers, as well as agents and editors at conferences. If a new writer can’t travel, then online blogs and social sites are a great way to get to know others in the industry.

Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

There are literally hundreds of great books on craft, and a working writer should have at least one on characters and one on motivation and conflict. Charlotte Dillon’s website is awesome for craft articles and advice (www.charlottedillon.com/WritingRomance.html). But don’t forget to nourish the creative spirit as well with books such as Anne Lamott’s. Online, one site I love is McNair Wilson’s blog on creativity (http://www.teawithmcnair.typepad.com/).

I also recommend taking a screenwriting class or getting one of Syd Field’s books on screenwriting. Nothing breaks down the basics of building a good plotline like a script.

Thanks so much for joining us, Ramona!

Our next guest is Dana Mentink. Welcome Dana.

Briefly tell us about your journey to becoming a published author.

I was born with a pencil in my hand. Kidding! That would have been painful for my mother. I was one of those geeky writer types in high school but I didn’t embark on anything professionally until after my girls were born. Then I started writing like crazy. Fast forward through seven zillion rejections and Barbour bought my first book for their mystery line. I was given a contract to write suspense for Harlequin’s Steeple Hill in September last year. The first book (Killer Cargo) released in June and the second (Flashover) arrives in December, I think.

Congratulations! What has it been like crossing over from cozies to suspense?

Not as easy as you’d think. The pacing has been tricky to nail down. With mystery there is time for cogitation and humor. With suspense, it’s a frantic, action driven book that can’t slow down for a second. I have to wear a seatbelt when I write suspense.

Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

I always write about what I’m interested in. Killer Cargo takes place on an animal sanctuary, primarily home to endangered frogs. I love frogs. I’ve collected little frog statues for years. Did you know frogs are an indicator species? That means they are the first to show signs of stress due to environmental pollutants and such. Very important. Kermit is one of my heroes, you know. As Kermit says, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice.” That frog inspires me, I tell you.

Love the uniqueness. What are the differences you see that stand out the most between a cozy and a suspense.

With cozies, there is room for eccentricity and humor. As I said earlier, the pacing is different too. The focus of a mystery is solving the crime. The focus of suspense is surviving the crime, if that makes any sense.

Everywhere I go, I meet people who are writing suspense. Any advice in breaking into this competitive field?

As my agent says, write a good book. Read what’s out there and LISTEN TO CRITICISM. Believe me, I’ve had PLENTY of criticism from my editors and as much as I hate to admit it, they are usually right.

What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

God can use the tiniest little folks (like me!) to reach people with His message. Now that’s pretty awesome!

Amen. :-) Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

Donald Maass and his Writing the Breakout Novel really rocked my world. And, it goes without saying, the Bible because God wrote the only breakout book we’ll ever need! God bless and thanks for your time.

Thank you, ladies for joining us today!
You can learn more about both these writers and their other books by going to their websites.

Ramona Richards
Dana Mentink

Interview with Lisa Harris

2008-08-18T10:29:00.004-05:00

First, congratulations to Ane who won a copies of In the Dead of Night and Bye, Bye, Bertie and Terri who won a copy of Murder on the Ol' Bunions (Terri please contact us here with your email address.

Beth: Welcome Lisa! Tell us about your writing journey.

Lisa: It’s been a long one, full of ups and downs, but I believe that anything worth something is going to take time and energy to achieve. That, for me, has been writing. Zip back eleven years ago when my oldest was first born. He slept a lot and gave me--for the first time--a chance to start writing. This was something I’d always wanted to do, but had never taken that first step.

At first I wrote non-fiction, fiction, devotional, children’s stories. . .you name it. . .and quickly realized that, I was spread too thin and needed to decide on one thing to write. By this time I was working full time at home, so something had to give. Fiction won out. I began learning everything I could about writing, attended some local writing conferences, and wrote. God connected me with some amazing mentors, I found a critique group, and met some editors.

This very connection with other writers has been something that has amazed me. So many are willing to help others along this journey, and through it I’ve made friends that will last a life time.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Lisa: Most days I’m still waiting. LOL I think that’s because I know I can always improve and deepen the depth of my stories. I don’t ever want to be satisfied or think that I’ve arrived. I want to keep learning and growing through this process.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Lisa: That’s tough, because there are so many people, from crit partners, to mentors, to conference speakers, to my mom, and I’m so thankful for each and every one of them.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Lisa: Interesting that you should ask this, because even after eleven plus years of writing, I learned something very important about my own process this past week. I’m a very structured author who writes from a very detailed outline. I suppose this is because I’ve written a number of books for Barbour and they require chapter by chapter outlines. I love writing this way and feel very comfortable knowing what comes next, even though there are always some surprises along the way. So typically, my story begins with the plot.

What I’ve realized, though, is that I’m a seat of the pants writer when it comes to characters. I don’t like filling out piles of interview questions up front; I like to learn about them as I write. Not that I don’t know my characters--many times they’ve been wondering around in my head for years--so all the basics are there--but sometimes that isn’t enough. I was recently stuck on a chapter of a historical I’m writing and realized that while I “know” my heroine, something was missing with her character that was causing a huge lack of motivation for her behavior.

Now I’m a huge believer in motivation and if motivation for actions isn’t there, the character will run flat and this is exactly what had happened. Once I went back into her past and discovered exactly why she was behaving this way, it finally gave her the legitimate reason I needed for her behavior. So in the process of an hour or two of brainstorming, I discovered enough about my heroine to deepen her character and make the situation work, something I will continue to do throughout the writing of the book.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Lisa: I’ve spent the past couple years writing a cozy mystery series for Barbour that has been so much fun. Pricilla Crumb is my quirky heroine, sixty five years old, and finding love again for the second time. Add the murder of her favorite baker, a few impulsive indiscretions, and you have Baker’s Fatal Dozen.

Beth: What inspired you to write this particulate story?

Lisa: In this series, I guess Pricilla actually came before the plot line. About two years before I even started writing the books, she appeared and wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d originally planned to have her in a cozy mystery set in South Africa, but changed the setting to Colorado for my publisher. Thus was born Pricilla and Max, her handsome and very sweet love interest who manages to put up with Pricilla and love her despite here somewhat unorthodox methods.

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Lisa: A spiritual theme for my books is always crucial, and I try and weave them into the characters lives as they grow and change. This book’s theme came from II Corinthians 4:7-8. It’s an important lesson to learn when life throws us for a loop as it did to the grieving widow.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a mystery?

Lisa: For me it’s finding a balance between the red herrings thrown in and legitimate clues. In the end of the story you want the reader to say, “Of course! Why didn’t I see that?” instead of throwing the book across the room because the killer is Aunt Beulah’s’ third cousin twice removed who was mentioned once in passing on page seven. That won’t work.

Beth: What are problem areas you see in aspiring writers who want to write mystery or suspense? Advise?

Lisa: Read what you write so you can learn what works and what doesn’t work. There are tons of resources on line where you can learn about the basic ingredients in a mystery. And most importantly. . .WRITE!

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Lisa: Funny you should ask because at the moment I’m writing a historical, finishing a proposal for another cozy series, and working on an international suspense. The common thread through all of these, though, is lots of mystery and suspense. So in whatever I do, as long as that’s included, I’ll love writing it.

Beth: What is the best advice you ever received?

Lisa: To put it briefly, if you want to write, write. Too many people talk about writing, but never finish a manuscript. The other day I was getting onto myself because other people I know write 2, 3, even 5 thousand words a day and I’m happy to write one thousand (fairly edited words) a day. Then I calculated that same five thousand words a week, for 50 weeks and it comes to 250K! That’s almost three full length novels or four shorter novels. It’s amazing how much a little work every day adds up, so never think you don’t have the time.

Beth: You can visit Lisa's website or blog for more information about her books. And for a chance to win more free copies of her books and other cool things like her yearly Taste of Africa giveaway, be sure and sign up for her newsletter.

Leave a comment below for the chance to win a copy of both Recipe for Murder and Baker's Fatal Dozen.

Mystery or Suspense?

2008-08-14T20:13:00.000-05:00

Check out the bestseller list and you’re bound to find a handful of mysteries included. Everything from cozies, to heavy suspense, to hard-boiled. Avid readers love to turn pages long into the night as they breathlessly anticipate the next spine-tingling twist of the plot.

As a writer, I love writing both cozies and romantic suspense. During the past few months, I’ve worked on two novels for two different publishers. The first one is a romantic suspense. The second, a cozy mystery. Add to that, I just finished an international suspense with a touch of romance. Writing these books side by side has forced me to take a close look at each genre, including the rhythm of the words, addition of humor, and tone of the story.

When you sit down to compose your first blockbuster mystery novel, one of the first problems you’re likely to face is exactly which genre to write. While the differences between a cozy and a suspense might tend to blur at times, there are definite distinctions. More than likely, you won’t find a bloody murder in a cozy, or a quirky amateur detective and her pet poodle in a romantic suspense. Yet there’s a lot of confusion shared by many as to what defines a cozy mystery, and what exactly is romantic suspense.

I’ve heard from a number of fellow authors whose cozy mysteries weren’t contracted because they were too romantic, didn’t have a cozy enough setting, or the story was too suspenseful. As an author, it’s important to understand the difference if you intend to submit what an editor wants, and with so many publishers interested in buying both cozies and romantic suspense, knowing these differences are crucial. So let’s look at some of these unique qualities that will help insure that your next proposal doesn’t end in the slush pile, but instead on the desk of an interested editor.

The Cozy Mystery: A cozy is normally classified as a whodunit mystery with a limited cast of characters in a closed setting. One of these characters, of course, is your amateur sleuth who unintentionally gets involved in solving the mystery. Instead of the fast paced suspense genre, a cozy is normally filled with humor and at least one or two eccentric characters.

There’s definitely something very distinctive about a cozy mystery. Think of your favorite series and what makes it work. What makes the setting and characters. . .well. . .cozy? Basically, a cozy mystery is a puzzle to be solved, with the answer hidden amongst pages of suspects and red herrings. The crime generally is a murder that takes place off-stage. Having the crime take place this way eliminates the need for the blood and gore that is often a part of a regular mystery.

And forget about your local sheriff. A cozy is solved by an amateur detective where the hero or heroine does the sleuthing, not a professional crime solver. One very important factor to remember here is that your hero needs to have a motive compelling him or her to solve the crime. Yes, being nosy helps, but they should also have something at stake, when ordinarily they would let the police handle the case.

In my second cozy from Heartsong Presents: Mysteries, Baker’s Fatal Dozen, Pricilla Crumb, a superb cook and articulate hostess, is motivated to start her own investigation into a murder because her close friend is a suspect for murder and asks Pricilla to help her clear her name. And Pricilla isn’t the kind of person to turn down a cry for help.

The setting is another important character in a cozy. Stories are often set in small communities, mysterious mansions, or wintry lodges. The goal? To limit the number of suspects to a certain amount of people, all of whom, of course, are suspects.

Lastly, how you set the tone of a cozy is equally important. In Baker’s Fatal Dozen, Pricilla is back again as a lovable busybody who’s always getting into trouble because of her impulsive tendencies. Add to that the obligatory feline, a few harebrained investigative methods, a handful of suspects, a stolen ATV (by Pricilla, no less), and a barroom brawl, and I found the start to my whodunit.

Think about your own story. Do you have an intriguing backdrop to set the mood? What about your cast of characters? Do they add dimension and depth? Give your hero a couple eccentric personality traits, throw in some humor and a dash of quirkiness, and you can bet you’ll have a winner!

Romantic Suspense: Unlike the cozy, where the hero has a puzzle to solve and red herrings to decipher, suspense involves danger. The pace is fast, mood darker, peril imminent, and it normally contains far less humor than your typical cozy. Every scene needs to propel the story forward, every chapter hook strong enough to compel your reader to turn the next page.

Forget chasing clues and interviewing suspects. There simply isn’t time. Not when there’s an antagonist out to get you, and when disarming the current threat is of vital importance. Think breathless. Heart pounding. Not only is it essential to give both your hero and heroine motivation for becoming involved in the situation, give them a time limit. A ticking bomb, with disastrous consequences if the goal isn’t reached in time, will insure the fast pace continues, and that the reader stays on the edge of his or her seat.

In my September release from Love Inspired Suspense, Final Deposit, my heroine, Lindsey, is running out of time. Her father’s been conned out of his life-savings by an internet scammer, and now is missing. As a security expert, Kyle knows how this common, internet fraud game is played out, and that financial loss, no matter how great, isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Kyle also has his own motives for getting involved. He still holds a deep-rooted vendetta against a woman whose fraudulent online relationship with Kyle’s brother ended with him taking his life.

Next, don’t forget the added layer of attraction in a romantic suspense. It’s important to balance the developing romance and the suspense with its constant plot twists. Keep the romantic tension high throughout the entire story, but don’t let the romance overshadow the suspense. Show what your characters are thinking about romantically. Have them explore why a romance would work, why it won’t work, and perhaps even why--with disaster looming around every corner--it’s not the time to be thinking about how they feel toward each other.

Finally, as you reach the climax of the story, place your hero and heroine into a situation so intense, so impossible, that there isn’t a way out. Or, at least, so it seems. In Final Deposit, I worked hard to raise the stakes high as high as possible. With over sixty-five thousand dollars missing, an unknown assailant in pursuit, a ransom note, and less than forty-eight to find her missing father, Lindsey is certain there isn’t a way out. When her father’s actions place her own life in jeopardy, the stakes rise even further.

Look at your own story now. How high are your stakes? Does every chapter end with a solid, page-turning hook? Have you included a ticking time bomb to up the stakes? Do your characters have adequate motivation for their actions? Have you placed your hero and heroine in a situation where the odds at getting them out alive seem impossible? Answer yes to each of these questions, and you will be well on your way to writing a manuscript worthy of an editor’s second look.

Happy writing!

Lisa

BIO: Lisa Harris, the award-winning author of eleven novels and novellas, lives with her family in southern Africa where they work as church planting missionaries. They are currently residing in Brazil for six months while learning Portuguese before moving to Mozambique. When she’s not language studying, home schooling her kids, writing, and doing all the normal mom things, Lisa loves cooking exotic foods, reading, and traveling. For information on her books, plus an inside peek into her life in Africa, visit her blog at http://myblogintheheartofafrica.blogspot.com or her website at www.lisaharriswrites.com where you can check out her video trailer for Recipe for Murder.

For a chance to win a FREE copy of Recipe for Murder and a Taste of Brazil in newsletter, sign up at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LisaHarris/ today!

Two Interviews and even more book giveaways!

2008-08-11T11:39:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Angela who won a copy of one of Mary's books. For today, we're posting a double interview with Nancy Mehl and Sandra Moore. Be sure and read all the way to the end to find out how you can win copies of their books!

First of all, I'd like to welcome Nancy to KMIS.

What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

The thrill of selling your first book is something you never forget. I thought I’d arrived. I was an author and nothing could stop me. I was wrong. When that sale collapsed, I was devastated. I went from the mountain top to the valley in one fell swoop. I thought my writing career would never recover. But of course, I was wrong about that, too. I look back now and thank God that relationship didn’t go forward. I might still be churning out books through that same small publisher instead of having the chance to write for Barbour. My journey with them has been amazing, and I am very grateful for it.

By the time I got “the call” from my agent about the contract for Barbour’s new cozy mystery book club, I was in a place where I could appreciate it and realize what an amazing opportunity I’d been given. I really consider that moment “the call.” It has changed my life. (And yes, there was a lot of whooping, hollering, and happy dancing in the Mehl household when I got off the phone!)

Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

My “Ivy Towers Mystery Series” was born from the creation of a town where I’d like to live. I’m a snow nut. Winter Break, Kansas is a place where “snow comes early and leaves late.” It snows more in Winter Break than anywhere else in the state. I added an old bookstore with a fireplace and a cat. Then I surrounded my protagonist with quirky but lovable characters – people I’d like to know. The story evolved from there.

Ivy Towers is a young woman who thinks she knows what she wants. She is busy creating her own identity. But a trip back to Winter Break, where she spent many happy moments in her childhood, challenges everything she believes. She learns that God really does have a plan for her life and it isn’t the one she has been struggling to mold herself into. I think there are many people who are doing the same thing. They are afraid to find out what God has for them, but the truth is, until they do, they will never find true happiness and fulfillment. God has given each of us gifts and callings. We are designed to fulfill them. When we do, we find our joy, our peace and our purpose.

Through this series, Ivy solves more than one murder, discovers true love, and most importantly, finds herself. And it all comes from surrendering to God’s plan. I used Jeremiah 29:11 as a scripture basis for this series. “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

In “Bye, Bye Bertie,” the second book in the series, Ivy finds an old treasure map. Her curiosity leads her to search for the treasure, but what she finds turns out to be much different than anything she could have ever anticipated. By the end of the book, Ivy’s life changes, as do the lives of several other people in Winter Break.

I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an impact on your life?

I think as writers we project something of ourselves into every character we create. When we flesh out a problem or dilemma through their lives, sometimes we’re really working on our own personal situations.

I think the one person who really touched me the most was a character who never actually appeared in any of my books. Bitty Flanagan was Ivy’s great aunt. She was a very special woman, and although she is killed before Ivy ever arrives in Winter Break, she still lives in the hearts and minds of those she loved. They remember her goodness, her compassion, her forgiveness, and her godliness. In fact, even after her death, her wisdom still speaks to people. And the good things she did are recounted more than once by people who knew her. I hope that someday when I’m gone, I will leave behind a legacy like that.

What is the number one thing you've learned from your writing journey?

To trust God. It’s His journey. I’m just along for the ride. It was after I put my writing career in His hands that it began to prosper.

Any future plans for your writing you'd like to share? Any specific dreams you'd like to accomplish in the area of writing?

Well, I’m very excited about an omnibus edition that Barbour will release in December. Titled “Cozy in Kansas,” it will contain the first three Ivy Towers mysteries. I’m also busy writing a new series about a woman who has a very unusual job. The “Curl Up and Dye Mysteries” will release into the Heartsong Presents: Mysteries! book club next year.

As far as specific dreams, as I said, it’s in God’s hands. I’d like to get some contracts for books outside of the book club, and I would like to write some suspense. I’ve also always wanted to write some Frank Peretti/Ted Dekker-styled novels, but so far, that hasn’t been the way things have gone. It’s important to me not to push myself down a path that isn’t mine. So, we’ll have to see what happens. I also would love to write a YA book that reveals the true spiritual battle taking place today for our young people’s hearts and minds. But again, that dream is in God’s hands. He may have someone else set aside to do that.

My biggest goal in life is to finish MY race, and to stand before God someday knowing that I did everything He’s called me to do.

Well said, Nancy. Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, especially from someone who has just broken in?

Yes! First of all, learn your craft, learn your craft, learn your craft! Writing a book isn’t just throwing words on paper. Take workshops, classes, join a good critique group, and listen, listen, listen. Too many writers are running around thinking they know how to write. And unfortunately, there are some publishers out there who will publish authors who aren’t ready. If you jump too soon, you may never achieve your dream. Stay away from unprofessional publishers. I think one of the best things you can do is to find a great publisher, one that has good promotion and distribution and publishes what you want to write. Study their books. Find out what they’re looking for.

Too many times, I hear writers proclaim that they don’t care what publishers want – they are going to write whatever they feel like writing. 99.9% of the time, writers like this will never be published. Trust me, once you’re well known and established, publishers will be willing to take more of a chance with you. But when no one knows who you are, it’s best to offer your dream publisher something that fits their list.
The last and most important thing is this: If you really believe you’re called to write – then write. Never, never, never give up. If bad reviews or criticism come, learn from them and keep going. If you can’t take some of the “downs,” you’ll never experience the “ups.” I had every reason to give up – several times. But I decided I just wouldn’t – no matter what. I’m certainly glad I hung in there.

Any writer's resources you could recommend?

Sure. “Stein on Writing” and “How to Grow a Novel” by Sol Stein. Also, “Revision and Self-Editing” and “Plot and Structure” by James Scott Bell. In addition, “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers” by Browne and King. And one book every writer should have: “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White.

One other thing: Buy books from writers you like. Study them. Look at how they handle dialogue, description, and narrative. Look at how they “show” scenes and emotions instead of “telling” them. Almost every time I do this, I learn something new.

Thanks for stopping by, Nancy! Be sure and check out her website as well as her cool site with lots of author interviews called Mainly Mystery.

And for a bonus, Nancy is giving away, not one, but two book for this weeks drawing, so be sure and leave a comment now for the chance to win copy of book one in her series, In the Dead of Winter, AND book two, Bye Bye Bertie.

Now for a second interview of the week, let's welcome Sandra Moore.

Sandra, what was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

I wasn’t home! Seriously. Susan (Downs) left a message on my answering machine. Isn’t that a serious bummer? She did get hold of me later, of course, and when I heard the words from her “mouth” (hey, we were Instant Messaging) I went out on our back deck and gave such a loud victory holler that our neighbors came running thinking something terrible had happened.

Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

I dabbled, mostly writing historical for the simple reason that I love to read them, and was quite content to remain in that genre, until. . . I heard two things. One, the agent to whom I’d submitted a proposal for a historical commented how much she enjoyed my spunky, mature women characters. Second, I heard Barbour was going to launch a line of cozy mysteries.

Now, I love mysteries. Hard core mysteries. But I also love to laugh. After a bit of debate I told myself, “Self, you can do this. Just marry a spunky mature woman with a man who is her direct opposite, and stir in a good dose of mystery.” Hardy and LaTisha Barnhart were born, but we’re not talking newborns here. You see, LaTisha has bunions, and Hardy’s missing quite a few teeth, but they’ve been married almost four decades and are madly in love with each other. And that element was especially important to me. To show a rock solid marriage of two people with two very different personalities who have learned give and take in their relationship.

Then I added in the mystery element and the suspects. And this is what I came up with:

When LaTisha discovers the body of her former employer, Marion Peters, her bunions tell her something is afoot. When she becomes a suspect, the ante is upped, and she is determined to clear her name and find the real culprit.
She’s burping Mark Hamm’s bad cooking to investigate his beef with Marion. . .getting her hair styled at a high falutin’ beauty parlor to see what has Regina Rogane in a snarl. . .playing self-appointed matchmaker between the police chief and a prime suspect. . .and thinkin’ Payton O’Mahney’s music store lease might be the reason he’s singing out of tune when discussion of Marion’s murder arises. LaTisha’s thinking she just might use the reward money to get her bunions surgically removed. But she’s got to catch the crook first.

What is your typical writing day like?

Not pretty. Oh, you mean what does the DAY look like. Right. Uh, I rise at 5:00 am and get to work immediately on e-mail, followed by hours upon hours of slaving away on my manuscript until finally turning in at midnight. How did that sound? Pretty good? Do you think Susan is reading this?

No?

In that case. . .I don’t have a typical day. I do, however, have a set word count that I try to reach before quitting time each day. This way I can write either in snatches or long stretches, depending on my daughter’s homeschooling schedule, and still make my goal for the day--usually 2500 to 5000 words.

Any hints on helping other writer’s find time to write?

It’s a lost cause to FIND time, you really have to commit to MAKING time.

Name a couple authors who have influenced your life.

Mary Higgins Clark for her early mysteries and B.J. Hoff for her powerful historical. MHC taught me that tight writing is a matter of good word choice and knowing your character(s) intimately, while B.J. Hoff showed me how to pen a character people will fall in love with. (Writers beware: Never end a sentence with a preposition. They’re just not words you end sentences with.)

What’s your favorite part of writing a cozy mystery?

I have an absolute blast writing the scenes between Hardy and LaTisha. I just never know what zingers they’re going to launch at each other. But I always know how to bring them together in heart and soul.

Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

I’m working on a second cozy mystery series, as well as several manuscripts that are historical romances, so I’d like to contract these, but I’d also like to write a mainstream mystery. I even have an idea and working title, which is the first step for me.

To see news of my progress with these stories, readers can visit me at my website I update it frequently and almost always have a contest going.

Sounds like a fun read, doesn't it! If you want a chance to win a copy, leave a comment and we'll add you to the drawing.

Thanks, ladies! Keep up the great work with your writing.

Meet Mary Connealy

2008-08-03T14:03:00.008-05:00

Candy: Welcome Mary! What makes you write suspense?

Mary: I write suspense into almost everything because that’s what I love to read.
Romance, Suspense, Comedy. I’ll take a book with any of those three but if they’re sassing each other and falling in love while they’re running for their life…then I’m really happy with a book. So that’s why I write it.

There is a strong suspense thread in my historical westerns, Petticoat Ranch and Calico Canyon but what I want to talk about today is the cozy mystery series I’m writing for Heartsong Presents Mysteries. It’s on my mind because it’s getting close, book #1 releases in November, Of Mice and Murder. And just this week I’m working on the galleys. Those are the final, all laid out pages of the book. Any changes that don’t get made now, stay in, so I’ve just finished with those and re-reading the book, after not seeing it for a while, was really fun. Lots of comedy, lots of suspense, lots of romance.

Candy: How do you create characters you love?

Mary: A lot of people say that for them, a book always starts with characters.
They’ve got a guy in mind or a heroine with an attitude and then they have to hunt up a story so they can deal with that character. It’s never like that for me. For me it always starts with story. I’ve got a story I want to tell and the characters come after that. Maybe because of that, creating characters is a kind of painful process for me. I love it, but it comes slow…and that’s mainly because I just start writing my story. The characters have to come along for the ride.

When I start writing the story, it takes me a while to really know the characters and I nearly always end up with an ah-ha moment when the guy especially finally fully becomes real to me. The guy, moreso than the girl for some reason, usually takes about the first hundred pages.

Then I need to go back and weave this guy into the book and have him react as he really is (now) and have other people react to HIM as he really is.
Like I said, I just finished doing galleys on my cozy mystery. Of Mice and Murder, the first of a three book series, is a different voice for me and God bless Barbour for letting me write in different genres. But I think the basic voice, the romantic comedy is still the same.

I just LOVE this hero who emerged from Of Mice and Murder. He's classic, tall dark handsome knight in shining armor, but inside he's this fat genius math geek who was five two and weighed 200 pounds in junior high and was bullied and his interior life is just chaotic.

He's always thinking things like, God make me cool. Please God make me smooth and suave and classy.

Then he just says something so stupid. And usually it's because he's just fraught with all these self doubts and daydreams that distract him from what's going on around him. I think it's a really fun, funny character.

And of course, everyone around him just sees Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome so they’re not getting any insecure vibes at all because it just doesn’t fit with their perception of him.

Giving a character flaws and doubts and weaknesses, especially when you're trying to make them act cool and making other people, like the love interest react to them like they're cool, can deepen characters.

Characters need these small flaws to be fully human, I think. Of course they need the deep, aching, broken hearted conflict that is so fundamental, but something lighter, brighter, silly even. Also in the cozy Of Mice and Murder, my heroine is terrified of mice. I make that a running joke through the whole book. And she thinks she's a complete idiot for being afraid but she can NOT control it and everybody knows and they tease her mercilessly, except for the hero, who is trapping her mice for her.

Candy: How is writing a cozy different than writing a western of a sweet romance?

Mary: I found writing the cozy mystery to be really complex. I thought it was about the hardest thing I’d ever done. The story and the characters were fun, I had a ball with them, but dropping clues and red herrings. Deciding ‘who done it’ and hinting about that, but also not giving it away, leaving false clues to lead the reader astray, but not cheating the reader either.

I had to go back several times and pick up threads I dropped and insert clues I’d failed to leave. Candice, you helped me so much. You caught so much. Thanks you for your invaluable input into the book. And thank you for keeping your patience with me while insisting I make sense.

I’m just now more focused on Calico Canyon which just came out in July so I’ll insert a little blurb here for it.

Schoolmarm Grace Calhoun has her work cut out for her with the Reeves boys—five malicious monsters of mayhem who are making her life miserable. Things couldn’t get any worse. . .or could they? When widower Daniel Reeves, happy in his all-male world, stops at the general store for supplies, he unwittingly totes home a wagonload of trouble. How did Grace—the one woman Daniel can’t stand—wind up unconscious and in his care? When, come daybreak, a wedding is forced upon these two unwilling participants, an avalanche isn’t the only danger facing them in Calico Canyon. How will these reluctant newlyweds ever survive to fall in love?

Plenty of suspense in Calico Canyon for suspense lovers, too.

You can find out more about my books at my website or my blog.

Thanks Mary, for joining us here at KMIS!

Leave a comment below for a chance to win one of Mary's books. You're choice! I'll draw a winner next Monday.

Interview with Melanie Dobson

2008-07-28T12:06:00.004-05:00

Melanie Dobson recently spent five months exploring Germany’s castles, cathedrals, and medieval villages. The author of Together for Good, Going for Broke, and her new novel, The Black Cloister, Melanie lives in Oregon with her husband, Jon, and their two daughters, Karly and Kinzel. More information about Melanie and her family’s story is available at www.melaniedobson.com

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Melanie: I’ve been a bit obsessive (some would say a lot obsessive) about writing since I was a child. When I was seven, I journaled about pizza nights, visits with Grandpa and Grandma, and my friends at school. When I was nine, I plucked out my “autobiography” on my dad’s old typewriter. And when I was eleven, I handwrote fifty pages of a mystery novel before I lost interest in the story. Even though this story ended abruptly, I fell in love with the creative process and loved imagining what would happen to my characters.

In high school and college, I wrote articles and essays for the yearbook, school newspaper, and local weekly paper, but when I graduated, I pursued public relations as a career and spent almost a decade writing press releases in lieu of creative writing. I had always dreamed about writing fiction but intended to start when I was “older.”

Months before my thirtieth birthday it hit me that I was, in fact, “older,” and if I was going to pursue this dream, I had been better start soon. It took me years, and three completed manuscripts, to learn how to write fiction. Eight years after I started, Together for Good was published.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Melanie: Most days I still don’t feel like a “real” writer, but God has opened up the doors for me to pursue this dream of mine, so I keep writing in spite of my doubts. Probably the time, though, that it felt the most real was when I received book contracts for my first and second books at the same time. Not only did my family believe I could write, but two publishers were willing to pay me for my work! I was blown away. One contract was for a book already written, and the other was for a book where I had only written three chapters. I was excited, overwhelmed, and terrified.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Melanie: A few years after I started writing fiction, I hit a wall. My manuscripts had been considered at multiple publishers, but they were always rejected and I had no idea how to make them any better. Then I attended the Mount Hermon writer’s conference and sat in Davis Bunn’s fiction writing class. Davis succinctly explained the nuts and bolts of a well-written novel, and as I frantically scribbled notes, I soaked in his many words of wisdom. Using what I learned from him, my writing was revitalized, and next time I came to Mount Hermon, I had a book contract.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Melanie: It usually begins with an idea sparked from a setting that I love or a story that I’ve read or heard. From this initial idea, I begin developing my characters and see how they fit within my loose plot idea. I’ve always been intrigued by stories of the Underground Railroad, for example, and I’m working on a novel right now about a woman who hid slaves in her house.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Melanie: The Black Cloister is a fast-paced suspense novel about two young women—one who is traveling across Germany in search of answers about her past and another who is trapped in an abusive religious cult and doesn’t know how to break free. In the story, Elise Friedman’s mother has committed suicide so Elise travels to Germany to find out why her mother would never talk about her past or her family. Elise discovers her mother’s dark secret inside the walls of a medieval abbey, and when the man who destroyed her mother threatens to destroy her as well, Elise fights for a way out before she is consumed.

Beth: What inspired you to write this particular story?

Melanie: The idea for The Black Cloister was sparked by hearing two similar stories from two very different time periods. My family and I lived for a season in the former East Berlin. Our flat was a block from the remains of the Berlin Wall, and my life was changed as I roamed the back streets of the city, visited Martin Luther’s Wittenberg, and learned about both the triumph of the Reformation and the terrifying days of Communist rule. At an old monastery, I also learned the story of Martin Luther’s wife (Katharina von Bora) and her daring escape from a German abbey. A story began to form in my mind for a novel, but it was still missing a thread until we came back to the States and I met a woman who had been raised overseas in an abusive cult. She shared her stories about growing up in a commune, and with her help, I wove together the history of Katharina’s escape from the abbey with the contemporary suspense story of a woman trapped in a religious cult.

Beth: Interesting stuff! What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Melanie: As a Christian, I’ve learned that I must listen to the direction of the Holy Spirit and measure any spiritual instruction with God’s Word. My hope is that this novel will offer healing to those who have been ensnared by a toxic religious group that twists God’s truth, and after reading this story, I also hope readers will be sympathetic toward those who have been born into a cult as well as intolerant of spiritual leaders who abuse their followers.

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a suspense?

Melanie: Comparing myself with all the great novelists who write Christian suspense! I studied many other suspense novels before I delved into creating the conflict and tension in The Black Cloister.

Beth: Tell us about your experience in Germany exploring all things medieval.

Melanie: I am completely enchanted by Germany’s medieval villages, abbeys, churches, and castles! My husband and I backpacked across Germany and Austria in 2003 (pre-kids), and then we spent five months living in Berlin and exploring the countryside in 2006. We toured the hilltop Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther translated the New Testament, stumbled through the ruins of a castle on the Rhine, and basked inside churches and abbeys that had been built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Standing inside these old musty buildings, some of which had survived wars and political tension for a thousand years, I couldn’t help but be inspired to write a story of my own.

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Melanie: I’m working to complete a romantic suspense novel called Crescent Hill that will be released next year, and I also just found out today that I’ve had another proposal accepted for a June 2009 release (pending the contract, of course). So, to answer your question, my future writing plans are to begin writing (checking watch)…right about now. ☺

Beth: What is the best advice you ever received?

Melanie: A bestselling author once said she was a horrible writer but a fabulous re-writer. When I watched her interview, I was thinking and talking about writing all the time but not actually DOING much writing because I was terrified I would fail. And if I failed, I would be devastated…

Once I realized that my first draft would stink, I let go of my fears and began spewing random thoughts onto my computer. After I had my first draft on paper, I polished and reworked and rewrote until I had a coherent draft that I liked. Even though I get anxious each time I start a new book, I’m no longer scared of the process.

Thanks for the wonderful interview, Melanie!

If you'd like an opportunity to win a copy of Melanie's book, The Black Cloister, please post a comment below.

Reaching for the Brass Ring

2008-07-17T23:20:00.002-05:00

When I find an author I like, I will frequently go to their backlist and begin reading everything I can find. I did it when I discovered Dean Koontz in 1990 after reading Mr. Koontz’s most recent release, The Bad Place. I was deeply intrigued by the way he was able to get inside the head of Thomas, a character who has been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome.

In fact, I was very intrigued. So, I began hunting for as many of Koontz’s previous works as I could find.

I haunted used bookstores, libraries, and yard sales. Within eight weeks I found and read 13 of his previous novels and learned one inalienable truth during the process.

He got better with every book.

Does improvement in the craft of fiction happen in a vacuum? Can we become better writers by simply getting published more often?

Perhaps, if we learn from our mistakes.

But I think there is a better, more logical approach to improving our craft and it goes beyond the practice of simply writing more often. It’s an approach I’ve learned from Koontz, Grafton, Parker, Follett and others. I learned it by reading their works in the order in which they were written and by reading interviews they’ve given on the craft and techniques of fiction. There are no great revelations. There are no fast tracks or easy answers. But there are some tips – most of which you’ve probably heard – that bear repeating. And, I hope, some different approaches, as well. After all, one of the quickest paths to learning well is to learn from others.

As it has been said, “A knowledgeable man learns from his mistakes; but the wisest man learns from the mistakes of others.”

So how can we improve our craft? What must we do if we are to develop the kind of fiction and craft that we all know lies within us? How do we do it better?

As a weight lifter, I can tell you that the old axiom, no pain, no gain, is a reality. It is possible to lift a twenty pound dumbbell at 10 reps for 3 sets for 6 weeks and see some real gain. But at week 7 and beyond, the gains stop. Why?

Because the lifter didn’t tax himself.

Rule number 1: If we are going to improve in our craft, we must push the envelope.

In his early work, Koontz stuck to science fiction stories which, although they were delightfully entertaining and broke some new ground, didn’t seem to change much from one novel to the next. In interviews he’s given since his switch in genres, he’s said that he deems his real career to have begun with Whispers, his breakout novel.

During the writing of the book, Koontz managed to write around the clock on many days in order to stay in the flow. He built characters with believable motivations. He worked hard, labored long, and gave birth to the book that, in turn, would birth his breakout career.

Dean pushed himself. He researched the psychology of his antagonist, Bruno Frye, and took the time necessary – and the pain – to craft a book like none he had ever written before.

Does that mean he could have done this earlier in his career and gotten on with it? By no means. Dean’s success in pushing the envelope with Whispers came in part from the techniques he learned in his previous writing. And that, leads me to point number 2.

Rule 2: Learn from past mistakes.

None of us like a bad review. In fact, very few of us like mediocre reviews. But there is usually some truth in them, and we would do well to search it out.

I received a mediocre review for my first novel, Original Sin, which I will admit, hit me below the belt. But after reading it again – and again – I found that the reviewer was dead on. What he said not only made sense, it would also have made for a better novel.

Now I’m not saying you should love bad reviews. But if 7 out of 10 are saying the same thing, maybe you should listen. In fact, if 1 out of 10 said something that you know to be true, regardless of how painful, lick your woundd and then incorporate what was said. Make the bad reviews work for you.

Of course there are other methods for uncovering fallacies in our work, and that don’t necessarily have to be performed in the glaring spotlight of public scrutiny. If we’re honest with ourselves and diligent in our work, we can be quite capable of giving ourselves the thrashing we need without having an audience around when we do it. There are several ways to do this.

Rule 3: Take time to think about your story before you write a word.Have you ever read a novel and wondered why the author went down the road she selected rather than the one that you think would have made for a better novel?

I have.

By not taking the time to think – and I mean really t-h-i-n-k – we rob ourselves and our readers of the full flavor of the meal we’re trying to prepare. The result is that we (and by extension, they) will miss the nuances, the texture, the richness of subplot, and the opportunity for an ending that resonates. Like a good meal that wasn’t allowed to marinate, stew, or roast long enough, our readers will be served the literary equivalent of fast food.

Genre fiction and genre readers are no less deserving of a good meal. Genre fiction is not the gutter of the literary world. It is, in fact, the Main Street on which most readers live.

Give them a good meal.

Rule 4: Another technique to literary self-flagellation, done to avoid the public skewering of a bad review, is to put the manuscript away for a while and begin work on something else. Then, after several weeks or months have passed, pull the thing from the drawer, dust if off and give it a cold-eye reading. You just might be surprised by what you find.

Your characters might possibly be more hackneyed that you originally thought. The situation they find themselves in will probably turn out to be the same as the novel you were reading when writing your own (another no-no), and you will probably find yourself stumbling over your diction.

The Chinese have a saying. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Now revenge isn’t something I practice, but I do write fiction, and I can tell you first hand, reading a cold manuscript is the surest way to uncovering the faults that lie therein.

Rule 5: Read your manuscript out loud. If you can’t do it without stumbling, stuttering, or finding phrases that stick to the tongue like super glue on flypaper, then your readers probably won’t be able to either. Both Dean Koontz and Michael Crichton have said they use this technique before submitting their work. If they do it, then maybe you should too.

Rule 6: Have a group of first readers. An odd number works best.Get them a hard copy of the manuscript and then let them have at it.

If 7 read your work, and 7 rave about it – get a new group.

If 7 read your work and 7 hate it – ask why.

If 7 read your work and 5 have a problem with it – ask why. Then fix it.

If 7 read your work and 1 has a problem with it – take him off your Christmas list.

But please remember, your first readers have done you a tremendous favor. Reward them. At the very least, give them a signed and personalized copy of your book as soon as it is available. A ‘thank you’ within the book would be a nice gesture too.

Rule 7: Get a grammar book and read it. Then, like the apostle James says, put it into practice.

Rule 8: Read. Read widely and then deeply.

This is a no brainer, isn’t it? Is there any reason to elaborate on this?

Rule 9: Look in the mirror. I mentioned at the beginning of this article that nothing I was going to say was new. But this one is--sort of. Don’t rely on articles or Writer’s Digest How-to books to tell you how to improve your craft.

Begin there, of course. Read them. Practice them. But then come up with some of your own. You already know things that you can do to improve your fiction and your craft.

Take a good look in the mirror. Take an honest look. Where do you fall down? Where do you need improvement? What area of your craft causes you the most concern or embarrassment?

Find that weak spot and work on it. Pick up the dumbbell and push ourself. Be second to none.

Rule 10: Avoid the cliché.

See? I told you there was nothing new here. Cliches fall on the ear like a trumpet played by a lipless man. (This is another reason for reading your manuscript out loud.)

After all, take a look at the title of this article. Reaching for the Brass Ring? Geeshsh. Is that really the best I could do?

How about, Going for the gusto? Or reaching for the stars? Or, even, going for the Brass Ring? Or …. Hey, why don’t you come up with one?

Check out Brandt's Website: www.brandtdodson.com

Interview with Lisa T. Bergren

2008-07-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Today we welcome Lisa T. Bergren!

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Lisa: I’ve always loved to write—and read. I was one of those kids who said goodnight to the folks and then stayed up late reading under the covers with a flashlight. So the power of story is something I’ve always been drawn toward.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Lisa: Whoa. That’s a big statement—“all came together for you.” I don’t think that’s possible. No matter how many books you publish, every one begins with a blank page—and the doubt that assails every author. I wish I could say that it was different; but it’s not! However, I will say that it took about five books with my name on the cover before I’d ever label myself as an “author” or a “writer.” I think I needed a stack in my hands before I could claim anything that audacious!

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Lisa: My husband, Tim. He’s always open to discussing difficult things and thinking through things that move in our world—politically, spiritually, physically, culturally. And he always sees that I can do more with the craft, so he encourages me to keep pushing forward.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Lisa: Usually plot or setting get me rolling. They seem to give birth to interesting characters.

Beth: Tell us about this book series.

Lisa: The Gifted is about a group of spiritually gifted people in an age that would not welcome such a group. They’ve been brought together to help usher in change in the Church, during pre-Reformation, pre-Renaissance times.

Beth: What inspired you to write this particulate story? Why this setting and time period?

Lisa: Two things: the Lord of the Rings stories on film—loved the epic nature of it—and The Da Vinci Code, the first novel I’ve read in 24 hours in many years. I set out to develop a group of characters that would resonate with fans of LOTR and yet maintain a pacing and suspense factor that would come somewhat close to TDVC (and yet not be heretical!) I started asking my biblical scholar pals about a biblical mystery I could hang my hat on—and found out about the missing letters from St. Paul to the Corinthians. From there, I dug into Corinthians, centering on messages of love and the spiritual gifts present throughout the Body, and then it was just a matter of placing people representing those things in the most antagonistic time possible—which was the medieval era.

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a series?

Lisa: Ending books 1 and 2 with a satisfying enough ending, but keeping enough storylines hanging that readers want to find out what happens next.

Beth: What were your struggles in writing with a large cast of characters and who was your favorite?

Lisa: I really “felt” Daria the most, and was moved by her, but I fell a little in love with the glamorous Gianni—the studly, knight/hero with the gift of faith—the stately, mute Hasani, who has the gift of visions, and the humorous sidekick Vito, who just comes along for the ride and provides a little comic relief in the midst of all the drama and terror.

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Lisa: That the battle wages today, and God counts on us all to do our part to fight against evil.

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Lisa: Book 3 in The Gifted Series, The Blessed, comes out this September. Next up is a historical suspense trilogy set in Colorado, a nonfiction book on mothering for MOPS, and a few more children’s books.

Beth: What is the best advice you ever received?

Lisa: Hmm…in regard to writing or life? On writing—don’t wait for inspiration, just get your rear-end in the chair and stay there until the page is filled with words (you can always rewrite them). On life—keep learning and loving more. Although life is short, constantly learning and loving makes it wide indeed.

Thanks for the wonderful interview!

You can read more about Lisa at her website: http://www.lisatawnbergren.com/home.html

If you'd like be eligible to win a copy of one of Lisa's book, please post a comment.

Interview with James Scott Bell

2008-07-08T12:18:00.006-05:00

Susan: Today it’s our pleasure to bring you a “killer” interview (sorry about that) with James Scott Bell. Welcome to Keep Me In Suspense, Jim! It's a pleasure to have you here.

Jim: Happy to do it.

Susan: Try Darkness is the second book in your Buchanan series, and follows Try Dying. In the first book, Buchanan's fiancée was killed right off the bat. What's the major premise for this book?

Jim: Ty Buchanan is a lawyer who's lost everything. His fiancé, his job with a big law firm. Now he represents the poor, when a woman with a little girl comes to see him. She's being hustled out of a hotel against her will, and the law. When the woman is murdered in a transient hotel, Buchanan takes charge of the girl, who has no last name and no family. He's never been a father, but he knows he'll do anything to protect this little girl. But some bad people want the girl. And Buchanan has to figure out why, and who killed her mother.
And he has to do it all with the help of a basketball playing nun, one of the only friends he has left in the world.

Susan: How did you get the idea for this story? Did it spring off the first book, or did it come from a totally different source?

Jim: There are low rent hotels in L.A., and sometimes the owners try to get around renters' rights with something called "the 28 day shuffle."
They force residents out of their rooms before the one-month point so they don't become legal "tenants" and get the benefit of certain rights under state law.

I liked the sound of that as a legal issue, since Buchanan is helping out poor people now. And I then thought up a whole web behind it, and wrote the story with my series characters doing the heavy lifting.

Susan: In a series, is it difficult to come up with fresh premises for each book?

Jim: I don't think it's any more difficult than coming up with a stand alone premise. And there's an advantage in knowing your characters and the setting in each book. You don't have to reinvent the wheel each time. I like doing this series. I have become attached to my characters and would love to see them continue.

Susan: How do you keep your series characters consistent, yet growing?

Jim: That's the main challenge with a series. But you deal with different aspects of the characters, different secrets from the past, different challenges in the present, relationships and so on. In Try Dying, Buchanan has to deal with the loss of the only woman he's truly loved.
In Try Darkness, he's forced to deal with what he has become as a result of the loss and the violence he encountered.

My basketball playing nun character, Sister Mary Veritas, is struggling with her calling. She may or may not be the nun type, and helping Buchanan is only making things more complex for her.

It's a challenge all right, but when it's pulled off, it's incredibly powerful. That's what I find in the works of Michael Connelly. Reading one of his books makes me want to chew my arm off. I don't know if it can be done any better.

Susan: Okay, fess up. How much are you like Buchanan?

Jim: In my dreams, maybe. Part of the fun of the series is letting Buchanan do things I would never do, but would have liked to at some time. For instance, in Try Dying, he's fed up with the legal games of a big time lawyer, and gets up on the guy's conference table and does a tap dance. I don't think I ever would have done that, even on my best day.

But there are parts of me in Buchanan. The eye of the tiger when going to trial, for instance. And what caring for a vulnerable little girl brings out in him. I thought about how I feel about my own daughter.
How I know I would do anything – ANYTHING – to protect her. What would be unleashed if somebody ever tried to hurt her.

Susan: Do you think you have an advantage over other suspense writers since you are a lawyer? Does that ever get in the way when you're writing?

Jim: The legal background is definitely helpful when it comes to the courtroom scenes. There's so much that goes on in court that you don't pick up from watching TV or reading books. And you have to know the rules of evidence backward and forward, and trial tactics, and what a trial lawyer would do – and not do – in myriad situations. I trained trial lawyers for ten years on communication techniques, so all that comes out in the books.

But the suspense aspect is the same. All my legal knowledge won't matter a bit if I can't keep the reader turning pages.

Susan: You've also got a new nonfiction book out, Write Great Fiction:
Revision & Self-Editing. What need did you see among fellow writers that prompted you to write this book?

Jim: It started with the idea of giving novelists an "ultimate" checklist for revising a manuscript, so the task can approached systematically, not haphazardly. In my own experience, and that of other writers, I've found this to be a weakness that needs to be addressed. So I thought I'd address it.

From there, it grew into a basic book on the most important elements of fiction and how to assess them for yourself, in your own work.

The book can be used as a reference to strengthen your craft, as well as a guide for revision. It can be used by new writers to learn how to make their manuscripts salable and veteran writers to brush up on things. It's the kind of book I would like to have had early on.

Susan: What's the one thing new writers seem to overlook most before they send that manuscript off?

Jim: Chapter beginnings and chapter endings. There's a lot of lard that can be hacked off of each that will make the book more readable. I give some tips on this in the book. There's a lot of competition out there, as everyone knows, so these little things make a difference.

Another area I cover extensively is dialogue. I believe that improving dialogue is the fastest way to improve a manuscript. Great dialogue jumps off the page and gives an editor (and ultimately a reader) the feeling he or she is in the hands of a professional.

Susan: What's your schedule like this summer and fall? I know you'll be on the road for book signings for Try Darkness. Will we see you at any writers' conferences?

Jim: I will be at the Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference in August; the ACW conference in Spokane and ACFW in Minneapolis in September; and the ACW Caribbean Cruise conference in late November. Talk about tough duty.

Susan: What's ahead for your readers? Can we look forward to more Buchanan books?

Jim: Yes, Try Fear is in the works, scheduled for mid-2009. This one starts with the arrest of Santa Claus for drunk driving. Of course, it's just a guy in a Santa hat, and naturally Buchanan gets the case. And naturally, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface than anyone can imagine.

In L.A., there always is.

Susan: Jim, great talking to you again! Thanks for stopping by.

Jim: My pleasure.

Susan: Readers, be sure to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a free copy of Jim's new book, Try Darkness. You can learn more about him and his works at www.jamesscottbell.com.

Interview with Kristen Heitzmann

2008-07-01T08:31:00.006-05:00

Kristen is the bestselling author of a number of works of fiction, including The Still of Night and Halos. In addition to her writing, she is also a teacher, conference speaker, music minister, wife, and mother of four. Kristen lives with her family in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies.

Her book, The Edge of Recall, published by Bethany House, comes out today, July 1, 2008.

1. Tell us about The Edge of Recall.

The Edge of Recall is the story of a woman living her life on the cusp of remembering a trauma from her past that has infected her nights with terror and her days with purpose. Tessa Young is a landscape architect who specializes in labyrinths. These prayer walks she creates are a path to God that don’t require the vulnerability of relationship with the Father. They are also an element in the nightmares with monsters that have caused her to keep a therapist on speed dial.Smith Chandler is the British architect who failed her once and still has the potential to cause her emotional pain. Yet the project he offers—rebuilding a historic labyrinth that was once part of a Colonial monastery—is one she cannot refuse. Facing Smith will be difficult. Unleashing the monsters could be deadly.

2. The name is intriguing. Tell us how that came about and what the book is about.

Well, the title comes very clearly out of the story. Tessa has buried an event so deeply that it haunts her sleep like the mythical labyrinth. She runs from the memory, even as she runs from the monster, searching for someone she needs to find before it’s too late. In her life and work, Tessa loves the mysterious labyrinths her dad showed her in the last memory she has of him. She longs to make peace between what she does and what she dreams, but the price would be remembering.

3. Did this book idea come from any particular incident or experience? In other words, how did you come up with the idea?

My daughter Jessica and I conceived this story together. We had wanted to co-author it until her plans changed. The starting plot and characters are mainly her idea, though they became real in the fleshing of the story.

4. Let’s talk about your journey. How long did you write before you sold your first book?

I had started Honor’s Pledge in ’96 and had it, and about half of Honor’s Price, completed when I attended a writer’s conference that same year. The series was purchased by one of the two editors I showed it to, and the first title came out in January ’98. I know this is unusual, but since I am the worst business person ever, I turned that end of it over to the Lord, and he’s handled it ever since.

5. And what is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

I’m a fanatic about improving my craft, but I’d have to say the biggest thing I’ve learned is to trust. I am grateful for the gifts the Lord has given me, but I’m also eaten up by doubt and perfectionism. I am always overwhelmed by the ways the Lord goes over and beyond to show me that this is his work and my part is to give it what I have, then rest in him.

6. Everybody who writes inspirational fiction probably has a story about God’s hand in their writing career and how He’s guided them. Can you share anything in particular about that? Any one thing that happened that was an ah ha moment—when you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was in what you were doing?

The book I’m completing now came to me in a dream five years ago. The dream was amazingly clear and detailed, but so dark and troubling I didn’t think I could do anything with it. All day it hovered there, but I didn’t write it down because it didn’t fit the parameters of Christian Fiction. That night, I dreamed it all again and the story went on in as great detail unfolding the deeply redemptive part of the plot. I have never dreamed the same dream twice in a row, so I woke amazed and knowing I had to pay attention. My husband suggested I jot it down just in case. I had one week between turning in the book I’d finished and starting the next. I started to "jot" down the idea and could not stop writing. In that week as we drove to visit my in-laws I wrote two hundred pages of a story that has held me in its grip to this day. It will be published by a division of Random House for the general market in the summer ’09, and every step of the way has been miraculous.

7. Do you have any future writing plans you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish?

I really don’t make writing plans. I write the stories that fall into my head and want out.

8. What is the best advice you ever received?

Take time to live, to balance all the things that matter.

9. Any parting words?

Writing is the most joyful, painful, exuberant, draining, rewarding profession I could ever imagine. It is a thing that takes hold of me like the rapids of a river until it’s run its course and I settle onto the bank to catch my breath.

Interview with Frances Devine

2008-06-23T12:52:00.004-05:00

Today we want to welcome another Heartsong Mystery writer, Frances Devine. In her first mystery, Miss Aggie’s Gone Missing, Aggie Pennington-Brown mysteriously disappears on the same day the Cedar Chapel bank is robbed. The sheriff assumes she was kidnapped by the robbers, and the whole town seems to agree. Victoria Storm, owner of Cedar Lodge Boarding House and her elderly boarders reluctantly come to the same conclusion. But when secrets from their missing friend’s past begin to unfold, a horrible possibility arises. Could someone they know and love have harmed Miss Aggie? Could it be one of them?

As Victoria and her elderly friends attempt to solve the mystery and locate Miss Aggie, more secrets are revealed until Victoria begins to wonder if there is anyone she can trust.

Lisa: What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

Frances: I think I screamed. Then laughed and cried. Then called everyone.

Lisa: Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

Frances: Years ago, I read a book called You Must Have Seen Me Coming by Elizabeth Goudge. It was about a housekeeper who went to work at a home for senior citizens. The book was hilarious, and through the years I thought up several story ideas with groups of seniors as major characters. When I decided to try my hand at writing cozies, Victoria Storm and her boarding house residents just came to life in my mind.

Lisa: I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

Frances: Probably all of them in one way or another.

Lisa: What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

Frances: Discipline

Lisa: Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

Frances: For now, I want to write fun stories with fun characters. I do have some more serious ideas rolling around inside. Maybe I’ll pursue them, maybe not. I want to follow God’s leading and God’s timing in my writing as well as the other areas of my life.

Lisa: Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, especially from someone who has just broken in?

Frances: The same two tidbits someone gave to me, I’ll pass on.
Don’t fall in love with your words. Be teachable.

Lisa: Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

Frances: You are probably talking about books, but the best resource I can think of is a good critique group. I couldn’t get along without my crit partners.

Interview with Sandra Robbins

2008-06-17T12:38:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to T Warner for winning a copy of Deadly Exposure by Cara Putman. If you'd like to be entered in the book drawing to win Pedigreed Bloodlines, post a comment below.

Pedigreed Blood Lines is the first in a series. Tell us how your book and series came about.

I began writing with a goal toward becoming published in historical romance in early 2004. I attended my first ACFW conference in 2005 and met a lot of wonderful writers who offered me encouragement. I heard a few months later that Barbour was developing a line of cozy mysteries. Although I’d read mysteries since I was a child, I’d never written one. I began to research the elements of a cozy mystery, developed the characters and plot, and was ready to submit my proposal some months later.

As I came to love my heroine, I knew her story couldn’t stop with just one book, so the idea for a series began to take shape. Now as I’m working on the third book, I think I could go on for a long time with the escapades of Leigh Dennison.

How do you keep track of the clues, red herrings, and other story threads while writing your mysteries?

I found that I had to be very organized as I began to write the book. I plotted the entire story and decided on the clues and red herrings. Then I decided where I would plug them into the manuscript. I completed a synopsis before I began. Then I drafted a chapter by chapter synopsis as a sort of road map for me to travel in the story.

Of course along the way there were some twists and turns, and some scenes had to be rewritten. At one point even the identity of the killer changed, but in the end everything was tied together.

What have you enjoyed most about writing this book series?

I enjoyed developing the character of the heroine Leigh Dennison. Quirky characters inhabit the pages of a cozy mystery, and Leigh is no exception. She is an adult who struggles with Attention Deficit Disorder and has to find ways to cope with her inability to concentrate on tasks.

How did you discover this unique aspect of your heroine?

As a teacher and principal in the public schools for many years, I had opportunities every day to observe children suffering with the disorder. However, there are many adults who suffer the same symptoms.

Many people believe that individuals coping with ADD aren’t very intelligent. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They are very smart people who approach life differently from most of society. I hope in showing Leigh’s skills and determination as a sleuth that I have been able to shed some understanding on this disorder.

What has been your biggest obstacle in your writing journey?

I suppose we as writers all tend to think that rejections pose the biggest obstacle in our writing journey, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Although rejections hurt, we learn from them—what the market is or isn’t buying, publishing houses where our work doesn’t fit, and whether our writing is strong enough to grab and hold a reader’s attention.

For me I think my biggest obstacle has been settling into one genre and concentrating on that. I enjoy reading mysteries, suspense, and romance, both historical and contemporary. Since I began writing, I’ve dabbled in all those genres. I wish I could write in each one, but I know that may be impossible. At the present I’m trying to hone my skills at writing mystery. I’ve branched out some and am attempting some romantic mystery/suspense. If you check my website at http://sandrarobbins.net, you’ll find my tag line—Mystery and Romance, a deadly combination.

What do you read when you’re not writing?

I read mysteries, suspense, and romance. At present I’m reading the cozy mysteries that have released in Heartsong Presents Mysteries book club. The next release will have my book in it. If you haven’t read these mysteries, you can sign up for the club at my website.

What’s next after Pedigreed Blood Lines?

Murder in Small Doses, the second book in the Leigh Dennison series, will release in February, 2009. I’m presently working on the third book, Rock Around a Murder. I have a few more projects in the works and hope that some of them will find a home.

Any advice you can share for aspiring mystery and suspense writers?

I would suggest that aspiring writers study the genre and read the books that are being published. After that, the best thing to do is plant yourself in front of the computer. Begin to develop your characters and your plot and then write.

Professional organizations like ACFW offer tremendous resources and expertise for the beginning writer. Attend workshops and conferences to develop your craft, and join a critique group that will help you polish your work.

However, all these things won’t help unless your life is centered in God’s will. Pray and ask for His guidance, and let Him direct you. Whether or not you’re ever published, you can be assured of success in life if you let Him lead.

Thanks to Sandra Robbins for a great interview! Don't forget to post a comment to be entered in a drawing to win Pedigreed Blood Lines.

Interview with Cara Putman

2008-06-09T12:58:00.004-05:00

Since the time she could read Nancy Drew, Cara has wanted to write mysteries. For years she asked God if this dream was from Him. Her life was full. She graduated with honors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Go Huskers!), moved to the Washington, DC area, married the man of her dreams, worked in the non-profit world, went to George Mason Law School at night while working, and then started having children. While her life was far from empty, the dream wouldn’t die. Then she followed her husband to Indiana. Talk about starting over!
In 2005 she attended a book signing at her local Christian bookstore. The rest, as they say, was history. There she met Colleen Coble. With prompting from her husband, Cara shared her dream with Colleen. Since those infamous words, Cara’s been writing books.
Heartsong Presents is publishing a three book series of World War Two romances: Canteen Dreams (October 2007), Sandhill Dreams (May 2008), and Captive Dreams (September 2008). Love Inspired Suspense published her first romantic suspense in May 2008. Now she’s working on the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Business Law (don’t ask!) and the first book in an Ohio World War Two series. Cara is also an attorney, lecturer at a Big Ten university, women's ministry leader, and all around crazy woman. Crazy about God, her husband and her kids that is.

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Cara: I’ve always loved reading and tried writing novels as a young teen. I’d always hit a point where the history or the plot would stymie me, and I’d stop. Then I started college, career, got married, went to law school, and started a family. Didn’t have much time for writing, but the dream wouldn’t die. A few years ago I went to a book-signing and after talking to an author for awhile, my husband leaned into the conversation and asked if I’d told Colleen I wanted to be a writer. That jump-started the process, and I’ve been writing every since.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Cara: I sold my first book at the ACFW conference in September 2006 – it was a quick process, and I’m so grateful for the way God has guided me and chided me when I need to spend more time with my fingers firmly attached to the keyboard. But I went to the conference needing to know that God was pleased with my efforts. And getting that first contract in front of so many friends and colleagues was an amazing confirmation.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Cara: Colleen Coble. While there have been many other writers who have become friends, for some reason Colleen took an interest in me at that book-signing in 2005. She has mentored me, introduced me to people, and been an advocate and friend. We joke that she mid-wifed my first book, by being interested and encouraging.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Cara: It depends. Seriously. For one series I’ve proposed I started with the setting. With my Nebraska World War Two series, it started with setting and characters – the plot grew organically out of those two items. With Deadly Exposure, the plot grew out of character and brainstorming. And there was never any doubt I’d set the book in Lincoln. With a new World War Two series, I knew the setting had to be Ohio, but wouldn’t have submitted the proposal without the plot points. And those came from a couple days of intense research.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Cara: In May I had two books release. Sandhill Dreams is a historical romance set at Fort Robinson, Nebraska during World War Two. With her dreams shattered, will Lainie Gardner allow God and a soldier at Fort Robinson to breathe life into new dreams that will bring her more joy than she imagined? Deadly Exposure is my first romantic suspense with Love Inspired Suspense. With a stalker closing in, will television journalist Dani Richards trust her former love and police investigator Caleb Jamison to help her and God to rescue her?

Beth: What inspired you to write this particulate story?

Cara: Deadly Exposure grew out of a desire to write a suspense story. I wanted the ticking bomb feeling to propel readers through the story. Once I knew the suspense thread, everything else had to bow to it. And with a tight timeframe of one week, it took some real thinking and praying to figure out the other threads and keep them realistic.

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Cara: That God is always there – even when we feel alone and isolated. That He is a sure tower of strength when we need Him, and even when we aren’t necessarily looking for Him.

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a mystery or suspense?

Cara: Getting all the threads to come together in a way that keeps the reader racing through the pages and believing the story could really happen. With Deadly Exposure, I had the challenge of creating a realistic love story in one week. Yet the romance had to be 50% of the story. God and I really wrestled on that one. I’m very pleased with the end result, but at the time I kept asking Him if I was hearing correctly!

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Cara: This summer I’m writing the first book in a World War Two series set in Ohio. I’m also writing the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Business Law – I still smile every time I write that. Yet another way those years in law school are paying off I guess. And I’ve got ideas for more suspense books simmering on the back burner.

Beth: What is the best advise you ever received?

Cara: Join ACFW (www.acfw.com). I have grown immeasurably as a writer through what I’ve learned from fellow members. And the ACFW conference has been instrumental in my career to date. So if you’re serious about becoming a writer, join. It’s well worth the money.

Thanks Cara! If you'd like a chance to win a copy of Cara's book, please post a comment below.

blessings!
Beth

Contest Winners!

2008-06-09T12:47:00.002-05:00

We have several contest winners. Sorry about the delay in announcing these. CarolynnW has won Colleen Coble's Anathema. Cynthia Hickey has won Where the Truth Lies, and ChristyJan won Keeping Her Safe. Congratulations ladies!

Interview with Cynthia Hickey

2008-06-05T22:54:00.003-05:00

Is Fudge Laced Felonies the first book you’ve sold? Tell us about that. Your feelings when you found out you sold it.

Well, it's the first if you don't count the three POD doozies I've got out there. The feeling when I sold it was indescribable. I'd obtained my agent , Kelly Mortimer, a couple of weeks prior, then Barbour editor, Susan Downs, presented me with a contract at last year's ACFW conference. I thought they were talking about someone else, until my agent shoved me out of my chair. Susan and Kelly had cooked up the little scheme to surprise me. Boy, did they!

The name is yummy. Tell us how that came about and what the book is about.

The book was originally written under the title Buried Beneath the Midnight Blue, which is the title it won the Great Expectations contest under. After reading the titles for books two and three in the series, Candy-Coated Secrets and Chocolate-Covered Crime, Susan Downs suggested I change it to something high carb. So, Fudge-Laced Felonies it became.

Did this book idea come from any particular incident or experience? In other words, how did you come up with the idea?

When Barbour mentioned starting a cozy mystery line, my friend dared me to write a cozy for them. I didn't even know what one was, I had to ask on the ACFW loop! Then, my imagination took over.

Let’s talk about your journey. How long did you write before you sold your first book? And what is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

I've been writing since I was fifteen, but only seriously started in 2000 when I made the mistake of going POD. My writing journey has taught me to never give up. If it is in God's plan for you to write and get paid for it, you will.

Everybody who writes inspirational fiction probably has a story about God’s hand in their writing career and how He’s guided them. Can you share anything in particular about that? Any one thing that happened that was an ah ha moment—when you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was in what you were doing?

When I got my contract. I never expected to win the contest, much less sell a book. I thought it would take way longer. But the desire to write has never left me, so I know it comes from God.

Do you have any future writing plans you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish?

I have book two and three in the Summer Meadows series with Barbour now. I'm also working on a couple of romantic suspenses and another cozy series.

What is the best advice you ever received?

NEVER STOP LEARNING THE CRAFT!

Any parting words?

If writing is what you want to do...write, whether your words are ever published. When my nineteen year old heard I had a contract, she said, "Wow, you're getting published before you're dead." If it's God's will, it'll happen. Hopefully, when we're alive to enjoy it!

Interview with Barbara Phinney

2008-06-02T15:26:00.004-05:00

Susan: Barbara, it’s great to have you here. Your suspense books are real page turners. I can’t wait to read Keeping Her Safe, which releases June 1 from Love Inspired Suspense. Tell us a little about the plot.

Barbara: Thanks, Susan. I’m thrilled to be here, as well. Keeping Her Safe is a forgiveness story about a young man, Hunter, who went to prison for his mentor. Just before he’s due to be released, the mentor dies, but not before asking him to protect his daughter, Rae.

Only Rae wants nothing to do with him. In her mind, he destroyed everything her family held dear. Only after realizing the serious danger she’s in and that Hunter may well be innocent, does Rae learn to trust her life to him, and more importantly, learn forgiveness and healing. And through his growing love for Rae, Hunter learns a valuable lesson on trust, too.

As an aside, my sister-in-law knows a woman whose husband has the name Hunter Gordon, and we conspired one evening to write a story with an ex-con of that name. When the woman later heard about it she thought it was hilarious because it’s as far from her husband as possible.

Susan: Your storyline features a man who has been in prison. What kind of research did you do for Hunter’s story?

Barbara: Why, I went to prison! No, seriously, my husband works at the prison featured in the story, Dorchester Correctional Facility, and I asked a lot of questions to anyone who knew anything about the place—of which there are plenty around. My husband has learned some inside things about prison life. It can be surprisingly relaxed in some ways, and cruel and tough in other ways. The story is set in a carpentry shop, and I have been in a few in my day, so it was fun to incorporate my memories of them.

Susan: How did that story come together?

Barbara: Actually, Keeping Her Safe started as a Silhouette Intimate Moments, but got rejected. I asked to write for Love Inspired, but wasn’t ready to rework the story. Then, after my last book, Desperate Rescue, I opened Keeping Her Safe again, and all the faith elements and revisions just fell in place. I love the area, west of Moncton, New Brunswick, and that helped, too. It must have all worked out, because Romantic Times has given me 4 stars for it! I’m thrilled, too, with the write-up on it.

Susan: You spent time in the military. How did that help with your writing career?

Barbara: Sometimes I wonder if it hasn’t been a hindrance. Having worked with so many men, I didn’t really get a good feel for women’s reactions and emotions, apart from my own. I think I’ve been re-programmed to think like a man! But on the other hand, it’s really helped with time management, learning to get a job done right the first time, and accepting rejection. I’ve been yelled at enough in my career that all those nice editors can’t really hurt my feelings, unless they show up at my door to cut off my hands. Which I used to say to myself. I’d keep on writing until they did that.

Susan: Is there a character in your current book to whom you relate and who made an input on your life?

Barbara: In Keeping Her Safe, I think I really identified with the heroine. She worked in an area predominated by men, as I did in the military, and has lost her father. Since I have lost both my parents, I called upon those emotions to show how she was dealing with the grief herself. My heroes aren’t always big, strong alpha heroes, but men who get mixed up with their own emotions and make mistakes as well, and Hunter in Keeping Her Safe did that and more.

Susan: What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

Barbara: By far, the number one thing is perseverance. And to give it my all. There are days when I think, “Oh, this will do”. But I stop myself and say, “No, it won’t.” It may do for right now, but it will be changed so I can give it a bit more. I’ve also learned to trust God more. I pray before I write, asking that I do His will first, then mine, and for determination. God hasn’t failed me yet.

Susan: Any future plans for your writing that you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

Barbara: To hit the New York Times Bestseller List! Why not? There’s a poster at my kids’ school that says, Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll end up in the stars. That’s a great motto. But for the immediate, I’d like to be able to write more often for Love Inspired, and submit some cozy mysteries to other publishers. I have one submitted at Heartsong, but haven’t heard back. I just love that story, so I hope it’ll find a home.

Susan: Many of our readers are aspiring writers. Can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, perhaps specific to the Love Inspired Suspense line?

Barbara: I’m finding the editors at Love Inspired are real go-getters, and don’t like to wait. It kind of matches my personality, I think. But as for writing, if you love to read Love Inspired Suspense, I say study the line in depth, before you write, but make sure your characters have real issues, and these issues are logical. Editors are amazingly logical, so make sure everything makes sense.

And keep writing. Don’t give up after a couple of years, because it takes longer than that. I know we all hear stories of those who get great contracts after mere months of writing, but those people have been studying the lines and writing in other ways long before they got a contract. Most people also have to learn the hard way, by making mistakes and working darn hard.

One more thing. You have to rewrite. Remember, only one thing was written in stone, so your words can be changed. Let them cool for a while, and then go back and rework, reword, and revise. It’s amazing what even a few hours of doing something totally different can do for finding mistakes.

Susan: Which is harder for you to maintain in your books—the suspense thread, the romance thread, or the faith thread?

Barbara: Boy, that’s a tough question! It used to be the romance thread, to make sure the characters actually moved closer to each other. But now, it’s the suspense thread. As I said above, it’s got to make sense, and sometimes we have to do a lot of research. I’d prefer to just start writing, but I know I’d get bogged down sooner or later. The faith element isn’t as hard usually because I know ahead of time what kind of lesson each character must learn, and as I’m always studying the Bible, I’m always seeing how Bible characters handled things.

Susan: What is the process you use when writing a mystery/suspense?

Barbara: I allow a story to interest me first, be it the setting or the characters or one part of the plot. Believe it or not, it was the name Hunter Gordon, and going to prison, that interested me with Keeping Her Safe.

I then sit down and write a couple of chapters, just to get the feel of the whole story, then, I need to sort out the plot. Since I usually know the faith element, and parts of the other, then I have to work out a logical sequence for things to happen. The synopsis is awful at first, but I’ve learned to polish it as I go. Once the synopsis isn’t half bad, I’ll polish up the first three chapters and then bounce back and forth between the rest of the book and the synopsis, which is to a certain degree, flexible.

Susan: What is your system to keep the story/clues organized?

Barbara: I don’t! To my own detriment, I’m afraid. I have learned lately to print out a copy of the art fact sheet that Harlequin uses, to keep information handy. I take lots of notes and when my first draft is done, I return to those notes. Things like, “Check to see if he calls heroine before leaving house first morning.” Or “Villain must not say…. Thing before page….” I fix them all after I’ve finished the first draft. My editor asks for many revisions and I organize her notes the same way.

Susan: How can our readers learn more about you and your books?

Barbara: I’m getting a new website, www.barbaraphinney.com but it’s still under construction. www.loveinspiredauthors.com has some info on me. My books are on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, among other sites. As for learning about me, my husband says he knows me, and yet at times, claims he doesn’t! My sister-in-law says she knows me very well, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. And my kids call me goofy. One thing is for certain. I’m just an ordinary person who makes tons of mistakes each day, and yet, tries to reach people through books about people just like you and me.

Thank you so much, Barbara! Readers, don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a copy of Keeping Her Safe.

The Worldwide Web of Distraction

2008-05-29T21:45:00.001-05:00

I’m sitting at my computer to write this article and a jingle alerts me that I have email. Ignoring the sound and the urge to visit Entourage (Outlook for Mac), I still manage to see who the mail is coming from as it floats in and out at the corner of my computer screen. Then my yahoo smiling face pops up from the dock below to inform me someone is IMing.( In my world, Instant Message has taken the place of the phone). I answer and chat for a few minutes. I admit, sometimes when the situation is serious, it could be a couple of hours. Most of the time, though, my friends are happy to sit in their virtual cubicles next to me as we attempt to write without so much as a peep.

But now that I’ve caved and responded to one of these miracles of communication technology, I have to read that email as well as any others that have come in the last fifteen minutes, or at least since the last time I checked. I’m great at multi-tasking, so keep in mind that I can instant message, read email and write, all at the same time. And while I’m at it, I might as well see who has stopped by my blog, how long they stayed and what they read (same for the website), then check to see how many profile views I’ve had at Shoutlife. Last and most desperate, I check to see how many people have subscribed to my newsletter today.

Right about now, I’m reminded of the movie Waterboy with Adam Sandler. His mother would have this to say, “Internet, IM, email. . .it’s the DEBIL,” with her infamous b replacing the v.

In my opinion, this has evolved from a symptom of writer’s block (procrastination) to a full-fledged disease of its own. An addiction, if you will.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not knocking the internet. I see it as an extremely valuable tool. I credit the internet with networking, with my first writing contract, and other writing-related opportunities, none of which would have happened without the internet. But like anything good, it can be used for evil.

If any of the above dysfunctions ring true for you, please seek help. Or follow the next few tips regarding internet-related distractions.

1) Resolve to do internet-related business such as email at certain times of the day, not during writing time. If you can’t bring yourself to do that, then
2) Unplug the internet. If you can’t do it because you research while you write, then
3) Turn off email and IM. TURN IT OFF. If you can’t do it because you have to run a concept or a grammar question by one of your writing buddies then
4) Those are all excuses. Take your computer to a NO WI-FI zone. There are still a few restaurants and cafes that don’t have wi-fi.
5) Last and most important, if all else fails, invest in a word processing device such as an Alpha Smart Neo.

The first step, of course, is admitting that you have a problem. You’ve heard this before. I believe that I’ve taken a big step in my own writing life by writing this article. It forced me to realize what I was doing with my writing time. Focus is the key. If you want to be productive, then create a writing environment free from distractions, especially the internet kind

Blessings!
Beth

Text Readers

2008-05-22T18:28:00.007-05:00

(Or, Breaking Up is Hard to Do)

I have one tool in my writing toolbox that I can’t live without. I know this for a certainty because it’s not working today.

While I’m trying to fix my tool problem (i.e. get someone to help me), I decided this would be the perfect topic for KMIS.

My wonderful tool is a text reader with a voice named Paul, and it does exactly that. It reads my text to me. Well, okay, Paul reads my text to me.

As many of our readers know, I’m a freelance content reviewer for Barbour's cozy mystery line as well as for RS Writing Services. I read a LOT of manuscripts. Aside from law enforcement errors, most of the things that I find wrong in books could be easily discovered by the author if they listened to their manuscript aloud while they follow along with a hard copy.

For me, this is essential. I never submit my final manuscript without doing this step. I find missed words—small ones that are easy to overlook, like an and it and the. I can hear where my words aren’t flowing right. Identify dialogue that just doesn’t ring true to character. I can even catch bloopers like repetitious information.

And you know what? The most amazing and disturbing thing about this is that I often find mistakes after my book has been gone over by my two end-of-the-book critique partners. And they are both gifted editors.

I add that fact to assure everyone reading this article that errors happen. We all make mistakes and overlook things. (A little bit like our spiritual lives). But that’s why checking and rechecking is important.

So, when I’ve completed a book, one of the last things I do before I send it off to the publisher is set aside two or three hours and listen to the whole thing nonstop.

There are many different text readers. Most of our computers come with one built in, but it’s not great. I bought one for a reasonable price from a company called Natural Reader. And I ordered a “real speech” voice named Paul to go with it, so my listening experience is pleasant.

I can’t say enough good things about using a text reader. It’s well worth the cost for anybody who does a lot of writing. And you can also check your e-mails and correspondence. To anyone who wants the things they send out to be as professional as possible, a text reader is invaluable.

By the way, Paul and I have been together for almost two years. I find it disturbing that he’s not speaking to me today. I’m not sure if he’s just tired or if he wants to break up. If that’s the case, I might have to go into a slight decline and spend an hour listening to Neil Sedaka singing, Breaking Up is Hard to Do.

No worries, though. I’ll recover quickly. Paul can always be replaced. By Michael.

And if you find any errors in this article, it’s Paul’s fault.

Interview with Elizabeth Ludwig and Janelle Mowery

2008-05-18T18:34:00.006-05:00

1. What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

Janelle: The call. Wow. What a memory. I was sitting in our office chatting with my mother-in-law when it came. I heard, “This is Susan Downs” and my heart lurched. When she said she wanted to contract our manuscript, well, I don’t think my heart’s ever been the same since. I’ll be surprised if I managed to complete any of my sentences. Once we’d hung up, I told my mother-in-law the news and begged her forgiveness for planning to ignore her until I finished all my phone calls. She left. Then came the tough decision—do I call my husband first or my co-author? I called Lisa. Since she’d worked just as hard as I had, she deserved to know as soon as possible. My ear will also never be the same after she squealed in a pitch only dogs should be able to hear. (I think I might have just called myself a dog.) I gave her the details and we squealed together, then hung up so we could call everyone we knew. What a wonderful day. Unforgettable.

Elizabeth: It’s kind of funny, but my call didn’t come from my editor, it came from my co-author, Janelle. She knew I was at work, so she contacted me at the office to tell me she’d just gotten off the phone with Susan Downs. For several seconds, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. Once the realization sunk in, I really did squeal—so loudly, in fact, that my coworkers came running. I was crying, laughing, jumping up and down…I didn’t even have to say it. They all knew by my reaction I’d sold my book.

2. Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

Elizabeth: It really all started with a conversation I was having with my brother-in-law. We were discussing Jacob and Esau and their difficult, often turbulent relationship. Later that evening, I couldn’t get their story out of my head. I called Janelle, and we started brainstorming possibilities for turning this into a mystery. While it isn’t exactly like the biblical account, it is loosely based on scripture.

3. What is it like working together as a writing team?

Janelle: I thoroughly enjoy working with Lisa. We’ve critiqued each other for years so we know each others’ writing style well. We’ve also become close friends. I believe a good friendship and knowing the other’s writing style are both a must when co-authoring. Brainstorming together is incredible. Tons of fun and laughter are a wonderful side benefit while working out the details of the story.

Elizabeth: Janelle and I have been critique partners for a long time. On top of that, we’ve become close friends over the years. I think both are requirements to anyone considering co-authoring. You have to know the person you are writing with pretty well in order to overcome the obstacles you encounter along the way, and you have to be able to converse honestly with one another if you want to make it past chapter one. If you can’t squabble with the person you’re considering co-authoring with, don’t even attempt it. Your friendship will never survive. Luckily, Janelle is more like a sister to me than a critique partner, so I can pretty much tell her anything.

4. What are the biggest challenges? Rewards? Difficulties? (working together)

Janelle: Blending our different preparations styles was a bit of a challenge at first. I need to have a detailed timeline showing everything from where the story starts to each step along the way to the ending, not to mention a timeline of the back story. The more details the better. There were times I could almost feel the club Lisa wanted to swing at my head. Once we’d finished editing the book, we had several laughs about that very thing. But I think we both learned from each other in the process. The timeline we put together kept us on track yet allowed us our own creativity. We ended up with a story we’re happy with and an even closer friendship.

Elizabeth: Working with Janelle has really spoiled me! I LOVED having somebody to brainstorm with 100 percent of the time. Any time I got stuck, I dialed her number and vice versa. Because she knew the story as intimately as I did, there was never any question about whether or not something would work or if a character would behave a certain way.
We are also very careful when making changes to run the edits past one another first. This really stretches the time involved in editing, but it’s a choice I think we both are happy with. Of course, as we neared the end of line edits, content edits, and galleys, that became almost impossible because of time constraints. When you trust your co-author, however, that really isn’t a problem. I knew if something needed to be changed, I could trust her to do it, and vice versa.

3. I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

Janelle: I certainly could identify with Casey’s doubts of the Lord. Life’s difficulties have a tendency to make us wonder about the Lord’s love, but He always proves we have no reason to doubt. The character that had a surprising input on my life, though, was a secondary character—Monah, the librarian. She’d been through difficulties of her own but came out stronger in her faith. Bold enough to share the gospel and lead someone to Christ while working in the library. She became such a strong secondary character that she will have the lead role in our second book, Died in the Wool.

Elizabeth: I really enjoyed creating Luke Kerrigan, the hero of the story. All the way through, he was solid in his faith, his love for the Lord, everything. He’s the kind of friend we all wish we had, and the kind of friend I hope to be.

4. What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

Janelle: That, yes, you have know the craft and have good writing, but God is in ultimate control. Everything happens in His perfect timing. If you take the time to look back at the steps He took you through in the process, you’ll be amazed and blessed.

Elizabeth: “Don’t be so focused on the goal that you miss the journey.” (Paraphrased)

I heard these words at a conference I attended. Suddenly, I realized that was exactly what I’d been doing. My goal was publication. Only that. Not the knowledge to be gained along the way, or the friendships forged in adversity. I missed the fleeting opportunities God had prepared to comfort me, and for me to give comfort. Like a darkened landscape exposed by a shaft of lightening, my life suddenly became visible, and I became determined to ENJOY the writing journey God had set me on.

5 Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing? (either individually or as a writing team)

Janelle: I have a few historicals I’d like to see in print, and I’ve just plotted a suspense that I hope I can do justice because the spiritual theme is important to me, one I struggle with.

Elizabeth: Janelle and I have already contracted a second cozy mystery together called Died in the Wool. I’m also waiting to hear back on a cozy I wrote on my own called The Trouble With Mary. My current wip, however, has nothing whatsoever to do with mysteries. It’s a contemporary romance I’m considering pitching to Heartsong that I’ve tentatively titled Missing Abby. It’s kind of fun to be writing something a little different than what I’ve been doing over the past two years. Keeps it all fresh.

6. Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, especially from someone who has just broken in?

Janelle: Good, strong writing is vital, but networking plays a huge role. If at all possible, try to make it to some conferences. It’s the best way to get in front of editors, agents, and other writers to promote your work. Also, get involved in a good critique group. It’s amazing what you can learn from each other.

Elizabeth: I have to agree with Janelle, here. Networking is vital. You never know which contact might lead to a contract! I’d like to add the importance of contests, though, too. I read a really great article this morning about choosing contests specifically for the editors and agents who might be involved in the judging. This requires a little research on the part of the writer, but the rewards are tremendous, especially if that editor likes your work. If not, you always have the comments the judges made to learn from. I entered several contests before I sold my first manuscript, and the feedback was always invaluable.

7. Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

Janelle: James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure is great, as is Browne & King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Brandilyn Collins’ Getting into Character. A new favorite is Susan May Warren’s My Book Therapy found at www.mybooktherapy.com

Elizabeth: The Graveyard Shift is an excellent resource for people writing anything involving police procedure. Lee Lofland is a retired detective and he knows all of the ins-and-outs of examining a crime scene, questioning witnesses, etc. I also recommend Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon. He gives some great insight into creating characters that last beyond the final page.

Author's Website: Elizabethludwig.com
http://www.janellemowery.com/

Congratulations to Cara!

2008-05-12T15:36:00.003-05:00

Cara Putman, one of our Keep Me In Suspense contributors, just had a baby. She delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl after only 4-5 hours of labor. Rebecca Paige weighed in at 7 pounds--big for Cara! And Rebecca has HAIR!

Interview with Colleen Coble

2008-05-05T11:39:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Jenny in Australia (AusJenny)! She won a copy of A Bride So Fair by Carol Cox. If you'd like to be entered in the contest to win Colleen Coble's Anathema, please post a comment below.

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Colleen: I can still remember the first story I ever wrote. It was in first grade and was about twin colts. Even back then I liked to write about animals! My teacher praised my writing, and the seed was planted. Someday I would be a writer.

The seed lay dormant through the early years of marriage and raising a family. “Someday” I was going to write. I devoured books by the armloads from the library, and it bothered me to read the hopelessness in them that assumed there was no God. Through those years, I told God if he’d give me a story, I’d love to write from the viewpoint that he exists and cares about his children. But nothing came. Someday, I told myself.

August 25, 1990 changed everything. The phone rang late that night with the news that my younger brother, Randy Rhoads, had been killed by lightning in a freak farm accident. In the coming months, as I emerged from the storm of grief, I realized that if I was ever going to follow the dream I believed God had put in my heart, I needed to get started. I was approaching my fortieth birthday, and time was marching on. I told God I was ready, but still nothing came.

As part of the grieving process, my husband and I made a trip out to Wyoming to see where Randy had lived during a two-year stint. We hadn’t made it to see him while he was there, and he loved Wyoming. As I stood on the parade ground at Fort Laramie, the first idea took root and sprouted. The fire of grief and adversity had finally cracked open the seed that had lain dormant in my heart all those years.

It still wasn’t easy. Getting published is hard and takes work and commitment. But I never gave up on the long road to the first sale because God wouldn’t let me. Every time I was tempted to let the computer go dark, God whispered in my heart that I could do it. That he had given me everything I needed to go on, that I must go on. Seven years later (seven is God’s number so that was perfect!) I finally made the first sale. But God taught me about faith and perseverance through those seven years. Looking back, I’m glad it wasn’t easier. It makes me appreciate so much more the joy and privilege I have to share my novels with my readers and to hopefully make them a little thirsty for the One who holds out a cup of living water.

I started out with prairie romance but I always wanted to kill people. LOL I loved mystery and suspense. Eventually I found a great agent who helped me hone that first mystery proposal for Thomas Nelson and I’ve been there every since.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Colleen: Oh yes! My agent kept talking about layers and adding in more substance. She kicked that Rock Harbor proposal back to me I thought it was a tennis ball. Then one day something just “clicked” about all those layers that are needed for a book to have resonance. It take experience and practice to get it.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Colleen: I’d have to say my editor Ami McConnell has most shaped me as a writer. She has such insight into story and character and I grow with every book I write under her tutelage.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Colleen: I’m weird. It usually begins with setting. LOL People are different in different places. I often start by thinking about where it would be fun to set a book, a place that has a certain resonance for me. Then I research news stories and current events that are going on in that area. That’s the USUAL, as I said. Sometimes it starts with character or plot. The Rock Harbor series started with the character of Bree Nicholls. Abomination started with plot. So it can be different depending on where the idea comes from.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Colleen: Anathema has just shipped to stores. It’s an Amish romantic suspense set in Parke Co, Indiana, covered bridge capital of the world. A young Amish woman who sneaks out on a tryst comes back to find her family dead of strychnine poisoning. Though she flees the community by marrying her English boyfriend, she comes back ten years later to find out if the daughter she thought was dead could really be alive. And faces down a killer in the process.

Beth: What inspired you to write this particulate story?

Colleen: I was talking with my agent after the Amish school setting. Karen said, “What would happen if an Amish person was faced with something that horrific and couldn’t forgive?” The idea was born out of her question.

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Colleen: I hope my readers take away the realization that forgiveness is always best. An bitter heart hurts mostly the owner of it.

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing suspense?

Colleen: Sometimes keeping all the plots lines straight can be a challenge. Also making sure every new story is fresh and exciting.

Beth: What are problem areas you see in aspiring writers who want to write suspense? Advise?

Colleen: I read first chapters a lot, and many writers don’t start with an exciting premise. It needs to be something fresh and different that hasn’t been done before. And it needs to have those layers I was talking about: interesting personal issues, an interesting profession, a setting that adds to the “feel” of the book. All those things are necessary.

Beth: You mentioned to me that when you first acquired an agent, she shopped a historical you’d written but it was never picked up. Then you came up with the Rock Harbor suspense series. Obviously, the suspense genre has been a success for you. Can you share some pointers for those of us who are still searching for the right niche? (Colleen, this was just something I remembered from a brief conversation we shared at an ACFW conference. If I’m remembering incorrectly, we can just delete the agent part. )☺

Colleen: Even when you look back on my prairie romance novels, I had an antagonist, a bad guy. My heart has always run to suspense, murder and mayhem. I think every writer knows what they really LOVE. Not just oh I like to read that, but what do you pick up FIRST? What section of the bookstore do you gravitate to? What elements do you find yourself daydreaming about when you’re plotting? And when you figure out the genre you like, what makes yours stand out? This can take a lot of thought but it’s worth it!

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Colleen: I want to keep coming up with fresh, interesting ideas. I love writing for Thomas Nelson too and have a Dream Team there. My next book I’ll be starting is a psychological suspense set in the Charleston area. I came up with the idea after the Taylor University student switch (I live near Ft Wayne so I was riveted to the news stories) and it’s a twist off of a mistaken identity/amnesia plot.

Beth: What is the best advise you ever received?

Colleen: Never give up. Never give up. Never give up!

Thanks so much for the interview Colleen.

You can visit Colleen's Website at: www.colleencoble.com

Blessings to you!
Beth

Manage Profanity

2008-05-01T15:28:00.004-05:00

**Dwayne**

Little blond Barbie dolls. Cute.

Dwayne moved through the house with the silence of a roach. Must be nice to have a playroom and a big room of your own. He bent over the large dollhouse, where a blond plastic bimbo sat askew in her chair having a burger and fries with a redheaded plastic bimbo.

Moonlight cast soft shadows on the toy cabinets and dress-up bin and pink bean bag chairs in the playroom. Typical. Delicious.

Dwayne picked up the blond doll and caressed its molded smile with the tip of his hunting knife. The stiff yellow hair fell across the edge of the blade.

Hmm.

He snatched the locks in his thumb and fingers, slightly less dexterous because of the rubber gloves. He put his left hand over the doll’s face, held the knife to the scalp, and pulled the hair across the blade. The strands came away in his hand reluctantly, like pulling a wing off a bird.

He rotated the defiled doll before his eyes and felt the excitement rise in his neck. Pretty little thing.

Dwayne dropped the doll to the carpet and stepped into Camille’s room. The kindergartner lay sideways on her PowerPuff Girls sheets, blond hair arrayed over the pillow like a yellow skirt.
Pretty little thing.

**Lorraine**

Lorraine gazed at the martini just down the bar from where she sat. She shut her eyes, almost tasting it. Her own glass rattled when she lifted it to her lips, the ice betraying the tremors in her hand. Water. All it did was chill her. But at least it kept the gravel out of her voice.

“You really used to be a model?” the guy asked.

Lorraine forced herself to look at him. He was bulbous and sweaty, with meaty fingers like a stack of Michelin tires. The thought of him touching her…

“Yeah,” she said, “really. Magazines and catalogues and sh—” She censored herself. Maybe this guy was one of those pervs who didn’t mind adultery but couldn’t stand foul language.

His eyes widened and wandered somewhere south of her eyes. “That’s really something, huh?”

“Yeah. So you sure you don’t need the Percocet anymore?” He’d said it was his wife’s pain-killer but there was no need to remind him that he was betraying her. It might blow the whole thing. Lorraine stamped down a shudder. She needed a smoke.

His eyes came back north. “Huh? Oh, right. No, no, she doesn’t— I mean, it’ll be fine.”

Lorraine stood up and pressed herself against his shoulder. “I don’t know about you, honey, but I’m ready to get somewhere private with you.”

He almost fell getting off the bar stool. “Yeah, sure. Definitely.” He dropped a twenty on the bar and headed to the door, gripping her hand on his arm as if he thought she might run away otherwise.

She was going to run away, all right, but not just yet. She watched his jowls bounce as he walked and again thought of that face on hers.

“Just…let’s go grab the Percocet first, okay?”

“What? I can’t go home with—”

She yanked her hand away and stopped. “You’re going to get it first, you hear me. Or you don’t get,” she said, pulling the hem of her shirt wide open for him to have a look, “what you want.”

His eyes bugged. “Right. Right. Okay. Come on.”

She smoothed her shirt and preceded him to the door. Perv.

Profanity Without All the Bad Language

Were those characters foul? Were they profane? Did you feel their depravity in the seat of your being? If I did my job right, you were horrified by Dwayne and disgusted by Lorraine.

I created that effect because of all the foul language I used, obviously. I mean, have you ever heard so many profanities in the space of a single page?

Oh...wait.

But surely these are the kind of people who would use profanity. Foulness pervaded their character. Even if you didn’t actually see or hear them using four-letter words, you felt a deep corruption oozing through their skin.

Here’s the point: it is quite possible to create the feeling of profanity without the use of profanity.

In fact, doing so is superior to using profanity in your fiction. It’s the better way, in my opinion.
In his novel Rising Sun Michael Crichton creates a foul-mouthed detective character. He drops the F-bomb as commonly as the words “the” or “and.” He is truly the most disgusting, pathetic character I’ve ever seen on the pages of a novel.

This reaction may not have been what Crichton was aiming for. He probably wanted this character to seem intimidating and street-wise but I just thought he was a sad and empty wretch consumed by self-loathing.

In other words, the free and frequent use of profanity in a book does not necessarily create the hard-edged character you may be trying for. You may find the profanity working against you.

Conversely, the absence of profanity in a book does not mean you cannot create hard-edged or profane characters. As I hope I've demonstrated above.

Show vs. Tell

If you’ve been reading this column very long you know how I feel about show vs. tell. If you’ve read any of my novels you know how I feel about show vs. tell. Anybody can write, “She was angry because of how he’d treated her on the plane.” It takes a lot more skill from the writer to communicate that she was angry and that the cause of her anger was how he’d treated her on the plane—and to do so without saying so outright.

Telling is cheating, in my opinion. It’s lazy storytelling. It reveals a low view of the reader’s intelligence and a lack of trust in the author’s own ability to convey information on paper. It stops the story cold and removes all mystery. It is, in short, A Bad Idea.

Showing, on the other hand, is the land where the masters dwell.

When it comes to communicating that a character is lost or profane, the frequent use of profanity in the manuscript is telling. It’s lazy. Anyone can do it. Yep, that’s a foul-mouthed person.

It takes more creativity and skill—not to mention more words—to communicate that the character is lost or profane but to do so without the use of profanity itself. In other words, it’s showing.

I know you want to be a superior novelist. I know you want to take the path of higher craftsmanship. That means showing and not telling in every aspect of your fiction.
Which is more effective: Crichton’s detective or Dwayne and Lorraine? Which method most perfectly conveys the dissoluteness of the character? Which method more insidiously reveals the person’s degraded inner state? Which method better shows profanity?

Telling conveys head knowledge. Showing conveys heart knowledge. When you show something to your reader she feels it at the center of her being.

That’s what you want to accomplish when you have a character who is foul. You want your reader to feel it in her toes.

The next time you bring a debauched character onstage in your fiction, I challenge you to consider how you can reveal the character’s foulness through scene and action instead of the direct use of profanity.

Take look at the solutions in my last blog article. Maybe use one or more of them. But always, always concentrate your efforts on how you can show your character being profane instead of just letting the epithets flow.

Or Dwayne will get you.

Jeff Gerke
www.jeffersonscott.com
www.wherethemapends.com

Interview with Carol Cox

2008-04-28T12:28:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to ChristyJan. You've won a copy of Susan Page Davis's Witness. To enter this week's contest, post a comment along with your contact infomation.

Today we welcome Carol Cox, author of several historical novels, including her new historical suspense series.

1. The third book of your A Fair To Remember Series released on April 1st. Tell us a little about the plot of A Bride So Fair.

Thanks, I’d love to! The storyline of A Bride So Fair revolves around Emily Ralston, who grew up in a Chicago orphanage and is thrilled when she lands a job in the Children's Building at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. And the White City seems to be living up to its promise of excitement when she meets Stephen Bridger, a handsome Columbian Guard. When Stephen finds a lost child, he delivers the boy to the Children's Building to be cared for until the child’s mother is located. But when a dead body believed to be the boy’s mother is found, a mystery begins to unfold. Tracking down the rest of little Adam’s family proves to be more challenging than they expected when their efforts make all three of them targets of a cold-hearted criminal, and their lives—as well as their blossoming romance—are at risk.

In A Bride So Fair, I had the opportunity to showcase several characters who appeared in the first two books, as well as tie up some loose ends that were left dangling throughout the series. Stephen Bridger, for instance, had been on the fringes of the romances in Ticket to Tomorrow and Fair Game. He was such a likable character that it only seemed fair to give him a chance to shine in a book of his own. Mrs. Purvis, the quirky landlady, is back, and readers will finally learn whether she ever discovers the secret room and the treasure her late husband left behind. And Ian McGinty, the shadowy underworld figure from Fair Game, is back in a much larger—and more ominous—role.

2. Tell us what inspired you to write this historical suspense series..

Several years ago, I happened across an article that made a brief mention of the World’s Columbian Exposition—also known as the Chicago World’s Fair—and talked about what a pivotal event this had been in our country’s history. Well, I’d never even heard of this fair before, so my first response was to check it out on the Internet to find out what I’d missed. It turned out that there was a wealth of information about the fair online, and the more I read, the more fascinated I became. I knew right away that it would be a perfect setting for a series. Being able to write it as historical romantic suspense let me combine my favorite genres of history, mystery, and romance, so it was a win-win situation all around!

3. What bypaths did your research for this project take you down?

Research is one of my favorite parts of the writing process, and the research for this series was even more enjoyable than usual. I started with the Internet to get an overview of the fair and to discover other points I wanted to check out in more detail. The Illinois Institute of Technology has a site dedicated to the fair, and it was a treasure trove of information. It even had floor plans of some of the buildings. Thanks to their assistant dean of bibliographic systems, I was able to get copies of those plans, and they helped tremendously in being able to bring the setting to life.

I also purchased a number of books. Some were contemporary, like Dover Publications’ The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893; others were antique volumes published at the time of the fair. Being able to read about the event from the point of view of people who were actually there was like taking a step back in time.

After I’d spent months poring over all the photos, maps, and floor plans I could get my hands on, it was time to travel to Chicago for a firsthand look at Jackson Park, the site for the fair. It was a wonderful way to get a feel for its size and scope. I took along a map that showed the layout of the fair in relation to the roads that crisscross the park today, and that let me pinpoint the locations of the buildings and other areas that I planned to use in the books. Being there in person also provided some rich sensory details that I was able to incorporate into the stories. All in all, it was a fabulous experience!

4. Do you have a favorite character in this book? Who is it and why?

Wow, that’s a little like being asked if you have a favorite child. ☺ Emily is special to me because she struggles with the kind of situation we all face at one time or another. She wants so much to do the right thing but finds it hard to know exactly what that is.

And of course, there’s Mrs. Purvis. She started out as a rather minor secondary character, but she soon let me know that she wasn’t going to be content with staying in the background. In a way, she’s wound up becoming the star of the series. I’ve had more reader mail about her than about any other character! She’s a study in contrasts, and I think the combination of her quirky antics along with her spiritual depth is what has made her a reader favorite. That, plus the ongoing question of whether she’ll ever reach her goal of finding the treasure she’s been looking for all these years.

5. Do you have any tips you’d like to share for organizing your data while writing a series?

I started using Microsoft’s OneNote several years ago, and it’s a fabulous tool for organizing material. I set up a folder for the whole series where I keep files for information that will be used over and over again. Within the series folder, I create separate folders for each of the books, which contain information specific to those stories. I like the program’s versatility—I can jot notes down as they come to mind, send web pages over to a specific folder with the click of a button, and keep track of all the interesting little snippets of information I come up with in the course of doing research. And speaking of interesting little details, be sure to latch onto those when you first come across them. Don’t rely on your memory, thinking you’ll be able to come back and find them later on. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

6.What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

A writers conference I attended early in my writing career made a lasting difference. Out of all the information that was presented, there was one simple but profound concept that stood out above all the rest: It’s not about me; it’s about Him. The whole reason for my writing is not to make a name for myself, but to share His truth with others.

7. Any future plans for your writing that you’d like to share? What’s coming up next?

I’m working on several ideas right now, but I’m not sure which will turn out to be the next project. We’ll have to wait to see how that develops!

8. Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing—a project you’d like to write someday?

One of the things I enjoy most is bringing a setting to life in a way that readers can feel like they’ve actually been there. I’d like to do more books set in the Southwest to share the beauty and the rich history of the area I call home.

9. Can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, especially for someone who has just broken in?

Realize that getting that first contract is only one step in the journey, and not the final destination. Develop a learner’s heart and a teachable spirit. The more I write, the more I realize how much I still have to learn. And that’s a part of the joy of writing. There’s always room to grow and improve!

10. Where can our readers learn more about you and your books?

They can visit my website at www.CarolCoxBooks.com. I’m in the process of having the site redesigned to give it a fresh new look, so it’s currently in a state of transition. I’m not certain of the official launch date for the new design, but I hope your readers will keep watching for it. I’d love to hear what you all think!

Thanks so much for inviting me back to be a part of Keep Me In Suspense. I’ve enjoyed the visit!
(Interview by Susan Page Davis)

Book Winner!

2008-04-24T07:50:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Cindi who won a copy of Darlene Franklin's Gunfight at Grace Gulch! Be sure and leave comment on all of our author interviews for a chance to win free copies of our authors' books!

Interview With Amy Wallace

2008-04-23T20:55:00.006-05:00

If you'd like to enter this week's contest for a copy of a book, please make sure to post a comment and leave your contact information.

Tell us about your book, Healing Promises.

Healing Promises is a high-voltage suspense novel which explores how a life-threatening medical diagnosis and the search for an elusive serial kidnapper affects even the most solid, loving Christian marriage and poses a key life question: Can God be trusted?

My prayer is that readers will experience a deeper sense of the goodness and trustworthiness of God, even when life doesn’t go according to plan. I also hope readers will see that at the end of ourselves only one truth remains—God is good. What we do with that fact changes everything.

How did you get to know your hero and heroine for this book?

Healing Promises is the second book in the Defenders of Hope series, so I knew Clint and Sara from writing the first novel Ransomed Dreams. I learned the most about FBI Agent Clint Rollins and Dr. Sara Rollins from their dialogue and interaction with Steven and Gracie in Ransomed Dreams. But in writing Healing Promises, they became living, breathing characters as I watched them struggle with medical issues and many other difficulties they face in Healing Promises.

In other words, my characters become real people as I watch how they react to the obstacles in their path and how they overcome and grow because of them.

What process do you use to write your novel? Are you a strict plotter, or do you allow for some surprises?

My writing process has evolved from just sitting down to type in that blissful state of ignorance and excitement to doing fairly detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines and character sketches before I begin to write. Because the Defenders of Hope series is about Crimes Against Children FBI agents, I have tons of research to do before I begin crafting the stories. Once my research helps me define the timeline, I set to work on the chapter-by-chapter and character details.

I've found the outline and information about the characters to be incredibly helpful in keeping me on task with the story, not only the action plot, but also the development and depth of the characters. The chapter-by-chapter outline isn't extremely detailed, so I also have a lot of fun seeing where the story goes when I sit down to write.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Healing Promises grew out of two very painful times of wrestling with God and doubting His goodness. The first experience came following a friend’s funeral after three years of praying for healing. My faith was rocked to the core and I struggled to pray for a long time after my friend died. The second difficult season was that of losing a baby before becoming pregnant with my third daughter. Both dark paths took me to the end of what I understood about God. And as I worked on Healing Promises, I went back to those memories and poured into the pages all the pain of those moments as well as what God taught me and the grace He lavished on my wounded heart.

This book looks like it took quite a bit of research in the medical field as well as law enforcement field. Tell us a little bit about how you go about your research—what resources you use.

My college degree came in very handy for writing the suspense storyline. I have a counseling background and was totally fascinated with abnormal psychology and my criminal justice classes. In addition to my college textbooks, I did extensive reading about infamous serial killers and FBI biographies which provided various case details.

The research proved far easier than writing from a serial killer’s perspective. But I knew if I wrote the suspense well, I might help parents see ways to teach their children how to stay safe.

In terms of the medical aspects of Healing Promises, one of the coolest parts of my research included sending a prayer request and plea for help to the ACFW prayer loop. One of the ladies who answered provided me with an intimate and in-depth look into her husband’s struggle with the very cancer I’d researched. Her openness and amazing details provided a depth to the story and characters I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise. In addition, I had a dear friend go through cancer treatments while I wrote this story, and I had another very precious friend and his family show me what faith looks like even when life with cancer and healing don’t go the way we pray.

What are your current projects?

Very soon I’ll jump into editing Enduring Justice, the third Defenders of Hope novel. And I’ve started work on my next suspense series which includes three novels that have been brewing in my heart a long time. As to what they’re about…let’s just say they include law enforcement, families with children, and intense storylines.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Balancing homeschooling with writing time is a big challenge. As is forcing myself to get a descent amount of sleep because there’s always something to be doing or reading or writing. But the hardest part about being an author is fighting the lies the enemy whispers at every turn. Lies about my worth, my ability and the importance of other’s opinions. But praise God, there’s an answer for every lie. And that answer can be summed up with remembering who we are in Christ and that He has called us, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace which He granted us in Christ before the beginning of time. (paraphrase of 1 Timothy 1:8-9)

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

My favorite author is Sharon Hinck because within the pages of her stories I’m invited to laugh, cry and worship God in unique ways. I love her Restorer series in particular. Set in a fantasy world is a mom I can relate to who faces emotional, spiritual and physical battles that challenge me to face the giants in my life and look to the Lord. Besides that, her sword fighting scenes ring with metal clashes and adrenaline that captures me and keeps me up way too late at night.

Do you have any advice for other romantic suspense writers?

My advice for any type of writing is to let who God is and who you are flow through your fingers. That’s the uniqueness each writer brings to a story.

In terms of writing romantic suspense, one of the most important things an author can do is fully research their story. There are a ton of ideas tucked away in good research. Read biographies about and talk to people in your character’s professions. Some folks I’ve interviewed have shared great ideas for bringing together the suspense and romance plots just by telling stories of their lives.

I’d also suggest getting to know your characters well before you begin writing. Pray about each character’s basic lie. What do they believe about themselves? They’re unlovable? They’re not good enough? And also find out what they want most or hope with everything in them won’t happen. Knowing these things about your characters will enable you to write them well. Praying about them will help you see what God wants to do through your story to touch hearts and change lives.

Manage Profanity, Part 1

2008-04-21T11:09:00.003-05:00

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a care"

Doesn't quite work, does it? Give a rip? A flip? Frankly, my dear, I don't care one way or the other? Nah.

And yet in Christian fiction, profanity is verboten. The prim church ladies who enjoy inspirational fiction want to do so without having to expose themselves to foul language. So how do we portray characters who use profanity if we're not allowed to use it in our books?

Ah, one of the great dilemmas of writing Christian fiction.

Let me hasten to say that I actually agree with the prim church ladies. Having to read profanity in something I'm voluntarily reading, and for fun at that, kind of spoils the experience for me. Many people come to Christian fiction to have good stories but to be untouched by the vilest elements of the culture.

In my years in Christian publishing I have had a number of disagreements with fellow publishing professionals on this topic. Some feel—quite vehemently—that avoiding profanity is inherently dishonest. Inauthentic. The way to reach the lost, they argue, is to show lost people doing lost things and talking the way lost people do.

I acknowledge that this is a valid argument. However, I continue to disagree that CBA fiction ought to be laced with profanity. The audience CBA publishers reach, after all, is not the lost, no matter how we wish it were so. The audience we do reach doesn't want to read "that trash."

Other folks want to include a watered-down version of profanity. They want the PG-rated vocabulary, which usually has a 1-to-1 correlation with actual profanity.

Still other folks want to eliminate swearing in Christian fiction entirely. I'm of that school of thought.

However, that doesn't help us with our dilemma. How do you create profane characters without resorting to profanity? Or should you, um, dern the torpedoes and use the profanity the character would use?

In preparation for this Tip I surveyed some of my published Christian novelist friends to hear how they deal with this issue. Their solutions fell into six major categories.

Proposed Solution 1: Use All the Profanity You Want

You can always just let your foul characters talk the way they would really talk. Though it pain you (or not) to do so, you can simply let it all hang out there and hope your publisher will be "open-minded" enough to let it stay in the finished ms.

One problem with this is that your typical CBA publisher will never let you get away with this. And it's not because they're prudes.

See, all it takes is one complaint from a little old lady from Pasadena to the Christian bookstore where she bought the book, and your book is pulled from the shelves and sent back to the publisher in bulk. Along with a nasty letter about how the bookstore owner will never trust that publishing company again. That's bad.

A variation on this is to write your rough draft with all the profanity you think should be in there, and then come back through later and use one of the following solutions to trim it out.

Proposed Solution 2: Use Watered Down Profanity

In this solution you come as close to the real four-letter words as you can, often with alternate four-letter words that aren't perceived as being as bad as the originals. In other words, you let your characters be as foul-mouthed as you can possibly get away with, while always pushing the envelope.

I'm a big believer in Ephesians 4:29, which says we should allow no unwholesome word to proceed from our mouths, but only those words that work to build up or educate the hearer. However, I think that latter phrase will allow me to tell you what I mean here.

In this solution, you use words like crap and dang and heck and geez, all of which offend me personally but are in the daily vocabulary of many people who love the Lord with all their hearts, so I won't judge.

To me, this solution makes your characters seem like B-level foul-mouths. Like they'd like to really cuss but their moms won't let them. It's hard to make someone seem really foul when they always hold back from actual profanity.

In that sense, I think this solution actually works against what you're trying to do, which is create someone truly profane. They all seem like wimps.

Oh...pickle juice!

Proposed Solution 3: Write for Secular Publishers (or Self-Publish)

If you're so committed to authenticity in your art that you can't bear to write something besides what your foul characters would really say, then consider writing for a publisher that doesn't care about bad language.

Namely, a secular publisher. Sometimes you're not writing what these publishers want unless you've got profanity throughout your story. You could make the argument that writing for a secular publisher is how you can reach the lost with your fiction anyway, so maybe that's the path for you.

Self-publishing is another potential outlet for your profanity-laced fiction. Some Christian subsidy publishing houses (like WinePress or Creation House Press) would probably want to tone down the profanity in your book, but secular self-publishing companies don't care one way or another. So long as you don't say anything in your book that might get them in legal trouble, they're probably okay with whatever comes out of your characters' mouths.

Proposed Solution 4: Avoid Writing Profane Characters

When I asked this question of one of my friends and fellow Christian novelists, she had a sort of epiphany. She realized that because of this prohibition against profanity in Christian novels she'd simply avoided writing truly foul characters in her fiction.

Such characters had been on the fringe of her stories but she'd never written one into the middle of her story—which would've obligated her to face this dilemma.

You can do this, too. Probably the most elegant solution to how you can not have to decide whether or not to let your profane characters use profanity is to simply not write any profane characters. Problem solved.

You could make the case that avoiding a major kind of person in your stories puts a certain limit on your fiction and your storytelling, but that might not be a bad thing. We all limit our story choices anyway, choosing for instance not to write romance or horror or YA, so maybe this is the right solution for you.

Proposed Solution 5: Use Euphemisms

This is probably the most commonly employed solution to our dilemma. In this, you let characters be as foul-mouthed as you want them to be—you simply don't spell it out.

When Jerry learned of Mary's affair, he let us all know exactly how he felt about her character, her physical attributes, and choice aspects of her ancestry.

Louise's anger grew throughout the day. Finally, after kicking her toe on a table leg, she let loose with a string of profanity that left the ochre paint decidedly paler.

This kind of thing is the literary equivalent to how old movies used to handle sex scenes. The door shut and we faded to black. We knew what was going on, but it wasn't demonstrated for us onstage.

Incidentally, this is also the way old novels handled profanity. Here's an example from A Touch of Death, a 1953 novel by Charles Williams:

She didn't like me. And you could see the chords in her throat while she was telling me about it. "Shut up," I said.

In Internet parlance, we speak of meta-data. This is data about data. Metaknowledge is knowledge about knowledge. It's a way of describing something by taking one step back from the thing to tell us what it is and what attributes it has.

This solution to profanity is metaprofanity. It's information about the profanity. We don't see the swearing itself, but we see a description of the swearing.

You have to be more creative (and use more humor) to write this way. Anybody can write in a cuss word, but it takes real talent to give us the feeling of the cussing without literally spelling it out.

This is probably the solution you should use most of the time.

Proposed Solution 6: Invent a Language

You can't do this in most books, obviously. But when you write speculative fiction you have the opportunity to create a whole new language. That way, characters can be swearing a blue streak but because it's a made-up language, no one can possibly be offended.

The cancelled science fiction TV series Firefly does this. Sort of. The solution there is to use bits of Mandarin Chinese when the characters go off into cussing. Because in the far future the last great superpowers, the U.S. and China, merged, giving a certain merging of their languages.

It's quite convenient to have a swearing language at your disposal. You might be able to do this, too.

Firefly also uses made-up words not from Chinese. Characters say "gorram," which is obviously a euphamism for something else, but it's not actually cussing and therefore no one has grounds to be upset. Battlestar Galactica uses "frak," which again they get away with because it's technically not a word, though it's clear from usage what it means.

I'm inventing a language for my own epic fantasy. It's mostly English but I use synonyms for all kinds of things: a gnat is a neener, a squirrel is a scratch, and "okay" is "ulda."

I'm also allowing the characters to cuss like construction workers—but only in this nonsense language.

Snoog. Rhyne. Stelnate.

Are you offended? Exactly.

Two more things on this solution. First, there is a theory that a culture's swearing vocabulary arises in areas where that culture feels repressed. For instance, French Canadians use parts of a cathedral as their curse words: Oh, tabernacle! Holy sancrist! Apparently they felt oppressed by the church.

If you're making up a culture, why not use this theory to also make up a curse vocabulary that involves whatever they're feeling repressed by (or did feel repressed by back in the day when such things were being invented)?

In my story, my characters feel overly oppressed by high taxation. "Well, I'll be taxed" is a common epithet in their tongue.

Such a solution allows you to be as crass as you want using words or terms that are, in and of themselves, inoffensive.

Second, there is a wonderful Web site that creates new words from old ones. All you have to do is enter a fairly large pool of words—any words—and click a button. And boom, out comes a new set of scrambled words that sound vaguely like the original ones but are completely new.

Why not use this for your cursing vocabulary? I do.

In my fantasy I wanted to use words that sounded like church words but weren't. Here are some of the new words coined by this Web site: restate, sacle, baptudy, substion, and tesure. Cool, huh? Try it out.

Next Time

Okay, those are the main solutions for showing profane characters in Christian fiction. Hopefully, one is for you.

Next time I'll tell you what I think is the real issue and the challenge for you.

Jeff Gerke (a.k.a. Jefferson Scott www.jeffersonscott.com and www.wherethemapends.com )

Meet Darlene Franklin

2008-04-17T15:18:00.004-05:00

LISA: This week we're adding an extra interview, which means you have a chance to win another book! Welcome to Keep Me In Suspense, Darlene! What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

DARLENE: I have just sold my fourth book, plus one novella—and I have yet to receive a phone call!

Tracie Peterson (editor of Heartsong Presents at the time) emailed me the night before Thanksgiving in 2003 to let me know that they would publish my first book, Romanian Rhapsody (July 2005). Ever since that memorable holiday, I have checked my inbox eagerly on Thanksgiving eve to see if it happens again (so far it hasn’t.)

Susan Downs, editor of Heartsong Presents: Mysteries, IM’d me on the computer one morning, telling me she wanted to contract Dressed for Death.

I was alternately delighted and terrified. Delighted, because Susan was offering a contract. Terrified, because Dressed for Death was not the name of my book and I thought she had me mixed up with someone else. I felt so stupid when she reminded me that Dressed for Death was the name of the series; the contract was for the first book, Gunfight at Grace Gulch.

LISA: Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

DARLENE: When my first two proposals for cozy mysteries bombed, I knew I needed to come up with a winning idea. I returned to small town America, to the back roads of Oklahoma where I lived for six years, and to the western culture that provides the mythology of American literature. I also hoped to ride the publicity connected with Oklahoma’s recent centennial (November 2007), but the timing didn’t quite work.

Gunfight at Grace Gulch calls on that staple of Westerns—a gunfight—plus Oklahoma’s unique history of land runs. The fictional town of Grace Gulch celebrates Land Run Days every September; this year, they reenact the town’s most famous gunfight, only one of the players actually dies. Cici Wilde, owner of a vintage clothing store, decides to investigate when her sister and both of her boyfriends fall under suspicion.

LISA: I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

DARLENE: Poor Cici feels like the third wheel between her two larger-than-life sisters. In Gunfight, she excels as a sleuth and starts to accept herself when she realizes how much others love her.

I don’t have any siblings, but I often feel invisible. My daughter died recently; we received hundreds of emails, cards, gifts, flowers, from every corner of Denver and the United States, as well as around the world.

I no longer feel invisible. God showed me His loved through His people.

LISA: What a beautiful testimony, Darlene. I know your book will minister to many. What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

DARLENE: My progress has been slow but sure. I’ve been writing for over fifteen years, and now have some modest success.

Many times I have been tempted to quit. At one conference, I prayed earnestly about it. The answer I have received was this: Don’t worry about whether or not you’re supposed to be writing six years from now. What does God want you to do today?
God didn’t give me the entire timeline; He showed me the next step. He led me to write a book that has never been published, about the Montgomery bus boycott. That project took me almost two years. After that came something else. Six years after that conference, I am paid for almost everything I write.

LISA: Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

DARLENE: I hope to continue writing mystery/suspense; I love a good mystery, and now I write stories that others will read. I’ve enjoyed the western milieu of the Dressed for Death series, and hope to continue to mine the western culture for ideas.

My overarching dream is to leave my day job completely before I reach retirement age. I attended an excellent seminar, taught by Chip McGregor, on planning your writing career. He helped me think through what it will take to retire. Praise God, I’ve made an excellent start!

LISA: Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published?

DARLENE: With Gunfight at Grace Gulch, I am doing what I should have done when Romanian Rhapsody came out. In my defense, I didn’t know how. This time I am setting up book signings in several places, seeking speaking engagements, arranging for blog interviews and reviews, and hope to send out a press release.

I have learned most of this how-to from my critique partners (all professional writers) and the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) loop. It’s an invaluable resource.

LISA: Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

DARLENE: Become part of a local writing group—ACFW is a great one! But even a secular group will help you grow as a writer. Join a critique group, whether face-to-face or online. There are many free writing loops with great advice for beginning as well as professional writers. I regularly check Edit Cafe from the Barbour editors.

Sally Stewart’s annual Christian Writers Market Guide is a must. Join the Writers Digest book club and slowly build your library with volumes that speak directly to your interests. I have both “how to” books and reference books.

LISA: Thanks so much for joining us, Darlene! To find out more about Darlene and her books, including her latest cozy Gunfight at Grace Gulch, visit her website. To win a copy of Darlene's latest cozy mystery, be sure and leave a comment on this post.

Interview with Susan Page Davis

2008-04-14T12:50:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Pamela James. She's won a copy of Carol Steward's In His Sights! If you'd like a chance to win Witness, don't forget to comment below and leave your contact information.

LISA: I’d like to welcome back Susan Page Davis to our blog again. Susan has her plate full writing for Heartsong Presents, Heartsong Presents: Mysteries, Harvest House, and Love Inspired Suspense, but it’s no wonder as her books continue to captivate her readers over and over!

Welcome Susan! What are you working on right now?

SUSAN: Hi, Lisa. It’s great to talk with you again. I just finished writing my third book for the Love Inspired Suspense line. On a Killer’s Trail will release in February, 2009.

LISA: Tell us about your experience in breaking into the LIS line.

SUSAN: I tried for a long time to sell to LIS. I’m not sure what finally got me “in,” but my super agent, Chip MacGregor and a lot of persistence must have something to do with it.

LISA: What are the necessary ingredients for a LIS novel?

SUSAN: Of course you have to have suspense, starting immediately on the first page if possible, and continuing throughout the book. You also need romance. But it’s more than that. The characters need depth and inner conflict, beyond the romantic tension and the suspense plot. For instance, in On a Killer’s Trail, newbie reporter Kate and police detective Neil fall in love, but it takes a while. Neil is a new Christian, and he’s not sure he knows how to relate to a Christian woman. His family has rejected him and his new faith. Kate is so focused on her career that she doesn’t want to be distracted by a good-looking guy, especially one with a “bad boy” reputation. So we have the romantic attraction, but we also have reasons to keep it in check, and we have the murders Neil is trying to solve and Kate is reporting to the world. Lots of levels emotionally.

LISA: How do you balance the suspense thread with the romance thread?

SUSAN: One thing I sometimes have trouble with is keeping the romantic tension to almost the end of the suspense plot. If you let the couple declare their love too early, that tension is gone. It took me a while to understand why writers kept the hero and heroine apart (either physically or emotionally) so long, but I’m starting to “get it.” If I resolve the romance too early in an LIS-targeted book, the editor reminds me to keep that thread alive a little longer.

LISA: What is your method for developing your plots?

SUSAN: I usually think of a situation first—the opener zinger that starts the suspense plot. Once I have the basic idea, I think of how this event would affect the heroine’s life, and also the hero’s. I rough out a plot. At that point, I like to brainstorm with someone who thinks like me (or a little quirkier), loves suspense, and has a lot of energy. Sometimes that sparks ideas for clues, plot points, and cliffhangers that I might not have thought of. Then I write a detailed synopsis—usually longer than an editor wants, like eight to ten pages. This is my notes for the actual writing process. It may contain chapter synopses, notes on point of view, and even bits of dialogue. Then I trim it down to the shorter version I’ll send the editor.

LISA: What kinds of stories are LIS looking for/not looking for? (Or what do they like/don’t like from your experience`)

SUSAN: In my limited experience, they want stories about fairly young, savvy single women who find themselves in danger. The heroine must have a hand in the resolution of the suspense plot, not simply get rescued. The hero is not just a prop, however. He, too, must be a likable, somewhat intelligent person who is part of the solution process.

LISA: Any advice for authors wanting to break into this line?

SUSAN: Keep trying. And if you get a rejection, pay attention to any comments you get. When you think of a new idea for LIS, try to get that suspense going early and keep it going.

LISA: Susan is giving away a copy of her current LIS book, Witness, this week. Leave a comment below and you will be entered for our drawing next Monday. And be sure to visit Susan at her Website: www.susanpagedavis.com.

Carol Steward Interview

2008-04-07T13:02:00.006-05:00

Congratulations to Carolynn W! You've won a copy of Pamela Tracy's Broken Lullaby. To be entered in the contest to win a copy of this week's book, please post a comment below and be sure to include contact information.

1. Tell us about the book series, Reunion Revelations, and your book in the series.

Reunion Revelations brings friends back together at their 10-year college reunion. Soon thereafter, during a construction project, a skeleton is discovered. The classmates begin to try to figure out who the victim could have been. In the process they reveal dark secrets about several people on campus. In His Sights is the story of Dee Owens, a public relations specialist who is hired by the hero, Edgar Ortiz, Assistant Director of Admissions, to spin the damage caused by the murder investigation and accompanying scandals.

2. How did you get to know your hero and heroine for this book?

Dee and Edgar were probably the most challenging characters I've ever written, but once I figured out who they were, they let me tell their story. I worked in a college admissions office, so that part was easy. The toughest challenge was trying to understand how a PR specialist works. I did a lot of online research, then found out that one of the other authors of the series worked in PR in a previous career. That helped a lot.

3. What process do you use to write your novel? Are you a strict plotter, or do you allow for some surprises?

Writing a continuity series like this is very different than plotting out my own novels. With a large portion of the plot elements "required" by the outline the editors give us, we, as a group of authors, have to work together to figure out how to make the stories work together without ruining one or another story in the series. So yes, I had a stricter plot-line with this book. Even though the events of the story needed to be met, the characters truly drive the story in their own way, which allows for some great surprises.

4. What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Keeping the additional elements from the other author's books straight. Who knew what when, what we could and needed to say to lead into the following book was another challenge. Writing a continuity series is a lot of fun, a lot of work, and really stretches what you as an author believe about your own writing style. Most continuity series are by invitation from the editors, and since they give you the "overall story" it usually contains elements that I would normally never do. For example, in the first continuity I was asked to write, a child care provider kidnaps one of the children that she'd been hired to care for. Since I was a child care provider, writing it about killed me. However, I believe it did allow me to broaden my writing skills, and now, in my In the Line of Fire series of police officers, (whom I admire greatly, in spite of the bad ones that do exist) I am able to write conflict with a much more real feel to it.

5. Looking at the book list on your web sites, you have a lot of heroes in law enforcement. What’s been your best resource for research?

My father was a deputy sheriff, his father a sheriff, my husband worked summers as a seasonal park ranger and worked closely with full-time law enforcement of all types, and now my son is a police officer. I suspect that if I'd have been born a generation later that I would have realized sooner that I, too, could have been a police officer also. Yet even though I've been around law enforcement heroes all my life, I do a lot of research, from citizen's police academy, to interviews and ride alongs. Mostly, though, I think the reason it's worked for me is because I'm close enough, yet far enough away. I understand the law enforcement way of thinking, and in fact, it's deeply ingrained in me. Even though I'm not in law enforcement, I'm a great detective in my administrative duties. I dig for the truth. And somehow, I have a gut instinct that won't be still! I'm afraid my bosses wish I'd have gone into police work at times as well.

6. What are your current projects?

I'm working on my final book in the In the Line of Fire series, Shield of Refuge. After it is finished, I'm expecting my third grandchild, so I'll enjoy the summer and prepare for my cherished duties as grandma while the next book takes shape. I think it's going to be another suspense.

7. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Mainly maintaining a writing schedule. I work full-time at the Graduate School at the University of Northern Colorado, so I spend a lot of time at the computer, and that makes sitting down at the computer in the evening difficult some days. Okay, most days. Especially now, when I'm reviewing theses and dissertations for 8 hours, then coming home and trying to turn off the editor and become the writer. I try to take an hour or two to make dinner with my husband and kids and granddaughter who are living with us right now, and let the editor take a hike. Then, hopefully, when I get back to the computer, the creator is ready to get to work.

8. Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

I have several favorite authors, however, I don't make my reading choices simply by authors that I like. With such limited time, I read more to see where the market is going and try to learn something new about writing and see who the readers enjoy, too. I read almost exclusively romance now, but I'd also like to branch out and read more from other genres as well.

9. Do you have any advice for other romantic suspense writers?

The same for all writers, write what you believe, what you have a passion for, and what you want to read, and from there, do research to make the facts right and the story believable. The market moves too fast to try to write to follow a trend, and life is far too crazy to spend this much time doing something you don't enjoy!

Thanks for the interview Carol! You can visit Carol's website at: http://www.carolsteward.com/index.html

A Day in the Life of an FBI Special Agent – Part II

2008-04-03T23:17:00.000-05:00

Now that we’ve taken a look at the history of the FBI (“the bureau” for all of you who read part I), along with its structure, and congressional mandate, it’s time to take a look at a typical day in the life of an FBI Special Agent.

It may not be exactly what you expect.

The average agent in an average size field office (I will use Indianapolis since this is the office with which I am most familiar) will work approximately nine to fifteen cases at any one time. Typically, this case load will break down into thirds. One third will be under active investigation (leads being developed and pursued), one third will be moving through the legal system (prosecution underway by authority of the United States Attorney), and one third will have essentially grown stale with no new leads.

It is important to note that “stale” does not mean closed. A case isn’t closed until a suspect is arrested or can be reasonably presumed to be dead. Even the D.B. Cooper case is still in the news, and leads are still being pursued more than thirty years after the crime was committed.

So what does pursuing leads involve?

It is important to remember that the FBI is a national organization that investigates crimes that have national significance. A bank robber who hits a bank on the border between Indiana and Illinois, for example, is as likely to flee to the Indiana side of the line as he (or she) is to the Illinois side. Or worse, the robber could flee to California. But regardless of where the perpetrator flees, the office of jurisdiction is located where the crime was committed and the lead agent is designated as the Case Agent.

The Case Agent is the person who takes charge and coordinates the investigation. If our bank robber is discovered to have fled local jurisdiction (let’s say, for example, that the FBI determines that the robber has obtained a bus ticket for California), that information will be forwarded to the FBI office that is in the location closest to where the perpetrator is fleeing. Any new leads will be developed in California and followed up on there, but the original Case Agent will be kept apprised. If the suspect is apprehended in California, he will be extradited to Indiana where the Case Agent will follow the case through prosecution.

In turn, an agent in the Indianapolis office may be asked to interview the parents, friends, or classmates of a suspect in a California incident if it is discovered that the perp had such connections in the Midwest. The reason for this type of interoffice cooperation should be obvious.

On any given day, an FBI agent will arrive at the office at eight in the morning and will begin by reviewing the leads he has available in his “active” cases. Sometimes, following the leads will involve nothing more than a phone call or an interview with someone who has information or knowledge that the agent must have.

In other instances, following a lead may involve a surveillance (stake out) which may require the agent to sit in a car for hours on end. (Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?)

I remember an incident where we were maintaining surveillance on a suspect and sat all day in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen. After about six hours of this, the local police pulled up and wanted to know what we were doing. Apparently, the manager of the Dairy Queen took note of us and was very concerned.

In other instances, an agent may spend a great deal of his time developing a lead. This can be done by conducting thorough research, or contacting a snitch, or working someone who may have an axe to grind with your suspect. This isn’t the Boy Scouts, after all. You do what you have to do.

But there are other things happening in the agent’s day that may center on cases moving through the court system.

An agent may spend all day in court—on the stand—testifying about how he has conducted his investigation. He may spend the day in conference with an Assistant United States Attorney, preparing the case for trial. And just as often, he may be working with local police who are preparing their own cases and coordinating those with the agent’s federal case.

Or, as often as not, the agent may find himself working a lead for another agent who is investigating a case that is on the other side of the country, as we alluded to earlier.

In short, there is no typical day.

Neither is there a day in which the agent is totally safe.

In 1986, several FBI agents were conducting surveillances on several banks in Miami along a strip of Dixie Highway. They were looking for two men who had been hitting the banks every Friday afternoon, alternating their choices, but always staying within a couple of miles of each other. As fate would have it, a couple of agents happened to spot the two men and soon all the agents were following them. The result was one of the bloodiest shootouts in FBI history. The two suspects were killed, two FBI agents were killed, all but two of the agents were severely wounded, and one was paralyzed from the neck down. Over 140 shots were exchanged in a four minute period. That day, which began as typical as any other, ended up changing the way the FBI trains its agents for felony car stops, as well as other tactical training they now receive.

Agents rarely conduct interviews alone and often travel in pairs. There are two reasons for this. It helps to eliminate a “he said, I said” scenario, but it also serves as added protection for both agents. This isn’t always successful.

In 1975, while trying to serve arrest warrants, Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams came under fire as soon as they exited their vehicles. Both were shot multiple times. Their guns and credentials were taken and their bodies mutilated.

That day, too, began as typically as any other.

The job of an FBI special agent is often one of sheer boredom, followed by moments of intense and potentially life threatening action.

In short, there is no typical day in the life of an FBI agent. But there are no unrewarding ones either.

For more information: www.fbi.gov
www.brandtdodson.com

Great Beginnings

2008-03-27T21:43:00.002-05:00

One of the questions I usually ask when I interview authors on my blog (bethgoddard.blogspot.com) is, “What was the toughest part of the writing craft for you to learn?” Of course, we’re all individuals and everyone has a different answer, including how to overcome a particular struggle. My biggest struggle was and still is writing the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first sentence—a good hook. I’ve written first chapters numerous times and never been happy with them. I’ve resolved to tackle this problem with a vengeance and maybe one day I’ll write incredible hooks, so that I can teach a class at the local community college or at a writer’s conference, not to mention hook readers into my story.

First let’s explore why a good hook is vital. You’re a fiction writer. So it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine yourself as a busy Manhattan based editor for a large publisher. Multi-tasking is your middle name. You shuffle about your day while answering emails, playing office politics, completing deadlines, and all manner of editor tasks. Add to that, you have to find the next bestseller amidst the giant stack of agent-represented manuscripts. Still, you can’t help yourself. You simply must skim through the overwhelming mountain of unsolicited manuscripts because you’d never forgive yourself if you missed that one gem.

Already you take work home and read late into the night. You know exactly what you’re looking for—the ingredients are well defined and are your biggest aid in making it through the pile of manuscripts—both solicited and unsolicited. The one you’re searching for will pull you immediately into the story and before you know it, you’ve read ten pages. If it doesn’t, the author isn’t skilled enough to handle an entire novel, no matter the big-name agent representing her.

Now do you see how critical this is? Do you need to rewrite your beginning? Let me encourage you to work through the entire manuscript first if you’re unpublished, then go back to the hook. I spent so much time rewriting my first chapters to get them right, I could have written the entire novel. In my opinion, it would have given me more to work with in terms of writing the hook.

A good hook requires knowing where to start your story and perhaps that’s an article for another day. For the purposes of this article we know where to start the story and now we’re working on how.

The answer of how to hook the reader or editor from the start is to write something that rouses curiosity, makes them ask questions. According to Dwight Swain, “you present your material in terms that indicate you are leading up to something. This demands that you state and/or imply:

1) Uniqueness
2) The unanticipated
3) Deviation from routine
4) A change about to take place
5) Inordinate attention to the common place.

Swain gives us a set of examples that fall into each category. By the way, these categories will almost certainly overlap. Instead of giving his examples, I’ve decided to ask you to consider this an exercise to test your hook writing abilities. For each of the above categories, write an opening hook. I’ll go first.

1) The phone calls began that Sunday.
This Sunday afternoon is unique because of the phone calls.

2) The head of a Rottweiler was mounted on the veterinarian’s office wall.
Seeing an animal’s stuffed head on a veterinarian’s wall is unexpected/unanticipated.

3) Mr. Connors walked past the door to his accounting offices, Connors & Connors, where he’d worked every Monday through Friday for twenty-five years.

Clearly, Mr. Connor’s has deviated from his routine.

4) Her lawyer left an urgent voice mail.

We know something is about to change for her.

5) The air conditioner rattled on in the window, drowning out all other noises.

This is drawing attention to the mundane as though it’s important.

Granted, these are not the best hooks, but you understand what I mean. I had fun writing them. There is no story behind them but already my mind is spinning tales based on these first lines. Don’t limit yourself to this list for writing hooks, these five categories are only meant as a possible starting place.

I recommend reading The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. Lukeman says ,“What is rarely discussed is the importance of the hook not only as an opening line but as an opening paragraph, not only as an opening paragraph but as an opening page, not only as an opening page but as an opening chapter.” He goes on to say the hook is equally important at the end of a paragraph, page or chapter. You want your reader to come back for more.

But let’s get back to great beginnings. I’ve listed a few real hooks I found listed on The Edit Café

(http://editcafe.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html)

· You might as well know that Sue Jan and I are fat. I don’t know which one of us is fatter, but we wear the same size clothes.

· Being named in Great-grandma’s will was like hitting bankrupt on Wheel of Fortune. The whole family held their breath while the wheel ticked around and around--or rather while the lawyer opened the envelope. Then they all heaved a sigh of relief when the wheel stopped on Carrie’s name.

· When the desk clerk first mentioned Stefan Lauber's death, I didn't react. The truth is, I was only half-listening.

· No matter how old I get, when I stand in front of the doors of Four Oaks High School, I’m threatened by flashbacks. Some of my high school memories are good, but too many have to do with the rampaging insecurities that consumed me at the time.

· I marched into church on Sunday— not to search for God, but to find a killer.

Have fun trying to come up with a great first line. Then put that much effort into the first paragraph, the first page and so on.

Happy Writing.
Elizabeth (Beth) Goddard

Writing Challenge winner!

2008-03-25T07:08:00.002-05:00

A big thank you to the authors who participated in our writing challenge! We were looking for something that grabbed our attention in the first paragraph and made us want to read more. A pretty tall order, I know!

While our judges were pretty split on the winner, the unique and fresh opening written by Ed Horton about a black clad Pillsbury dough boy gets the prize. Congratulations, Ed! You've won a copy of Recipe for Murder by Lisa Harris.

Here are some final questions to ask yourself when you look at the opening of your own work in progress.

1. Is your opening tight and to the point?
2. Do you use any clichés?
3. Have you given a clear sense of location?
4. Have you started your story in the best place?
5. Is your wording clear?
6. Does your opening portray the correct tone?
7. Do your sentences contain a variety of grammatical structures?
8. Have you included any back story? (Don’t!)
9. Does it sound like the opening of other novels you’ve read? (In other words, is it fresh? Or too ordinary?)

I know at least one person (sorry Renee) missed the cut of for the voting, so let us know by leaving a comment if you'd like to see more writing challenges!

The KMIS team

Interview with Pamela Tracy

2008-03-24T15:44:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Hannah for winning a copy of Lynette Sowell's A Suspicion of Strawberries. Be sure to check back tomorrow to find out who the winner of the writing challenge is! If you'd like to enter the contest to win a copy of Broken Lullaby don't forget to post a comment below.

This week we welcome back author Pamela Tracy. Here’s what Pam had to say about her new Love Inspired Suspense novel, Broken Lullaby:

Growing up in a mob family had scarred Mary Graham. She'd thought running away would ensure her son didn't face the same horrors. But after three years on the lam the single mom couldn't live that way anymore. So she'd come back home to Broken Bones, Arizona - and found herself at the center of a baby brokering scandal. To prove her innocence and help a grieving mother, Mary had to turn to her family's nemesis- a cop... a cop named Mitch Williams. He'd been after her family for years, so could she trust him to have her best interest at heart?

What's really cool about Broken Lullaby is it is a Romantic Times Magazine March Top Pick. I'm a goal setter, and earning a top pick from RT has always been a milestone I'd hoped to achieve.

Congratulations! That is a great achievement.
Why did you decide to write about the mob? Wasn’t that a little scary? What sort of references did you use?

Rosa's story, Pursuit of Justice, was an idea I had that came to me with a beginning, middle, end. That rarely happens to me. I usually have beginning and end but no middle. So, technically, I didn't decide to write about the mob... it was decided for me. When I really think about it, though, the mob isn't a character in my books, it's more a background: a shadow per se. Rosa is fleeing from it... she witnessed something she shouldn't. In the second book, The Price of Redemption, Eric is fleeing from it. Unlike Rosa, it really isn't chasing him. It's more baggage than black moment. In Broken Lullaby, Mary is fleeing from it, just like Eric, and it really isn't chasing her. Again, more baggage than black moment. The mob is scary, but society has always been fascinated by the intricacies of organized crime. As for references, my characters were 'not' involved in the mob, so I didn't have to learn the world. I did read a lot about Sammy the Bull. He entered the witness protection program and came to the Phoenix area and really wasn't too secretive about his real name. Lots of press. Then, I researched mafia association because both Eric and Mary were children of a boss.

For your LIS books, how do you keep the suspense coming, page after page?

I wish I really knew a precise answer to this question. I'd be rich. I'm really big on chapter endings. I want every chapter to end with a 'gasp' moment. The spiral notebook (November's interview) I keep helps because I jot ideas down for the future. Every book idea I have comes with about half the plot ready. I'm lucky that way (Of course, during the first revision, half my ideas wind up on the cutting floor). The other half is the chore. I'm not a plotter. I don't write outlines. I also have to (I mean really half to) write in order. I write chapter one, then chapter two... some of my friends skip around. To me, writing out of order is like leaving the bed unmade or not putting ketchup on the hamburger... simply not done. If I don't have a good chapter end, I stop writing (unless the book is due in the morning). Usually somewhere - either the shower, the car, or while I'm chasing my three-year-old - I'll come up with a brand new twist. The brand new twist will usually take me through about three more chapter endings. In Broken Lullaby, Alma having twins was an idea that didn't come until I was about 1/3 of the way through the book. In The Price of Redemption, the homemade bullets came to me while I was eating at an old restaurant that had all kinds of antiques on the wall. I think it was Cracker Barrel. In Pursuit of Justice, Rosa's escape from jail and the scalding water came from a newspaper article I read.

How do you dig deep for the internal conflicts of your main characters—beyond the surface mystery?

I remember a talk Donna Dixongave years ago, this was when I hadn't published yet, and she said, "If your hero’s a fireman, make your heroine a pyromaniac." Of course, the heroine cannot really be a pyromaniac. It's the chance that she is... that keeps the reader reading. Or, it's the reader knowing something the hero doesn't that keeps the reader reading. In Pursuit, Rosa is not only a 'wanted' criminal in Sam's eyes, but she's wanted for killing his partner's son. In Redemption, Eric is not merely the man who finds Ruth's husband's body, he's also a member of the mob family who are suspected of ridding the area of her husband. He's also a man Ruth (against her better judgment) helped get 'out' of jail. And then he finds her husband's body! Hmmm. In Broken, Mary's not just a woman who stumbles upon a baby brokering scheme, she's also a woman who disappeared for three years because she feared her own son would be 'taken' from her. Mitch had a sister 'taken' from him. These plot points, more than anything, at first push the romance away, but then cause the H/H to battle together, and that which doesn't kill us makes us strong, especially in romantic suspense.

You’ve mentioned using a spiral notebook for laying out plot points and details for each book. Is this system still working for you?

It's the only tool I've found that works for me, and I get angry at myself when I don't keep it up because it causes me to waste time looking for a name I used in chapter two. Worse, the notebook gets buried, and so I grab a piece of paper and make new columns and then wind up having to spend time transferring two or three rough columns into the 'real' column. Of course, while I'm transferring, I come up with new ideas, so in the long run, I win.

Some of your towns are fictional. Is that easier than using a real town? What are the pros and cons?

I've been sitting here thinking about this, and I'm wondering if any of my settings are 'real'. Broken Bones, Arizona, is really Congress, Arizona. Gila City is really a combination of Gila Bend and Yarnell. I refer to Phoenix and Payson and such (real places) but they’re usually referred to during travel not as a place to 'stay'. In Grand Canyons Brides, we used the Grand Canyon, so there's one time I used a real place. I like fictional towns because I can put what I need where I need it. I do lots of combining. The two-story jail I have in Broken Bones is really a two-story jail from another small AZ town.

As a multi-published author, how do you keep records pertaining to your published books? Do you have a system for keeping track of the royalty statements, fan mail, and publicity efforts for each book?

For business dealings, I have a file cabinet and I keep a file for each publisher. I haven't sold to Kensington since early 2000, so no more file. For Barbour, there's a file, and for Harlequin there's a file. For fan mail, I have a notebook. I kept every piece, and I also log the address into my computer. For publicity, I save information on the computer. I probably don't do enough with fan mail and publicity. Besides being a wife and mother, I have a full time job (school teacher). I write from 5:30 - 7:30 a.m. The rest of my day is work and family. Then, there's church and housework and...

You write novellas, romance, and suspense. What’s up next for your readers?

We've talked quite a bit about suspense, but after this March release of Broken Lullaby, I have a Love Inspired romance coming out next January called Daddy for Keeps. It's about a small town girl and a bull rider. It's more or less a secret baby plot. It's set in Texas (I lived there for six years). Yup, it's set in a fictional town which is a combination of Abilene (my all time favorite place in Texas) and a small town here in AZ. Right now, I'm hoping to sell a three book proposal to the suspense line, this time set in Nebraska - my home state. Go Cornhuskers!

Sounds good! Anything else you’d like us to know?

If you want it bad enough, work for it. If you work hard enough, it will happen. Don't let yourself think that shortcuts lead to success.

How can your readers learn more about you and your books?
Here's my website

http/www.PamelaKayeTracy.com

And here's my blog. The neat thing about it is it got mentioned in CBA Retailers Magazine.

http://ladiesofsuspense.blogspot.com/

Thanks ever so much for interviewing me!

Pamela

Posted by Susan

The FBI – Knowing the Facts for Better Fiction (Part I)

2008-03-20T22:44:00.001-05:00

Ever since the events of 9-11, the FBI has been brought to the forefront of the American stage in a way it hasn’t since the death of J. Edgar Hoover. The public’s growing fascination with the Bureau is further fed with news articles, television reports, and non-fiction books that often have their facts wrong and show little regard for the truth. Facts not withstanding, the Bureau is finding itself at the center of a great deal of mystery and suspense fiction, often in roles that the FBI does not fill and in ways that are …well, purely fiction. But even fiction has its basis in fact. Research that is well done – and by that I mean, accurate – can give added verisimilitude that will take the reader to a deeper level of understanding and be entertaining at the same time. Having been employed with the FBI, I often cringe at the inaccurate perceptions most authors have of the Bureau and how little time it would have taken to get the facts straight.

So let’s take a look at the FBI. Your FBI. Lets see how it’s organized, how it operates, and what it takes to become an FBI Special Agent.

The FBI began as the BI (Bureau of Investigation) in 1908, and its agents were not authorized to make arrests or carry weapons. In essence, it served as little more than a political arm of the party that was in power, and was used to bring the full might of the government to bear on its enemies. Ultimately, the Bureau (as it is still known today) was so corrupt that the Department of Justice became known as the Department of Injustice. The press picked up on that, and in one story, reported the testimony of a BI agent who told a congressional committee that he had broken into the offices of U.S. Senators and rifled through their desks so that he could find “anything that could embarrass them”. That testimony, and the resultant media exposure, led President Coolidge to fire the Attorney General and hire a new person for the job. The new Attorney General was Harlan Fiske Stone, former Dean of the Columbia University Law School. Stone, in turn, hired assistant BI director J. Edgar Hoover, a twenty-nine year old lawyer, to direct the BI.

For all of his faults, alleged or otherwise, Hoover did a tremendous job in restructuring the FBI and elevating it into the agency it is today. He insisted on upgrading the techniques of investigation, incorporating the “new” technology of fingerprint science, along with building and developing a laboratory and criminal database. In 1933, President Roosevelt reorganized the Department of Justice and increased the responsibility of the BI At that point, the name Federal Bureau of Investigation came into being and the BI was hence known as the FBI. But Hoover wanted more. He insisted that his agents be known as Special Agents, and that they be allowed to make arrests and carry firearms. It took an act of Congress to authorize the latter, but when it was completed in 1934, the FBI stepped into the modern age.

Today, the FBI is headquartered in Washington D.C. in the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building. To those in the bureau, this location is referred to as SOG (the Seat of Government). In fact, even today, if a message is sent to a field office with the closing caption, “Secure Bureau interests,” it is known to mean that SOG sees this as more than a typical investigation and that a great deal is at stake.

Headquarters is home to the FBI Director and a number of Assistant Directors. Each Assistant Director heads a special division. In addition to SOG, the Bureau currently has 56 field offices which are typically located in larger cities. Some of these offices, like the New York City office, for example, are lead by an Assistant Director. But most are lead by a Special Agent who acts in the role of SAC (Special Agent in Charge). Lets look at this level more closely.

The typical field office is located in a federal building, or in some cases, a free-standing building, and will usually house a hundred or more Special Agents. The SAC is the boss – no question about it. But under the SAC there is an Assistant Special Agent (ASAC), who typically oversees the Squad Supervisors. Each squad within a field office is assigned a certain type of case to investigate and those agents within that squad will usually work those kinds of federal violations to the exclusion of all others. There are exceptions to this however, particularly in smaller field offices. For example, in the office where I worked, the Security Squad was assigned matters of national security. This included such items as espionage, terrorism, etc. But other federal crimes, such as the misuse of the Smokey the Bear emblem (yep, that’s right. I kid you not), had to end up on a squad too, so the Security Squad at my particular field office took those cases. (I can’t think of a single instance when we investigated that particular “crime”.) Other squads handled their own matters such as violent crimes (unlawful flights, bank robberies, etc.), while others handled softer, yet no less criminal acts, such as embezzlement, ID theft, bank fraud, etc.

Each field office has a Legal Advisor, an agent who is also an attorney, to advise the SAC and ASAC on relevant matters. Additionally, there are secretaries, clerks, and Investigative Clerks. If you’ve read about the espionage of FBI Special Agent Robert Hansen, or have seen the movie, you will recall that it was a clerk who investigated him and ultimately brought him down. In my particular field office, we even had a full-time mechanic who maintained Bureau cars, and other individuals who maintained our electronic equipment. It takes a lot of support to run a field office because a lot goes on there.

Most field offices also have sub-divisions, known as Resident Agencies (RA), which are located within the smaller towns of a particular region and that report to the Field Office. Typically, an RA will have anywhere from 1 to 30 Special Agents. This structure allows the FBI to extend its reach and be nearly anywhere in the U.S. at the same time. But regardless of how accessible the FBI is, none of this can be successful without the Special Agent.

An FBI Special Agent must be 23-36 years of age at the time of appointment, have a degree in accounting, law, the physical sciences, or a foreign language for which the Bureau has a need. If the applicant has another type of degree and can show three or more years of experience in that field, they will also be invited to apply.

The application process is onerous. It begins with the completion of a twelve page form that touches on nearly every part of the applicant’s life. After this is completed, a written test is administered, followed by a physical test, then a “specialty” test in accounting, law or language, to document that the applicant has what it takes to succeed in those areas. After this, an oral interview is given. If all of this is passed, a thorough background investigation is conducted. This can be disconcerting. Just before I was hired, I had people I hadn’t seen for a long time contact me to say “the FBI was asking about you”.

Once the applicant is hired he/she must complete 16 weeks at the F.B.I. academy at Quantico, Virginia. During this time, the new agent is taught the basics of investigation, photography, fingerprinting, report writing, and suspect and witness interviewing. After all, you can never get two witnesses to agree on anything. In addition, training in all types of firearms and hand-to-hand self-defense is given. During their time at the academy, the new agents will also participate in practical testing at Hogan’s Alley, a Hollywood-type set that depicts a typical town. Arrests and raids will be conducted there, as well as shoot-don’t-shoot scenarios. A new agent must qualify (shoot a minimum score) with their weapon three times before they can graduate. But when they’ve completed the course, they are awarded their badge and credentials and sworn into office. After that, they are assigned to their first field office for a one year probationary period. During this time, they will be mentored by a senior agent, and will have the opportunity to put their academic training into use.

Next Time … a typical day with an FBI Special Agent
Article thanks to Brandt Dodson: www.brandtdodson.com
Check out his new book. . .White Soul

A writer's challenge!

2008-03-18T14:54:00.003-05:00

We decided that it’s time we heard from you, our readers! Here’s this week’s challenge. As we all know, that first paragraph, as well as the first chapter of a novel, is vitally important in catching an editor’s eye. Here are some things to think about.

1. You want the opening paragraph to grab your reader immediately. This means NO back story up front. (In fact, no back story at all in the first chapter is preferred.)
2. Make the reader ask “What happens next?” If you can’t keep them reading the first few paragraphs you’re sunk.
3. Use straight forward language. This is not the time for the reader to have to pull out the dictionary
4. Use your opening paragraph to set the tone of the story. Is this a mystery, a romance, a thriller? The opening pages, and especially that opening line, is the place to start the feel of the book.

So now it’s your turn. Post a comment with an opening paragraph from your current work in progress, or simply write one that’s guaranteed to catch an editor’s (and our) attention. We’ll announce our favorite entry next Monday and send the winner a signed copy of Recipe for Murder.

So come on now, don’t be shy! Let's hear from you.

The KMIS team

Research, Research, Oh How I Love Research – Part III

2008-03-13T21:44:00.001-05:00

Now that you’ve seen just a few of the national organizations that have helpful websites, let’s look at where you can find legal information.

Looking for plot ideas? Check out http://www.lawyersusaonline.com/. This website contains articles about cases and trends from around the United States.

WWW.Law.com is another site that contains links to legal stories from across the country. It can be a great place to find quirky court cases and stories about judges and attorneys to flesh out your characters.

Now I haven’t used this site, but www.lawguru.com looks like it could be another helpful starting point. You may be able to find background information there that will help you grasp the background before approaching an attorney with questions.

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell University (http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Legal_research) is an EXCELLENT source of background material on legal issues. This page: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Category:Overview leads to overview articles on a host of legal issues. Have questions about child support? Start there. How about probate and wills? You guessed it – go there first. Many of the initial questions I’m asked could be answered if the person searched for an article here first. The general page breaks the law into federal and state issues and gives a helpful overview. I STRONGLY encourage you to start your legal research here.

In the right hand column of each topic, LII provides links to federal, state and other resources. It will take you straight to the relevant code or agency. This can be a huge help!

Don’t forget Federal Agencies. Here’s a short list to get you started:

o Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/
o Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: www.eeoc.gov
o Internal Revenue Service: www.irs.gov
o Department of Commerce: http://www.commerce.gov/
o Department of Defense: http://www.defense.gov/
o White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
o Library of Commerce: http://thomas.loc.gov/
o National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/
o House of Representatives: www.house.gov
o US Senate: www.senate.gov
o US Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us/
o Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/
o Federal Judiciary: http://www.uscourts.gov/

Again, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but hopefully this will help you get started as you research federal legal issues.

www.caraputman.com

Interview with Lynette Sowell!

2008-03-09T15:54:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Tony Dell for winning a copy of Another Stab at Life. If you'd like a chance to win a copy of A Suspicion of Strawberries, post a comment below along with your contact information.

Today I’d like to welcome Lynette Sowell to our blog. Her first cozy mystery, A Suspicion of Strawberries is being released this month from Heartsong Present: Mysteries.

Here’s what Lynette had to say.

Lisa: Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for this series and about the first book.

Lynette: I found the setting for my series Scents of Murder when we visited my husband’s family in Tennessee about three years ago. The small town flavor and quirky characters sprang from the small town nestled along the Tennessee River.

Lisa: How did you come up with your heroine’s career?

Lynette: When I visited All Lathered Up, a soap store in Salado, Texas, I knew I’d found my heroine’s specialty. As Andromeda Clark changes over the course of three books, so does her business—but the fruit theme runs throughout. Andi Clark isn’t much of a cook, but she does learn how to can preserves in book two. I had to give Andi time to grow, and really find out what she hoped and feared, and find her flaws, too. She’s empathetic and can put herself in people’s shoes. But sometimes she’s wrong, and that doesn’t help her sleuthing.

Lisa: What are the challenges of writing a series? What is the fun part?

Lynette: One challenge is making sure the main character grows and changes in each book. As I followed Andi’s journey, I discovered new skills she had, and new obstacles in her life. Those discoveries make it fun. Unless, of course, a character won’t cooperate. I had a secondary character who refused to be the victim in book three. If you’ve seen the movie “Stranger Than Fiction,” you’ll understand when I say she ran away screaming from me and I couldn’t kill her off. And so she became Andi’s sidekick.

Also, while writing about the same town and setting, I wanted to include new facets of Greenburg, Tennessee. I didn’t want to rehash the same scenes from other books. Also, for me, it’s important that each story stands on its own.

Lisa: What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

Lynette: Diligence! It’s one thing when a writer is talented, but I’ve seen incredibly talented writers passed over. And I’ve seen some give up. The race doesn’t go to the swiftest and brightest all the time, but one thing for sure, diligence has its rewards. And I believe the more diligent we are, the better writers we become.

Lisa: Any words of advice on writing a cozy mystery?

Lynette: Think of a cozy mystery as a game you’re playing with readers. Sure, they’re going to figure some things out, and that’s okay. But keep the puzzle in mind as the story goes along. And have fun. Make sure you remember the elements of a cozy. When I was writing book two, I had to chop and edit parts at the end because it read too much like a suspense.

Lisa: How do you keep track of clues and red herrings?

Lynette: I have a list of suspects and include the villain at the bottom. The red herrings are on that list too, and some naturally occur as the story goes along. I always try to think of the reader. Readers are smart, and like I said earlier, they’ll keep track of whatever sounds suspicious…even if it isn’t. And some people may have had a motive to kill the victim, but that doesn’t mean they acted upon it—even if they had the means and opportunity.

Lisa: Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

Lynette: I am a huge fan of romantic suspense and speculative fiction as well. One day, I’d love to write a book that combines both. I’m not there yet, but maybe in the future. Like I mentioned before, diligence!

Lisa: Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published?

Lynette: Be persistent. Soak up learning at writers’ conferences, or if you can’t attend a conference, buy the CDs. Most of the time you can go to a conference’s web site and see a whole list of workshops on CD. And while you learn, don’t forget to write, and finish what you write. Plus, if you’re interested in writing for a particular publisher, read what they publish. Get a feel for the story structure and flavor. Oh, and find a good critique group. Once you find the right mix, you’ll keep spurring each other on to bigger and better things.

Lisa: Any advice on juggling a job and writing?

Lynette: Wow, I’m still learning that juggle. I treat writing as my part-time job. If I want to keep it, I have to show up. I work a 40-hour-plus work week Monday through Friday and often a few hours on Saturday. So I write evenings and weekends, while trying to juggle family and church, too. My kids aren’t small anymore, but I’ve raised them to be pretty independent. I also am blessed with a husband who’s not helpless in the domestic realm. I realize that I don’t have to be perfect at housework, or be a perfect mom or wife, but simply show up.

Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Lynette. Be sure and check out her website at www.lynettesowell.com

And leave a comment below (with contact information) for a chance to win a copy of Suspicions of Strawberries!

What Do You Call a Hall on a Ship?

2008-03-06T23:43:00.003-05:00

I’m working on a military themed suspense book right now. It’s my third one featuring Navy characters, and the research at times seems endless. I wonder if I’ll ever get it right! That’s because I’m a landlubber, even though my Dad was a naval officer and my brother was a career Coast Guard officer.

So how have I gotten through three books about military personnel without knowing anything firsthand about the military? Four ways:

1. Ask people. My brother has helped me a lot with these books, but there have been times when I had to call in the big guns. No, not my nephew, Michael. He’s a Marine, but I don’t think he’s spent much time on ships. I was talking about the official public liaison in Washington, D.C. I didn’t know there was such a thing, so I called the local Navy recruiter. He told me who to call with my questions. And the lieutenant who dug up the answers for me was very pleasant and helpful.

2. If at all possible, try to get someone who served in the branch of the service you are writing about to preview your book. This isn’t always possible—don’t I know it! I’ve even offered to pay someone and somehow it didn’t work out. Oh, well. I fall back on:

3. Websites. The U.S. Navy’s official Websites are a lot of help. Uniforms, ships, statistics of all sorts...from how long the runway on an aircraft carrier is to what a seaman has in his sea bag. But they don’t tell you everything. Like when does an ensign salute a commander? Or what do you call a hallway on a ship. Okay, I asked my brother that one. Passageway! Duh. (And stairs are ladders, in case you’re wondering).

4. Books. This is the biggie for me. I can browse over them any time I want, carry them to appointments with me, snatch a few pages before going to sleep. The books I’ve found most helpful in writing this series include the following:

*A Civilian’s Guide to the U.S. Military, by Barbara Schading. Good for basic info on all branches of the service, but again, it won’t tell you everything. It will tell you what the ranks, pay scales, insignia, and uniforms are for each branch; official songs, things like that; organization of each branch and equipment used, its history and how to join. It has a chapter on special forces and one on the Geneva Conventions. A large section tells you what all those military acronyms mean (well, maybe not all, but a lot). The glossary and equipment section are very helpful.

*Ultimate Special Forces, by Hugh McManners. Oh, yeah! This big coffee table book is really cool! Color photos of worldwide special forces including the United States’s Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Marines, airborne forces, and Delta Force. Foreign elite units include the British SAS and Royal Marines, Israeli paratroopers, Russian Spetsnaz, French Foreign Legion, Australian SAS, German GSG-9, and French GIGN. There’s lots more, like photos of weapons these units use, and historical notes, selection and tactical procedures. Lots of great stuff here.

*Deadly Fighting Skills of the World, by Steve Crawford. This large paperback is heavy on photos and drawings. You, too, can learn about ambushes, assassination, infiltration, night fighting, sabotage and booby traps, sniping, silent weapons, and much more. I’m afraid my 15-year-old son will find this book! He’s already a blue belt in karate. I’m not sure I want him to know how to take on armored pursuers or use a flamethrower. But it’s been great for my heroes and heroines.

*U.S. Army Combat Skills Handbook, brought to us by the Department of the Army. This book is supposedly what real soldiers use, but it looks like a trade paperback (large format) to me. LOTS of diagrams. Learn how to dig—er, that’s build—a fighting position (looks like a trench to me). Lots of nitty gritty info on camouflage, moving in combat situations, intelligence and counterintelligence, first aid, mines, demolition, tracking, survival. . .a lot of things the others don’t cover. Stuff like how to make a toothbrush and the fascinating (short) appendix on “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.” (Basically, do those things.) It’s sort of like a Boy Scout handbook with tanks.

*Navy SEALs, A History, by Kevin Dockery, and Warrior Elite and The Finishing School, by Dick Couch. Okay, I haven’t actually used these much yet, but they look good. If you are going to write about Navy SEALs, you probably need specific books like these. So far I haven’t written about SEALs, but I figure these books will give me the flavor of naval special forces. And if you’re writing about other branches or special services, go hunting on Amazon for books specifically about that group. It’s amazing what’s out there if you look!

Now, go write something. That’s an order.

Susan (http://www.susanpagedavis.com/)

Interview with Anita Higman!

2008-03-03T22:49:00.004-05:00

Today we’re chatting with Anita Higman whose cozy mystery Another Stab at Life releases through Heartsong Presents Mysteries. If you'd like to be entered in the drawing to win Another Stab at Life, please post a comment below with your contact information.

Award-winning author Anita Higman has twenty books published for adults and children, and she has five more coming out. She's contributed to nine nonfiction compilations and was selected as a Barnes & Noble "Author of the Month" for Houston.

Ms. Higman has also written for radio, television, newspaper, ezine, advertising, and animation. She enjoys giving speeches and presentations at conferences, meetings, and schools.

She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech communication, art, and psychology. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Christian Humor Writers' Group.

Anita was born and raised on a farm in Western Oklahoma but has lived in Texas for the past twenty-three years. Besides writing, her other interests include reading, going to the movies, and cooking brunch for her friends. She lives with her family near Houston, Texas.

Now, here’s Q&A with Anita:

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to be a writer. But there was one big obstacle to that goal—I lacked the confidence. Then when I was thirty years old I decided I’d finally give it a try. I had no idea at the time how really hard writing would turn out to be. In fact, I might have taken another serious pause. But in the end after twenty-one books and about that same number of years in the writing business, I’m glad I took that first step. Now you might ask, “Well, did you ever get your confidence?” I would reply, “There are still days I question my abilities to write. I think I always will always doubt myself from time to time. But it never paralyzes me enough to think I can’t do it. I dig in and get the job done no matter what. Because that’s what writers do.

Tell us about your book series.

Another Stab at Life is the first installment in The Volstead Manor Series. This is a series of three cozy mysteries with a fun gothic, chick-lit feel. So, if you’re looking for something different this might interest you. Oh, and two more aspects of the novels I forgot to mention is that they’re about Prohibition, and they’re all contemporary. I hope these details have caused your curiosity meter to rise.

How did you get to know your hero and heroine?

I’m sure this sounds like a rather boring process, but I fill out character bio sheets on my main characters. These sheets go beyond eye and hair color, etc. and included questions like, “What is your greatest fear?” or “What embarrasses you?” or “Who is your best friend?” In addition to the bio sheets I interview my characters. This sounds kind of strange, but somehow it works.

What process do you use to write your novel? Are you a strict plotter, or do you allow for some surprises?

I start with a synopsis, which is usually several pages long, and then I let myself go off on tangents if I think it will help the story. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed with a synopsis totally. There are just too many fun and clever things that can happen along the way if you’re open to them and not tied too tightly to an outline.

What book are you reading now?

I just finished reading Steve Martin’s autobiography entitled, Born Standing Up. It was funny and honest and moving, particularly the part where Mr. Martin writes about the healing process with his father.

Who is your favorite author and what really strikes you about their work?

Jane Austen’s work is absolutely delicious. Once when I was reading Pride and Prejudice I had to get back out of bed and read some more because I was so swept up in the novel. And this was after I’d seen the movie many times! Her work is full of humor, beautiful language, and well-developed and relatable characters.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

I’m certain you’ve read this advice before, but here are a few basics. This business takes tremendous patience. When it comes to the long waits, one way to control your frustration is to think of the writer’s life as a long journey. If you’re seeking fame and fortune and a way to impress your in-laws you might want to rethink this profession. You need to have a passion for writing no matter the weather. No matter the piles of rejections. Practice is another key to success in this business. Write every day if you can, even if it’s only for an hour. Also reading all kinds of books can be a great help, even if it’s not in the genre you’re writing in. These tips sound simple—lots of reading and writing and patience—but I think they’re still important elements in a writer’s life.

By the way, I just hired a production company to create a book trailer for Another Stab at Life. I hope you’ll drop by and check it out at www.anitahigman.com. Another Stab at Life will be released to the Heartsong Presents Mysteries book club members in March, and then it will go to the bookstores in September. But if you’re really anxious to buy a copy right now, please call Barbour Publishing at 800-852-8010.

Thanks, Anita! Readers, if you get a chance, hop over to Anita’s web site and see her book trailer.

If you'd like to be entered in the drawing to win a copy of Another Stab at Life, please post a comment.

Interview with Lynette Eason!

2008-02-24T23:51:00.005-05:00

Join me in welcoming Lynette Eason!

Lynette Eason grew up in Greenville, SC. Her home church, Northgate Baptist, had a tremendous influence on her during her early years. She credits Christian parents and dedicated Sunday School teachers for her acceptance of Christ at the tender age of eight. Even as a young girl, she knew she wanted her life to reflect the love of Jesus.

Lynette attended The University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC, then moved to Spartanburg, SC to attend Converse College where she obtained her Masters degree in Education. A couple of years later, she met the boy next door, Jack Eason—and married him. Jack is the Executive Director of The Sound of Light Ministries. Lynette and Jack have two precious children, Lauryn, nine years and Will, who is seven. She and Jack are members of New Life Baptist Fellowship Church where Jack serves as the worship leader and Lynette does whatever she’s asked to do like take picture for the church directory.

Lynette loves to ice skate, go bowling, walk on the beach, visit the mountains of Asheville, NC, watch American Idol, Law and Order, A & E channel, and surf the web—and of course, read. She is often found online and loves to talk writing with anyone who will listen. She gives God the glory for her giving her the talent and desire to spin stories that bring readers to the edge of their seat, but most importantly, to the throne of Christ.

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Lynette: LONG! Ha, no, seriously, it’s definitely been a journey. Mostly one made up of learning, persevering, the traditional roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I started writing when my daughter was about 6 months old. I’d submit, get rejected, submit, get rejected. I have to admit, I wasn’t really liking the pattern developing. ☺

Then I started a story that just felt…right. I knew it was good, and I felt like it would click with readers of suspense. I submitted it to the FHL, Touched By Love contest and it won 2nd place. I immediately submitted it to Steeple Hill who didn’t reject it outright, but asked for some revisions, then invited me to resubmit. I did and Krista and Emily bought it. Now I’m back on the roller coaster ride, only this one is a ride of a different kind. It’s great, mind-blowing that people actually like my stories, and such a blessing from God that I constantly thank Him!

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Lynette: I can’t really think of an ah-ha moment. It wasn’t that something just clicked, but just the whole process of writing takes time to learn and I believe in this business, if you persevere, constantly put yourself out there to learn, you will be published. But it does take time and that willingness to learn.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Lynette: Um…Dee Henderson and Brandilyn Collins. They both write like I want to. They bring their characters alive, make you care about them, worry about them, hurt for them…and get mad at them. And they skillfully weave the faith element so that every book makes you feel like you’ve grown closer to God as a result of reading it. Awesome. And I want that for my readers.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Lynette: It all begins with the spark of an idea. Once the idea takes hold, I have to go straight to developing the characters. I just can’t write a thing if I don’t know my characters. I have a chart that I fill out for each one, then I take them and put them in the center of that original idea to see what develops. Then the plot starts to take shape and scene ideas come to me. As the story unfolds, I sit down and write out a synopsis, incorporating everything I can think of about the characters and the story. Then I go back and shape it up. After all that, I sit down and punch out Chapter One.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Lynette: Lethal Deception is Book 1 in the Amazon Adventure Series with Steeple Hill Suspense. The back cover reads: Who wanted her dead?

Having rescued Cassidy McKnight from kidnappers in South America, Gabriel Sinclair thought his job was done. Not that the former NAVY SEAL could ever forget the brave, beautiful single mother. But when the danger followed her home, Gabe promised to protect her. Why anyone would want to kill Cassidy was a mystery. Was the motive related to the orphaned toddler Cassidy was raising, a sweet little girl who brought out the father figure in maverick Gabe? Or did a newly revealed family secret have killer consequences?

Beth: What inspired you to write this particulate story?

Lynette: The Department of Motor Vehicles! Hm, does that mean I owe them a cut of the advance? Yikes!

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Lynette: That God is there in the middle of the bad times, whether you feel like He is or not!

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing suspense?

Lynette: Keeping all the red herrings straight! And making sure the story makes sense. Really, just paying attention to all the little details.

Beth: What are problem areas you see in aspiring writers who want to write suspense? Advice?

Lynette: It’s really hard just to pick one problem. I would say to make sure you know how you want to start and how you want it to end before you start writing the story. Then after you get your beginning, because you know where you want to end up, it’s a little easier to write the middle. At least that’s how I do it.

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Lynette: I just want to write and sell. I have so many stories in my head that I just want to get down. I just consider myself blessed that God has allowed all that’s already happened to happen. I definitely plan to continue to write for Steeple Hill as long as they’ll keep buying. It’s a great group that I work with, especially Emily Rodmell, who is my editor. She’s great. I would also like to branch out and write longer, more gritty stories. So, we’ll see what happens there.

Beth: What is the best advice you ever received?

Lynette: Don’t give up. Persevere, and pray. If you keep at it, learning, honing your craft, eventually you will sell. So, that’s what I did!

Thanks so much, Beth, for having me here. It’s been a blessing!

Thanks, Lynette, for joining me here at KMIS!

Lynette Eason's website.

Don't forget to enter the contest to be eligible to win Lethal Deception.

Blessings!
Beth

Guns and Other Weapons

2008-02-24T15:15:00.001-05:00

What is the basic gun carried by a law enforcement officer?

Over 95% of the side arms carried by American Law Enforcement are semi-auto handguns as opposed to the revolvers. There are about four main Manufacturers to include Glock, Heckler and Koch, Smith and Wesson, Beretta, & Ruger. Several others are spread out but not as abundant. The most prevalent calibers are the 9mm, .40 cal & the .45. Each has it’s own pros and cons as to capacity and ballistics.

How are guns traditionally carried? On television we see the guns on the belt, as well as shoulder holsters?

The world of holsters is almost as complicated as the handguns themselves. They are traditionally carried strong side of the belt but have security levels from I- III with III being the highest level of retention. Shoulder holsters are generally reserved for plain clothes and specialty units such as aviation.

Do officers often carry another gun? More hidden? Like for back up. Or is that just television?

Yes, that is a very prevalent and common thing. When researching officer homicides over the last 20 years, many, many officers have been shot with their own handguns as a result of wrestling with assailants and being disarmed. And if an officer is carrying a ‘Backup’ weapon, he can transition to it if his primary weapon malfunctions…Murphy’s Law applies foremost to law enforcement.

What other weapons do law enforcement officers use, have in their cars, and carry, and when?

A majority of agencies depending on their budgets carry at least a shotgun in the car. 12 gauge pump. My agency carries Shotguns along with .223 caliber semi-auto rifles i.e Bushmaster, M-4. Some agencies carry carbines (handgun caliber fired through rifle length weapon)

How often do officers have to qualify with their weapons? And the other weapons they use?

Here in NJ we are required to requalify twice a year with at least 3 months between qualifications. This involves a handgun, shotgun, and rifle along with a stress course and low level lighting or “night firing”

What other means of defense does an officer carry?

There is a whole host of what are called less-than-lethal weapons to include PR-24s, ASP batons, bean-bag rounds, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) Tasers. It would depend on State regulations as to what officers are allowed to carry

Thanks to Glenn Rambo--www.glennrambo.com

Glenn Rambo--Newest KMIS Team Member

2008-02-21T20:01:00.005-05:00

It’s my privilege to introduce my good friend and our newest KMIS Team Member, Glenn Rambo. He’s a nineteen year police veteran and currently a police lieutenant and emergency management coordinator for Woolwich Township in New Jersey. He’s been involved in almost every aspect of municipal police work, as well as private security. He was involved in both September 11th and Hurricane Katrina operations. He has a bachelor’s of religious education degree from Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. Glenn is married with one daughter, and he lives in Southern New Jersey.

Glenn has graciously agreed to help me continue the series about cops and cop stuff for writers that I began months ago. To be honest, helping me means that I write the questions and Glenn answers, since he’s the one with all the knowledge.

Please stay tuned this coming week for his first article, Guns and Other Weapons

And now, please welcome Glenn.

Was there one point where you decided you wanted to pursue writing?

In 1991 as a young patrolman, I was suspended for not doing a minor police report. At the time I did not find this a valuable experience, but I quickly embraced the “art” of police report writing, and it just went from there. I enjoyed filling my report with details and closing any and all loopholes that a defense attorney may use. It quickly became a game and a skill.

What is your writing schedule like? How do you make the time to write when you have a job, a family, and other activities?

I have a horrible writing schedule…lol. I have just been reassigned to criminal investigations with a relatively stable work schedule, so now I try to write an hour a day. My favorite time to write is early Saturday morning. I seem to get most of my best writing done then. It’s difficult at times because I have a newborn child. I have to set my priorities.

Being a police officer, you see a lot of the bad side of things. How does this impact your writing?

It’s tough, but at the same time it allows me to write from a perspective that not very many people can. I try to write on an “every day” person’s level, meaning people the reader can relate to and root for, and have things in common with. I’ve seen a lot of bad, but I’ve also seen the best of people at the worst of times, and I like to try and bring that to light.

Writers always discuss being seat of the pants writers versus plotters. Which are you?

I’m definitely seat of the pants. I have a direction that I want to go but one of my favorite things about writing fiction is where the characters take me. The direction of my books has changed so many times without me giving it any thought, and it always seems to end up in a better place. I almost wish I had the discipline and skill to “plot” but I enjoy where my characters take me.

While you write, do you have any techniques for keeping track of your characters and what’s going on? Are you a list maker or are you able to keep it all in your head?

I use a lot of characters, and yes I must keep track of them. I simply use a yellow note pad and hand write my characters, underline them, and put some comments after that. As long as I stay consistent in my writing schedule, I generally stay fresh with who they are and where they are.

The premise of your book is interesting, as well as timely. Where did you get the idea?

I have worked with and around illegal immigrants my entire almost 20 year career (I’ll start my twentieth year in April.) I see them everyday and have dealt with them on hundreds of occasions. I was watching a news broadcast in 2006 and heard the commentator report that there are between 18-20 million illegals in the country. I thought “Well, what happens when they all get together and don’t want to follow the rules?” The book was born out of that thought.

Often writers say they grow as they write their books. How has writing changed you?

I definitely feel that I’ve matured. Not only as a writer, but as a person. I also feel I’ve grown more compassionate toward people. I’ve certainly grown as a writer and look forward to growing more every day.

What is the biggest thing you’ve learned so far in your writing journey?

Patience, Patience, Patience! You know what? I hate having to be patient. I’m still trying to develop that and try not to rush things. I am such a “I need it done yesterday” person. Writing has taught me things aren’t like that…get used to it.

Can we expect more books from you?

I hope and pray, yes! That will of course be up to my readers. I am just about done the sequel to Crossing the Line and have two other works already started. I’m looking forward to collaborating on a suspense/thriller with a new and dear friend.

Any future plans you’d like to discuss? Dreams you have for your writing?

I look forward to working with more of the writing groups such as the Greater Philadelphia Christian Fiction Writers group and my friends at KMIS. As far as dreams, I just hope and pray that God will continue to allow me to have the gift of health and the skill and desire to write.

I really look forward to helping other readers with technical and consulting questions on law enforcement, military, and emergency services.

Any closing thoughts for our Keep Me In Suspense readers?

Embrace life. I know that sounds silly but I’m seeing an awful lot of repressed and doubting people lately. Enjoy the books you read, enjoy the day you have. Support those whose writing you enjoy. I am very thankful for those at KMIS and how they have taken me under their wings and brought me on board. They are wonderful people, and I hope you continue to support them with their books and projects.

Glenn’s first book, Crossing the Line, was released in January.

US/Mexican Border. 0300hrs. The naked eye can see nothing…the trained eye, everything. Crossing the Line brings readers face-to-face with dangerous border-crossers as they cross lines and cross loyalties. In this non-stop action thriller, join a team of Border Volunteers as they fight for their lives and their country as illegal immigrants come to the US looking for a little more than just freedom. US leaders and volunteers must pull together to form the ultimate alliance for a chance of survival. As the stakes become higher, friendships bond, love blooms, and individual faiths are tested in Crossing the Line.

Check out his website: http://www.glennrambo.com/

Interview with Lisa Harris!

2008-02-17T19:05:00.003-05:00

Today we welcome Lisa Harris, whose new book is just out!
1. Your first cozy mystery just released. Tell us a little about Recipe for Murder.

This was such a fun story to write. A couple years before getting the contract for this book, I had the idea of a cozy mystery series set in South Africa with a fun-loving, busybody, Pricilla Crumb as the heroine. Past retirement age, Pricilla was anything but ready for the rocking chair. When Barbour first opened up their submissions for their new cozy line, I immediately thought about Pricilla who kept popping up from time to time in the recesses of my mind.

In her first book in the series, Pricilla Crumb’s guest list turns into a suspect list. . .for murder. And while Pricilla never expected to be involved in a real life mystery, that’s exactly where she finds herself when she joins her son at his hunting lodge in the beautiful Colorado Mountains. Pricilla, a superb cook and articulate hostess, plans an informal buffet for her son, but the dinner party turns to chaos when a guest is found dead after sampling one of her salmon-filled tartlets. Her determination to save her reputation and find out the truth begins her unofficial career as a novice detective.

2. Did you consider having an older protagonist a risky venture? Pricilla is 64. What challenges did you find in making her a romantic heroine?

There were times when I wondered if I’d stepped too far from what I knew in trying to write about a heroine in her sixties, but since three of the closest women in my life are in their sixties, (my mom, my mother-in-law, and my aunt) most of the time it seemed natural. Not that any of these women would ever try and pull off some of the stunts Pricilla does, but I do think that their influence in my life helped me to portray her more realistically.

I believe, as well, that falling in love, no matter what your age, can be beautiful and exciting. It’s definitely not just for the twenty-something crowd. Age can bring an additional level of maturity, commitment, and depth to a relationship. While at first Pricilla is a bit wary of falling in love a second time, I loved exploring the growth in her relationship to longtime friend Max. Max is the first to realize that he’s in love with Pricilla, but even this confession doesn’t make for a smooth-sailing relationship. There are unique challenges the second time around, but in the end, Max and Pricilla prove that falling in love can be wonderful at any age.

3. Pricilla is always cooking up yummy-sounding menus in your books. Do you like to cook? Care to share a recipe?

Oh, I do love to cook! Or I suppose I should confess that I loved to cook before I had three kids, started home schooling, and started meeting writer’s deadlines. But still, I do enjoy it. Especially ethnic foods from different countries. I’ve learned how to make dishes like Groundnut Stew from Ghana, Fufu from Togo, Raclette from France and lately, beans and rice from Brazil.

This Stroganoff recipe below has become one of our favorites. Brazilians do love their stroganoff (and so do I!) I've never been one to follow a recipe, but you really can't go wrong on this one, so experiment and have enjoy! It's fast and easy. Even my kids love it.

2 pounds chicken breasts or beef strips
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion chopped
1/2 tsp. nutmeg (don't leave this out!)
1/2 tsp. oregano
4 Tbl. catsup
3 Tbl. yellow mustard
About 1 cup of heavy cream or creme fraiche. (You might be able to find Brazilian-style creme de leite in a Latino market.)

Cut up meat into small strips or pieces. Saute the meat, onion, and garlic and cook until meat is done. Add catsup and mustard and mix well. When ready to eat, add cream and cook for one minute.

Serve over rice and sprinkle matchstick potato chips on top. Delicious!

4. Now I’m hungry! Did you find writing books 2 and 3 easier than book 1, or harder?

I think the main stress in writing books two and three comes from all the time that has passed since writing the first one. There are certain threads that need to be carried through the entire series, especially the characteristics of the cast. I typically use an excel template to keep track of these things, but I have to admit that I never seem to be organized enough. Still, whatever your method, it’s essential to keep these facts straight! If nothing else, make sure you write down the basic physical characteristics of your characters, ages, and any quirks they might have.

5. You’ve lived in Africa several years, and are now in Brazil. Has this flavored your novels?
Honestly, I’ve had to be very carefully not to let my travels flavor my stories too much. When I do, this is typically where my editors start chopping away. Recently an editor made me cut an entire section because I was sounding more like a travel journal. ☺

But on the positive side, it’s given me the chance to spend years observing people and different cultures. How they live and love, motivations to how they act, how the past has colored the present, etc. I think this has helped me when it’s time to sit down and write about characters like Pricilla who are very different from me.

6. Where can the readers find more about you and your books?

(http://www.keepmeinsuspensecontests.blogspot.com/) for a chance to win a copy of Recipe for murder.

And if you’re interested in learning more about my other books, or want to take a peek into my life in Africa, please visit my blog http://myblogintheheartofafrica.blogspot.com or my website at www.lisaharriswrites.com

To learn more about how to join Heartsong Presents: Mysteries at http://www.heartsongmysteries.com or our authors blog at http://www.spyglasslane.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Lisa! Readers, be sure to visit our contest blog today and leave a comment. You will be entered to win a copy of Recipe for Murder.
Posted by Susan

Research, Research, Oh How I Love Research – Part II

2008-02-15T00:25:00.001-05:00

So I’ve discussed the basic areas of legal research… there are just a few! Now what? How do you start finding the information that you need for your novel?

One great place to start is national organizations. Here are a few to get you started:

1. American Bar Association (www.abanet.com) is a great resource for research on a host of legal issues. It won’t necessarily go into a ton of detail, but it will give you a great overview or background on just about any legal issue. I could get lost on its website, there’s so much great information!

2. American Civil Liberties Union… if you are interested in getting the liberal perspective on an issue – often needed to make our stories balanced – or if you are looking for experts on prisoners’ rights issues, this can be a great organization to start with. Most states also have a chapter of the national organization. Here’s the national website: http://www.aclu.com/ with links to issues ranging from prisoners rights to disability rights to religion and reproductive rights.

3. American Center for Law & Justice (www.aclj.org) is a counter to the ACLU. The ACLJ was started in the late 1980s early 1990s by Jay Sekulow. He’s an attorney who was involved in many of the ground-breaking Supreme Court cases during that era, particularly in religious freedom cases. The website also contains many issue papers here: http://www.aclj.org/Issues/. The ACLJ is affiliated with the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, VA, and can be a good starting place for the conservative position on issues like national security, prayer, and education rights.

3. Center for Education Reform (www.edreform.org) is an organization based in Washington, DC, that is focused on helping parents get more rights in education. It’s focus is charter schools and other forms of bringing choice in education to all children, but has expertise in other areas as well.

4. Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) is a more libertarian organization that focuses on eminent domain and entrepreneurial rights, think shipping wine across state lines and other areas where government is restricting the access of individuals to a business area. The website contains information on cases and media information. I attended a law student training program and plan to interface with them on one of my books that involves eminent domain issues.

5. Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org) is another organization that focuses on the conservative position to many cases. I have found them extremely helpful in my role as an attorney, both being trained and calling on them for help with cases, and would expect the same for help with plot-lines. There are trained allies in all 50 states, so if you need an expert in an area, this could be another great place to start.

6. Home School Legal Defense Association (www.hslda.org) is an organization that is driven by a mission to protect homeschooling families that are members. Their expertise spills over into other areas that states use to harass homeschooling families like CPS checks, etc. Again, they have trained attorneys available in most states, so you could call and ask to be connected to someone in a state your book is set in, and if your issue falls in line with theirs, may have found yourself an automatic expert.

7. The State Policy Network (http://www.spn.org/) is an umbrella organization for state think-tanks that focus on free-market issues. It has a blog that focuses on what’s happening in the various states (http://blog.spn.org/) and contains a link to member organizations – another great resource to access experts.

8. CATO (www.cato.org) is a libertarian think-tank based in Washington, DC. It has an extensive list of experts you can email, publications you can review online, and many other resources readily available at your fingertips. I interfaced with one of their experts when needing some information on ethanol research, but there are a host of experts on many, many topics.

9. The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) is the grand-daddy of the conservative think-tanks in Washington, DC. You want an expert? They have one. Education, energy, entitlements, congressional reform, etc. The list is almost endless, and you can identify the expert you need online.

These organizations are literally just the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what is available as easily as clicking on internet explorer.

http://www.caraputman.com/

Interview with Susan Page Davis and Megan Elaine Davis

2008-02-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

Candice: When did you and your daughter decide to write together? How does it work? Who does what? Do you both plot and write?

Susan: We were driving somewhere—I’m not sure where, maybe home from church. We were in the van, and my husband was driving. I was telling him a plot I hoped to develop for editor Susan Downs of the new Heartsong Presents: Mysteries line, but it wasn’t quite working out right. Megan was listening, too, and she spoke up, saying something like, “What if you did it this way. . .” Her idea was a good one, and I told her that maybe she should write it with me.

Megan: Mom thought it would be a great way for me to get my foot in the door with publishing a novel. We both plot and we both write—it seems to work best if we brainstorm together to put the initial story together.

Candice: Who are your favorite characters in your books?

Susan: I really like Nate, the hero, who gave up his education when his father got sick and came home to run the marina. After him and Emily, the heroine, I think I like the neighbors best. They are snoopy, pushy gossips, but they’re goodhearted.

Megan: My favorite characters are secondary ones—especially Rocky, a friend of Nate and Emily who helps solve crimes in book one and two, and Felicia who runs the newspaper. I also like Jette who will appear in our third book.

Candice: What sort of research have you done for your three cozies in the MAINEly Murder series?

Susan: We’ve drawn maps of Blue Heron Lake and the fictional town, Baxter. I talked to an attorney about a couple of legal points (like whether certain provisions would make a will unenforceable). We’ve also inquired about the different law enforcement agencies who would have jurisdiction in the northern-Maine setting of our books. Our hero, Nate, goes to work as a county sheriff’s deputy. A state trooper kindly explained to me who would arrest the suspect, where they would hold him, and at what point the State Police would take over the case.

Megan: Emily does a lot of research of her own in our books, so I wound up researching libraries, county courthouses, etc. to find out where Emily would go to find her information. I am also constantly doing quick online research while I write to find the best word, the best name, or to make sure I have facts straight. I’ve also drawn on my memories of summers spent camping in the Maine woods and staying at cottages on Maine lakes.

Candice: Susan, your writing career has really taken off lately. How has this impacted your life? What’s changed? How do you organize your time?

Susan: This has been a great blessing. I am working hard, it’s true, but I was before. The difference now is that those long hours at the computer are paying off. Some other major changes in our family life have dovetailed with my success over the last couple of years. My father passed away in October, 2006. I miss him terribly, but for the two years prior to his death I was spending a great deal of time on his care, and I obviously no longer do that. Megan moved home and took over the lunch preparations and grocery shopping for me, which frees me up a bit more. She also became my co-author, and that’s been a joy. Then her sister Page graduated from college and moved home as well. However, Megan will be getting married this summer and transplanting to England. So our family has been in flux for several years now, and sometimes it’s hard to hammer out a working schedule.
I know I could organize my time better, and I reevaluate that now and then. Basically, I spend most weekday mornings with my two youngest children, still being homeschooled, and catch up on correspondence, financial matters, laundry, and other family and business tasks. The afternoon and evening, if not otherwise scheduled, are now when I do the most of my writing.

Candice: You write romance, romantic suspense, and cozies. What do you like about each genre? Do you have a preference for any of the three?

Susan: Romantic suspense is my favorite so far. My longer books have been suspense, and I’m able to go deeper into the characters’ lives. I like writing longer books. With that said, I also love the lighter cozy mysteries and the historical romance I write. I do love history, and I enjoy research, whether it’s Indian Wars in colonial days, or modern military equipment. I love learning new things and the stories that come through the research.

Candice: Are you working on more than one book at a time now? If so, how do you do that?

Susan: Yes, I’m blessed with several book contracts. Megan and I wrapped up our second cozy together at the end of December. I just finished a historical novella (to appear next fall in the Colorado Snowbound Christmas Collection from Barbour), and I’m halfway done with my next book in the Frasier Island series, titled Inside Story. Megan and I will start the actual writing of our third cozy, Impostors at Blue Heron Lake, any day now.
I plan out my writing days for each book, because I know the unexpected will happen, and if I don’t plan, something won’t get done. My immediate plans include finishing Inside Story by the end of March, allowing time for critiques and revisions before my deadline. While alternating chapters with Megan, I’d like to see Impostors at BHL done by June 30 (our deadline is Aug. 15, but that’s the day before Megan and John-Mark’s wedding, so. . .). When that is done, I’ll be working on a contemporary romance for Heartsong, which is due in October. I’ve blocked out time so that I’ll get that done without interfering with the wedding hoopla, I hope. In between writing books, I block in extra days for revisions, galleys, and critiquing for others.

Candice: Speaking of that upcoming wedding, Megan, how do you juggle writing mysteries with planning your wedding and keeping up with the freelance newspaper work you do?

Megan: I too have to make a schedule for myself. At the moment, I tend to do about two hours of writing in the morning before I start cooking lunch. After lunch until 3:00 I do my newspaper work, after which I talk on the phone with my fiancé, and after supper I write again. Wedding plans so far tend to be sporadic, when I have a free minute to make a call or brainstorm. But I often deviate from my schedule, and spend too much time trying to make a better schedule …

You can read more about Susan and Megan and their books at www.susanpagedavis.com .

Call the Cops!

2008-02-07T19:56:00.000-05:00

Most of us mystery/suspense writers aren’t law enforcement professionals. When we’re writing, there comes that moment when we need professional advice. Some ways we can get the facts we need include books (we all love the Writers Digest Book Club!), personal interviews, and Websites.

There’s usually no substitute for talking to a walking, breathing police officer, especially if your story involves local, county, or state officers. Because laws, customs, and traditions vary so widely from area to area, it’s best to get the scoop from officers working in the venue where your story is set.

So how do you do that if you don’t know any cops?

Over the years, I’ve cultivated several officers and other people engaged in the legal process in my area, including two state troopers, a sheriff’s deputy, a local police officer, a court service officer, a police dispatcher, and several attorneys. This takes time, but every writer in this genre needs to network and find reliable sources.

Recently I needed information about a particular unit within the state police. None of my sources seemed adequate for that. I called the number for the public information officer at the Maine Public Safety Department. I got to talk to the guy we Mainers always see on the TV news saying things like, “We can’t release anything more at this time.” He was actually very helpful to me.

I stumbled a little at first, trying to explain who I was. I’m a writer. I’m writing a story that includes state police officers in a special unit. Yes, I have published books. I won’t make Maine’s Finest look like idiots.

Then it hit me: Give him my web address. I told him my url and I’m sure he immediately typed it in on his computer, because our conversation went quite smoothly after that. Sending him to my site where he could see my beautiful, serious-looking book covers was something I should have thought of immediately.

Of course, he gave me a lot of “no comments” and “can’t tell you that’s” when I started digging about that special unit. But he gave me enough information to get going on the story.

I told him up front, “My main purpose in calling you is to not make glaring mistakes.” And when we ended the conversation, I thanked him and told him I assumed that if I took reasonable guesses at some of my unanswered questions, the department would understand.

My other source is Websites for crime writers. I’ll give you a few here. There are lots of others out there.

Crimescenewriter, a yahoo group for writers of mysteries, gives this description of itself: A forum for asking and answering crime scene investigation, applied forensics, and police procedure questions for fiction or non-fiction writers. Writers are invited to ask and crime scene investigators, forensic scientists, and medical practioners are invited to answer. Of course, experienced writers are invited to help the newer ones and each other.

The Medical Forensics Lab is the project of D.P. Lyle, M.D., and is found at www.dplylemd.com. This site is “a place where fiction writers can learn, ask questions, and exchange ideas.” It links to The Writers’ Forensic Community, “where writers and readers can ask questions...” and also has an experts list.

I also like Police Magazine’s site, www.policemag.com, for info on equipment and many other law enforcement topics.

Looseleaf Law (www.looseleaflaw.com) specializes in publications about all aspects of law enforcement.

So now you have no excuse. Get out there and call (or email) the cops!

Susan (www.susanpagedavis.com)

Interview with Dana Mentink!

2008-02-04T13:40:00.000-05:00

1. What was your initial reaction in finding out you sold your first book? In other words, tell us about. . .THE CALL

Well, the first call was actually an e-mail. I printed it out and made my husband read it to be sure it wasn’t a cyber criminal preying on my need to succeed. It was unbelievable and surreal until the day I actually met the lovely Susan Downs, Barbour Editor. She really is a live person, either that or an incredible holographic representation. If she is a hologram, she’s a really charming one.
The CALL came from New York when I sold my first book to Harlequin. I remained calm, stoic even, the picture of cool. When I hung up I decided it must have been one of those sneaky crank calls only they didn’t ask for my credit card number. It wasn’t until I got the contract in the mail that I started believing it. I’m still not sure I really do. Could be an elaborate hoax and maybe we didn’t really land on the moon either. And about that Elvis, guy. I think I saw him at Safeway yesterday.

2.Tell us some of the background behind the ideas for your stories and about the story itself.

For the Finny series I was inspired by Half Moon Bay which is a small seaside community on the California coast. It’s a fantastic place filled with colorful people. Ruth is a compilation of many wonderful people I’ve met. As for the seagulls, I’ve got no idea. I’m kinda afraid of birds. Ask my sister. She has a parrot and I’m pretty sure he’s waiting to get a clear shot at my eye.

2. I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. Is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

Ruth has learned to stop fighting for control of her life and to give it over to the Lord. I would like to say I’ve mastered that concept but it wouldn’t be true. I do aspire to trust fully and unreservedly as she learns to do, but maybe without the mystery solving, near death experiences she’s encountered.

3. What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

Writing is a process by which you share your soul with others. Do it to the best of your ability and let God handle the rest. It comes from Him, after all.

5 Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

I’d like to write funny. I don’t mean odd funny, but funny funny. That’s why I’m so completely tickled that Barbour Books took on a cozy mystery series. So cool! Humor is my natural bent, probably due to some mental short circuitry, but I believe I touch most people through laughter. I envision myself writing a humorous mystery series, maybe one for each alphabet letter. A is for Aardvark. B is for Bongos. Oh hang on. I think maybe that’s been done.

6. Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published, especially from someone who has just broken in?

Treat it like a business and don’t be afraid of criticism. Oh sure, you can gnash your teeth and throw those comments through the old shredder, but learn from them too. And remember the words of my favorite writer Kermit the Frog. “It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice.”

7. Any writer’s resources you could recommend?

Join a good critique group and read How to Write a **** Good Mystery, by James Frey. Very helpful stuff, don’t you know.

Thanks for the interview, Dana!

Don't forget to visit the contest page to enter the drawing.

Dana's website: http://www.danamentink.com/

Interview with Brandt Dodson

2008-01-31T14:21:00.000-05:00

1. Before we jump into your newest release, tell us a bit about your Colton Parker series with Harvest.

Most Christians, me included, tend to look for miracles from God. And indeed, we often see those in our lives. But I’m learning more and more to recognize the hand of divine providence as God engineers circumstances in our lives. Such was the case with the Colton Parker series.

I attended the Write To Publish conference and pitched a novel I had titled: “Sins of the Father”, to an editor from Kregel Publishing. He liked it and took it with him to pitch to the publisher’s committee, but they ultimately turned it down. The editor then suggested some revisions, and urged me to rewrite it before trying again with another publisher.

I spent the next year rewriting the book before going back to the same conference again. I had in mind to meet with an editor from Harvest House (to this day I’m not sure why I selected them. At the time, they weren’t publishing anything that was even close to what I was writing) but he ended up canceling. In his place, Harvest House sent Nick Harrison.

Now I pitched the novel to Nick who seemed lukewarm, but agreed to consider it if I sent it to him. Later that evening, Nick was facilitating a critique session that I had not planned to attend, but – and here is the neat part – I felt this overwhelming sense of foreboding. I knew that if I didn’t go to the session, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I ran across campus, retrieved my manuscript, and ran back to the group. I got there late, but was allowed to read the first chapter. After the session was over, Nick approached and asked me to send the manuscript to him. We had a good talk about mystery fiction on our way back to the dorm, and I discovered that he had read as much mystery and hardboiled fiction as I had. A year later, Harvest House offered a three book contract which they have extended a couple of times since then.

The series is on hold, for the moment, as I take a break and write some stand-alone suspense.

2. Colton is a unique character. Can you give us some insight into how you made him come alive, and what it’s like saying good-bye to him? (Or will there be more Colton Parker releases?)

I worked for the FBI and grew up in a family of police officers. Making Colton come alive was simply a matter of having listened to my father, cousins, uncles, co-workers, etc... There is a strong thread that runs through all police officers and it was simply a matter of pulling on that thread to reach a believable character.

I like Colton. He’s as flawed as I am but seems to be able to learn from his mistakes. I think people can identify with that.

3. Now on to your February release. Tell us some of the background behind the idea for White Soul and about the story itself.

I’ve always been a fan of Mario Puzo and I wanted to do something that dealt with a large criminal syndicate. Something so big and so powerful that the law was incapable of stopping them.

During my research, I came across a group known as The Corporation. This group was located in Miami and was largely comprised of Cuban-Americans. During its peak, it had grown to an estimated 10,000 members as it exported murder-for-hire along the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S., extending as far north as New York. It hired its services out, and was linking up with the Italian groups (mafia) as it sought to extend its power and reach. The group was run by a father and son, but was recently busted in a combined federal-state sting.

I’m a fan of Joseph Wambaugh. He was the first writer to take “procedural” out of “police procedural” and simply write stories about how the job works on cops rather than how cops work on the job. I wanted to take the same approach so after I finished my research, I began playing the what-if game.

What if the group fragmented, but like the Soviet Union, began to reform in a multitude of smaller, but no less deadly groups? And what if an undercover DEA agent was able to penetrate one of these groups? And what if he was a Christian? Could he hold the line and not fall into the lifestyle as so many undercover cops do?

The book is about temptation and the power it can have over every one of us. It’s about how a lone cop struggles with the temptation that surrounds him. This temptation is challenging for any undercover officer, but being a Christian, I think, raises the stakes.

4. I find in my own writing that I often grow alongside my characters, especially spiritually. In your latest book, is there a character who you relate to and who made an input on your life?

Absolutely. Ron Ortega, the protagonist in White Soul, is a Cuban-American undercover DEA agent who is also a believer. But he hasn’t grown in his faith, so when temptation comes subtly knocking – as it often does – he is ill-equipped to handle it.

I can identify. Like Ron, I can also yield to temptation if I don’t have my guard up, and if I’m not working to build my relationship with Jesus. As I wrote the story, I began to relive moments in my own life when I’ve fallen, or gotten ahead of God on some matter or other.
Writing White Soul, I’ve learned how to avoid this trap. It’s no secret. Stay connected to the vine.

5. I read in one of your interviews that you don’t write from an outline. As an author who can’t move on to to another chapter (or write a book for that matter) without knowing exactly where I’m going, I’d love some insight into the process, especially in the suspense/mystery genre.

I tried for years to outline in advance and I’m convinced it’s one of the reasons I quit writing so often.

Tony Hillerman, a great mystery writer, has said in his autobiography that he experienced much of the same thing and so began to write without outlining.

I often begin with a premise, then think it through before I begin to put pen to paper. During the process, I MUST get the first chapter right before I can move forward. After getting the beginning where I want it, I can generally move forward as I discover the novel – much like the reader. I love the writing process now since I have no idea what’s going to happen until I write (read) it. It keeps the process organic for me and maintains my enthusiasm during the dreaded middle part of the book. Of course, writing without an outline also means doing a lot of re-writing, and that often means a willingness to kill your darlings. In my writing career, I’ve slaughtered some really good stuff because it didn’t support the story. And, as Stephen King said in “On Writing,” the story is everything.

6. What is the number one thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?

On a spiritual level, I’ve learned that God is totally in control. There was little chance that I would succeed in publishing with Harvest House. First of all, they are a great publisher who has their pick of writers, and generally don’t take many first-time authors. Second, they didn’t publish what I was writing. I was a bit of a “first” for them. And third, I didn’t have an agent. The odds were stacked against me.

But God lead me to Kregel, who turned me down, but who also helped me to improve the manuscript. I am convinced that Nick would not have been successful in his approach to the Harvest House committee if I hadn’t first met with the editor from Kregel. Although Kregel rejected the work, God had a plan and turned a negative into a positive. Read Romans 8:28.
Another thing I’ve learned is that you’ve got to have fun with this. If there isn’t something about the writing process that makes your heart sing, then you should probably be doing something else.

It may come down to rewriting, self-editing, or generating story ideas, but regardless, there ought to be something that drives you to write whether you get published or not.

7. Any future plans for your writing you’d like to share? Any specific dreams you’d like to accomplish in the area of writing?

I have several Colton Parker novels in my head. I like political thrillers, and suspense. I even have a historical novel that is burning a hole in my heart. I’m blessed. I’m getting an opportunity to write all of those.

I’m an eclectic reader; therefore I tend to be an eclectic writer. Unfortunately there is a trend (as understandable as it is) to “brand” writers. Actors have faced type-casting for years, but the fact is, I can write a lot of different novels in different styles and genres. Who would have guessed that I have a “gothic” romance in me?

8. Because I know there are many aspiring writers out there, can you share any tidbits of wisdom on getting published?

I love writing and I know that there are many talented writers who are reading this interview who are struggling to break through. I understand their frustration. So the first thing I would say to them is to persist.

It took me twelve years to get that first acceptance letter, and it was for an essay that was published in The Christian Standard. But that acceptance meant the world to me and it made the years of rejection seem like a distant nightmare.

Second, I would say READ. Read everything in your genre, and even outside your genre. Read widely and read deeply. For example, if you want to write mysteries, read them. But read a lot of them. Robert B. Parker and Agatha Christie are mystery writers, but they are as different as guns and butter. Read both of them. You can learn technique from everyone.

Read romances, read westerns, and read suspense regardless of what you want to write. By reading, you learn technique, and by learning technique, your writing will look effortless and your readers will one day say; “Well, this doesn’t look too hard. I can do this.”

A good musician, magician, or acrobat can make the things they do look easy. But don’t be fooled. Palming a card, playing a cello, or doing a back-flip is far more difficult than it looks. These performers have reached their peak because they know their craft. That should be your goal also.

But learning your craft by reading the work of others is only half of the equation. If the equation is to balance, you must also write. And you must have it critiqued by knowledgeable people who won’t spare your feelings.

Take classes at a community college, join a writer’s group, or if one doesn’t exist, start one. I work on craft nearly everyday. I read the writing of others and I read the Writer’s Digest books. I even read grammar books (I’m currently reading “Painless Grammar” by Rebecca Elliot, Ph.D.) The bottom line is, it is impossible to be good enough. That’s one of the things I love most about writing; the never ending opportunity to reach a new height.

Lastly, attend a writer’s conference. Even if you haven’t written a thing, go and learn. Make friends and build networks. Not only do you gain a partner who understands the difficult process of getting published - and staying published - but you will have gained a friend along the way. And after all, who has too many friends?

Thanks for the interview Brandt!

Visit him at: http://www.brandtdodson.com/

Don't forget to post a comment on the contest page.

Interview with Nancy Mehl

2008-01-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

Greetings, KMIS readers! I'm pleased to present an interview with author Nancy Mehl. Her cozy mystery, In The Dead of Winter, releases this month through Heartsong Presents Mysteries book club.

How did your interest in writing originate?

Actually, it began with reading. I read voraciously as a child. I’d check out five or six books from the school library and stay up all night, reading every one with a flashlight under the sheets. I guess I thought my mother would never think it odd that there was an upright, glowing lump in the middle of my bed! I started writing stories when I was around seven. I also wrote poetry. When I got older, my prose took the inevitable turn toward teenage angst and unrequited love. I don’t have those poems anymore, thanks goodness! The only kind of novel writing I was interested in were mysteries. I’d always wanted to try one, but I waited until I was forty-five to actually do it.

What do you see as the influences on your writing?

First of all, I want to tell you about a very negative influence I encountered in high school. My English teacher asked our class to write three poems. I loved poetry and flew through the assignment. After we handed our poems in, she read them to the class. When she read mine, she accused me of plagiarism in front of everyone. That brought my writing to a screeching halt. What a shame that as a teacher she couldn’t see that I had a talent that could be nurtured and encouraged. I realize now that it was because the poems were good that she assumed I’d copied them. I tell this story because I hope that educators and people in places of influence over young people will think twice about ever doing the same thing. Now, enough of the negative. On to the positive! As with many who write mysteries, Nancy Drew was a big influence. As I said, I’ve had an interest in writing mystery novels as long as I can remember, but (and this may sound horribly corny) it was watching Murder, She Wrote that actually brought the desire out of the shadows and into the light. It was seeing Jessica Fletcher that made me wonder if I could be like her. I’d never really seen such a concrete portrayal of a mystery author before. One day, I thought, “Wait a minute. That’s what I want to be!” The final “nail in the proverbial coffin” came from a teaching I heard about finding out what God has called you to do. The speaker asked the question: “What did you do naturally as a child?” The answer was obvious, and my attraction to the life lived by J.B. Fletcher gave me the courage to start tapping out my first novel. Which, but the way, will never see the light of day!

Tell us about your book series.

The Ivy Towers Mystery Series centers around Ivy Towers, a college student who leaves the big city during her Christmas vacation to travel to the little town of Winter Break, Kansas. Her Great-Aunt Bitty has fallen off the library ladder inside her old, rare bookstore and died. When Ivy arrives in Winter Break, she becomes suspicious about the so-called “accident.” A mysterious message is left for her, informing her that her aunt was murdered. She decides to stay in Winter Break only long enough to discover the truth and then return to school. Complicating her plans is the fact that her aunt left her Miss Bitty’s Bygone Bookstore, expecting her to run it. And then there’s Deputy Amos Parker, an old boyfriend who seems to still have feelings for her. Ivy will not only have to come face to face with her aunt’s killer, she will have to confront God’s will for her life.

How did you get to know your hero and heroine?

I had a good idea of who they were when I started, but I always learn more about them as the story progresses. It’s important to let them evolve. It’s also imperative to keep them consistent, not allowing them to do things that don’t match their personalities. And of course, I know them because in essence, they’re a part of me.

What process do you use to write your novel? Are you a strict plotter, or do you allow for some surprises?

Nancy: I have tried so hard to plot my novels ahead of time, but to no avail. I’m a big fan of Sol Stein. He recommends writing your important scenes on note cards and then putting them in order of occurrence. Supposedly, this will give you your plot. Maybe that works for some, but all I end up with is a confusing mess!

[Note from Lynette: I adore note cards as a plotting tool. I think it's a great hands-on way to shuffle scenes around. This just shows how every writer needs to find a method that works for him, or her! Now, more from Nancy...]

It has been the same for me with every book. I write the first few chapters, then I sketch out several chapters ahead. At that point, I may follow some of my notes, but if the story starts to go another way, I follow along. Towards the end, I definitely make chapter outlines. I have to make certain all the clues are pulled together and everything is wrapped up at the end. I also make notes in the body of the manuscript in red. These are notes to myself so that when I skim back through or when I begin to edit, I will remember to follow up with these important clues or scenes. These notes are vital to me. I also find myself plotting in my head before I fall asleep at night. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped up from my bed and quickly written down some plot twist that popped into my mind!

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Hmmm. I would say that the toughest time is during editing. I have to watch word repetition and using the same physical descriptions too often. I had characters “touching each other’s arms” so often in one novel, it was not only distracting, it was somewhat disturbing! Of course, one of the worst parts of writing a novel comes when in the middle of the night you wake up knowing that you wrote something that could never have happened in a million years. I hate those nocturnal surprises! When that happens, it’s time to do some rewriting. And rewriting is never fun.

How did you come up with the title?

The title for In the Dead of Winter was in my mind from the beginning. It wasn’t hard at all for me. The really tough title came with the second book in the series, Bye, Bye Bertie. My original title was A Bird in the Hand. Since the story revolves around a character named Bert Bird who has disappeared, I thought the title made perfect sense. But when both my editors didn’t get it, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Thus, it became Bye, Bye Bertie, which was suggested by my main editor, Susan Downs. We had quite a time throwing possible titles around. Eventually, it just got silly. (Honestly, it was a lot of fun!) One odd thing that happened with Bertie was the slow realization that the title was vaguely familiar. A little research revealed that I had reviewed a novel with the same title several years earlier – and it was by one of my favorite authors! I contacted him to see if he minded if I used it. Since his book was going out of print, there wasn’t any problem. I always check Amazon first before using a title. I wouldn’t want to use the same thing another author had just come out with.

What book are you reading now?

Actually, I am reading The Sovereign’s Daughter by Susan May Warren and Susan K. Downs. And I’m not just saying that so I can earn brownie points with my editor! I’ve just started it, but so far it’s really grabbed my interest. The writing is strong and paints a very vivid picture.

What are your current projects?

I’ve finished three books in the Ivy Towers series, In the Dead of Winter, Bye, Bye Bertie, and For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls. Right now, I am doing a follow-up Christmas novel titled There Goes Santa Claus. It occurred to me that my protagonist is a woman who loves Christmas, and Winter Break, Kansas is a town that attracts more snow than anywhere else in Kansas. It’s the perfect place for a story about Christmas. (I actually created the town I’d like to live in. I adore snow!) For some reason, in all three of Ivy’s stories, I never wrote about Christmas. So I pitched the idea to Susan, and she liked it.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

A lot of authors don’t feel the way I do about their books, so what I’m about to say may not agree with everyone, but that’s okay. I am so grateful that God has allowed me to do the one thing I’ve wanted to do more than anything else career-wise. (Being a wife and mother comes first for me.) I’ve asked Him to put a “word in due season” in my novels – something that will minister to my readers. Although I love writing and I strive to tell a story that will keep readers interested and give them characters they will enjoy, I want to use this opportunity to touch people for God. I pray before every book that He will use it to speak to specific people He wants to touch with whatever He wants to say to them. I think the most challenging thing is to push my own ideas out of the way and listen to Him. In For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls, He gave me a specific plot line that had never occurred to me. I inserted it, and the story ended up revolving around it. Being an author is wonderful. God has given me the desire of my heart. But someday I will stand in front of Him. I don’t think He will reward me because I used active words instead of passive ones. I don’t think my metaphors and similes will earn me any stars in my crown. I believe He has given me a talent for a reason. It’s my job to not bury it in the ground. I want to give Him back His investment with lots, and lots of interest.

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

I have several, so picking one is impossible. I’ll name a few. John Robinson is at the top of the list. His writing is so powerful and electrifying. I read everything he writes. Rick Dewhurst is another author I love. He is the author who wrote the first Bye, Bye Bertie. His writing is sharp, and extremely funny. I laughed out loud all the way through his book. He has a way of peeling back religious layers and exposing Christians in a way that makes us laugh at ourselves. Laurel Johnson is an author who is exceptionally talented. She uses words to paint the most beautiful, touching pictures. I’ve devoured everything she’s written, too. Her book The Grass Dance causes me to weep every time I read it. Susan Vreeland paints masterpieces with her words. I also have to mention Deb Raney, Judith Miller, Ron and Janet Benrey, Frank Peretti, and Ted Dekker. Oh, and a real favorite: Max Yoho. He’s a Kansas author who writes the most wonderful, entertaining books. Everything he writes is an adventure. After looking through this list, I realize that my favorite authors are those who can create real, vivid images through their writing. That kind of writing touches your heart and mind, bringing a real sense of empathy to a reader.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

My friend, Marshall Thomas, who writes Sci-fi, gave me the most important piece of advice I’ve ever received. Don’t give up! I can’t tell you how many writers I know who couldn’t make it past the rejections. Rejections are only signposts for change! They can make you better or they can destroy you. The only writers who succeed are the ones who decide they will keep going no matter what. Along with that comes humility. Be willing to learn! The more you learn, the more equipped you are. It’s the criticisms that have helped me more than the praises. Every single one turned into another stone in my foundation. In almost ten years, I can only think of a couple of instances when I received criticism I couldn’t use.

Another important piece of advice: Find a strong writing community and get involved. It was in public and private forums where I learned to strengthen my writing skills. I still have a lot to learn, but at least I’m farther along than I used to be!

Read, read, read! Watch other writers’ styles. Find out what you like and what you don’t. This will help to shape your own writing. I spent eight years reviewing books. I can’t even begin to express how much this helped me. Unfortunately, right now I’m lagging behind in this area. When I quit reviewing, I wasn’t eager to start reading again. But now that I’m writing cozy mysteries, what do you think I will be reading the most of? That’s right! Cozies!

And the most important advice I can give? Turn your desire over to God and allow Him to use it. If you really are called to write, He will give you everything you need as long as you put Him first. It wasn’t until I truly put my writing on the altar and gave it to Him that my career began to take off.

Thanks, Lynette, for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful blog. God bless you!

~Thank you, Nancy, for being our guest!

Interview with Susan Page Davis

2008-01-21T14:44:00.001-05:00

Beth: Tell us about your writing journey.

Susan: It’s been a long journey, with surprises at every turn. Just yesterday I mailed off contracts for my third book with Harvest House, and when I got home I learned that Finding Marie, my second book with them, is a Crossings Book Club selection. The Lord has richly blessed me this year in my writing career. But looking back to the early years of writing fiction, it seemed I would never sell a short story, let alone a book! All in God’s timing. I knew it then, but practicing patience has always been difficult for me. Now I worry less and stress less.

Beth: When do you feel like it all began to come together for you as a writer—was there a particular moment?

Susan: I don’t think I’ve reached that moment yet. I started out thinking I was a pretty good writer, but soon learned how presumptuous that was. The first 100 or so rejections have a way of crushing your confidence. I’m inching my way up again, but knowing now what I do about the business, I’m certain that every inch of progress is due to God’s grace, not my talent.

Beth: Who has influenced you most as a writer and why?

Susan: I think my parents did. Many, many people have encouraged me, but they always expected the best.

Beth: Tell us about the writing process for you? Does it begin with a character, setting, or plot?

Susan: For a suspense book, I like to start with a germ of the plot. I think about the crime and the motive and the reason it’s not over yet—the happenings that will drive the suspense.

Beth: Tell us about your latest book.

Susan: In Just Cause (January 2008, Love Inspired Suspense), Laurel Hatcher is accused of murdering her husband. She spent some time in prison before her trial, then faced a jury. When they couldn’t reach a verdict, the judge declared a mistrial. Now Laurel is trying to start over and build a new life for herself in a location where no one knows her. But she realizes that any minute, she could be called back to Maine for a new trial, and she could spend the rest of her life in jail. She doesn’t think police officer Dan Ryan can do anything about that, but Dan has other ideas. When the killers start stalking Laurel, Dan becomes her self-appointed guardian.

Beth: What inspired you to write this particular story?

Susan: I wanted to write a story in which the heroine seemed to have no hope. This is a story that grew gradually in my mind. My first draft (written several years ago) had the basics of the plot, but was very simple and straightforward (can you say “predictable”?). I later rewrote it with a much richer texture—deeper characters, higher stakes. (An inside secret for people who have read the book: Renee wasn’t in the first draft. People read it now and say, “How could you have this story without Renee?” Well...I’m glad the story matured into its present form.)

Beth: What is the message you hope to get across in this story?

Susan: There are always choices. No situation is ever hopeless. God is able to turn any life around.

Beth: What do you think is the hardest part of writing suspense?

Susan: Sustaining the terror.

Beth: What are problem areas you see in aspiring writers who want to write suspense? Advice?

Susan: I see beginning writers trying to write a suspense where the stakes aren’t high enough. They just can’t bear to put their characters into a situation so bad that the characters (and the reader) will think they can’t possibly survive. They need to get past that. I’ve also seen a lot of shallow characters who need shading.

Beth: What are your future writing plans?

Susan: I’m pretty well booked through 2008 with novels to write. Although I’ve written nearly a dozen historical romances, I’m focusing more on suspense novels now. Look for more from Love Inspired Suspense (Witness comes out in April) and Harvest House (Inside Story coming in a few months). Also, my daughter Megan’s and my cozy mysteries—the Mainely Murder Series—will debut next month with Heartsong Presents: Mysteries.

Beth: What is the best advice you ever received?

Susan: Network. Join a writers’ group and ACFW. Listen to people who know the business.

Thanks so much for the interview, Susan! Don't forget to leave a comment on our contest page to be eligible to win a copy of Just Cause.

Blessings!
Beth

Interview with Sharon Dunn!

2008-01-14T19:15:00.000-05:00

Welcome back, Sharon Dunn!

Susan: Your Bargain Hunters Mysteries series is a whole lot of fun! Tell us about you new book, Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear.

Sharon: Book Two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries comes out January 15. The head bargain hunter, Ginger, hauls her coupon clipping friends and her hubby Earl to the Wind-Up Hotel in Calamity, Nevada to help Earl market his invention at an inventors’ convention, hit the cheap buffets, and do a little outlet shopping. Also, the World’s Largest Garage Sale is taking place. The hotel has been designed around a classic toy theme; the doors look like Bazooka bubble gum and the lobby floor is a checkerboard. When the hotel’s owner, a Donald Trump wannabe, is found dead wearing a teddy bear costume (it was a publicity stunt), suspicion falls on ex-wives, an angry son and Ginger and Earl.

Susan: Didn’t you change the title on this one? I seem to recall a working title of “Death of a Cute Teddy Bear.” Why did you change the title, and whose idea was that?

Sharon: Yes, there was a name change and it was the publisher’s suggestion. The reasoning was that there is nothing unusual about a “cute” Teddy bear, but that a six foot Teddy bear has an element of intrigue attached to it and the new title often produces a laugh when I tell it to people. If you can get a giggle from the title, I figure that is a pretty good start on setting the tone of the book.

Susan: I have to agree—this one is catchier. I like it! So, do you usually struggle with titles, or do most of them self-generate?

Sharon: Titles are so important not only to get reader interest once the book is written, but also as a writer, a good title propels the story forward. Coming up with a title is different with each book. Sometimes it is the first thing that pops into my head and then I am able to figure out what the book is about based on the title. Sometimes I know a title isn’t helping the creative process, so I give a manuscript a working title, knowing that as I write the book a phrase or image will emerge that gives me the real title.

Susan: Who is your favorite character among the bargain hunters? Is she like you—be honest, now.

Sharon: Ginger and Kindra are high on the list. I love that Ginger and Earl grow in their marriage and make discoveries. The way that Ginger struggles with being kind of a tightwad was a lesson I had to learn (okay still am learning). And I love Ginger’s heart. Even with all her struggles, she wants to help other people. Kindra, the college student and junior bargain hunter is nothing like me, but I love her bouncy exuberance. The seeming contradiction in her character makes her interesting. She is a super brainy physics, major but she has her blonde moments. She’s fun.

My absolute favorite character is Phoebe, Ginger’s monster cat. Since Ginger is an empty nester, Phoebe has become a sort of substitute child. Phoebe had a small role in Death of a Garage Sale Newbie, but she becomes really important in Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear. I am a cat person, so cats tend to pop up in my books quite a bit.

Susan: What have your characters taught you through writing this series?

Sharon: That relationships are the most important thing in the world beyond being thrifty or finding fame and success. When I get to the end of my life, I want to be able to say that I stood by and supported my friends and family above all else. I love the way the ladies of the Bargain Hunters network care for each other.

Susan: In writing a multi-book series, do you plan several plots at the outset, or does one grow out of another?

Sharon: When I sold the series, I had a paragraph description for each book that indicated setting and central conflict that outlined the crime. I knew the Bargain Hunters weren’t going to stay in Montana. In Teddy Bear they go to Nevada, and in the third book, which has a working title of Death at Discount Prices, they are on the set of a shopping channel. For this series, the character growth issues were a surprise. The growth issues and discoveries tend to grow out of the action of mystery. In Teddy Bear, Kindra, the junior bargain hunter, even has a little romance. That was a delightful surprise.

Susan: What’s your system for keeping details consistent in subsequent books?

Sharon: Post-It notes are the unorganized person’s best friend. My desk is covered with them. Some of them are just notes about things I need to remember like what color someone’s eyes are and some of them are things I know need to be fixed in the next draft. As I fix the problems, I pull the notes off my desk. When the Post-It notes are gone, my book is ready to send to the editor. The Post-It notes that will help with all three books stay on the desk until the series is completed.

Susan: Hmm, I wonder if I could find enough surface on my desk to stick a few Post-Its...

What are your future writing plans? Will we see more in this series?

Sharon: Book three, Death at Discount Prices will wrap up the series. I am working on some other proposals for series ideas and stand alones. All of them will be in the same vein of what I have done so far, humorous who-dun-its that focus on character relationships and a follow-the-clues mystery.

Susan: Do you have any anecdotes related to writing this book—wacky things you learned in research?

Sharon: I found the coolest book on the dollar table at Barnes and Noble It’s called Think You are the Only One. It lists and describes obscure clubs. For example, there is the Gnome Lovers Club and the Rock Paper Scissors society. Anyway, one of the clubs was the Squirrel Lovers club. I thought it would be really cool if the Squirrel Lovers got together and had a convention. So that is going on at the Wind Up hotel at the same time as the Inventors Expo in my book.

Susan: Where I live, we don’t have garage sales in winter. What do you do for entertainment until spring?

Sharon: There’s always clearance racks, punch cards, and coupons so I can keep my bargain hunting skills sharp for garage sale season.

Susan: Do you have an idea file for future plot ideas?

Sharon: I have journaling pages (both on the computer and handwritten) where I explore ideas and dozens of first chapters or outlines or vague sketches for story ideas and another dozen ideas gestating in my head. I never lack for story ideas, the question always is which one is worth pursuing and turning into a book.

Susan: Great! How can our readers contact you and learn more about your books?

Sharon: You can find my Website. Also, I am holding a contest to give away a copy of Book 2 and a teddy bear (sorry this one isn’t six feet tall). Go to my Website and click on “bargain hunters” at the top of the home page, leave a bargain hunting tip and your email address so I can notify you if you win. Drawing will be Feb. 1, and you can enter as many times as you like.

Susan: Thanks so much for a fun interview, Sharon! Readers, don’t forget to go to our Contest Blog, leave a comment there, and sign up for the drawing for a copy of Sharon’s book!

An Interview with Christine Lynxwiler

2008-01-07T22:40:00.000-05:00

Today we're privileged to interview Christine Lynxwiler. She is a prolific writer, with ten books published and six more contracted. She's also a very nice person.

Your mystery, Death on a Deadline, is one of the first four books in the new Heartsong Presents Mysteries line. How do you feel about that?

I'm SO excited. This new line is a blessing to mystery readers like me who have switched over to reading Christian fiction. And it's an amazing honor to be a part of the beginning of a project like this. (And to be in such good company as an author in the debut set of books.)

You’ve written this book with two of your sisters. Tell us a little bit how that works? How do three people write a book together?

Yes, I'm thrilled to be writing mysteries with my sisters, Sandy Gaskin and Jan Reynolds! We love to work together. But there's no pat answer for the "how does that work?" question anymore. We had a plan in the beginning to divide the duties, but now we all do it all. And every book is different. The first one--Death on a Deadline--I did a lot of the writing, probably the bulk of the writing, with Sandy and Jan doing plotting, editing, and research. The second one--Death of a Diva--is more their collaboration on a rough draft, because I was on a deadline with a trade fiction book. I took that rough draft and added my two cents worth of rewriting. The third one is shaping up to be even more of a three-way collaboration. I think the key to writing a book with three people is making sure the communication never becomes false. If one of us thinks a plot element or a section of writing doesn't work, we say it. We have to be able to count on each other for total honesty.

Give us a brief synopsis of Death on a Deadline.

It's headline news when Jenna Stafford's teenage nephew, Zach, is accused of killing his boss, the newspaper editor. But stop the presses! Jenna recruits her sister, Zach's mom, Carly, and they go undercover to get the scoop on the murder. Will the next edition’s lead story be about Jenna and Carly nailing the real killer? Or will the sleuthing sisters make the obit column in tomorrow’s paper?

Is there a story behind the story? Where the original book idea come from?

The idea came from the convoluted minds of three very twisted sisters. I'm kidding! Sort of. There is no real "story behind the story." We chose to use sisters as our amateur sleuths because we see that relationship as filled with fun dynamics. There are five girls in our own family, but having just two in the books made it easier to flesh out their personalities.

One of the big topics that writers discuss is SOP versus plotters. What are you?

In my trade fiction, I'm normally a combination. But we're plotters thru and thru for the mysteries. I don't see how you can write a mystery "seat of the pants" and have it come out okay in the end. Every change changes everything.

Where do you get your inspiration for your characters?

All around. Every person we know is fair game. So be warned.

Often people who don’t write books think the life of an author is like a fantasy—all fun. What do you think? What is your favorite part of writing? And your least favorite part?

I had to stop the interview and compose myself from laughing so hard. All fun? I think I'll write that with a permanent marker above my monitor. Something to get me through those grueling all-night writing sessions when I'm behind on deadline. Honestly, writing is a job. It's a blessing to be able to work doing something I love, but it's still work. My favorite part is when the book comes out. My least favorite part is the last two weeks before deadline, when I realize that I'm much farther from being done than I thought I was.

Do you have any particular writers' resources you use regularly? Any that apply to suspense in particular?

We use Writers' Digest books a lot. . .Careers for Your Characters, Writer's Guide to Places, and more specifically for suspense - Malicious Intent - a writer's guide to how murderers, robbers, rapists and other criminals think. I also use James Scot Bell's book, Plot and Structure, for every book I write. I like Elizabeth George's book Write Away, too.

Do you have any future plans for your writing you'd like to share? Any specific dreams you'd like to accomplish in the area of writing?

My future plans are just to keep writing. I recently signed a six book exclusive contract with Barbour Publishing. I'm working with them now, brainstorming the new series, and I am so excited about it that it's hard for me to concentrate on the books I'm currently working on. My writing dream is to become a better writer. For each book to be better. That's the dream I hope God will help me achieve.

What is the number one thing you've learned from your writing journey?

Sounds corny, but I still have to say it -- Never give up. A long time ago, I heard somewhere that the writer who gets published isn't necessarily the best one, but the one who didn't quit. That stuck with me and I've always been determined to keep on going even when things don't seem to be working out.

What suspense/mystery authors do you read for pleasure? (Inspirational and Secular)

I love Dean Koontz. Reading a book by him is like going to a writer's conference professional track. I learn so much while immensely enjoying myself. I also enjoy Gillian Roberts' Amanda Pepper mysteries. I love anything by Ted Dekker. I'm sure tomorrow I'll think of twenty authors I should have put here, but for now that's what I'm coming up with.

Do you have anything you want to leave with our readers? Something the Lord is speaking to you?

I'm a little hesitant to answer this question because what I'm working through right now has nothing to do with writing. But you asked. . .

The verse that is working on my heart the most right now is the last part of Proverbs 22:7 -- . . . the borrower is servant to the lender. My husband and I asked for a unique Christmas present from his parents this year and we received it. We got Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. We've watched 8 of the 13 lessons already and every day, we're humbled by what we didn't know and didn't understand about this mess we call our finances. Dave entertains us highly, but amidst the laughter, he hammers the point home about how important it is to be a good steward with the resources God gives us. But then he shows us exactly how to do it. And how even a trainwreck financial history can be turned around with careful planning and decisive action. Our goal is nothing less than financial peace and when we achieve that, it will be the first time in 26 years of marriage. God is helping us put this plan into action and even our kids are excited about it. I'm thrilled watching them sort their money into Save, Spend, and Give envelopes. They love it!

I'm laughing because I just read back over this and I can see that I sound like an infomercial. I don't personally know Dave Ramsey and I'm not selling his plan, nor (unfortunately) do I get any kind of kickback or commission from his website. I told my husband - I'm like all those annoying people on diets who want to tell us how easy it can be for us to do it too. But when I heard Dave read that scripture in Proverbs and several others, I realized that, other than our giving, our finances are the only part of our life that I always thought of as separate from our spiritual life. Never again. (End of infomercial.)

Thanks for having me!! I love KMIS.

Please visit Chris at her website: http://www.christinelynxwiler.com/