Linda Maye Adams's Blog, page 27

Great Challenge Story 11

This story is part of the Catherine Mayfield Mysteries, which includes Malice in Morro Bay, Murder at the Fair, and Murder on the Set. The story is called Mayhem at the Manor, weighing in at 4,100 words.

What was interesting about this story:

If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be writing a historical story, I’d have thought you were joking.

My association with historical has generally been negative because of other writers. I’d attend a convention panel or just look at a website and see writers talk in loving detail about spending a year (or more!) researching before they even started a project. Others on message boards talked about researching as if they were being graded like they were in college. One writer even said he would research the weather for a particular date in history for the 1% of the audience who might know that very obscure fact.

So I was thinking that if that was the level required to do a historical, it was never going to happen. I could not see myself hunting through a university fact for some obscure detail.

I said almost the same thing about science fiction.

But what most writers don’t talk about–probably because they don’t know any better–is that there are ways to work with research for any topic without breaking the bank on time.

In my case, I grew up reading everything Hollywood. Most of the stories I read were from 1940s-1960s. And I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s and visited the places in the stories. I used that as a launch point and then researched things like clothes and cars.

I’d read a private detective novel set in the 1940s. The writer’s nod to the historical side was to give the main character a fedora (that was it!). I was thinking that during this story because I hit on problems that silent film actors had with converting to talkies, as well temperance and Prohibition.

The silent film to talkies was definitely a fun rabbit hole!

Great Challenge Story 10

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Story #10 weighed in as another cozy mystery with the same characters. The little white dog is Cotton in the story. Her best bud is Henry, the black down featured on Malice in Morro Bay’s cover.

What went right

This is a series for two characters who go off to have adventures and find a crime. Now that I have three done, I’m going to have to do two more and release all five as a collection. That’ll be handy for anyone wanting to pick up five of the stories written in order.

What needed improvement

I have to remind myself just to have fun. I got a little fixated on this being the tenth story. I did a challenge before called 10 Stories in 10 Weeks, which was all flash fiction. I also did Writing in Public and another 10 Stories in 10 Weeks, both of which I did not get to ten (because of work).

As a result, inner critic monkeyed its way into the story in the first scene and then bounced back into the second scene. I finally had to sign off for the night so I could disconnect it from the process and things worked better in the morning

What really went wrong

Life intervened on Tuesday. A jar broke in my hand and sliced open the outside of my thumb. I thought I would write on Tuesday, and it was just nope, nope. I needed to give my hand a little time. I was lucky there wasn’t any tendon damage. But it made me realize how much I used that particular spot.

As with the last one, here’s the behind the scenes link.

Malice in Morro Bay: A Seaside Cozy Mystery

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Still mourning the loss of her husband from the War, Catherine Mayfield longs for fun adventures, like mysteries to solve.

Accompanied by her man-dog Henry and gentleman friend silent screen star Victor Rowe, she investigates the murder of a friend. 

But when she discovers that she may be next, the adventure turns deadly.

A fun cozy mystery to keep you smiling.

Available from all the usual suspects.

Backlot Deception: A Hollywood Historical Mystery

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A movie executive summons private investigator Al Travers to investigate the death of a star on the set.

The suspect? A movie director Al idolizes.  

As he searches for the truth, the answers to what happened may take a heart-breaking turn.

A page-turning mystery set in 1940s Hollywood.

Available from all kinds of booksellers. Just look for your favorite!

Behind the scenes!

If you’d like to see the publishing checklist for this story, here’s a link to it. This is done in Evernote.

Great Story Challenge 9

Story #9 is a historical cozy mystery with the same characters from Story #8, called Death at the Fair. It resulted from a small piece of research that didn’t make it into Story 8.

No cover yet. I’m having trouble finding an image that’ll work. You’d think county fair would have images of people walking through a fair, but no. They’re all of advertisements. So I’m still looking. It’ll go indie once I find one, hopefully by next week.

What went right:

I’m glad I made another round with these characters. I really like them, and like the format of not having any violence. And I really like having dogs in the story. I didn’t realize it would be so fun having them as a character.

This story also came out at about 4,000 words, so a longer story for me.

What could be improved:

I didn’t listen to myself initially. I thought I should write another story with the characters. Then I said, no, it should be science fiction.

So I spent Monday and Tuesday trying to write this scene and it just wasn’t going anywhere.

So I jumped to the cozy. Like the other one, a lot of character, not a lot of plot. When I hit scene two, inner critic jumped in, unhappy and pounding its fist for more plot. So I backtracked a bit, stopped, and then added a placeholder.

That’s not a placeholder in the traditional sense, like when someone puts one in to fix something later. This was a note where I left off saying MORE CHARACTER. DON’T LET THE INNER CRITIC ADD PLOT.

Then I walked away for a few hours. Once I got some distance, which turned out to be Sunday morning, the rest of the story came together.

Also some exciting news! Challenge Story #2, Teddy Bear Man, received a Silver Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future.

Publishing/Submitting Strategies

One of the comments I got for the cozy mystery Malice in Morro Bay asked about my strategy for sending stories to traditional publications versus indie publications. I’m straddling both.

Basic Requirement

Any story going to a traditional source must pay at least .05 a word. That’s a little under the pro rate of .06 a word.

I pass on a lot simply because they don’t meet that threshhold.

And I did used to submit to non-paying magazines because they were easier to get into. People would say, “money must flow to the writer,” and in the same breath say you needed to build up credits. That’s probably why we see a lot of token payments. One of the calls I saw wanted 10K and up and was only paying $10!

So any resource that’s paying a pittance isn’t going to get more than a passing glance.

The Strategy

I make a list of themed anthology calls and establish a “soft date.” The soft date is a deadline I pick before the call closes.

Not every paying anthology ends up on this list. There’s been some calls I don’t qualify for, and some that are on political topics. That I don’t get. It would satisfy some immediate need, but six months later, you can’t can do anything else with the story. Book might not even sell.

When the soft date pops up, I write the story and send it to the call. Or in the case of Spooner’s Cove, it didn’t quiet meet the theme. If I’d waited until the last minute, I wouldn’t have been able to write Lake of Whispers, which was a more solid hit on the theme.

But why not magazines? There are certainly pro markets out there. The basic reason:

They take a long time to respond.

Anthologies generally will respond pretty quickly after they close. Even the Writer’s of the Future Contest responds quickly (though you have to send it near the closing date).

But I had one story stuck in a magazine’s backlog. It was on Submittable , so I checked the status and it was still waiting for someone to look at it–a YEAR after I submitted it. I finally withdrew the story and indie published it.

So most of my submissions have been to anthologies. But I also want to get more out there for indie. The more available, more opportunities for discovery.

Giant Hunter: A Military Veteran Urban Fantasy Short Story

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Nate Thorson—army veteran, fiction, writer, monster slayer.  Picked by a guardian dog, he and his partner Sebastian protect the city from the supernatural.

But he faces his greatest challenge when a giant comes through a portal. 

Can he find the giant and stop it before time runs out?

An exciting urban fantasy tale that will leave you gripping the edge of your seat.

Buy this book from your favorite bookseller!

Great Challenge 8

Following the problems getting Story 7 done last week, I decided immediately on Sunday night not to wait for the prompt.

Instead, the genre plopped right in my head: Historical Cozy Mystery.

The story is called Malice in Morro Bay, and, at 4,700 words is the longest short story I’ve ever written.

What went right with this story: I took a leap of faith with this story and just started it. Instead of focusing on plot, I followed what Nora Roberts does–a lot of depth and some plot. That’s how it got to 4,700 words.

I also included dogs (two of them) and very much enjoyed having them as characters in the story. I remember the first time we took one of our dogs up to the title place, out on then Atascadero Beach (renamed Morro Strand). She thought the waves were interesting until she got wet. Nope, nope, nope. Water was too cold.

What might need improvement: There were two sticking points for the inner critic:

It did not like the length. It gets nervous when I’m not finishing and pushes me to goals, rather than following the story. That’s the reason an outline doesn’t work at all for me. It gives the inner critic a roadmap so it came take over the wheel.It did not like “some plot.” Inner critic likes plot. If it gets control, it happy adds more and more plot, to the point of making a story convoluted.

Malice in Morro Bay is headed for indie publishing next week.

And a cover:

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Challenge Story 7

This was the tough story.

I suppose it’s because I’m nearly two months into the challenge. Dean Wesley Smith says this around the point where people drop off the challenge.

I started the story with the Week 80 prompt: Long life.

It was intended to be science fiction, but in hindsight, I think what I was intending needed an umbrella story. Meaning the theme would have been long life, but the story would have been about something else.

Three restarts on that and by Wednesday I had to go to plan B.

So I went with the Week 7 prompt: A dog finds a body.

That still took another four tries to work into the story. Inner critic kept popping its head up, screaming:

“The story’s not going to be done! The story’s not going to be done!”

Because if I don’t finish and turn in the short story by Sunday, the challenge ends.

So inner critic kept getting in there and monkeying with the story, trying to rush the plot to get it done. But that made the story worse and inner critic fussed about it being terrible (never mind that it was the inner critic’s fault for that!).

Saturday night, I finally did enough that I could call it done enough for an editing pass. Good, bad, or otherwise.

But that also gave my creative side some overnight time thinking about it. I came back Sunday morning, made an editing pass through all of it, chucked the climax, added two new scenes, and wrapped it up.

Turned out a lot better than my inner critic was telling me.

This one’s an urban fantasy called “Guardian Dog.”

Look for it to hit on the indie side. I’ll set everything up for it this weekend, but it won’t go to press until next weekend. I’m so prone to typos that are real words that I have to let it sit a week so I can spot those!

Meanwhile, a cover!

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Great Challenge #6

A bit of a duplicate title, but when I did the index to the stories, it may me realize the titles were confusing when I was doing them ahead. Especially since I don’t know what the next story will be…yet.

Story #6 ended up being science fiction.

It is for an anthology call, and it was hard to pin down exactly what the low hanging fruit would be. Usually it’s obvious what everyone will submit. This time, I assumed it would be the “finding” of the anthology topic.

The title turned out to be the hardest part of this. Initial titles were:

ObsessionThe Watchers

Both are in the story, but when I paired them with the cover that also fit the story, it was “Nope, nope, not happening.”

Just simply the wrong image. People would think it was a stalker story.

So it was add four sentences so I could connect to the new title, “Lake of Whispers.”

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I also wrote two flash fiction stories. In searching for places to send my stories, I keep running into pro-markets for flash fiction. So I took a pop-up for flash fiction and then wrote the two stories:

Treacherous Cliff – Mystery, for the Alfred Hitchcock contest. I’ve placed honorable mention before…would like to do better.
Broken Agreement – this one was inspired indirectly by Nora Roberts. I was reading one of her books and there was a phrase that read “damn beagle” and read it as “demon beagle.” Science fiction.

Most writers do flash fiction as a slice of life–just a scene where something happens.

But flash fiction, even a 250 word story, must have all of these:

CharacterA problemSettingFive SensesA storyValidation

Both stories were fun to write, particularly from the challenge of getting the setting and five senses in.