Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 15

Blessed Be the Little Children

Thanks for inviting me over, Debra, to help celebrate the release of Murder at the Lobstah Shack at the end of this month!

I love little kids. I know you are a new grandma, Debra. I’m not one yet, although I’m eager to be. In the meantime, I’m close to my goddaughter’s little ones, a four-year-old pistol of a girl and her baby brother, now four months old.

One-week-old baby feet and big sister hands

So, when I was designing my Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries series a few years ago, it came to me that protagonist Mac Almeida’s brother Derrick would be a single father of a little girl named Coquille, whom everyone in Westham calls Cokey. Here’s a bit of backstory from the new book:

Cokey’s mother had taken her to France to live as a newborn. She and Derrick had been a couple but hadn’t married, and he couldn’t legally prevent her from moving abroad with the baby. When my niece turned three, her mother asked Derrick to come and get their daughter. After that, she basically dropped communications. Our parents stepped in to help—Cokey stayed with Mom or Pa most afternoons—and the girl was a resilient little beam of sunshine nearly all the time. But sadness at not being with her Maman popped up from time to time. 

[image error]Sadly, the victim in Murder at the Lobstah Shack is the mother of one of Cokey’s best friends. Mac knows Cokey realizing Kendall is now motherless would remind her of her own mother’s abandonment. 

At Mac’s Bikes not long after the death, Derrick brings in a drawing Cokey made for her friend.

Cokey’s picture showed two big smiling balloon heads with legs and hands sticking out from each. One head had yellow hair and the other brown, and the two girls were holding hands. Cokey had signed it with her beginner capital letters, including the E facing backwards.

Here’s another bit from when Cokey is helping Mac stock the shelves of the Free Food Market for the needy in town.

Cokey’s blond angel curls were in two tiny braids today, with wavy wisps that popped out everywhere. “The children are going to be happy with juice boxes for their lunches, aren’t they, Titi Mac?” she lisped.

“You bet.” I reached down and held up my hand for a high five. “Nice job stocking, Cokester.”

She slapped it with her little hand. “Nice job with the peppers.”

“I’m sorry about your friend’s mommy,” I said. “Daddy showed me the picture you drew. That was really nice.”

“He taked it to her mailbox,” Cokey said with a solemn look. “It’ll make her feel better.”

Cokey has become one of my favorite characters. She even plays a part in helping crack the case in the book. Her coloring is different than my sweet Miss C’s, but they are the same age.

 [image error]Readers: who is your favorite fictional – or real – child? I’ll send one commenter a copy of Murder at the Taffy Shop, the previous book in the series so you’ll be ready for the November 30 release of the new one! 

In Murder at the Lobstah Shack, Tulia Peters’ Lobstah Shack offers locals and tourists in Westham, [image error]Massachusetts, some of Cape Cod’s most delectable cuisine. But when the body of Annette DiCicero is discovered in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer—with a custom-made claw-handled lobster pick lodged in her neck—spoiled appetites are the least of Tulia’s worries. After a heated public argument with Annette, Tulia is a person of interest in the homicide investigation. To clear Tulia’s name, Mac and the Cozy Capers Book Group snoop into Annette’s personal life. Between Annette’s temperamental husband, his shady business partner, and two women tied to Annette’s past life as “Miss New Bedford”, several suspects and multiple motives emerge. And they’re getting crabby about Mac intruding on their affairs. 

Maddie Day pens the bestselling Country Store Mysteries and Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Agatha Award-winning Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. She’s a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America, and lives north of Boston with her beau, where she cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. 

If you’d like an autographed copy of any of her books, please order it from Jabberwocky Books and she’ll run over and sign a copy for you. Murder at the Lobstah Shack is also available wherever else books are sold, including here. 

Find Edith and Maddie at their web site, at Wicked Authors, at Mystery Lovers Kitchen on the second and fourth Fridays, and on social media under both names. 

Facebook:
Maddie Day Author

Instagram:
Maddie Day Author

Twitter:
Edith Maxwell and Maddie Day Author

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My Mother’s Slippers

In November, I think about my mother. She was a driving force in my life until her unexpected death in November 2014. There are still times when I want to pick up the phone and share good news with her or ask for her advice, but I can’t. What I can do is keep a part of her with me – her slippers.

Not the pair she wore, but one of twenty or thirty pairs of the identical slippers that she hoarded. My mother was an atypical hoarder. Everything in her house was always perfectly in place and her kitchen floor was so clean that one could eat off of it. Newspapers and magazines were thrown out once read; finished books, except for ones I wrote, were loaned to friends, or donated; and clothes were stylish but took up no more than a closet.

Her hoarding fetish involved shoes. She loved them. Because she had a hard to fit foot (super narrow and only a six or six and one-half), if she found a pair of shoes to fit, she bought them — in every color. If she found something she loved was going to be discontinued, she stocked up on them. The thing about my mother was that she wore all of those shoes. Each one matched an outfit or a mood and while she kept them carefully boxed on shelves in her closet, she believed in wearing and enjoying them.

After she died, my sister and I relished the memory of her cute outfits and her shoes. I was only saddened by the fact that while we had the same shoe size, our feet were just different enough that the last that fit her didn’t work for me. What did work were her slippers. She had found a pair of step-in flower-patterned slippers that she loved because they were narrow enough to stay on and soft enough not to rub her foot. She wore that particular brand for years and when she discovered they were being discontinued, she bought up every pair she could find. When she passed away, there were twenty plus pairs that had never been worn. I tried one on and they were perfect. Although I didn’t take them all, I brought several pairs home with me. Seven years later, morning or night, I think of my mother as I step into a pair of her slippers. The wonderful thing is that I know she will still be with me for years to come because of the ones I have yet to begin using.

Do you have anything passed down from a parent that reminds you of them regularly or that you have that may give someone continuing memories of you? Tell me about it for a chance to win an e-book of One Taste Too Many, the first in the Sarah Blair series.

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Variety in Writing

[image error]The below blog was a combination of an assignment given to me by my Hi-Lo writing coach (a Hi-Lo series is for struggling readers in K-12 grade levels meaning high-interest, low readability). I was tasked to write anything tongue-in-cheek with a tad of sarcasm while also keeping it real. I decided to combine this assignment with this blog post—I love writing that works on multiple levels! At this point, we aren’t looking for readability level—just content on if it’s tongue-in-cheek enough. I’ll let all of you decide!

Written word keeping time

Always meant to unwind

Taken aback from his last breath

Dread it all—if I have to, I MUST say Death.

Any of you may read the above and call it a poem, a joke, philosophy, fortune cookie fortune, wisdom, cynicism, meditative chant turned wrong, comedy, drama, or tragedy. I mean, it all is determined by your background, your outlook on life, as well as all those no-no topics we try to stay away from (i.e., politics, religion, race—that which divides us unlike our humanity unites us—I digress as that leans too left—being a little too like Kennedyesque—insert winky-face emoji here for the youth).

See what I did there? Words can do many things and evoke many emotions and reactions. Some of you may have felt a pull within finding some of that written word offensive—it hit home to you and created anger or even a red-colored fury to rise within your pupils. While others may be sitting tongue-in-cheek with that smart-alec-y grin pasted on your faces (like Fiona Apple much?) Others could be grumbling, “Don’t quit your day job, lady!” as they click the X mark to close this . . . (“they are gone,” she says, staring straight into the darkness –“CUT End Scene!” cried the panicked director glancing furiously at his watch making sure they don’t go overtime again! It will be his job this time, and he can’t afford that. Not with the child support he owes to four wives, the five debts he carries, and the cool five grand he just lost on that last horse race—how could he have known Lucky 7 was full-on irony—no, really, it was a horse called Full On Irony).

See what I did there? I took you on another trip through a tunnel of thoughts and imagery with words. Some people wonder what I write. That title up there. The one in the

Center margin

Variety—that’s what I write. Educational blogs, articles, books—working on a K-12 book on teaching writing for a press while also writing a Hi-Lo series while working on culinary cozy series and psych thriller script—my first time learning the full ins-and-outs of screenwriting—I’m about eight months in and I’m still stumped—everyone pray, chant, meditate, or nothing for me—that is serious—not sarcastic—I don’t judge—whoever, whatever, nothing you believe is great with me—as long as you find peace and happiness.

Here’s hoping some of you enjoyed the tunnel of my writing mind!

Writing to Market

What do I write? Is that the right question? Why do I write? That seems good. Waxing philosophical. How do I write? Hmmm… so the chicken does come before the egg. I knew it all along.

I hope this audience loves cheezy (as in Cheez-Its) jokes—if not, then maybe something a bit darker—moodier even. Light from the sunrays bore down into her Vantablackiest of souls. This cast the neon creature from her cells into motion causing a disco ball of lights bouncing throughout her now soothing, comforting soul. Wow-that turned from dark to light mood ring colors immediately.

Now, that’s what I call A Variety in Writing.

A Little About Me:

Moving into her second decade working in education, Jodi Rath has decided to begin a life of crime in her The Cast Iron Skillet Mystery Series. Her passion for mysteries and education led her to combine the two to create her business MYS ED. She splits her time working as an adjunct for Ohio teachers and creating mischief in her fictional writing. She currently resides in a small, cozy village in Ohio with her husband and her eight cats. Learn more at https://www.jodirath.com/.

Punkin Strudel Mayhem – The Cast Iron Skillet Mystery Series

It is a Spooktacular time for Jolie and Ava as they have their hands’ full catering Leavensport’s annual Halloween Pumpkin Bash. When Ava convinces Jolie to get their fortunes told by a visiting psychic, they receive an ominous prediction.

“Masks–literal and figurative, chaos, deceit, betrayal, death. The cards have spoken.”

Madame Esme Emerald’s fortunes are looking more like premonitions of doom. It seems that someone in Leavensport received a reading that did not sit well because Madame Emerald is found dead, and it looks like her crystal ball is the murder weapon—or is something more supernatural going on?

Bounty-Full Investigative Services is on the case, or is it more of a paranormal manifestation? This could be a first for the girls as they take on the underworld’s spirits.

Welcome to Leavensport, Ohio, where DEATH takes a DELICIOUS turn!

Release Date: 10/29/21
Links to purchase book:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Punkin-Strudel-Mayhem-Skillet-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08MBGVFQS/ref=pd_sim_2?pd_rd_w=nucXg&pf_rd_p=495b84a8-4624-4096-8e20-27b4882c0d09&pf_rd_r=FYMV6E8G1VGTBVXBGA59&pd_rd_r=9ea3e9cd-0eb9-4e35-b6d0-2daea43525a4&pd_rd_wg=sfUAK&pd_rd_i=B08MBGVFQS&psc=1
All other e-platforms: https://books2read.com/u/mZaL15
FB Author page: @authorjodirath or https://www.facebook.com/authorjodirath/
Twitter: @jodirath
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jodi-rath
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

 

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Guest Blogger: Lois Winston – The Non-conforming Tropist

I’ve hit double-digits! October 4th will see the release of Stitch, Bake Die!, #10 in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, currently available for pre-order from all the usual suspects. Given that when I started writing {{cough! cough!}} years ago, I expected a career in the romance genre and did briefly have one, this is a remarkable milestone. Never in my wildest imagination did I envision killing people for a living (only on paper, of course!) Now, that’s my happy place.

However, here’s what’s even more interesting: When I was asked to try my hand at writing a series with an amateur sleuth who was a crafter, I had no idea there were certain tropes I was expected to follow. Apparently, neither did my publisher, which in retrospect is quite odd for a publisher of cozy mysteries. For instance, they didn’t bat an eye when my Mafia bad guys used language appropriate to Mafia bad guys.

I’ve never used 4-letter words simply for shock value, and I really dislike when other writers do so. However, I’ve known some Mafia guys (another blog for another time), and I can assure you, they don’t go around saying, “Gosh darn it” and “Golly, gee whiz.”

Since I was never asked to omit the expletives during the editing process, I was shocked at some of the reader blowback I received for even the mildest of 4-letter words, like the H-E-double-hockey-sticks one or the word that’s a homophone for a structure that holds back water on a river.

I’ve learned many lessons as I’ve gotten older, one of which is that it’s best to choose your battles. When people write to you saying, “I loved your book, but I won’t read another unless you promise you’ll never again use curse words,” it gives you pause. Did I really want to lose readers for the sake of authenticity in certain dialog scenes? 

The answer was no. At the end of my 3-book contract, the publisher and I couldn’t come to terms on further titles in the series or a second series they wanted. When I received my rights back, I revised the books to remove the objectionable words, making them conform more to cozy reader expectations. Ten books and three novellas into the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I’m now well-versed in cozy tropes and the fine art of euphemisms.

~~~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website: www.loiswinston.com 

Stitch, Bake, Die!
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 10

With massive debt, a communist mother-in-law, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and a photojournalist boyfriend who may or may not be a spy, crafts editor Anastasia Pollack already juggles too much in her life. So she’s not thrilled when her magazine volunteers her to present workshops and judge a needlework contest at the inaugural conference of the NJ chapter of the Stitch and Bake Society, a national organization of retired professional women. At least her best friend and cooking editor Cloris McWerther has also been roped into similar duties for the culinary side of the 3-day event taking place on the grounds of the exclusive Beckwith Chateau Country Club.

The sweet little old ladies Anastasia is expecting to find are definitely old, and some of them are little, but all are anything but sweet. She’s stepped into a vipers’ den that starts with bribery and ends with murder. When an ice storm forces Anastasia and Cloris to spend the night at the Chateau, Anastasia discovers evidence of insurance scams, medical fraud, an opioid ring, long-buried family secrets, and a bevy of suspects.

Can she piece together the various clues before she becomes the killer’s next target?

Buy Links– https://books2read.com/u/bwarEa 

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WRITING RACE

WRITING RACE by Laurel S. Peterson

First of all, thanks, Debra, for having me on It’s Not Always a Mystery. I’m delighted to be here and to share some thoughts today on writing race. My mystery novel series, Shadow Notes and The Fallen (Woodhall Press), features a white amateur detective protagonist, Clara, who falls in love with her town’s black police chief, Kyle. As I tell my creative writing students, every choice is deliberate, and as a white writer, including a prominent black character was important to me.

We’ve all heard that we should write what we know. I know virtually nothing about what it means to be black in this country, other than what I hear, read, or observe. The first time I was confronted with my whiteness was when I gave a workshop at an all-black bank in Harlem. I was the only white woman in the room, and I realized how ignorant I was. What would it be like to step into that world? For me, writing a black character is about the need to understand.

Clara lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut, one of the wealthiest in the nation. Her inherited wealth has insulated her from racial issues. As well, she spent the last fifteen years in Europe, and only came home because she had a psychic dream predicting her mother was in danger. Kyle is about the only black person in her town, so she doesn’t have to confront his difference because whiteness functions as the norm. However, others demand that she face it: her best friend Bailey, who suggests that Kyle’s culture might be different from hers; and then, Kyle’s family in New Orleans, who is shocked that she’s white. While they are welcoming, she must prove her worth by helping to catch the killer who threatens Kyle.

So why take this challenge on? When I mentioned what I was doing to a group of students at the community college where I teach, one girl asked, “What makes you think you know [about the black experience]?” I said I didn’t know but wanted to find out and to understand. Writing was my way of doing that.

Observation and listening help—especially listening to students of color and people in my community, but also to writers who are tackling race issues, including Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and Just Us, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and Danez Smith’s Homie. I’ve long read poets, including Audre Lorde, Tracy K. Smith, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lucille Clifton. These provocative voices force their readers to rethink the space they take in the world.

The profoundly imaginative work of writing gives me the opportunity to explore those challenges on the page and hopefully opens me to experiences that make me more sensitive to the challenges of others. How about you? What’s your take on writing characters of other cultures and races? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Find me at https://laurelpeterson.com/; on Twitter and Instagram: @laurelwriter49 and on Facebook: @LaurelPetersonwriter. Thanks so much for dropping by.

My books are available on Amazon: Shadow Notes (book #1) and The Fallen (book #2).

 

 

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Guest Blogger: Kassandra Lamb – When to End a Series

When to End a Series by Kassandra Lamb

For the second time in my writing career, I’m facing the decision of when to end a series. It’s a bittersweet experience. An author’s characters feel very much like real people to us.

It’s always tough to decide just when and where to end things. The why, however, is usually a combination of running out of story ideas for the series’ characters, and/or the main character(s) have completed something we authors call a character arc. Just like in real life, characters should ideally grow and change, learn about themselves, heal old wounds and become emotionally stronger as a result.

In the case of my current protagonist, service dog trainer Marcia Banks started out with a significant neurosis regarding commitment, as a result of a short and disastrous marriage. In Book 1, To Kill A Labrador (no dogs die), she meets an attractive local sheriff and finds certain feelings and sensations stirring. For the rest of the series, an ongoing subplot is her struggle to overcome her phobia—a struggle that produces both serious and humorous moments. Initially, she stutters a lot when she tries to say words like “love” and “marriage,” and especially “ch-ch-children.”

Marcia also has a tendency to be snarky, which she tries to control by thinking of her snarky side as a separate persona—whom she dubs Ms. Snark somewhere around Book 3. Her goal is to keep Ms. Snark in check and only allow her to make her snarky comments inside her own head. This backfires a bit as Ms. Snark subjects her to a running commentary on her life.

And of course, what leads her into her sleuthing activities is her tendency to rush in to right wrongs. This is both her greatest strength and her biggest flaw, because she doesn’t always think through the risks. She can’t help herself. When she sees something going wrong in someone’s life—whether it be a friend, neighbor or one of her veteran clients for whom she trains the dogs—she has to try to set it right.

She’s gotten a little better in this area over the course of the series, but still has a few lessons to learn about consequences, which will be dealt with in the last full-length novel in the series, To Bark or Not to Bark (not written yet).

Then the arc will be completed and the series will have come to its natural end. Marcia’s other issues either came to a head or were moving toward resolution in Book 11, One Flew over the Chow-Chow’s Nest, which just came out this summer.

So it’s time for me to prepare myself for the bittersweet departure of Marcia and her entourage of supporting characters (some of them four-legged) from my life. It feels much like having a neighbor, who’s been a good friend as well, announce that they’re moving across the country. You want to wish them well, but it’s hard to let go, and you know you’ll really miss them.

But the sweet part of the bittersweet is the feeling of accomplishment. I’ve successfully pulled off that character arc over the course of 12 books! That’s particularly gratifying to me because I’m a pantser…I write by the seat of my pants. So I never quite know exactly where my muse will take me and my characters, and I’m quite relieved when they end up in a good place.

That makes it easier to decide when to end a series, and to let go, knowing that I’ve helped someone become a better, happier person, even if she is a figment of my imagination.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In her youth, Kassandra Lamb had two great passions—psychology and writing. Advised that writers need day jobs—and being partial to eating—she studied psychology. Her career as a psychotherapist and college professor taught her much about the dark side of human nature, but also much about resilience, perseverance, and the healing power of laughter. Now retired, she spends most of her time in an alternate universe populated by her fictional characters. The portal to this universe (aka her computer) is located in North Central Florida where her husband and dog catch occasional glimpses of her. 

WEBSITE: https://kassandralamb.com
TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/KassandraLamb
FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/kassandralam...
PINTEREST:  https://www.pinterest.com/kassandralamb/
INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/kasslamb/
BOOKBUB PROFILE:  https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kassa...
AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE: http://www.amazon.com/Kassandra-Lamb/...

One Flew Over the Chow-Chow’s Nest

As the world moves toward normal, service dog trainer Marcia Banks can finally schedule the human phase of training with her Air Force pilot client, only to discover he’s been in a psychiatric hospital for months, with no one allowed to visit. Then suddenly he’s discharged…and his private plane crashes two days later.

While investigating what happened, Marcia uncovers potential fraud against the Veterans’ Administration. But who’s behind it, and did they sabotage her client’s plane? And just how determined are they to silence Marcia?

AMAZON US:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094SWRH25
APPLE US:  https://books.apple.com/us/book/id156...
AMAZON: smarturl.it/ChowChowNest
APPLE:  smarturl.it/AppleChowChow
KOBO:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/one-...
NOOK:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-...
GOOGLE PLAY:  https://play.google.com/store/books/d...

The post Guest Blogger: Kassandra Lamb – When to End a Series appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Poetry – Words of Beauty that I Simply Don’t Get

Sometimes I wonder why I feel such a passion for the written word and yet, I don’t love poetry. I read poems and I often appreciate the beauty of the word choices, rhythm, and beat, but I don’t go out of my way to pick up poetry books like I do novels and short story anthologies.

One of the writing groups I belong to has a weekly write a fifty-words or less response to a picture prompt. Many of the winners craft their submissions in poetic terms. My piece is always a narrative paragraph or two. Even there, where I could work in some pretty imagery, I don’t. My analytical brain looks at the picture and translates it into very concrete terms.

In writing novels, I have had to teach myself that in the first draft I often fail to express the character’s inner thoughts and feelings. In second, third, and fourth revisions, I go back and add those things in. Occasionally now, I manage to slip tidbits into the first draft. But, I haven’t been able to teach myself to do the same thing to write a poem.

My poetry, like my contest submissions is never free form. It follows a rhyming and counted syllable pattern. The theme is always obvious rather than couched in pretty terms. For a person who loves the sound of words, I find my predicament ironic.

Do any of you share my problem with poetry?

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Guest Blogger: Charlotte Hunter – Looking for a Crime? Grave-Robbing

Looking for a crime? Grave-robbing by Charlotte Hunter

For me, grave-robbing used to conjure thoughts of 18th-century resurrection men prowling moonlit cemeteries for fresh corpses to sell to medical schools. Then I began research for my current work-in-progress and, to my surprise, discovered grave robbery remains a thriving crime throughout the United States.

Some of these thefts are relatively petty on the desecration scale. For example, in early 2021 two men stole three skulls from a central Florida cemetery to use in building an altar. In 2015 a Rhode Island man was convicted of stealing over 150 headstones from a veterans’ cemetery to use as flooring in his garage and backyard shed. Also in 2015, a still unknown person broke into the Berlin mausoleum of F. W. Murnau, director of the 1922 film Nosferatu, and stole his skull.

But the majority of today’s grave robbers aren’t looking to score weird trophies or cadavers (although the body-broker biz also thrives). They’re looking to score easy money with little fear of detection.

In 2000, Mary and Ernest Adams purchased a pricey scenic plot in a Maryland cemetery for their deceased son. Not long afterward they discovered their son had been secretly reburied in an inexpensive lot at the bottom of a hill, and someone else lay buried in the scenic grave. Also in Maryland, Jeanette Greene’s children buried their mother in an expensive hilltop plot. Then her headstone disappeared. The body in the hilltop plot was no longer Jeanette. Eventually her stone was found in low-priced, boggy area of the cemetery. Even worse, the body disinterred from that grave wasn’t Jeanette Greene, nor was she found in any of six nearby graves; the cemetery employees who stole her body and resold the hilltop plot hadn’t bothered to record where they put it. Jeanette’s remains are still missing.

Burr Oak Cemetery, just outside Chicago, used to be best known as the resting place of 14-year-old Emmett Till, lynched in 1955 Mississippi for supposedly offending a white woman. In 2009, a new employee practicing his backhoe skills found bones scattered throughout a fenced-off, overgrown section of the cemetery. The subsequent police investigation revealed that, during the previous four years, between 200 to 300 bodies had been disinterred, dumped into the weeds, and the graves resold, to the financial benefit of the cemetery supervisor and a few minions.

The stories go on and on. Deeds aren’t provided to purchasers or are destroyed. Plots sold multiple times to multiple people often have coffins crammed together or stacked atop each other. And records—many kept on 3×5 cards, or worse—are inaccurate or missing.

I researched state cemetery regulations, certain there must be some oversight.

Not so much.

In 2003, for example, Florida reported to the Government Accountability Office (https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-03-757.pdf ) that, of its 3,000 known cemeteries, only 173 were regulated and these were only occasionally inspected. Throughout the nation, cemeteries belonging to religious organizations, fraternal societies, or counties and municipalities are not regulated or inspected. Sometimes family members, like the Adamses and Greenes, catch the fraud, but they are the fortunate few. Most grave robbing is similar to what occurred in Burr Oak Cemetery; old graves, often located in the nicest parts of a cemetery, are unvisited and forgotten. Except by thieves, who know few will notice or care if an old headstones vanishes and a shiny, new one takes its place.

So, if you’re working on a new story and searching for crime possibilities that also push all sorts of revenge buttons, you might consider doing what I did: Dig around in cemeteries.

Which, yes, is awful. But I couldn’t resist.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Charlotte Hunter writes middle-grade mysteries, and currently is keeping fingers and toes crossed about her agent search. She is president of the Citrus Crime Writers, central Florida’s chapter of Sisters in Crime, and is also a member of the Guppies and the Northern California chapter. She wanders in cemeteries, keeping a sharp eye out for signs of criminal activity. Also ghosts.

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Guest Blogger Linda Lovely – Giving a Villain a First-Person POV

Giving the Villain a First-Person POV by Linda Lovely

If the villain in a novel is intelligent, resourceful, and relentless, the heroine needs the same attributes—in spades—to outwit her opponent.

An evil versus good see-saw offers an excellent suspense-building tool. This is especially true if authors give readers a peek at what evil deeds the villain is planning. Such insights encourage readers to root for the heroine, who may seem like an underdog, still struggling to figure out the “why” of a murder let alone the “who done it.”

To build tension, I work hard to make my villains formidable—and credible. They can’t be carboard cutouts. Every human, even monsters like Hannibal Lecter, display some admirable qualities.

In The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler remarks: “Every villain is a hero of his or her own story.” Actor Tom Hiddleston is credited with saying “Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” I agree. And that makes writing villains challenging and fun.

In a mystery, there are many ways to reveal a villain’s motives, objectives, and personality. I’m a long-time Sue Grafton fan, who couldn’t wait for the late author to deliver the next “letter” in her alphabet-titled series. However, I believe Grafton dramatically notched up the tension in her series with T is for Trespass. In that mystery novel, Grafton’s primary villain was allotted her own chapters. These third-person POV chapters drew a chilling portrait of a cunning sociopath.

In my new traditional mystery, With Neighbors Like These, I followed Grafton’s example. While most of the book unfolds in my heroine’s first-person point-of-view chapters, readers periodically pay a visit to The Twin, my clever, calculating villain. My villain’s chapters also are written in first-person to give the reader unfiltered access to The Twin’s mind—emotions, ideas, dark humor, elaborate plans.

The first-person approach has a side benefit. It doesn’t give away a single clue about The Twin’s age, occupation, appearance or other identifying characteristics. So, while readers gain an insider’s view of the villain’s plans, they must keep turning pages to see if the heroine can ID the killer before the body count climbs. To avoid reader confusion about which “I” character is speaking, each of The Twin’s chapters are clearly identified.

This is my ninth published novel. A structure that works best for one book may be a poor fit for another. I’m pleased with how my villain’s chapters upped the suspense in With Neighbors Like These, so I’m taking the same approach in the second book in my HOA (homeowner association) Mystery series.

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A journalism major in college, Linda Lovely has spent most of her career working in PR and advertising—an early introduction to penning fiction. With Neighbors Like These is Lovely’s ninth mystery/suspense novel. Whether she’s writing cozy mysteries, historical suspense or contemporary thrillers, her novels share one common element—smart, independent heroines. Humor and romance also sneak into every manuscript. Her work has earned nominations for a number of prestigious awards, ranging from RWA’s Golden Heart for Romantic Suspense to Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion for Best Cozy Mystery.

Buy Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Neighbors-Like-These-HOA-Mystery-ebook/dp/B097F8DSL5

https://www.lindalovely.com/hoa-mysteries

The post Guest Blogger Linda Lovely – Giving a Villain a First-Person POV appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.

Guest Blogger: Lynn Slaughter – Starting a Novel: One Writer’s Approach

Starting a Novel: One Writer’s Approach by Lynn Slaughter

As both a writer and a voracious reader, I’m always fascinated learning about the writing process of different authors. There’s definitely no one size-fits all approach. So, my philosophy is to do whatever works!

Here’s what tends to work for me. First off comes a glimmer of an idea. In the case of Leisha’s Song, one came to me standing in line in New York’s Port Authority to board a bus for Connecticut. A grandmother and teenage granddaughter were standing near me, and being the nosey writer I am, I was eavesdropping on their conversation. The granddaughter was heading to boarding school, and she did not want to go. She was leaving all her friends in her neighborhood and didn’t want to go to “some fancy school with uppity white kids.” Her grandmother would have none of that. Her granddaughter was smart, she said, and the scholarship she’d won was her shot at a better life.

That got me thinking about what it would be like to be a whip smart young woman of color at a boarding school where the majority of students came from white, wealthy families.

Okay, so now, I had an idea for a character and a setting. After that, I spent an enormous amount of time thinking and writing about my character and the other principal characters in her world. For me, the most essential thing to dig deeply into is their back story and how their back stories have shaped who they are and how they view the world and their place in it.

For example, in Leisha’s Song, Leisha has grown up as more or less the stand-in for her late mother. With her father not in the picture and her mom having abandoned her and later died of a drug overdose, Leisha has grown up with her widowed grandfather. From the time she’s been identified as academically gifted, her grandfather has poured every one of his deferred dreams into her. He has a whole script laid out for her—Get a scholarship to a prestigious New England boarding school, which she has accomplished, continue to excel academically, which she has—and snare a college scholarship on route to becoming a physician. While she’s inherited her late mother’s singing ability, her grandfather repeatedly tells her that singing is fine as a hobby but certainly not as a career. He’s also been adamant that she never become romantically involved with a white boy, since he blames her mother’s demise on a white man she met at the night club where she was singing.

For Leisha, there’s been a lot of payoff in being her grandfather’s golden child and replacement daughter. She loves her grandfather, and he’s enormously proud of her. She gets a lot of accolades for her academic accomplishments. It’s never  been a problem for her to be a pleaser.

Right away, from knowing about her background, all kinds of ideas for both internal and external conflict spill out, as I play the “What If?” game. What if her experiences at boarding school cause her to feel conflicted about following her grandfather’s script for her life? What if she falls in love with classical singing and really wants to pursue music rather than medicine? What if, despite her grandfather’s dictums to leave it alone, she can’t bear not to try to find her beloved mentor who suddenly resigns and disappears in the midst of preparing her prize students for a vocal competition? What if she finds herself attracted to another student, a sensitive cellist who happens to come from an ultra-wealthy conservative white family?

Suddenly, she’s way out of her comfort zone and has to figure out who she is and who she wants to be apart from her grandfather’s script for her, as well as what price she may have to pay for following her own path. If she continues to defy her grandfather, he may pull her out of school and away from Cody, her romantic interest. Moreover, she may even end up risking her life to find her missing teacher.

As the mystery writer Elizabeth George advises in her craft books, I’ve found that if I start with character development, all sorts of plot ideas and complications will follow.

But here’s the caveat. I know lots of wonderful writers who don’t do it this way! They get to know their characters in the process of writing their stories and would never spend days and weeks thinking and writing about their characters beforehand.

Are they doing it wrong? Absolutely not! It’s whatever works, and the answer to that question will be different for every writer.

I’d love to know what your process is and what works for you!

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After a long career as a professional dancer and dance educator, Lynn Slaughter earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Section Hill University. She writes coming of age romantic mysteries and is the author of the newly released Leisha’s Song; While I Danced, an EPIC finalist; It Should Have Been You, a Silver Falchion finalist; and Deadly Setup (forthcoming from Fire and Ice, 2022). She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where she’s at work on her next novel and serves as the President of Derby Rotten Scoundrels, the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime.

The post Guest Blogger: Lynn Slaughter – Starting a Novel: One Writer’s Approach appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.