Polly Iyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "mystery"
I'm Jealous of My Character
I’m psychically deprived. Don't have a psychic bone in my body. No premonitions, no spooky hair-standing-on-end moments. So what inspired me to write a series with a psychic character?
Jealousy.
I would love to touch someone and see inside them, or hold a missing person’s article of clothing and get a vision of where that person was. My character in MIND GAMES, Diana Racine, can’t make up her mind whether having those abilities is a gift or a curse.
She’s a psychic entertainer. She’s also a fraud. That’s right, fraud, as in charlatan, huckster, and even witch. Those are only a few of the epithets she’s been called. She employs a computer hacker to dig up information on the people in the audience by cracking the credit cards they use to buy a seat for one of her performances. But with every reading, she reveals a fact known only to her subject, whose reaction assures the audience that Diana is not the fraud people claim. So is she for real, or is she a con artist?
Diana’s story goes back over twenty-five years. Her first psychic experience as a six-year old was an accident. A neighborhood boy went missing, and Diana picked up one of his toys. Wham! She saw where he was clear as day and led the search party to his body in a ditch not far from his house.
After a few more astonishing discoveries, law enforcement began calling on her to help find people who’d disappeared, and those who’d given up hope of locating their missing kin paid her to do the same. Many didn’t believe a child could possess that much power. Some even accused her of setting up the disappearances and the discoveries. Most put their skepticism to rest after institutes all over the world proved she was the real thing.
Along with worldwide fame came the stress of finding lost people―children who’d strayed, Alzheimer patients who’d lost their way, murder victims. Sometimes finding those victims led to clues that put some bad people behind bars. When the pressure became too much, Diana told her manipulative father that she’d lost her gift. Unwilling to give up the life to which he’d become accustomed, he created her act. That’s how she segued from famed child psychic to more famous psychic entertainer.
One of the killers who wound up in prison because Diana found clues that led to his arrest, has festered for twenty years about exacting revenge on the child who sent him there. He’s out, and though Diana doesn’t know it yet, she’s in big trouble. The twist is that the killer has the same psychic abilities as Diana, which makes for a duel of mental dominance.
Are there really people who have psychic abilities? Yes. Are there frauds? Yes again. The only thing that separates one from the other is their track record and/or a good PR person. Some have websites and claim their teachings can help followers find their spiritual selves. They make generic predictions and promote their own beliefs; others claim they can speak to the departed, and most perform for a price.
I have a friend who’s had psychics tell her things they couldn’t possibly know. She’s a believer. Personally, I don’t want a psychic reading. I know what’s already happened, and like a character in the second book of the series, GODDESS OF THE MOON, I’m too old to want to know the future. We all have the same end. I’d prefer not to know mine. I like surprises.
Jealousy.
I would love to touch someone and see inside them, or hold a missing person’s article of clothing and get a vision of where that person was. My character in MIND GAMES, Diana Racine, can’t make up her mind whether having those abilities is a gift or a curse.
She’s a psychic entertainer. She’s also a fraud. That’s right, fraud, as in charlatan, huckster, and even witch. Those are only a few of the epithets she’s been called. She employs a computer hacker to dig up information on the people in the audience by cracking the credit cards they use to buy a seat for one of her performances. But with every reading, she reveals a fact known only to her subject, whose reaction assures the audience that Diana is not the fraud people claim. So is she for real, or is she a con artist?
Diana’s story goes back over twenty-five years. Her first psychic experience as a six-year old was an accident. A neighborhood boy went missing, and Diana picked up one of his toys. Wham! She saw where he was clear as day and led the search party to his body in a ditch not far from his house.
After a few more astonishing discoveries, law enforcement began calling on her to help find people who’d disappeared, and those who’d given up hope of locating their missing kin paid her to do the same. Many didn’t believe a child could possess that much power. Some even accused her of setting up the disappearances and the discoveries. Most put their skepticism to rest after institutes all over the world proved she was the real thing.
Along with worldwide fame came the stress of finding lost people―children who’d strayed, Alzheimer patients who’d lost their way, murder victims. Sometimes finding those victims led to clues that put some bad people behind bars. When the pressure became too much, Diana told her manipulative father that she’d lost her gift. Unwilling to give up the life to which he’d become accustomed, he created her act. That’s how she segued from famed child psychic to more famous psychic entertainer.
One of the killers who wound up in prison because Diana found clues that led to his arrest, has festered for twenty years about exacting revenge on the child who sent him there. He’s out, and though Diana doesn’t know it yet, she’s in big trouble. The twist is that the killer has the same psychic abilities as Diana, which makes for a duel of mental dominance.
Are there really people who have psychic abilities? Yes. Are there frauds? Yes again. The only thing that separates one from the other is their track record and/or a good PR person. Some have websites and claim their teachings can help followers find their spiritual selves. They make generic predictions and promote their own beliefs; others claim they can speak to the departed, and most perform for a price.
I have a friend who’s had psychics tell her things they couldn’t possibly know. She’s a believer. Personally, I don’t want a psychic reading. I know what’s already happened, and like a character in the second book of the series, GODDESS OF THE MOON, I’m too old to want to know the future. We all have the same end. I’d prefer not to know mine. I like surprises.
Character Blog - Diana Racine
Good friend Jim Jackson, or as he’s known in the literary world, James M. Jackson, invited me to participate in a character blog. Since I had a new release featuring my character, Diana Racine, I thought why not? You can find Jim’s books, Bad Policy and Cabin Fever, at your favorite bookstore or online venue. His blog describing his character, financial investigator Seamus McCree, is at this location:
http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/20...
Financial crimes investigator Seamus McCree returns in this thrilling sequel to Bad Policy. With his house in Cincinnati in ruins, Seamus retreats to the family cabin for some well-earned rest and relaxation. But his plans for a quiet, contemplative winter in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are thrown out the window when he discovers a naked woman on his porch during a blizzard. The mystery woman is suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, high fevers, amnesia—and rope burns on her wrists and ankles.
I never intended to write a series when I wrote Mind Games, but I got an idea for book two, and Goddess of the Moon was born. It all fit so perfectly. Diana, a character in mythology, was Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon.
Then readers asked for book three, and I panicked. Could I write a third?
Backlash was released September 30, 2014. People have already asked me about a fourth. To that I say, maybe.
What makes the series a natural is Diana herself. Here’s why:
Diana gained celebrity when she was six-years old after she found the body of a missing child. From that point until she was twelve, her father pushed her to find missing persons both for the police and for individuals searching for their missing kin, most of whom are dead.
The pressure on the young psychic took its toll, and to save her sanity, she claimed she lost her gift. Unwilling to lose his meal ticket, Diana’s father created a psychic act that traveled the world. How does a psychic who’s supposedly not psychic anymore star in a psychic act?
Easy. Daddy hired computer experts to hack into audience participants’ credit cards and any other trough of information to aid Diana pull off her ruse. Besides what her hackers unearthed, she somehow managed to find something in everyone’s psychic reading that no one else could have known.
So, is our heroine is a fraud, a charlatan, and a quack, or is she the real thing?
That’s what New Orleans police lieutenant Ernie Lucier had to decide in the first book, Mind Games, when she told him she saw the body of a dead woman in a vision when a masked man touches her at a Mardi Gras ball.
Diana is described by many as trouble looking for a place to happen. She’s fearless, reckless, and smart, but the one thing that sets her apart and makes it difficult for her to do anything clandestinely is she’s famous. People recognize her wherever she goes.
Here are some Diana facts:
She’s 5’2”, has a mass of black curls, wears only black and white with a touch of red to match her lipstick, and she might do an occasional private reading for an exorbitant fee. She won’t, however, perform in front of crowds, although in book three, she’s snookered into doing just that.
Diana is a fun character to write because I never know what she’s going to do. She learns more about the bad guys from touching them, and that’s why she’s always a target. They’re afraid of her. Ernie Lucier is totally smitten, and though a quiet, thoughtful man, he’s had to adjust to her celebrity. They make a great team.
My choice to pass along the character blog is Aaron Paul Lazar and his character Sky Lissoneau: the “Bad Boy” from Tall Pines Mysteries.
When Sky returns to the States after being MIA for eighteen years, his first love, Marcella, is stunned and deeply conflicted. Sky suffered badly in the war, forced to abandon his platoon when his best friend’s life was in danger. Captured and held as a prisoner of war for years, all he could think of was Marcella, his darling Marcella. It was the thought of Marcella’s soft kisses that kept him going. Her infectious laugh helped him survive the cruelest torture. And when he returns with a gang of vicious hi-powered crooks chasing him, she saves his life. Somehow, he just knew she’d be there, still waiting. But he didn't know she'd be married to Quinn "Black Eagle" Hollister.
Here's the link to Aaron's blog: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/2014/10...
http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/20...
Financial crimes investigator Seamus McCree returns in this thrilling sequel to Bad Policy. With his house in Cincinnati in ruins, Seamus retreats to the family cabin for some well-earned rest and relaxation. But his plans for a quiet, contemplative winter in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are thrown out the window when he discovers a naked woman on his porch during a blizzard. The mystery woman is suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, high fevers, amnesia—and rope burns on her wrists and ankles.
I never intended to write a series when I wrote Mind Games, but I got an idea for book two, and Goddess of the Moon was born. It all fit so perfectly. Diana, a character in mythology, was Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon.
Then readers asked for book three, and I panicked. Could I write a third?
Backlash was released September 30, 2014. People have already asked me about a fourth. To that I say, maybe.What makes the series a natural is Diana herself. Here’s why:
Diana gained celebrity when she was six-years old after she found the body of a missing child. From that point until she was twelve, her father pushed her to find missing persons both for the police and for individuals searching for their missing kin, most of whom are dead.
The pressure on the young psychic took its toll, and to save her sanity, she claimed she lost her gift. Unwilling to lose his meal ticket, Diana’s father created a psychic act that traveled the world. How does a psychic who’s supposedly not psychic anymore star in a psychic act?
Easy. Daddy hired computer experts to hack into audience participants’ credit cards and any other trough of information to aid Diana pull off her ruse. Besides what her hackers unearthed, she somehow managed to find something in everyone’s psychic reading that no one else could have known.
So, is our heroine is a fraud, a charlatan, and a quack, or is she the real thing?
That’s what New Orleans police lieutenant Ernie Lucier had to decide in the first book, Mind Games, when she told him she saw the body of a dead woman in a vision when a masked man touches her at a Mardi Gras ball.
Diana is described by many as trouble looking for a place to happen. She’s fearless, reckless, and smart, but the one thing that sets her apart and makes it difficult for her to do anything clandestinely is she’s famous. People recognize her wherever she goes.
Here are some Diana facts:
She’s 5’2”, has a mass of black curls, wears only black and white with a touch of red to match her lipstick, and she might do an occasional private reading for an exorbitant fee. She won’t, however, perform in front of crowds, although in book three, she’s snookered into doing just that.
Diana is a fun character to write because I never know what she’s going to do. She learns more about the bad guys from touching them, and that’s why she’s always a target. They’re afraid of her. Ernie Lucier is totally smitten, and though a quiet, thoughtful man, he’s had to adjust to her celebrity. They make a great team.
My choice to pass along the character blog is Aaron Paul Lazar and his character Sky Lissoneau: the “Bad Boy” from Tall Pines Mysteries.
When Sky returns to the States after being MIA for eighteen years, his first love, Marcella, is stunned and deeply conflicted. Sky suffered badly in the war, forced to abandon his platoon when his best friend’s life was in danger. Captured and held as a prisoner of war for years, all he could think of was Marcella, his darling Marcella. It was the thought of Marcella’s soft kisses that kept him going. Her infectious laugh helped him survive the cruelest torture. And when he returns with a gang of vicious hi-powered crooks chasing him, she saves his life. Somehow, he just knew she’d be there, still waiting. But he didn't know she'd be married to Quinn "Black Eagle" Hollister.
Here's the link to Aaron's blog: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/2014/10...
Kindle Scout - Win a Book
I'm happy to report that Indiscretion was chosen as a Kindle Scout winner. Look for publication sometime in August. Thanks to everyone who nominated the book. You will receive your free copy before the book is available on Amazon. Cheers! ~ Polly
May 26, 2015.
This is the fifteenth day my new book, Indiscretion, has been on Amazon’s Kindle Scout program. It’s been off and on the “Hot and Trending” list. This is measured by how many people read the sample and nominate my book during a thirty-day period. I’ve done some promotion, but there’s a fine line between promo and overkill. I try to be cognizant of where that line is.
Self-promotion has never been an easy fit for me. I’ve never sent out a Facebook blast that asks people to Like my page or for people to buy my books. I do post, but hopefully within acceptable limits. Now I find myself asking people to read the pages of my book and nominate it for publication if they want to read more. One perk is those who do so will get a free copy if Indiscretion is published by Kindle Press.
So what is Kindle Scout, you ask? This is from the Kindle Scout website:
“Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.”
Bloggers have debated the pros and cons of the program. From my point of view, the answer depends on where you are in the publishing world. I’ve self-published seven books with Amazon. The difference with Kindle Scout, besides the nice advance, unheard of for an indie writer, is the strength of Amazon’s marketing that I wouldn’t get otherwise.
No longer can writers just write. Due to the increased number of indie and hybrid writers and the plethora of free book promotions, we must now be creative to keep our books from falling into obscurity, in contrast to those days when I first started, way back in 2011. We now pay companies to advertise our free or specially priced promotions to their huge reader mailing lists, many times at high costs. The outlay is usually refunded by greater sales.
We are social media experts, promotional gurus, Pinterest pinners, LinkedIn joiners, and Twitter tweeters. We join groups to support each other and share writing tips and posts about the things we learn on our writing journeys.
In order to submit to the program, Amazon Scout insists on a professional cover, editing, and formatting. If my book is chosen by reader nominations and the Amazon Scout Powers-That-Be, it will receive a complete edit.
I created the cover for Indiscretion, but after 25 years as an illustrator, and eight book covers under my belt (one for my alter ego) I have no problem immodestly calling my covers professionally designed. Everything would be the same if I decided to self-publish, so I’m used to the parameters established by Kindle Scout. From what I’ve tracked, most of the books chosen in the first few groups are doing well.
I tried something new with Indiscretion. Though there have been books that set a story around a real event, I incorporated an actual unsolved crime, Boston’s 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, and made it the focal point of a fictional story.
SO, unwilling to miss an opportunity, here’s my pitch for Indiscretion in 500 characters or less (Scout’s limit):
“Separated from her controlling husband, romance author Zoe Swan meets a charismatic art history professor on the beach and begins a torrid affair. But who is he really? By the time Zoe finds out, she’s on the run with her husband, his jewel thief brother, and a priceless painting stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. With the FBI and the murderer in pursuit, the trio heads to Boston. The only way to prove their innocence is to make a deal with the very people who want them dead.”
There are a few sample chapters on the site. If you like what you read and would like to read more (if my book is picked, everyone who nominated it receives an electronic copy), consider clicking “Nominate me.” Sorry for the blatant self-promotion. Here’s the link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3GQQ...
Thank you kindly if you do.
May 26, 2015.
This is the fifteenth day my new book, Indiscretion, has been on Amazon’s Kindle Scout program. It’s been off and on the “Hot and Trending” list. This is measured by how many people read the sample and nominate my book during a thirty-day period. I’ve done some promotion, but there’s a fine line between promo and overkill. I try to be cognizant of where that line is.
Self-promotion has never been an easy fit for me. I’ve never sent out a Facebook blast that asks people to Like my page or for people to buy my books. I do post, but hopefully within acceptable limits. Now I find myself asking people to read the pages of my book and nominate it for publication if they want to read more. One perk is those who do so will get a free copy if Indiscretion is published by Kindle Press.
So what is Kindle Scout, you ask? This is from the Kindle Scout website:
“Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.”
Bloggers have debated the pros and cons of the program. From my point of view, the answer depends on where you are in the publishing world. I’ve self-published seven books with Amazon. The difference with Kindle Scout, besides the nice advance, unheard of for an indie writer, is the strength of Amazon’s marketing that I wouldn’t get otherwise.
No longer can writers just write. Due to the increased number of indie and hybrid writers and the plethora of free book promotions, we must now be creative to keep our books from falling into obscurity, in contrast to those days when I first started, way back in 2011. We now pay companies to advertise our free or specially priced promotions to their huge reader mailing lists, many times at high costs. The outlay is usually refunded by greater sales.
We are social media experts, promotional gurus, Pinterest pinners, LinkedIn joiners, and Twitter tweeters. We join groups to support each other and share writing tips and posts about the things we learn on our writing journeys.
In order to submit to the program, Amazon Scout insists on a professional cover, editing, and formatting. If my book is chosen by reader nominations and the Amazon Scout Powers-That-Be, it will receive a complete edit.
I created the cover for Indiscretion, but after 25 years as an illustrator, and eight book covers under my belt (one for my alter ego) I have no problem immodestly calling my covers professionally designed. Everything would be the same if I decided to self-publish, so I’m used to the parameters established by Kindle Scout. From what I’ve tracked, most of the books chosen in the first few groups are doing well.
I tried something new with Indiscretion. Though there have been books that set a story around a real event, I incorporated an actual unsolved crime, Boston’s 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, and made it the focal point of a fictional story.
SO, unwilling to miss an opportunity, here’s my pitch for Indiscretion in 500 characters or less (Scout’s limit):
“Separated from her controlling husband, romance author Zoe Swan meets a charismatic art history professor on the beach and begins a torrid affair. But who is he really? By the time Zoe finds out, she’s on the run with her husband, his jewel thief brother, and a priceless painting stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. With the FBI and the murderer in pursuit, the trio heads to Boston. The only way to prove their innocence is to make a deal with the very people who want them dead.”
There are a few sample chapters on the site. If you like what you read and would like to read more (if my book is picked, everyone who nominated it receives an electronic copy), consider clicking “Nominate me.” Sorry for the blatant self-promotion. Here’s the link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3GQQ...
Thank you kindly if you do.
Polly Iyer Interviews Polly Iyer on Genres
Q. What genre do you write?
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
