Kassandra Lamb's Blog, page 18
April 19, 2021
Writing from Multiple POVs: Part 1 (for Readers and Writers)
by Kassandra Lamb ~ Once upon a time, writing in more than one point of view was a no-no, unless you were writing romance, and then you were supposed to stick with just the hero’s and heroine’s POVs. But it’s becoming more common these days to see stories that include other perspectives. There can be good reasons for doing this, but there is also an art to writing from multiple POVs.
I did a guest post (on Jami Gold’s blog) about this topic back in 2019 when I was just finishing up a ten-book...
April 12, 2021
Off-Week Goodies: New Stories Coming and Contest Reminder
Just a few announcements this week — new stories coming out soon and a contest reminder.
Kirsten Weiss has a new story coming out the end of April.Damsel in a Dress is Book 5 in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series, fun cozies with just a touch of paranormal.

Bridesmaid duties can be deadly…
Maddie Kosloski has more than wedding cake on her plate. She’s managing her paranormal museum, helping her best friend Adele with wedding plans, and trying to prove that Adele’s vin...
April 5, 2021
Crime Fiction Sub-Genres – 3 Distinctions That Are Clear As Mud
by Kassandra Lamb ~ Genre definitions and crime fiction sub-genres can be quite murky and confusing for both writers and readers.
First there is the question of what is crime fiction. Some use it as a broader umbrella that includes any kind of fiction related to crime (including true crime, which isn’t fiction) and view mystery as one of its main sub-genres. Others use the two terms interchangeably (as we do here at misterio press).
If you do a search for mystery sub-genres, you will find ...
March 29, 2021
Fear of the Grocery Store Shouldn’t Be Part of Our New Normal
by Kassandra Lamb ~ Up until last Friday morning, I’d planned a completely different blog post for this week, one on mystery subgenres (which we’ll run next week). Then I realized there was a far more important topic I should be addressing—fear of the grocery store.
And then, it dawned on me that it shouldn’t have taken me several days to come to that realization.
We’d had two mass killings in less than a week, the second one in a grocery store, and it took me days to realize I should blog...
March 22, 2021
Peek Behind the Screen: How We Come Up with Book Cover Designs (an Encore)
by Kirsten Weiss ~ While book cover design is certainly not the most stressful part of the publishing process, it has its quirks. A good cover doesn’t tell the story, but it does need to do three things:
Grab the reader’s attention and make them curious about the story.Tell the reader what type of story they’re buying – funny mystery, spooky suspense, lighthearted romance. And this information needs to be easy to identify when the reader is looking at a thumbnail sized image.That said, I’...
March 15, 2021
Writing the Other (an Off-Week Goodie)~Plus a New Contest!
By Kassandra Lamb ~ Over on our Facebook readers’ group today, Vinnie Hansen has a discussion going on “writing the other.” How do authors avoid stereotypes and unintended offensiveness when writing about cultures, religions, ethnic backgrounds other than their own?
It isn’t easy!And yet “diversity” is one of the big buzz words in the writerly world right now. There is pressure for more diverse characters and topics in our stories.

As a member of several privileged groups—white, m...
March 8, 2021
Exploring the “Rules” of Writing ~ for Readers and Writers

by Kassandra Lamb ~ Writers find this quote amusing, because it’s sort of true. Ask a bunch of writers what the three most important rules of writing are, and you will get somewhat different answers from all of them.
The one you will probably hear most often is “Show, don’t tell.” This is an excellent rule. But even this one needs to be broken at times.
For example:On the drive home, Paul pondered his options. He needed to make a decision soon.
This is telling, but it is a comm...
March 1, 2021
6 Pros for Listening to Audio Books (an Encore)
by Kassandra Lamb and K.B. Owen ~ Since Kathy (K.B.) is releasing her next audio book, Unseemly Honeymoon, this week, I figured it was a good time to do an encore of this post, on the pros of listening to audio books.

This is the 6th book in her series that is now out in audio.
I’ve now released two audio books (with two more on the way—delayed by the pandemic, sadly).
So Kathy and I put our heads together and came up with 6 pros for listening to audio books. And quite honestly we...
February 22, 2021
Modern Ways to Kill Our Characters in Crime Fiction
by Vinnie Hansen ~ Technology now offers us mystery writers some modern ways to kill our characters. I recently wrote about this on my own website. Check it out…
Perfectly Modern Ways to DieMotives for murder have not changed over the millennium, the three common ones being the pursuit of money, sex or power. Methods, however, are a different matter. The modern crime writer has at his/her disposal a trove of new ways to kill off characters.

Th...
February 15, 2021
Spin-Off Series in Crime Fiction (Plus a Kirsten Weiss Release)
by Kassandra Lamb ~ Just like on TV, we mystery authors sometimes do spin-off series in our crime fiction.
When we fall in love with a secondary character, or even sometimes a setting, we may feel compelled to start a new series based on that character or setting.
Why not just continue the existing series to keep that character alive?Because main characters have what we writers call arcs. The character starts in a certain place—usually not a great place—and then deals with certain chal...