Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 231

Make Your Characters Earn Their Keep---Guest Post by Wendy Lyn Watson

Hope you'll joining me in welcoming Wendy Lyn Watson to Mystery Writing is Murder today. Wendy is a fellow mystery writer and a friend of mine from the Killer Characters blog. Scoop to Kill releases September 7.

First, I want to thank Elizabeth for letting me hang out on her blog today. So many generous writers have helped me over the years (and continue to help me every dang day), so it's nice to get a chance to pay it forward now and then.

The first time I sat down to hammer out a...

Twitterific

Here are writing links that I've posted to Twitter for the past week. If you're looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

Novel Done, Soundbite...

Signings

Busy day on Friday, but we really covered some ground!

First of all, actually, was the signing Avery and I did at Joseph Beth bookstore in the South Park area of Charlotte.  They did a beautiful banner for us, which you can see in the background.  Great crowd came out and they asked wonderful questions.

I think that really I never need to follow a presentation by Avery!  She (as her alter-ego Daryl Wood Gerber) was a professional actress on television.  And me? I need to work on my...

Getting From Point A to Point B

One of the group blogs I'm on, A Good Blog is Hard to Find, is re-launching and asked its members to tell a little about themselves and how they started writing.  Mine is up today and I kept it pretty brief! :)  Hope you'll pop by.

I'm traveling for the next four days on my book tour, so I won't be as active online as I usually am (and probably going through internet withdrawal!) 

Keeping Readers in the Loop

I usually like to go to independently owned coffee houses…but there come times when I really, really need a cup of coffee and Starbucks is the only thing around.

I popped in last week and instead of asking for a "small coffee" (I never look at their menu because it makes me confused), I got a little daring and asked for a small chai tea latte.

"A short or a tall?"

"A…well, the smallest size you have."

"That's a short. If you ask for a small, you get a 12 oz. tall. Medium is grande ...

A Delicious Review

I've been in a promotion and writing haze lately, making sure Delicious and Suspicious stays on track, then quickly shifting back into creative mode to pen Memphis book three. 

So it's wonderful to come across such a generous review in the middle of a crazy day. :)  Thanks so much, Sharon!

Protagonist IQ

How smart should your protagonist be?  And—how can you show, instead of tell, your protagonist's intelligence?

Hope you'll come by Molly Weston's blog, Meritorious Mysteries, to weigh in on the importance of IQ in our main characters.

Synchronization

Okay, things are slow starting up today at the Mystery Writing is Murder blog!  :)  I'll explain first of all that I hosted a sleepover party for my son's friends and daughter's friends….and the "sleep" part of the sleepover was minimal, at best!  But they all seemed to have a good time.

I'm trying to sync up to a blog that I'm guesting on today, but unfortunately I'm not sure what time the post is running.  This is the way things go with guest posts sometimes. :)

I am also on Killer...

Quiet Books

We hear a lot of advice these days on hooking our readers and grabbing them on page one.  That's easy enough—if we've written something fast-paced, like a thriller.

But what if we've written a quiet book?  Hope you'll pop over to Michele Emrath's Southern City Mysteries blog for some thoughts on hooking a reader in a slower-paced book. 

Twitterific

Here are writing links that I've posted to Twitter for the past week. If you're looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

Do the things you *think* you...