Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 179

Career U-turn? by Brenda Chapman

This week's question: If you weren’t a writer, would you still be in the book business? (bookseller, agent, editor, publisher) or would you do something completely different?


Intriguing question.
I'm not certain that I'd be in the book business if I wasn't a writer, but I do know that I'd be working in the literacy field in some capacity. My education is in English lit and education. The first fifteen or so years of my working life were spent as a special education teacher at a private sch...

Deeper and Deeper

Paul here:

This week I’m thrilled to have Dennis Palumbo guest blog here. Dennis is a screenwriter (My Favorite Year, Welcome Back Kotter, and more), psychotherapist and the author of the Daniel Rinaldi series. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime (Tallfellow Press).

Dr. Daniel Rinaldi is a psychologist and trauma expert, who consults with the Pittsburgh Police Department and specializes in treatin...

Two Middle-aged Introverts write a Sex Scene (and ruin my childhood)

Catriona writes: Two swerves today, Mind Readers. One - I am bunking off. Two - honoured guests Jess Lourey and Shannon Baker aren't even answering the question! I can't imagine there will be any complaints because, instead, they are going there. Yep, it's fluttering curtains and tumbling puns as the double-booked tour tackles sex scenes..And now over to Shannon and Jess.Thanks to Catriona for inviting me, Shannon Baker , and Jess Lourey back for our Third Annual Lourey-Baker Double-Booked Blog...

Plus ça change...? by Cathy Ace

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Has Crime Writing Changed?

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Crime fiction's in good shape

Q: What difference do you notice between the prose in crime novels that were written twenty years ago and current ones?  Do you think the writing has gotten better? Are the subjects different?- from SusanGood question! Since 1998, huh? I’m doing a mental scan of my bookshelves to look for patterns. In the meantime, this:1998 Edgar winners: James Lee BurkeJoseph CanonLaura Lippman
1998 Leftie winners:Janet EvanovichMargaret ChittendenSarah ShankmanDon Winslow
1998 Agatha winners:Kate R...

A Rose by Any Other Name...

How do you choose your titles? Does your publisher do it?

From Jim
My title situation is a little different from that of most writers today. I write the Ellie Stone mysteries, a traditional whodunnit series set in the early 1960s. My protagonist is named Ellie Stone, and all my titles are common expressions or portions of common expressions involving the word stone. That means there’s a limited number of possible titles for these books. And to maintain consistency and branding of the serie...

What’s in a name?

How do you choose your titles? Put a bunch of words in a hat and pull them out at random? Use a title generator? Does your publisher do it? Do you find it easy or hard? Do you start with a working title, or just start writing? Has the title ever stayed the same? Is there a title you wish you could steal?
by Dietrich Kalteis
Sometimes the title comes to me before the story even takes shape, sometimes it comes from a scene or a line I’m writing, and often it changes long before I submit the story...

The Right Colour

By R.J. Harlick
How do you choose your titles? Put a bunch of words in a hat and pull them out at random? Use a title generator? Does your publisher do it? Do you find it easy or hard? Do you start with a working title, or just start writing? Has the title ever stayed the same?
I sometimes think that coming up with a title is one of the hardest parts of writing a book. I even make it easy, because I always use a colour in the title. But then again, perhaps, it makes it harder, because I need to...

What's in a Title?

I'm thrilled to post my first blog as the newest blogger and look forward to sharing ideas with you. I'm a Canadian mystery author, living and writing in Ottawa Canada with eighteen published books. My latest projects include the Stonechild and Rouleau police procedural series (Dundurn) and an adult literacy series of novellas (Grass Roots Press) called the Anna Sweet mysteries. So with this brief introduction, I'll get right in to answering this week's questions!


How do you choose your titles...