There’s a New Character in Town

I’m late in posting this week due to other commitments. I’m a member of a local Sisters in Crime Chapter and we had our monthly meeting today. Ruth Owen, an award winning romance author, was the guest speaker. She did a wonderful job of explaining what to do when developing characters. She also provided a wealth of resource books to look into regarding plot versus character.

Speaking of which…I write mysteries that I plot out before I begin writing. There’s a notebook for each of my stories. There are character descriptions, motivations, and hidden agendas. I call it my Star O’Brien Bible. Sometimes I write just one or two paragraphs that describe the scene which becomes a chapter. Other times, I’ve used mind mapping and diagrams with circles and arrows to plot out relationships between characters, their emotions, and motivations.

This week when I was editing the draft of the second book in the Star O’Brien mystery series, something happened that hadn’t been mind-mapped or decided upon ahead of writing: a new character showed up. Her name is Maeve Baldwin. She’s an older woman. She wears pearls. I like her. She has a minor appearance in this book but I suspect she’ll show up in one of the next books in the series.

In other exciting news, the book cover design phase for this second book kicks off tomorrow. I’ll be sharing updates in the next few weeks.

In the meanwhile, keep the love going,

Martha