That’s Number 12, What About Number 13?

Today sees the official release of A Killing in the Family, the twelfth Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, and many people are asking, how do you write so many, so fast.

One of the primary requirements is a sad life  I don’t get out enough which means I tend to create my own worlds, and the world of the Sanford 3rd Age Club is just one of them.

The STAC Mysteries are comparatively short. They come in at between 50,000 and 60,000 words. The action is not cut for the sake of brevity, but descriptive, so-called “scene-setting” is trimmed. Is there any point in using two pages describing the interior of a pub? We all know what a pub looks like inside and outside. The same can be said of character description. Ian Fleming would set up a whole chapter describing a character and giving us his entire history. I prefer to use a single paragraph for a broad description. Anything else the reader needs to know about the character, can be learnt as we go along.

Is it easy working on a series like this?

Good friend and fellow Crooked Cat author, Carol Hedges discusses this very problem on her blog so I won’t go into it too deeply, but I agree with Carol. It’s not as easy as you may think. You have to know the core characters inside out, because if you don’t, you’re sure to slip up somewhere along the line.

The biggest problem I face when planning (I use the word in its loosest possible sense) is new settings, locations and that vital, vital clue which will tip off our hero sleuth to the killer.

Right now, while A Killing in the Family makes its way up the Amazon cozy crime chart (it’s at #10 as I write) I’m working on the next in the series, tentatively titled A Theatrical Murder, with the action taking place in Skegness (pictured) and centered around a bizarre production of Hamlet. It’s progressing well, and should be with you by New Year.

But there’s another important ingredient necessary for turning out a long running series. Enjoyment. Not the reader’s but the writer’s. I get bored with them, sure, but when that happens, I have other work I can concentrate on.

By and large, however, I love working with Joe, Sheila, Brenda and the rest of the born-again teenagers of the Sanford 3rd Age Club.