Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

Mysteries are full of conflict. It’s a good versus evil struggle with internal and external conflicts abounding.

Most novels, in fact, are heavy on conflict. Otherwise, it’s a dull book. Even if the scene’s conflict is a monkey-wrench thrown in a character’s carefully planned day, that’s conflict.

External conflict is everywhere. It’s on the evening news, it’s happening during raucous PTA meetings and toddler playgroups. I’m a person who doesn’t like making waves and doesn’t like being involved in conflicts. But I don’t mind observing them as a third party.

I was in a shipping center the other day to mail off a package. A radio was playing the news in the background and the sad story of the girl who’d been kidnapped and held hostage for so many years came on.

The owner, who wasn’t originally from the US, said loudly, “This is disgusting! Do you want to know what’s wrong with America?”

The people in the line were politely pretending that they didn’t hear him and all began messing with their cell phones. I cleared my throat. “I do,” I said. “I want to know what’s wrong with America.”

There was a collective groan behind me. But come on. Great way of finding out what bugs people. What bugs people in their everyday, ordinary life provides wonderful conflict for someone like me.

In the kind of books I write, the things that just get under your skin may end up in a mysterious death.

The guy at the shipping center was delighted to launch into a rambling monologue of American ills. It was extremely educational and might be used for future material. :) On the downside, I think my fellow customers were about ready to string me up at the end of his discourse.

I get lots of other material from the local news…the more local, the better. In fact, if there was a subdivision newsletter, that might provide even more ideas for plot conflict.

Conflicts I’ve observed in local news include:

*Land disputes
*Irritating, obnoxious neighbors
*Long-time family feuds
*Church schisms
*Teenagers with too much family money and not enough sense
*Fraudulent financial planners
*People furious at real estate developers
*People furious at the local school board for changing zoning
*A man who has a sign posted, saying, “The Town of Matthews Stole my Farm.” (An eminent domain issue.)

Really, the newspaper is a treasure trove of ideas for plot conflict, especially for mystery writers. There’s certainly lots of other conflict out there, but again, I won’t touch a friend’s personal problems.

But conflict makes the plot go ‘round for fiction writers. And, luckily for us, inspiration is everywhere.

My sister told me a hilarious story the other day. It was so funny. She and I had such a big laugh over it!

But I can’t share it. She’d have my head. The story involved something silly that she did that had unexpected consequences.

She has a reasonable expectation that I won’t share it with a bunch of mystery or blog readers.

I don’t always keep interesting stories to myself. Pretty is as Pretty Dies has one story in it that’s absolutely true. The book club listed in the book? It exists. Or…well, it used to exist before it disbanded. You can tell from my book that it was a querulous group—and my insight into the group came from a friend who was letting off steam.

I asked her if it would be okay to use the material, somewhat fictionalized (there were no men in the group). She gave me her blessing.

The gnomes in the book came about when a friend complained about her neighbor’s yard art. Which I immediately went inside and wrote into my book.

My children (the darlings) make it into the blog quite a bit. But they don’t have to worry that I’ll be splashing embarrassing photos of them or putting their names out there on the internet. I’ve promised my family a certain amount of privacy—which they deserve. There are boundaries, definitely.

There are some fascinating stories I know—they’re not happy ones, though. And they’d hurt people who’d certainly see the parallels between their lives and the fictional characters’ lives. No one else would, but they would know. And that’s enough to keep me from ever fictionalizing it.

Things I tiptoe around:

Leave personal tragedies of friends, family, and acquaintances alone or else completely generalize them. Obviously, some tragedies are universal (loss of a spouse, child, job, etc.) But singular events that would be immediately recognizable to the parties involved—those I don’t touch.

Ask permission to fictionalize stories that friends provide me. They’re sure to recognize their story in print, no matter how distorted it might be. I don’t have enough friends to risk losing the ones I do have.

Things I don’t mind using:

News stories are completely within my limits. I do change them around with “what if” scenarios.

I steal names like crazy. Sorry folks…it’s fiction. Unless you have a copyright on your name, it could end up being mine. I need waayyyy too many character names in each book.

A reminder:

Anyone remember reading Thomas Wolfe’s novel You Can’t Go Home Again? The writer who writes about the residents of his hometown until they start driving him away? That novel was semi-autobiographical.

I’m the Queen of taking on too much.  It’s never my idea, mind you, but because I’m known as a volunteer (school, Scouting), people come to me with ideas on more ways for me to volunteer.

They know the school is my soft spot.  Just about anything they ask for me to help with at the elementary or middle school, I’m going to do. I’ve read stories, talked to classes, sent in supplies, given parties, assisted with the writing programs, passed out waters during field day, watched the class for the teacher while they attended special events…the list goes on.

I’m also a Brownie Scout leader for my daughter’s troop.  I was asked, in person, to take that commitment on.  I started with it last fall.

In the middle of the commitment to the troop, I got an extra book deal.

I continued going to mandatory trainings, meetings, camping trips, and troop events.

The upside (and there’s always an upside) is that I was spending a lot of one on one time with my daughter.

The downside was that I really didn’t have the time to do all this.  And I hated the district meetings with a passion (I’m not a meeting person. I spend the time wondering if all the information couldn’t just be emailed.  Or why they didn’t set up a Yahoo Group for us to get the information.)

I decided I would give the Brownie Scout coordinator (who’d recruited me) a year’s notice. That next fall I wouldn’t be able to continue this commitment.

It didn’t go as planned. :)  The coordinator is a very determined woman.  She said, “Maybe play it by ear?  After all, you’ll have turned in your two books by next fall.”

“But then,” I explained, trying not to sound like a big-shot, “I have another book to turn in.  November 1, 2010.  And I’ll be promoting three other books.”  At this point, I felt like banging my head against a wall.

I’ll admit I’m a black and white kind of person.  I like to do a Good Job and there are no compromises. But then the Brownie coordinator gave me an out.  She certainly knows me.  “No meetings…..you don’t have to go to any of the district meetings.  Only attend the events you want to.  That’s all I need.”

It ended up that that worked for me. She modified what I needed to do to make it manageable for me. 

But I did learn from our exchange:

Non-writers don’t understand the process.  They understand the amount of work that goes into writing a book, but they don’t understand the promoting.  They don’t understand that you’re either writing a book, revising a book, promoting a book, or trying to sell someone on a new series…or doing all of those things simultaneously.

If you try to explain this process to a non-writer, you sound like you’re exaggerating.  Or bragging.

Best just to say the writing is consuming all of your time.  They may understand that better than the other stuff you’re doing.

If you’re in a time-sucking commitment, see if the parameters of the commitment can be adjusted before you drop it altogether. It’s a very tough time to find volunteers right now….many former volunteers have had to return to the workforce.

When you’re asked to take on a new commitment (even if they ask you face to face), tell them you have to sleep on it and will email them back.  I can write beautifully, but I’m awful on the phone.  I can elegantly explain why I can’t take on a new commitment via email where I’d somehow end up taking it on if I’m on the phone with the person.

So far this fall I’ve  scaled back on one commitment and avoided another.  I’d like to take on a lot of volunteer work, but right now I’m more limited, time-wise, in what I can handle.  This is the year I’m more cognizant in realizing when I’m getting in over my head.

I’m a mystery writer, but my books are only minimally scary. They’re more about the puzzle and the characters.

But I think it would be fun to try something different.

The other day I was doing some yard work and noticed a HUGE spider. It was one of those zipper spiders, the kind that’s pictured above. The funny thing is that I’m not even scared of spiders. But I was scared of him. He was beautiful, but I didn’t realize he was so close to me. I had accidentally bumped his web and for a split second he raced down it, thinking he had a goody in there. I don’t think he’d have been able to handle me, but he was big enough to have considered it.

Cozy mysteries don’t ordinarily have a lot of scary scenes. But I’d like to incorporate something frightening with one of my next books. To me, the scariest things are the things we’re suddenly startled by—like the huge spider in the bushes that I didn’t realize was there.

One of the scarier movies to me was the first Halloween movie. The part that scared me the most? When Michael stood on the sidewalk and watched the girl he was stalking in broad daylight, then slipped behind the bushes when she spun around to see if he was there. It was scary because it was a sunny, beautiful fall day…and there was a psychopath right there in the middle of it.

Hitchcock was a master at making ordinary things frightening. The Birds was one of those movies. And Rear Window, where a bored voyeur spots a horrifying crime (or the evidence pointing to one having been committed.) Vertigo took a fear of heights to a whole new level.

Clearly, thrillers are best at delivering fear to the reader. But that’s not appropriate for my genre. I’d like to do it more subtly and work it in. Have a scary surprise.

What ordinary things do you find scary? Do your books have frightening aspects to them?

Yes, it’s a busy day here at Mystery Writing is Murder. For those of you who are just joining me, I have a post below this one that persuades you that asparagus would be an excellent vegetable for you to revisit. My post also addresses a problem I’ve had with rereading an old manuscript that I haven’t worked on for 5 months (and which is due to be submitted in November.)

Today I’m being interviewed over at Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews . Sharon, who reviews books on her blog as well as for various newspapers, is a freelance entertainment journalist who has been reviewing books for 14 years and has over 1500 reviews to her credit.

Sharon is kicking off a Cozy Mystery Week today and one commenter will be picked to win a mystery gift basket. It could be you! :) (Is my smattering of advertising experience showing?)

Hope y’all will pop on over for a visit.

And now…..I have found for me the perfect solution to the rereading the old manuscript conundrum. And I have the lovely and talented Jane Kennedy Sutton to thank for it. She suggested that I pretend the manuscript isn’t mine.

The genius is in the simplicity of this plan.

There are no highlighters involved. No picking apart.

I’m already 60% done with the re-read.

Pretending is what writers do best!

Jane Kennedy Sutton rocks!