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Research and (Plot) Development

October 12, 2018October 10, 2018Uncategorized, Writing Tips

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, @kaath09

Hello, my name is Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, and I’m a recovering research-aholic.

I know that research addiction is common among writers of speculative fiction (genres that begin with ”what if…?”). This doesn’t mean there aren’t writers who hate research with a passion, but whether you loathe research or love it, it is necessary to writing fiction. It stands to reason that the ideal is to strike a healthy balance between diving so deeply into the ocean of knowledge that you drown, or barely dipping a toe into the pool.

Perhaps the first thing I learned about research (besides that it tastes like chocolate) is that it’s not restricted to finding facts about reality that you need to know before or during the writing of your book.

I write a number of genres: science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, alternate history, steampunk and, most recently, mystery-detective fiction. This is not to say that my journey toward publishing my first detective novel (THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER) began recently. Preparing to write this article, I dug up my earliest notes on my Japanese-American P.I., Gina Miyoko. They date from the late 90s. Long enough ago that while I know Gina was conceived in a dream—as is a lot of my fiction—I don’t remember the dream itself.Continue reading

Writing the Cozy Mystery: Series Tropes and Rituals

October 8, 2018September 6, 2018Mystery Writing Tips, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve touched on this topic before, although before I was sort of working it through in my mind. What I’m calling ‘series tropes,’ which is what writer Camille LaGuire termed ‘rituals,’ are those little recurring bits that turn up book after book in a series (this post is specific to cozies, but I know other genres use these elements, too).

Examples:

In M.C. Beaton’s Hamish MacBeth series, it’s Hamish’s hapless love affairs, laziness, and crazy pets. For Hercule Poirot, it’s his vanity and OCD behavior. With Miss Marple, we expect her to compare everything and everyone to situations and people in St. Mary Mead, her village.

In my books, the tropes include Myrtle’s insomnia and post-midnight treks, Miles’s hypochondria, Puddin’s ‘thrown’ back, silly book club books, the way Myrtle’s soap opera helps her figure out the killer, and Myrtle’s horrible cooking.

How to Use Them:

Humor: You can use them straight out for humorous effect that resonates with regular readers. You can also twist the tropes and provide variations on the themes to make them even funnier (while putting the characters in situations that make them uncomfortable).

Sense of continuity: I think it provides a certain full-circle feeling for regular series readers. They expect certain things are going to happen. It fulfills reader expectations. It’s almost like seeing a familiar landmark.

As a method to check in with recurring characters: This is important for those of us who have regulars in our series. Readers like to ‘catch up’ with characters who are like old friends and our tropes can provide opportunities for them to do so.

Tracking them:

This is the easy part. List all of your recurring storylines into a master list by series. I have a staggering 18 in the Myrtle series alone. I keep them in a Word doc that I review before each book.

Why should we include these rituals? Mostly because readers enjoy them. I struggled with it as a writer, thinking that maybe I was relying on these tropes as crutches. But when I left them out, readers wrote me. Now I go off my list, think of fun, new ways to use or twist them, and don’t worry about including them. They’re clearly beneficial to my books.

For my other articles on writing cozy mysteries, see this link.

Do you have any recurring tropes in your series? Do you keep track of them?

Series Tropes and Rituals in the Cozy Mystery: Click To Tweet

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Let Go and Enjoy the Story

October 5, 2018October 4, 2018Uncategorized, Writing Tips

by Mike Martin, @mike54martin

All fiction requires the reader to suspend belief in order to follow the story. You have to pretend that you are in a different location with people that you don’t know in order to experience the full effect. Those who can’t do that often claim that they don’t like fiction books or stories, but I think it may be that they just don’t know how to let themselves go and be captured by the story or the characters. I also think they are missing out on a great deal of fun!!

What most people don’t realize is that writers have to do the same thing. Suspend our belief in the ordinary and escape to another reality, inside our heads. In my Sgt. Windflower Mystery series I use the very real town of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, as a backdrop for my stories. It settles the stories in a solid foundation of place that many people who have read the series now think they know. I hope so. But the setting is truly just the beginning. Because, with the exception of a few historical facts and bread crumbs, the rest is all imagination.

The main character, Sgt. Windflower, came out of the fog one night in Grand Bank and started telling me his story. All I did was write it down. Once I did that, all these other characters came along and I started writing their stories too. My main job today is to try and keep them all happy and allow each of them the appropriate time to tell their part.

If that’s not enough to stretch your imagination, there’s more. Two of Windflower’s family, his aunt and uncle, turn out to be dream weavers. They can interpret dreams, their own and others. Windflower learns how to do that too, and soon he is awake while he is dreaming and understanding the messages that come to him. I know it sounds crazy, but it really happens, at least to Windflower. He uses it to access the spirit world, the other side.

At first, Windflower appears skeptical about this whole spirit and dreaming thing. Until he starts to realize that there might actually be messages and information about himself that he can learn. That’s when he decides to ask his relatives to teach him how to do it. After a while he comes to see that reality might be more than just what we can see in front of him. Once he accesses this power, his life becomes richer, and of course, the story gets better.

The other thing that is happening in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series is that the spirit world starts to become more visible. In the latest book, Darkest Before the Dawn, there’s a ghost. Or maybe there’s a ghost? That’s up to Windflower to discover, or for readers to decide. You don’t get to see the ghost. That would be too easy. But if you look carefully you just might see the signs.

This all gets me back to the first point. You have to suspend your belief in order to enjoy the story. That is true in all fiction, and more particularly in mystery fiction. So, don’t rule out Windflower’s dream weaving abilities or the possibility that an old ghost is wandering around the old B & B that he and Sheila have bought. If you do, you might miss half the fun.

Darkest Before the Dawn is available in print and e-book versions worldwide through Amazon and in Canada through Chapters/Indigo and other fine bookstores. And from Ottawa Press and Publishing.

Giveaway

Enter a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of Darkest Before the Dawn, sent to you anywhere in the world!!

Find Mike:

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Mike Martin was born in Newfoundland on the East Coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand.

Writers Must Suspend Their Disbelief, Too (by @mike54martin ): Click To Tweet

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Making Your Book Memorable

October 1, 2018September 16, 2018Uncategorized, Writing Tips

By Jeffrey Eaton, author of the “Murder Becomes” series, @murderbecomes

Each year, more than one million books get released by publishing houses and self-published authors. You read that right – more than one million books. Every year.

How do we make our books stand out in a crowd that immense? Well, it’s not easy, and even the most relentless marketers get no guarantee their efforts will result in their titles rising above the ever-increasing din.

There are, however, a few techniques we can employ that will at least increase the odds people will notice our novels and then remember them when they’re looking for something to cozy up with on a cold winter’s night.

Here are three things we’ve done with the “Murder Becomes” series to build renown for the books over the past four years:

Myth Busting Time: Online Reputation Management Is Not Just For Plumbers On Yelp. Authors Need It Too

September 17, 2018September 14, 2018Business of Writing, Uncategorized

By Steven W. Giovinco, @recovreputation

8 Online Reputation Management Tips for Authors, Books, Novels, Fine Art Photography Publications, With Sample Task List

Authors–not just plumbers on Yelp or lawyers on Avvo.com–need a positive online reputation. It helps show the writer as an expert, connect them to readers, drives traffic to their book site and makes it more likely that “content”–bits of the book–will be shared on social media. This all leads to more sales.

Since advertising and traditional promotion don’t work as they did, a writer should strive to be a trustworthy “knowledge leader,” or key source in their niche, whether it be non-fiction, fiction, biographies, poetry, business books, essays, etc. Reputation management helps by building excellent sources when searching online.

Create Goals

Come up with clear online reputation goals. This sounds simple enough, but breezing through this initial step can lead to problems later if unclear. “Sell more books,” might seem to be obvious answer. But how?

Drill down further. Building an excellent online reputation could, for example:

Show the writer as an expert in their specialized field.
Generate interest from new prospective publishers.
Schedule additional talks at book stores in specific and as-yet unscheduled cities.
Create direct connections to readers through social media.
Generate interviews from bloggers and traditional media.
Lead to translations of the book into other languages.
Conduct podcast or radio interviews.
Connect with screenwriters, film producers or television executives.

It could be one or all of the above.Continue reading

Examples:

How to Use Them:

Tracking them:

Giveaway

Create Goals