Limiting the Number of Characters

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig 

This is the second post in a short series about making our lives easier as writers. One thing that I’ve tried to be more conscious of as the years have gone by is limiting the number of characters I introduce in a story or series.

With a cozy mystery series, for example, the field of characters is already going to be pretty crowded. You have a sleuth and a sidekick and around five suspects. And then you have recurring characters: friends and family of the sleuth and  some sort of police presence.

The more characters we add, the harder it is for readers to keep up.  And we run the risk of not having the space to make the characters more than one-dimensional.Continue reading

Taking Series Characters on the Road

Curved road leads into the woods.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve now written several books in two different series where I took my series characters on the road.

There were a few different reasons I wanted to do this. For one, I feel like it can be a good way to keep a series fresh for both readers and the writer. For one book, I particularly wanted to write a ‘manor house’ style mystery where the setting is confined to one, isolated spot (with a murderer in the group). For another book, I thought it would be an interesting hook to set the story at a place my protagonist despises: Greener Pastures Retirement Home.

My editor for the manor house story was leery about the idea.  She said that readers tend to like their characters to stay in the same setting.  I agree–that’s usually what I like as a reader, too.  But I managed with that story to take many of the story characters with me (making it as believable as I could).

With the retirement home mystery, the setting wasn’t far from the characters’ usual home base.  This allowed regular interaction between the main characters and some of the recurring ones.

But this time for my last Myrtle Clover book, I decided to try something different.   Reader reviews were mixed on the series road trips.  I did a good deal of planning for Crusing for Murder and the reviews have been much better.  Readers have actually particularly mentioned in reviews that they enjoyed the change of scenery and pace (this is also book 10 in the series, so maybe they were ready for a change).Continue reading

Managing Crowds of Characters

Managing Crowds of Characters is a blog post by writer Elizabeth Spann Craig

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I always like studying reader reviews of my recent releases to see what readers are saying about my books.

Okay…correction. :)  I always study my reader reviews, I don’t always like this process.  But reading reviews is vital for me.  I’m writing for my readers and they provide an amazing data center full of compliments and complaints. If enough readers are unhappy about some aspect of a story, I will change my approach moving forward. As I explained in my post last week–this is my day-job and my career. I aim to please.

Occasionally, I’ll read something in a review that’s baffling to me and makes me analyze my manuscript again.  I discovered one of those types of reviews last week.

The reader (a regular of mine, apparently), mentioned that the book in question had ‘too many characters.’Continue reading

Characters Impact Stories

facebook_8f3ed689a8

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Wednesday I drove to Flat Rock, North Carolina, to speak with a book club.  It was a great event and the group asked some very interesting questions.

One of the questions I received was: “How do you alter your writing for books authored by Craig versus those authored by Adams?”

I have three different series and the Memphis Barbeque Mysteries is a four book series for Penguin that I wrote as Riley Adams.  At first, I was tempted to say that there was no difference between the series, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn’t true at all. There’s a lot of difference between the Memphis series and the Myrtle and Southern Quilting series.

I realized it came down to one key factor.  My answer was: “The main character in the Memphis series is an extrovert.”Continue reading

Scroll to top