by Sandra Gardner
Since character and story are major elements in a novel, your primary concern as a novelist is to figure out who your characters are, what their motivations are, and where your characters – and your story – want to go. Exactly how they get there can be dealt with later.
For me, it began with a vision of my mother standing over me while I was sick, lying on the couch. Without worrying about whether I was hallucinating, I dragged myself to my computer and ended up with 20 or so pages. So far, I had a mother, about age 70, in a contentious relationship with a daughter, who was in her late 30s. The only other thing that was clear to me was that the mother was dead, a fact that did nothing to alleviate their contentious relationship.
Okay, now what? I didn’t think a mother/daughter relationship alone, even a conflicted one, was enough to carry a whole novel. As soon as my head cleared, I typed 20 more pages, this time adding the murder of the daughter’s longtime psychotherapist.
Now I had an M.C. (main character), a ghost, and a murder. A ghost, by the way, with loud opinions on just about everything, especially her daughter’s actions. I could see the potential for humor in the narrator/protagonist’s view of things. This has been borne out by readers’ responses.
But what was the reason for the ghost-mother to come back? Continuing to annoy her daughter wasn’t enough motivation. Aha! The mother knew that her daughter was about to get into big trouble, so she came back to help. She also imagined herself as the next Jessica Fletcher, from “Murder She Wrote.”
The trouble she came back to was the murder (of course). This involved her daughter, the M.C., in several ways. She soon became the prime suspect of the detective on the case. Why? Because one of the members of the therapy group – or someone else connected with the therapist – framed our M.C.
The involvement of the therapy group, plus several other people, produced a cast of not-very-nice suspicious characters and red herrings. Then our M.C’s. – and her ghost-mother’s — sleuthing to find the killer and the person framing her, got her almost killed.
Meanwhile, our M.C. had to go work every day, deal with her tyrannical, incompetent boss, find her way into a relationship with a new boyfriend, and occasionally do lunch or aerobics with her best friend.
To up the ante, I added another murder — this time, a member of the therapy group. Our unfortunate M.C.landed herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. She ended up charged with both murders and thrown in jail.
Now we have two murders, one attempted murder, and our M.C. locked up. How was she going to solve the murders and clear herself, when she was in jail? Besides her mother-the-ghost-detective, she enlisted the help of her best friend and a member of the therapy group.
To keep upping the ante, I put our M.C. in even more dire straits. There was a second attempt on her life, while she was in jail. After a few more red herrings, the killer finally revealed him or herself, with a third attempt on our M.C.’s life.
What happened next? Well, to find out whodunit, you’ll have to read the book: my newly published mystery, MOTHER, MURDER AND ME. After all, it is a mystery novel! Hopefully, this little article will help you deal with the who, what and where of characters and story, when you start thinking of your first – or next – murder mystery.
Sandra Gardner’s mystery novel, MOTHER, MURDER AND ME, was a winner of Sawyers Publishing’s First New Author (fiction) Contest 2011. It was published by Sawyers in spring 2012, and is available on Amazon.com; Barnes & Noble.com; Smashwords.com; and from the publisher. Sandra may be contacted via email: sgardner2@hvc.rr.com; or on her Facebook page: Sandra Gardner (sandywritesbooks@gmail.com).
That sounds like a delightful mystery, Sandra. I like the idea of a 70-something year old Mom ghost coming back to take charge.
Thanks for hosting Sandra, Elizabeth.
Very sneaky, Sandra. Gave us a nice post on developing a story and totally hooked me with the preview of your new book. I guess I’m off to B&N.com.
sounds cool. Loved the way you kept adding tension and intrigue.
…..dhole
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Sandra.
Sandra – Thanks for sharing your experience of working out who your characters would be and what would motivate them. What I like best is that everything in your story falls out naturally. All of the relationships and so on are all the more believable for that.
Great way to come up with a book idea. We absolutely have the ingredients of good characters and plot in our own lives or…dreams.
Teresa
Thanks so much for your post, Sandra. I’m like you–I take inspiration from real life and change it to give it more tension.
Sounds like a fun story. I love when ghosts are put into the story. Usually in mysteries, they offer the comic relief. Congrats!
What a great sounding story. I have my own tricks to get the characters right – or as right as they will let me.
I learned this trick from a couple of romance writers -Lani Dianne Rich and Samantha Graves. I do a tarot reading for the characters. Let me set the record straight here, I can’t read the tarot cards, it helps me to dig into my subconscious to answer hard questions about my characters before I get to know them. Having well developed characters helps me to build a compelling story.
I am wondering how many writers map out their characters, i.e., motivations, physical attributes, mental quirks, etc., on paper before beginning a story, or how many writers just let the story itself define the characters. I’m an avid outliner–I outline everything–and I couldn’t begin a writing without first structuring the entire work in my mind and then putting it down on paper. I like the idea, though, of being freely inspired, so to speak, by life itself or its altered reality, such as dreams. As a writer of music history, I found that Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Scriabin all stated they composed music based off of what they heard in their dreams. That’s fascinating to me. Kinda like a music “ghost mother.” How many of us have that, I wonder?
Its fun to put our MC in dire straits. I like to place the antagonists there too. Give the bad guys additional enemies to worry about in addition to the MC.
The story sounds great! What a great twist.
hi everyone,
First, thanks so much for inviting me to do this guest blog, Elizabeth!
Thanks to everyone who commented. I’m glad if anything in my post was helpful. PA– your idea of using tarot cards to dig into your subconscious re characterization sounds intriguing!
another topic: outlining vs pantsing (seat of pants)– I think I’m a combination. started off this book with pantsing but did some plot outlining later.
sandy gardner
sgardner2@hvc.rr.com
I don’t write mystery, but the characters and details about them always come first.
Hi Hilary
Sorry to hear about your mother’s being incapacitated (by the way, my mother suffered from the same thing) — but glad you can relate some of my characterization to your mother. Humor does help!
Sandy gardner
sgardner2@hvc.rr.com
Hi Elizabeth and Sandy – I can quite easily read my mother into this – rising from the confines of her stroked bed .. to sort life out. Great story line … Mother, Murder and Me … cheers Hilary
This has all the earmarks of a terrific story. Good blog and I’ll have to add this to my TBR pile. Thanks for sharing.
Marja McGraw
hi Marj,
thanks so much for the positive feedback!
Sandy Gardner
sgardner2@hvc.rr.com