Who's Who in The Poksu Conspiracy

There has been an ongoing discussion the past few days on the subject of using a Cast of Characters in mystery novels. Some people think it's a great idea, others couldn't care less. My wife thinks I often have too many characters in my books. That could be true, but each  one has a specific purpose for being there.

I had thought about including a list a few times and finally decided to go through with it while revising my second Post Cold War thriller, The Poksu Conspiracy. My decision was based on the setting for most of the story, South Korea. With lots of strange Korean names, I thought it would help readers keep the characters separate.

When I mentioned the possibility on my Mystery Mania blog a few weeks ago, I received a positive response from quite a few readers. There were suggestions that the list be organized alphabetically as well as by categories. My colleague Jaden Terrell objected that labeling the last "Cast of Characters" would be "a blatant reminder that none of these people are real. It's a bludgeon to my suspension of disbelief." She suggested calling it a Who's Who.

That's what I've done. I decided there was no need to include people who only appear in only one chapter. That left me with 55 characters in my Who's Who. In the story, Burke Hill, the hero of Beware the Jabberwock, has become an official  of Worldwide Communications Consultants, an international public relations firm that is really a CIA spinoff. The Who's Who category breakdown includes:

Worldwide Communications Consultants
American Officials
South Korean Officials
Seoul Metropolitan Police Bureau
World War II Poksu Guerilla Group
North Korean Officials
Other Americans
In Hungary
Other Koreans

Since one of the main characters is a Seoul homicide detective, the book could be called half thriller, half Korean police procedural. It should be out in ebook format within the next couple of months.

Writing at a Snail's Pace

By Chester Campbell

I’m in the process of working on my fifth Greg McKenzie mystery. So far it has been moving like a snail racing across the street. Matter of fact, I wrote something about creating the plot on my personal blog (Mystery Mania) back toward the end of February, and I'm now only a third of the way through the writing. I suppose the problem is still as I characterized it earlier: "the old gray matter, she ain't what she used to be."

When I began working on the plot, the first idea out of the box did not deal with character or setting or plot action. Well, setting, in one of its narrow aspects. We're talking about time. The series has been moving at a leisurely pace through the calendar. Designed to Kill took place at the first of November, Deadly Illusions followed with the first blush of spring (does spring really blush?), and The Marathon Murders sweated out the steamy days of August. So, I reasoned, the next adventure should occur at Christmastime.

Wouldn’t you know, in Greg years, it’s still 2004. If I could do that, I wouldn’t be quite 80 yet. However, it presents a few problems in keeping the details straight. For example, the plot involves professional sports. In 2004, the arena where the Nashville Predators NHL team plays was called the Gaylord Entertainment Center or "The GEC" (pronounced Geck). Now it is the Sommet Center. So in the book it's only referred to as the "arena."

Anyway, back to the plot. As a seat-of-the-pants plotter, I had a basic idea, but I needed a cast of characters to do the work. I didn't want to get stuck with doing all that work myself. I had my main characters, Greg and Jill McKenzie, my indefatigable pair of senior sleuths, but a bunch of people was required for them to bounce off of.

I quickly came up with job descriptions for four possible bad guys or gals. And just as quickly I spotted the one who really “did it.” I picked an age and began to delve into the person's background. What would make this an interesting character? How did the killer become what they were today?

Okay, this is a mystery, and I’m not giving you any clues. I did a lot of Googling and bounced around the Internet quite a bit to track down some facts. Hmmm, come to think of it, back when I first began searching for stuff online, Yahoo was the big thing. But you don’t hear of people Yahooing. They’ve been sort of left in the dust, I suppose.

The subject of the plot is not one in which I’m particularly well versed, so I also searched about for some basic information on the business. Since it involves a conflict between people involved in two different sports, basketball and hockey, I decided my best bet was to talk with a TV sportscaster. Both Greg and I interviewed Rudy Kalis, sports director at Nashville's Channel 4, WSMV.

So far, Christmas has been sort of incidental to the action, but who knows how it will play out. A Christmas party provided an opportunity for Greg to get some information he needed. I suspect there's more to come.

Sometimes I start a book before I’m ready with a full-blown plot by sitting at the computer and writing a first page. It may not be the same first page I end up with, but it gets the window open and the curtains blowing. That's what happened this time. And after five books, it's my first experience with a murder on page one.

So after eight months of dilly-dallying around, promoting the heck out of my latest book and finding places to sign and sell all five current titles, I'm faced with the necessity of locking myself up (would be nice, but won't happen) and knocking out another 50,000 words in the next couple of months.

Wish me luck. And let me know how you're doing on your latest masterpeice.

Touring the Blogs - A Challenge

By Chester Campbell

I'm getting ready to do a Blog Book Tour for my new Sid Chance mystery, The Surest Poison. My Musings colleague Jean Henry Mead knows all about it. She's done one. In my case, I'll be doing guest posts at a variety of blogs for fifteen days, between April 15 and May 1. I'm skipping Sundays to give everybody (including me) a rest.

It's become more of a challenge than I thought it would before starting this venture. I think most writers, when they've finished a book and have the printed copy in hand, move on to the next project and only rarely open the pages to read any of it. I know some mystery authors who say they never crack a book once it's finished.

With a Blog Book Tour, it's quite different. Not only do you find yourself going back to read passages, you do an awful lot of thinking about what's in the book and how it came about. I'm working on short articles dealing with book promotion, the setting of the story, how the plot came about, thoughts on writing about Private Eyes, dialogue, how to use electronic rights, is the mystery really about murder, writing about social issues, using sub-plots, multiple points of view, plus interviews with me and my main characters.

So far I have only four out of fifteen completed. If I wasn't the type of guy who works better under deadlines, I would be thinking panic time. It doesn't take me long to write a piece. My problem is getting past all the chaff that clutters up my daily schedule. And I use that term loosely. A schedule implies you have a list of things lined up to do.

I'm encouraged by those who've been there and done that saying the tour will help spread the word about your book. If all goes well, it should encourage people to get the book who otherwise wouldn't have known about it.

So if you happen to spot me wandering around in cyberspace over the next few weeks, looking a wee bit lost and unsure where I'm headed, give me a kindly nod and a cheery "Hi, there!" And if you spot one of my guest blogs, post a comment and get your name in the hat for free books I'll give away during the tour.

To find where I'll be, when, and what I'll be writing about, check out my Mystery Mania blog for a complete schedule of the tour. I'm looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun.