Writing Lessons I've Learned

by Jean Henry Mead

When I wrote my first novels, I spent an inordinate amount of time rewriting first chapters before progressing to the second, only to rewite them again before I finished the book. I finally learned to write them once and forget them until the first draft was complete.

I’ve never been able to outline a novel because I give my characters free rein. They rarely submit to what I've planned because they seem to have minds of their own, and I don’t want them doing anything out of character. In my current mystery/suspense series, my feisty 60-year-old women amateur sleuths surprise me by doing things I hadn't considered before sitting down to write. Logan and Cafferty live with me 24/7 while I’m writing about them, and they have their own ideas about what should happen that day. 

In my new release, A Murder in Paradise  fifth in the series, my protagonists decide to vacation in a Texas RV resort with millionaires and other affluent travelers. Until the third quarter of the book, even I didn’t know who the killer was, and I had to return to earlier chapters to add clues  and flesh out some of the characters. 

In the second novel,  Diary of Murder,  my sleuths leave California, buy a motorhome, and are trapped in a Rocky Mountain blizzard. That had actually happened to me, so I could write convincingly about the life and death experience. The blizzard starts the novel off with suspense, but the characters face similar circumstances later in the plot, so I had to swap details between chapters so that it didn't appear the book was mired in snow. 

 

If I were not a writer, I'd probably be a meteorologist. I'm fascinated with weather patterns and weather plays a role in most of my books. Weather can also serve as an alternative villain in a woman against the elements plot.

In A Village Shattered, the opaque San Joaquin Valley fog hides a serial killer, but I didn’t even think about tule fog until I was writing chapter three. Having lived in the valley for a dozen years, I know the horror of regularly driving in dense ground hugging clouds, so I switched seasons and returned to chapter one to add fog to the plot. In doing so, it tied all aspects of the story together. 

A problem most authors eventually face is writer's block. Fortunately, I began my writing career as a news reporter and there's no such malady in the news room. Fiction, however, is a different story. There are no facts to guide a writer unless s/he has done a tremendous amount of research. I solved the problem by rereading the previous chapter(s). The momentum then carries me into the current one.

How about you? How have you solve a writing problem?

Publishing's Future?

by Jean Henry Mead

Most writers attempt to stay current with publishing trends but technology has evolved so rapidly during the past decade that marketing experts are becoming desirable.

Hardcover books have become the dinosaurs of the industry, closely followed by paperbacks. And if projections are correct, ebooks will eventually become a product of the past. Some writers have tried to cover a number of bases to prevent genre slumps from cutting into their earnings as well. Writing in more than one genre has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. I've written mystery/suspense novels in a somewhat humorous vein as well as children's mysteries, Wyoming historicals and nonfiction books. After reading one of my mysteries, a reader suggested that I might want to write fantasies. :)

The disadvantage to writing in more than one genre is the need to switch gears and rotate genres on a regular basis. I know that Louie L'Amour wrote three books a year, but I like to enjoy the process of writing, not churn out copy as I did as a  news reporter. Two books a year is my limit.

Among the advantages is that you can halt work on a problem book to begin something else, before returning to the original manuscript. You can also combine more than one genre as I did with a book published earlier this year. No Escape: the Sweetwater Tragedy is an historical mystery. I researched the hangings of a young Wyoming couple on and off for more than twenty years before I had enough data to write the novel.


My latest novel, A Murder in Paradise, was released this week, the fifth book in my Logan and Cafferty mystery/suspense series. It's my last in the series, at least for a while. I tired of writing about two feisty 60-year-old widows traveling in a motorhome and stumbling over bodies, although, by now, they seem like old friends.

I enjoy writing novels based on historical happenings and researching not only the events but the people involved. Characterization is my strong suit, plotting my weakest, but with historicals, the plot is already laid out for me, thanks to the work of nonfiction writers. My adopted state of Wyoming is rich in historical events beginning with the western expansion of the mid-1800s, providing me with more than enough research for the rest of my writing life.

I don't plan to abandon the mystery genre entirely. I'll continue to write Hamilton Kids' mysteries, and I have a good narrator who's currently recording them for online audio book sales as well as my mystery series.  My historicals are also in the process of narration as well as one of my interview books. Thanks to an audio company, I've had a great variety of voices to choose from and it's fun listening to them audition to read my work. From what I've heard, audio books will replace both print and ebooks because they can be listened to while working, relaxing, driving or preparing dinner. It's undoubtedly the wave of the future and may do away with pleasure reading, just as teaching cursive writing has all but been abandoned in schools since the advent of the electronic age. We may soon be listening to our favorite books on Dick Tracey-type wrist watches or Walkman devices plugged  into our ears as we take our  evening strolls.