It's a marriage made in Heaven

It’s a marriage made in Heaven

How often have we heard that saying? Can it be true?

If it is, why are there so many divorces? And why are there so many homicides involving domestic abuse? Nearly every day on our local news we hear about someone who shot or stabbed their mates.

I not only write mystery, but I also write romance. I recently sold a story to True Confessions where the woman was too busy with her career to jump into a marriage like her grandmother wanted. Why did granny want her to get married? So her cousin couldn’t inherit her house when she died. 

My heroine tried the dating services and ended up with a bunch of nut cases. And I got that information from women I know who actually had these experiences. The man she married was a good friend who she never thought about in a romantic way—until he proposed to her in front of a lot of people. At the encouragement of the people in the restaurant and to not embarrass her friend, she said yes. But that was a good thing. Well, we all know we have to have happy endings in romance.

The reason I like to make my stories have happy endings is because I hear so much sad news from friends and family, TV and crazies like Charlie Sheen. So when I write or read I like to know something good will happen. That’s even when there’s a murder involved. If I kill off a husband or a wicked boyfriend, I have to make sure better things happen.

I got rid of one bad guy by having him eaten by an alligator. I live in Florida and one of my neighbors is a wild life officer who told me how to make this happen. I have another friend who is on the highway patrol. In Florida they do more than traffic stops and accidents. They also are at times involved in homicide investigations.

In my WIP I wanted to know about human trafficking—selling babies. There was a case in the news about this and I wanted to know how I would go about writing this. My friend didn’t want the people at the police department to think I was someone who wanted to do this, so she called them and said I was a friend and I’d be calling them to get the information. I thought it was funny. Really. After all, I’m a grandmother who has never even shot a gun. My friend’s advice is to use a frying pan on an attacker. So now I’m going to have to use that somewhere in my book. 

How do you kill off your villains?