Last week my husband and I took a quick two-night trip. We were hungry for a bit of adventure before a big surgery. I picked a large historic B&B in Connecticut. It turned out to be the perfect choice. Charming, immaculate, and with delightful touches. But within hours he was under the weather. I was left to myself while he slept through the two days.
In mysteries, authors tend to place their protagonist within their own imagined community. It might be Port Anne, a small Maryland town on the Chesapeake in my series. Perhaps a community is like the famous Jane Marple’s St. Mary Mead or Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove. It’s not just geography. Community incorporates characters’ work, personal hobbies, the styles and ages of their houses, even the weather. It becomes a shared commonality that binds residents together or perhaps drives them apart.
The term community is an important means for building reader attachment. Good writers inspire their readers to feel emotionally connected to their characters. Certainly in a series, fans anticipate the next book because of their evolving affection for a circle of characters. We laugh at the silly ones, root for those fighting crime, and cheer at the conclusion.
Writing can feel lonely. Yet we also know our characters become our special community of friends while we create their story. And the real people we meet when we’re out and about can provide us encouragement. Readers send me photos of my books on coffee tables, book shelves, beach chairs, and tote bags. They drive an hour and a half from home to purchase their signed copy at a signing. Their efforts to reach out touches my heart. It leaves me grateful. They become a vast community that keeps me writing.
Judy
Author, The Chesapeake Bay Mysteries Series
Shortly after my first book, Maze in Blue, was published, I attended Malice Domestic. As one of the authors chosen for the New Author Debut breakfast, I excitedly went into the room and staked out a table next to one already filled by the guests of a "new" author who had had quite.a bit of good press during the past year Two women came hurrying into the room and made a beeline for the other author's table. Finding it full, they seemed lost for a moment and then reluctantly joined my table. They weren't thrilled until during my three minutes of being interviewed, I had the room in stitches...Afterwards, they both bought my book and later let me know they'd turned their copies over to two different libraries.. A year later, at Malice, they came running up to me and asked if we could have coffee or a few minutes to visit -- they were my first committed fans. Until covid, I met them every subsequent year at Malice.
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