One Writer, Many Stories

One Writer, Many Stories by Leslie Budewitz

 The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

— Muriel Rukeyser

A writer’s heart holds many stories. Some are drawn to a particular type of story, mining the vein a little deeper each time, digging up more gold with each effort. Other writers find that the stories they want to tell are best described by a variety of labels.

Readers can be described much the same way, with some reading deeply in one or two genres and others reading more broadly.

Turns out that as reader and writer, I’m a little of each.

My first published novels were culinary cozies, the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries set in a small town in NW Montana, followed by the Spice Shop mysteries, set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. I love to read cozies and to write them. They are, in many ways, the perfect prescription for difficult times.

The cozy gets a bad rap now and then, as fluffy and frivolous. That’s unfair. At heart, it’s the story of one woman’s effort to restore the social order of a community damaged by an unexpected crime. There may be food, and cats, and festivals, but ultimately, a good cozy shows the powerful impact one

person can have, healing the wounds inflicted on the people and places that matter to her.

But while I was writing those cozies—six in Village series and five Spice Shop mysteries, with the sixth coming in July and the seventh spread out on my desk—I was also writing short crime fiction. One story, maybe two, a year. Traditional, noir, police-based, and yes, cozies. Short stories are perfect for experimentation. They don’t take as long—well, okay, one did take sixteen years, but hey, it won a Derringer Award, so time well spent. They let us play with points of view, era, and location, as well as genre or subgenre.

Along the way, I realized that much as I love the cozy, I like a darker, moodier story, too. One best called suspense.

That led me to start a stand-alone with four point-of-view characters and two intersecting timelines, a contemporary cold case investigation interspersed with a story that unfolds over thirty-five years. It’s not an unfamiliar structure, but it’s very different from the first-person cozy mystery wrapped up in two or three weeks. I immersed myself in reading that kind of narrative, working on the manuscript between other projects. At one point, my office closet doors were covered in sticky notes in multiple colors, present action on one bi-fold door, past on the other half, newspaper clippings on the next panel.

It took four years. In Blind Faith (written as Alicia Beckman, October 2022), two women whose paths crossed decades ago as teenagers in Montana discover they share the keys to a deadly secret that exposes a killer—and changes everything they thought they knew about themselves.

During that time, I kept writing cozies. I proposed a traditional mystery series, and my editor thought the first would make good standalone suspense. That led to Alicia’s first novel, Bitterroot Lake (2021). While it’s a straightforward narrative told by one POV character, the shift in subgenre was a challenge because it varied so much from my original conception. In a mystery—and I’m oversimplifying here—a crime occurs, and our sleuth, whether amateur or professional, solves it. More crimes may happen along the way, but the path is clear.

In suspense, our protagonist is unexpectedly confronted by danger from a source she can’t identify. Nothing like this has ever happened to her, and it takes her time to realize she’s got the skills and resources to fight back—even if no one believes she’s in trouble.

My challenge in writing suspense wasn’t shifting from cozy to moody. Jokes, word play, recipes—they never entered my mind. They simply weren’t part of the story. Like you don’t reach for the garlic when you’re making chocolate cake. It’s just not on the menu. In Bitterroot Lake, Sarah’s goal wasn’t to figure out who killed Lucas Erickson. It was to figure out who was sending threatening letters and how to stop her recurrent nightmares. Naturally, killing and letters end up being connected, but what drives the protagonist differs in mystery and suspense.

Of course, every mystery has elements of suspense and every suspense novel has its mysteries. I’m talking subgenre, not the details.) 

So what unites my cozies and suspense? I discovered the answer when a friend who read Blind Faith said “I could hear your voice throughout.” Another friend had said of Death al Dente, my first Food Lovers’ Village mystery, “it sounds just like you talk.” And I’d heard similar comments about Pepper in my Spice Shop mysteries.

Turns out it’s not so much the rhythm of my main characters’ sentences, or how they swear or talk to themselves, though there is some of that. What unites my stories is what the characters care about. How they think of the world.

My characters are concerned about community. About their relationship to their physical surroundings, whether it’s their home, the land, or the historic building they work in. If an issue arises in my life, it might show up in theirs, because I want to explore it.  My main characters are interested in the world around them, even though they don’t all read or watch movies or garden. They do all love food and art! They’re interested in friendships, especially between women. In starting over. In healing the wounds injustice causes.

They sound like me because there’s a little bit of me in each of them. And that’s a good thing, because no matter what the genre and tone of the story, that’s how we make our characters come alive.

~~~~~~

Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and the Northwest in two cozy mystery series, the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, set in NW Montana. Watch for Peppermint Barked, the 6^th Spice Shop mystery, in July 2022. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense, beginning with Bitterroot Lake in April 2021 and continuing with Blind Faith in October 2022. A three-time Agatha-Award winner (2011, Best Nonfiction; 2013, Best First Novel; 2018, Best Short Story), she is a current board member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime. She lives in northwest Montana.

www.LeslieBudewitz.com

www.Facebook.com/LeslieBudewitzAuthor

www.Instagram.com/LeslieBudewitz

 

 

Leslie Budewitz Interview By E. B. Davis

Humans. When they baffle you, reach for chocolate.

Leslie Budewitz, As The Christmas Cookie Crumbles, Kindle Loc. 943

The Agatha-Award winning Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries continue.

 
In Jewel Bay, Montana’s Christmas Village, all is merry and bright. At Murphy’s Mercantile, AKA the Merc, manager Erin Murphy is ringing in the holiday season with food, drink, and a new friend: Merrily Thornton. A local girl gone wrong, Merrily’s turned her life around. But her parents have publicly shunned her, and they nurse a bitterness that chills Erin.

When Merrily goes missing and her boss discovers he’s been robbed, fingers point to Merrily—until she’s found dead, a string of lights around her neck. The clues and danger snowball from there. Can Erin nab the killer—and keep herself in one piece—in time for a special Christmas Eve?

Includes delicious recipes!

www.lesliebudewitz.com/as-the-christmas-cookie-crumbles/

I find it hard to believe that it’s been four years since I caught up with Leslie Budewitz’s Food Lovers’ Village Mystery series. Perhaps because of that hiatus, I noticed something different. Leslie’s writing is cozier—more sink in the cushions and disappear from reality—reading than it ever was before. For those of us who like our cozy reads to be like biting into the center of a warm, soft chocolate cookie still gooey and melty, the reading was awesome.    

Not to say that it avoids some harsh realities about people and how they treat each other, but Leslie makes the effort to provide the soft contrast to the black and white thinkers who judge without compassion, and isn’t compassion the essence of cozies?

Set during the weeks before Christmas and the wedding of main character Erin Murphy, As The Christmas Cookie Crumbles portrays the best, worst, and sometimes goofiest of human behavior during this season. This book will be released on June 8^th.  

Please welcome multiple Agatha winner Leslie Budewitz to WWK.                                    E. B. Davis

Erin witnesses a fight among members of the Thornton family. Who are the Thorntons, and why is Erin shocked?

Walt and Taya Thornton run an antiques and Christmas shop in the village of Jewel Bay, up the block from the Merc, the local foods grocery Erin runs in her family’s hundred-year-old building. Once Erin’s kindergarten teacher, Taya has always embodied the Christmas spirit to Erin – she even looks like an elf. So when she yells at her daughter to go away, saying “You’ve shamed us enough” on the sidewalk on Decorating Day, in front of dozens of people, Erin is stunned. She knows Merrily Thornton’s past – everyone in town does -- but hurts for the woman, humiliated by her own mother in public. 

Is fear of judgment the reason why people keep up appearances without regard to the truth?

That is an astute observation. Taya had reason to question what she thought she knew, but chose not to, because she feared what else she might learn. 

Merrily Thornton pleaded guilty to embezzlement twenty years ago and served time. Why does Erin trust her?

It’s not a blind trust. Erin likes her, knows she did her time, and sees signs of rehabilitation. That’s enough, she thinks, to start a friendship.

What’s an earworm, and what plagues Erin during the season?

An earworm is a song that gets stuck in the brain – like the very worst Christmas songs that wrap their way around Erin’s brain stem!

Like so often happens to me, Erin can’t remember someone’s name. Does Erin focus on other aspects of humans other than their labels?

Erin prides herself, as I do, on having a great memory and easily coming up with other people’s names. But there is one woman in town whose name she can never remember, also like me. (After 15 years, I’ve finally begun to recognize her when I see her out without her husband, whom I easily recall, or without having to ask mine “Who was that?”) I thought it would be fun to give the usually-sharp Erin that same frustration.

Erin’s mom Fresca thinks trust is more important than risk. But Erin starts writing procedures for the store to reduce that risk. Does Erin think naiveté equals stupidity?

No. But she’s worked in big business as well as small, and knows how easy it is for small businesses to overlook the importance of simple things like policies on cash-handling or computer use. And she knows that employees generally want to have regular reviews and manuals they can refer to. Plus she’s going on vacation – her honeymoon – and her staff will need to take care of things without calling her!

How do we empower people in our lives who don’t deserve that power?

Oh, great question! As you’ve suggested, fear is one way, and not questioning them is another. Probably the biggest way, I suspect, is not trusting our own instincts about people. We want to like and be liked, and easily dismiss our own misgivings instead of digging into them a little deeper.

What is a “Splash” artist?

Luci is a soapmaker and recurring character who sells her products at the Merc. She calls her business “The Splash Artist.” Soap, baths, bubbles….

“Back inside, the scent of lavender mingled with cocoa and coffee.” (Loc 230)

Are scents important to the Christmas season? Are they important to the retail season?

Oh, yes! Turns out that memory and scent are closely tied; both are located in the limbic system of the brain and evolved early in human development. That’s why we can catch a whiff of cologne and find ourselves thinking of a boyfriend who wore it 30 years ago before even noticing the scent. And because holidays, especially Christmas, also build on memory and tradition, I think scents play a big role in our enjoyment of them. And occasionally, of less positive memories as well. As for scent and retail, there’s a thing called “scent marketing,” where retailers deliberately evoke a scent to trigger that limbic response and, they hope, a purchase. Erin won’t stoop to something that deliberate, but if the aroma of chocolate or strawberry jam seeps out of the Merc’s commercial kitchen into the shop itself, how could that be a bad thing? < smile >

Why hasn’t Erin met any of her husband-to-be’s family, the Zimmermans?

Adam left Minnesota for college and has never gone back. His and Erin’s work schedules made a visit impossible. He’s never felt close to his family, and envies the bonds the Murphys share.  At times, though, maybe they are a little too close!

Would you describe Almond Bianchi? Fudge Ecstasies?

Almond Bianchi are meringues made with ground nuts, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth clouds. And Fudge Ecstasies? The name says it all, don’t you think?

Like Ms. Marple, are people who assume the worst of people realistic, or are they insecure, judgmental, negative and/or guilty?

Ah, the eternal debate: Is the pessimist realistic, or choosing to dwell on the negative? Is the optimist naïve, or choosing to focus on the best in people? Depending on your own point of view, you could make either case. I think our point of view is a choice, and it affects all our interactions and experiences. Put simply, we see what we want to see – which the pessimist would call blindness and the optimist might call generosity. We do have to recalibrate our perceptions at times, which can keep one up at night.

What is it about a Subaru that Erin likes? Do you drive a Subaru?

I love my Subaru! It and the Chevy pickup seem to be the semi-official vehicles of Northwest Montana – and no doubt of other regions with lots of mountains, weather, and people who love getting out of doors like Erin and I do. Their biggest advantages are solid construction and all-wheel drive – plus a hatchback that even a small dog can jump into!

Why does Erin decide to put some Jewish holiday décor in the Merc beside the Christmas decorations?

As she strolls past the shop windows, she realizes that the village has overlooked Hannukah, and thinks maybe a reminder would be a good idea.

You change to present tense occasionally during your story. What were the instances, and why did you decide to do that?

I use present tense to describe places and traits that are ongoing or continuous, much as we do in regular conversation. “Oliver ran down the street,” but “Oliver is short.” A first-person narrative should feel like Erin telling the reader the story, and I wanted to play up that narrator-reader connection. 

Erin doesn’t trust outsider Detective Bello (love the name), who displays “short-man” syndrome issues. How does she deal with him?

At first, she’s irritated. He comes into this town, not knowing a thing about it, or her, and dismisses her observations. Tells her he’s not going to let her interfere with his investigation. “His investigation? Since when? This is her town, too.” But she comes to realize he does know how to run a murder investigation, and he comes to understand that her knowledge of of the community is invaluable. As the danger heats up, she appreciates his protectiveness of his new patch. And as the investigation drags on, he appreciates her doggedness. They’ll never be completely comfortable with each other, I suspect, but they do develop a mutual respect. 

Why do people use “the exception proves the rule” in arguments?

Turns out the phrase comes from science, and uses “prove” not in the sense of “confirm” but in the sense of “test.” Like when we did proofs in high school math.

There’s an “embezzlement pattern,” which Bello refers to, but the pattern doesn’t seem to apply to Merrily. What is the “embezzlement pattern?” Why does Bello apply it to Merrily when it doesn’t fit?

This is something I encountered years ago in my law practice. Not to get too detailed, but many embezzlers are your next door neighbor, women with positions of trust in small businesses where they had easy access to money and the means to cover up their deception. A lot of research has focused on this pattern and the reasons for embezzlement, which do tend to differ between men and women. And it does fit Merrily now, but not in the past, which leads Erin to probe the past.

There’s nothing better in a cozy than cookies proving the time of death. How do cookies prove the time of Merrily’s death?

Ooh. How to answer without a spoiler? Erin sees what Merrily had been making for a cookie exchange, realizes what steps remained, and worked backwards to figure out the time of death. Naturally, Detective Bello is skeptical. But he’s newly arrived in Montana from Florida, and a cookie sometimes called a snowball is new to him! (Well, maybe it isn’t, but he is a skeptical kind of guy!)

What is Chocolate Cabernet sauce, and what does it best top?

Eight ounces semi-sweet or a combination of semi-sweet and bitter chocolate, melted, with a cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of butter, a teaspoon of vanilla, and two tablespoons of Cabernet or another red wine. Mmmm. Erin first tastes this treat at the Summer Art & Food Festival in Crime Rib and recreates it for the reader in Butter Off Dead. It’s best served on ice cream. We were given a bottle of a pourable version a few years ago, went to buy more, and discovered it was no longer available, so I searched out a few recipes and created our own, which is thicker, almost fudge-like. I think I hear a jar calling me right now…

What kind of wedding cake did Adam and Erin choose?

You know, I never asked them! Readers, suggestions?

What’s next for Erin?

A nice long vacation in the sun. Seriously, she doesn’t know what Adam has planned their honeymoon, though he has told her to make sure her passport is current and promised to tell her what to pack at least three days before they leave. (I know where they’re going, but I’m not telling, either!)