Criminal Intent by Mary Dutta

I’ve been at odds with a pickpocket lately. A fictional one, that is.

In my short crime fiction, I’ve had characters kill people, frame them for crimes, scam them, and commit a host of other misdeeds.

The challenge in writing such characters is to make them relatable enough that readers will go along for the ride rather than reject them outright. We all have flaws, we all feel desperate at times, we all do things we may regret. A story character may take all of that to lengths the reader would not condone in real life, but as long as the motivation behind their deeds is made clear and offers something the audience can connect to, the reader will stick around to find out what happens.

That being said, my current work-in-progress, a story about a career pickpocket, is putting my ability to drum up reader sympathy to the test. I have never written about a professional criminal before, and I’m finding that the thief whose story I am telling lacks the relatability I usually give both my protagonists and antagonists. She feels quite comfortable with the criminal path she has chosen. She is not in desperate circumstances. She could easily earn an honest living rather than steal. And her victims are strangers, who haven’t wronged her in any way.

She is not the first problematic character I’ve struggled with. I ended up abandoning one story recently because I just found it too hard to create sympathy for the protagonist. There was supposed to be a plot twist at the end where it was revealed that he didn’t really hold all the objectionable beliefs he had been spouting, but was rather using them as a smokescreen to distract from his crime. But to get to that big reveal, both I and the reader had to spend the bulk of the story with someone (at least seemingly) remarkably unsympathetic. I didn’t want to spend that much time with him, and I had to accept that most readers likely wouldn’t want to either.

I think there is more hope for my pickpocket making it to the end of her story and into the anthology I’m writing for. As the story stands, I’m not buying her justifications for what she does. But I can give her the backstory, the circumstances, and the relationships to show how she developed those rationales. If she can win me over, however questionable her ethics, then I think she could win over readers as well.

Will she end up abandoning her criminal ways? Well, that’s another story.

“Off the Page” with Elmo Simpson by The Wren (Sarah E. Burr)

A Note from Sarah: For this month’s post, I’m handing the blogging reins to Winnie Lark, the main character in my Book Blogger Mysteries. Winnie runs a popular bookish website called What Spine is Yours (think Metacritic for the literary world). However, she manages it anonymously, and the online community only knows her as “The Wren.” She often interviews guest authors through their characters, and that’s the focus of today’s feature. Enjoy!

Hi, everyone. The Wren, here. I’m delighted to be guest blogging for Writers Who Kill about a new mystery series debuting this fall. From best-selling author J.C. Kenney, Panic in the Panhandle arrives September 26 and is the first book in the Elmo Simpson Mysteries. For today’s feature, I’ve invited Elmo Simpson, the man himself, to participate in one of my “Off the Page” interviews. You’re going to have so much fun getting to know him!

Elmo, thanks so much for being here for “Off the Page.” Tell us about Paradise Springs. How did you find yourself in this little slice of panhandle paradise?

First off, thanks for inviting me to chat with you, Wren! Paradise Springs is a funky little coastal town on the Florida Panhandle. I tell people looking for it to take a right at Panama City, and if you get to Pensacola, you’ve gone too far. The town’s filled with more oddballs, ne’er-do-wells, and misfits than any place I’ve ever heard of. And that’s a good thing! I arrived in the Springs a little over a decade ago. In my former life, I worked in software design. It was a good career until I ended up in the hospital because of all the stress that came with it. In response, I quit my job, sold my house and belongings, and took off in my truck to find a new life where the good times were numerous and the stressors were few. That place turned out to be Paradise Springs, Florida, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else now.

That’s amazing! Good for you, Elmo. Putting your passions and interests first is such an important life lesson—definitely one I can relate to. So, what led you to become an animal removal specialist? That’s a pretty unique career!

It was totally by accident. A friend of mine, Seven Banderas, knew someone who was being bothered by chipmunks burrowing under their house. I love animals and I’d had some experience dealing with the little critters in my old life, so I volunteered to trap and then release them back into the wild. Well, I got the rodents corralled and moved with a minimum of fuss, and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I was getting calls from people who needed help from Elmo, the critter guy. I rolled with it, and Elmo’s Critter Removal Service was born.

Number one, I love the name Seven. I can’t wait to learn more about them! Number two, it shows how much the people of Paradise Springs have come to rely on you. Do you have a favorite animal to work with?

Bats. A lot of people are freaked out by them, but I love them. I mean, come on, they eat mosquitoes. How great is that? Like pretty much all wild animals, they can be tricky to catch and rehome safely, but it’s always a thrill watching them fly away when I’ve released them.

I’ll admit I’m one of those folks who gets queasy around bats, but after you’ve described them so kindly, I need to reevaluate my opinions! It’s clear from your line of work that you have to be pretty brave going into unknown situations against unknown opponents. So, how did you end up involved in a murder investigation?

I owed a buddy, Rambo Quigley, a favor and he told me it was time to pay up. Seriously, he showed me a kindness my first night in Paradise Springs. When I asked how I could repay him, he laughed and said I could return the favor someday. Well, that day arrived when an alligator was found at the scene of Fran Cohen’s murder. Rambo’s a gator rancher, you see. One thing led to another, and since he and Cohen had gotten into a heated argument about a land development scheme, Rambo was accused of committing the murder. That’s when he called me. I’ve got some amazing friends in the Springs that I’d do pretty much anything for. Rambo’s one of them, so when he said he needed my help, I jumped into action. Well, that’s not quite true. First, I panicked and said I knew nothing about conducting a murder investigation. Then, I remembered that I’d made a promise and got to work.

I didn’t even know a “gator rancher” existed before meeting you and your friends. You learn something new every day, right? You’ve already mentioned a few folks readers will meet in Paradise Springs. Who else do we get the pleasure of meeting? Are you a solo investigator, or do you have a crime-solving crew?

I’m happy to say that I do, in fact, have a crew. First, there’s my girlfriend, Nicola Beecham. She’s fearless and loves an adventure, so when I needed to talk to a suspect who I was afraid of because he might be a vampire, Nic rode shotgun with me. She’s the ultimate partner-in-crime-solving. There’s also Wendell Banderas, who runs the Rip Tide Bar and Grill. Wendell’s been around the block and is always ready with good advice. Earlier, I mentioned Wendell’s daughter, Seven (that’s her nickname, by the way). She’s another part of my crew. She tells it like it is, whether I like what she has to say or not. She’s in her twenties, so she knows the younger crowd in the area. That comes in handy when talking about suspects. Then there’s Rambo, of course. He can get a little emotional at times, but the guy knows everyone within a hundred miles. If anyone’s tuned to the Springs Signal, our version of the rumor mill, it’s him.  

I appreciate how you casually mentioned you interviewed a vampire. Paradise Springs truly sounds like a happening kind of place. Can you share one exciting adventure you had while investigating?

You know how I told you Nic is fearless? There was one night she and I kind of broke into the condo where Fran Cohen was murdered. And by broke into, I mean that I had a keycard to enter the place thanks to my critter removal business, but we still weren’t supposed to be there. Anyway, we were busy looking for clues when we were confronted by a guy pointing an automatic rifle at us. Thanks to some fast talking, we got out of there unscathed. I’d rather not be on the business end of one of those things ever again, though.

Yikes! Does this mean your crime-fighting days are over?

While I hope so, I can’t make any promises. In a town filled with as many eccentrics and people running from their pasts, you never know what the next day will bring. I can promise you that if a friend ever finds themselves in need, I’ll be there to answer the call. That goes for both removing critters and for solving murders.

It sounds like you’re the guy to call! It’s been a blast getting to learn more about you and your new mystery-solving adventure, Elmo. Thanks so much for taking the time to come “Off the Page” with me. Happy Sleuthing! ~ The Wren

 

Panic in the Panhandle debuts on September 26 at your favorite online retailer. Preorder here to join Elmo Simpson in his first mystery.

Learn more about The Wren, Winnie, and the Book Blogger Mysteries at www.saraheburr.com.

Connection by Nancy L. Eady

 My daughter first came to live with us when she was three years and one month old. We went from childless couple to parents with one month’s notice. Since the first month after she was with us was December, the transition was even more hectic. It’s not every new father who rushes down to Toys R’ Us because the last shipload of swing sets pre-Christmas arrived at the store at midnight unexpectedly. The swing set was one of only three things she said she wanted for Christmas, and the hardest.  

In the midst of all of that, I can still remember how we would drive places with her in her child seat in the back and she would suddenly sing out, “I saw something!” The standard reply was “What did you see?” The answer was usually something undifferentiated like “A tree!” Or maybe it only sounded like that because, y’all, speaking three-year-old is NOT easy. She must have thought we were the dumbest people on earth the first month she lived with us because every time she spoke we’d stare at her blankly and then ask her to say whatever it was again. Looking back, though, I realize the “I-saw-something” game was one way she was trying to connect with us. 

As authors, our goal is to connect with our readers. One way to do this is to use short descriptions of the small items we (or our characters) collect around us. If your character doesn’t have a small collection of detritus that surrounds their personal space, then that says something about them too. My personal assumption would be “neat freak,” but since I am chronically unorganized, that is judgmental on my part. 

For example, my chest of drawers in the bedroom has a few objects on it. If I was writing about a character and tossed out something about her “moving the miniature enameled vases she bought at the antique store on her and her husband’s last visit with her in-laws before they died” while dusting, haven’t I given my reader something to connect to? Or perhaps she could be about to move, coping with keeping a house show-ready, cooking dinner and thinking about how empty the kitchen counters look since the realtor forced her to pack away her glass collection of red, blue and yellow roosters. Again, I hope, connection. What about a man who opens the spare room closet to find something for his wife, discovering one of the collars for a dog he loved that died years earlier? He fingers the faded red collar, then gently lays it aside on a sewing table to start pulling out boxes. I think I like him most of all three. 

Now, my reactions to the above descriptions are generally positive because I have positive connections with the subject matter. I loved my in-laws, am fond of my rooster collection and recently found an old collar one of my dogs who died used. They could equally spark negative feelings for a person who has negative connections with the subject matter, such as having a toxic relationship with their in-laws, being virulently anti-clutter and anti-collections, or loathing dogs. The descriptions could also create confusion if the emotion involved and the character’s actions are diametrically opposed, such as a description involving a positive emotion being applied to a serial killer. The point of the description, though, is still met because the reader’s connection to it elicits a reaction which is what I, as the writer, am hoping to achieve. 

What are the techniques you use in your writing to connect with your readers? 

Showing Not Telling by Nancy L. Eady

 As writers, we are constantly bombarded with the advice “Show don’t tell.” If you’re reading this post hoping for the magic secret that makes you automatically show instead of tell, I apologize for not having it. But I did notice something today that might help.

As we get ready for our house to sell, we are stumbling across various odds and ends. Each item we find, and our reaction to it, says something about the members of my family as individuals, as does the furniture we cherish versus the furniture we only use. If my family were characters in a novel, descriptions of the items we find and our reaction to them would be part of how the novelist could sketch out our character.

Meet Ruffy, who arrived at our house when my daughter was about 6 as part of a set of three Build-a-Bear animals she acquired over the course of a year. When we found Ruffy today, my daughter (now 21) couldn’t help giving her a hug. What would that say about a character in your novel? 

While admittedly she has seen better days, this Raggedy Ann doll has been well and truly loved. My aunt made Raggedy Ann for me when I was a small child, and I still have her. I tried to mend the neck and legs when I was in high school because she was in even worse shape than she is now. My sewing skills obviously were lacking. That doll caught many silent tears and comforted me for more years than I like to count. She now resides on my closet shelf. (I pulled her out specifically for this photograph.) And yes, she will be making the move to Huntsville with us.

What might this small vignette from our study/dining room show a reader if it was described in a novel? Letting a reader know that the grandfather clock belonged to my husband’s parents, while the pitcher and washbasin belonged to his grandmother, shows them something about us. So does the fact that the round table the washbasin is sitting on probably won't make the move.  (Underneath the tablecloth, it is falling apart.  We bought it about seven years ago.)  The shoe on the dining room table might mean we’re messy, careless, or easily distracted. In our case, what it really means is that my daughter left her shoes in the hallway to the garage, where one of them was discovered by our youngest dog Max, who is only one year old and loves to chew. We barely rescued it from his clutches in time; he had retreated to his carrier to begin a peaceful afternoon of chewing until we interrupted him. In a novel, a character’s noticing the presence of the shoe, or another character’s leaving the shoe in place for days, gives the reader a clearer picture of some facet of their personality. 

So, as I edit my work, I’m going to look for places where I might be able to use settings to help with characterization and see if it gets me closer to that ever-elusive goal of showing, not telling. 

What suggestions do you have that help with showing rather than telling? 

Those Voices in My Head

Those Voices in My Head by Lois Winston

There are two kinds of people who listen to the voices in their heads—schizophrenics and authors. Fortunately, I fall into the latter category, the group that doesn’t talk back. Or so we pretend. But the truth is, those voices in our heads belong to our characters, and whether we’re brave enough to admit it to the world beyond our writing caves, those conversations go both ways.

Our characters demand quite a lot from us, especially those of us who write mysteries. After all, we’re constantly putting them in situations filled with murder and mayhem. Is it any wonder they’re constantly interrupting our plotting to insinuate their own two cents?

My most demanding character is Anastasia Pollack, the reluctant amateur sleuth of the eponymous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. In every book, I get to a point in the story where Anastasia goes on strike. She absolutely refuses to continue on the path I’ve laid out for her. No matter how much I try to force her into the next chapter, she won’t budge.

Have I mentioned what a royal pain in my butt she is?

This standoff leaves me no choice but to cave to her demands, especially since she always gets the backing of the rest of my characters who line up in solidarity behind her. Then they pool their resources and send my muse off on holiday.

Have I mentioned my characters play dirty?

No author wants to sit in front of a computer screen staring at a blinking cursor for hours on end, especially when deadlines are looming. My characters know this, which means I have no choice but to capitulate to their demands. Otherwise, they won’t send my muse a return-trip ticket.

With every book, Anastasia tosses a monkey wrench into my plots. “You’re taking the easy way out,” she screams. “I demand more conflict! Another red herring! One more plot twist!”

“There’s no problem with the story the way it is,” I whine.

“Wanna bet?” she asks. “Send the chapter off to your critique partner. See what she has to say.”

“Have you been speaking to her behind my back?”

She grins. “I’ll never tell.”

I wonder what my critique partner would say if I asked if she’d heard from Anastasia. Would she think I’ve gone nuts? I’ve decided it isn’t worth the risk. Anastasia is a fictional character and only a fictional character as far as she knows. Best to keep it that way (and hope she isn’t reading this!) Instead, I send off the chapter for some feedback. A few hours later her notes arrive—stating exactly what Anastasia had said.

“Fine, you win,” I say, bowing to the inevitable. “I’ll write the story your way.”

“You’ll thank me in the end,” she says.

And you know what? Darned if she isn’t right. Every single time, including recently as I was in the middle of writing Guilty as Framed, the 11^th Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, now available for preorder.

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” Learn more about Lois and her books at her website, www.loiswinston.com, where you can also sign up for her newsletter and find links to her various social media sites.

A BLANK PAGE CONSTRAINED BY CHARACTER by Nancy L. Eady

Moving has me considering character—not character as in whether you would give me a good reference, but character as in the traits that form the people who populate my stories.

My family and I live in a new house in a new town. You would think this is a chance to completely reinvent ourselves. In theory, we should be able to act however we want and to be whoever we want. In practice, it’s not that simple. Even when you move, your history and character move with you.

For example, I could try to make strangers believe I’m fearless. But I’m still going to insist my husband perform roach-killer duty should I run across a live version of one of the loathsome things. (Odds are good I am going to call on him even if I run across a dead version.) 

On a more fundamental level, I am a compulsive rule follower. I feel like a wild rebel just ignoring the travel lanes in an empty parking lot. When the stores all had directional signs on aisles for COVID, I was the family member that refused to allow us to go up the down aisle, even if the item we needed was two steps away in the wrong direction. While it’s physically possible for me to ignore rules now that I am in a new town, mentally, it’s not. Nor can I change the parts of my personality that I unconsciously broadcast to the community at large. I exude an aura that leads people to consider me both safe and knowledgeable; in a crowded store or park, I’m the person people stop for directions. It happened yesterday, as a matter of fact. I was walking down the aisle in the Leeds Walmart when a woman asked me where something was located. I regretfully told her that it was my first time in the store and I couldn’t help. Had I then found the thing she was looking for, I would have been compelled to find her to tell her. In a new place free of expectations, I should have been free to go on with my day, but I wasn’t. My character constrained my actions.

The same is true with the characters we writers create. Readers may think we authors control our characters, but we know better. Our characters come with their own history and back story and traits. If we need them to do something that doesn’t line up with those, they resist us. Some argue vociferously against whatever we are trying to force them to do; some take a more passive-aggressive approach, giving us a vague feeling that something in the story is “not working,” and leaving it for us to discover what that is.

We can’t force our characters to be someone they’re not, but what we can do is change the environment they’re in or the challenges they face. So, while we don’t control their character, we can change their environment. Their reactions and responses to those challenges lead them to grow and change so that we (and our readers if we’re lucky) learn a little more about human nature in the process.

What characters in your writing have you found to be unmanageable?

Do You Believe It By Kait Carson

Fiction writers in general and mystery writers in particular ask their readers to suspend disbelief and enter into the story world of their characters. Why mystery writers in particular? Well, unless you’re writing true crime, chances are those body drops are unlikely to happen in the real world. Craig Johnson, who writes the Longmire series, has confessed that he sets every other book away from fictional Absaroka County because, ‘what are the odds that in the least populated county in the least populated state’, the sheriff is tripping over enough bodies to populate a long-running series?[1]

 

Cozy and traditional mystery writers face the same dilemma. At least Longmire is a sheriff. His job is to trip over bodies. But what about your average pastry chef, restauranteur, or librarian? There’s not much chance realistically they will cross paths with the deceased on a regular basis, much less successfully pursue the killer without the help of the police. What’s a writer to do? Make a pact with the reader, of course. If the reader will suspend disbelief long enough to buy into the premise, the writer will deliver a fun and suspenseful story within the parameters of an altered reality. Everyone benefits.

 

This is a double-edged sword when the writer is successfully writing a long-term series. Authors solve it differently. Readers expect body drops in mysteries and kindly overlook the death toll in small towns. Although it’s uncertain if they would consider moving to say, Cabot Cove, ME, where newcomers have a better than even chance of ending up dead. Amateur sleuths give readers an opportunity to exercise their own powers of observation, deduction, and induction. What should be unbelievable, in the hands of a skilled writer who deftly plants clues, becomes logical and believable as the reader and the sleuth partner throughout the book.

 

Character lifespan is the second, sharp side of a long-running successful series. People age. Protagonist’s age. Sue Grafton handled this by having her character, Kinsey Millhone age by weeks rather than years. Over the course of 25 books, Kinsey aged very little. This required the author to dial back technology, but it worked because it was true to the story. Tie something in your character’s life to a date certain event, and, if you are lucky enough to find success, you may have created a problem.

 

P.D. James aged Adam Dalgleish realistically. He advanced in his profession and in his external wealth trappings on pace with the span of years the books cover. Other novelists, whom I will not name here were not so prescient. One introduced a character with memories that began in WWII during the blitz. Based on the storyline, he would be 85 now. A bit long in the tooth for his job. Likewise, another character is identified by service in Viet Nam. Those of us old enough to have been around during that war recognize by the battle dates that the character would be 77 in story years. What are the odds this character is continuing to believably put himself in the path of speeding bullets?

What’s the solution? Frankly, I hope I have the problem someday. As I currently don’t, perhaps I can hazard two suggestions as a reader. First and always, write well enough that readers want to participate in the story and suspend disbelief. Second, hedge your bets. Be nebulous. Don’t tie characters to a specific, easily datable, timeline. That way they can grow in story time and not require any suspension of disbelief.

 

Readers, do you mentally age characters based on events in the books?

Writers, how do you handle character aging?

---

[1] Conversation with Craig Johnson in Depth of Winter – statement paraphrased for brevity.

The Unexpected Turn by Nancy L. Eady

 For 30 years, I have lived various places between Alexander City, Alabama and Montgomery, Alabama. Unremarkable for some, but for a Navy brat who moved every two to three years until she was 16, miraculous. Also, for 30 years, I have worked at the same building at the same firm. And in spite of such a confined geographical area, we have found jobs in the area that allowed my husband’s career to grow as well. If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said that we would spend the rest of our lives somewhere along this 50-mile stretch of road. Heck, I would have said the same thing last week when I wrote my last post. And I have been actively helping my husband search for a new job since October and praying for new opportunities and vistas for my family. We’ve always found a job for him in this area.

There are drawbacks to certainty. The biggest one for me was eventually retiring in the small town where we live. It’s nice enough, but the hour to two-hour round trip to go to Publix or Home Depot wears you down. I’m not from here, which makes friendship-making harder, especially right now during COVID, especially when coupled with the fact that I drive 45 minutes each way to work, and my husband drives an hour and 20 minutes one way.

There are positives to certainty. I don’t ever expect to love a house the way I love the house we live in. While friendship-making is harder, it’s not impossible and I have good friends here. And the building and people I work with are my home, too.

But, out of the blue, an opportunity has opened in the Birmingham area for my husband, and we are taking it. When the job offer first came, we felt like a dog must feel when he finally catches a car he is chasing. We didn’t know quite what to do with it. I’m still a little shell-shocked, caught somewhere between “Holy crap! I have a lot of stuff to get done,” and “Hot Dog! We’ll finally live in a bigger place.”  Not to mention navigating all the “what-ifs”—what if the house takes months to sell? What if we can’t find a decent house in the new area we can afford? What if our daughter is miserable up there once we move?

There are drawbacks to uncertainty. Worries pop up daily, imagined and real. The sense of continuity you had, before the uncertainty, departs. Familiar things look different. I saw my 15-year-old house one way last week and differently this week. You don’t quite realize how much needs to be done around a house until you get it ready to sell.

There are positives to uncertainty. It galvanizes you into action and tantalizes you with possibilities. Your soul stretches to reach new, unforeseen places. You take the most familiar things around you less for granted.

As a writer, the shift from certainty to uncertainty gives me new insights into my characters. It helps me empathize with my characters as I place them (deliberately, with malice aforethought) in difficult situations. It helps me understand more ways to describe to you, the reader, the feelings my character experiences. It gives me ideas on how characters are going to deal with the situation(s) I have placed them in. And it shows me why I am a sucker for happy endings. I would like nothing better than to end this next (hopefully brief) season of uncertainty with the words,” And they all lived happily ever after!”

Starting with Plot

by Paula Gail Benson

I write short stories. Even if I’m writing for a themed anthology, I start with character. I need to know the people whose story I’m telling.

Last year, during the short story panel for Mystery in the Midlands, John M. Floyd said he always began with plot. His words made me think about my method.

John M. Floyd

For those of you not familiar with John's work, he has been described by Douglas Preston as the “master of the art of the short story.” He is the author of more than 300 short stories, with his work regularly appearing in The Strand, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and Woman’s World. He’s a regular blogger on Sleuthsayers, and has won four Derringer awards and been nominated for an Edgar and the Pushcart Prize. Not only is he prolific, but also he’s generous in encouraging writers in their work.

This year, I’ve been trying to increase my writing output. I decided to try John’s recommendation and begin with plot rather than character.

I have to admit, my experience became a combination of both. I started out hearing the voice of a child pleading with his mother not to return to a place they had lived. Why? I decided his father had been convicted of a crime there.

After hearing the child’s plea, I heard the mother’s reply. There was no other choice, no other place to go. Why? The mother had been offered work in the town and needed it to support them.

Okay, so what goes wrong? After returning to the town, the mother is jailed for killing the person who gave her the job. The child, with the help of a caretaker, must find the real murderer.

I reached this point without knowing the names of the characters (except the child). I had determined the time period, the location, and the mother’s job. How to proceed?

Where did the crime take place? In the house where the victim lived. How was the crime committed? I wanted something unique. The victim’s head was crushed by a heavy sculpture in the victim’s study.

Why would the mother be suspected? She was found with the body and had a motive. The victim was the judge who sentenced her husband to prison.

Okay, why didn’t the mother do it? She truly was grateful for the opportunity to provide for herself and her son.

So, who did it and why was the mother set up? Here, I began to develop the cast of characters involved in the story. I realized the child would be playing a Watson role in describing his caretaker’s sleuthing efforts. But, even before I reached that point, I had to create the crime, to know who was in the house when the murder occurred and to figure out step-by-step how it happened.

I felt empowered. I knew the villain and had some ideas about how that identity would be revealed.

Then, I had to start the story in earnest from the sleuth’s viewpoint. How did she discover each aspect of the crime being committed and who had a reason to want the victim dead?

I mapped these things out on two pages of my journal. At the bottom of the second page, I listed the characters in the story, by description—only the child had a name.

During a Zoom meeting, I saw a participant’s interesting surname and gave it to my sleuth. After that, the names of the other characters came together easily.

I’ve now finished a first draft. I’ve been amazed at the backstory that has come out as my sleuth and her Watson progressed through their investigation. Focusing on plot caused my story to begin with a bang and meant that the characters’ backgrounds were revealed more naturally and less in info dumps. Working from plot, I felt more assured in the story’s pace. Also, I became aware of the need to have a slow scene followed by a rapidly moving one.

Thank you, John Floyd. I’m not sure my method matches yours, but I truly appreciate your suggestion to try it. By using it, I’ve learned more about writing.

How do you start, with characters or plot? Does your method change for short stories versus novels?