Jacqueline Vick is the author of over twenty short stories, novelettes and mystery novels. Her April 2010 article for Fido Friendly Magazine, “Calling Canine Clairvoyants”, led to the first Frankie Chandler Pet Psychic mystery, Barking Mad At Murder, followed by A Bird’s Eye View of Murder. Her first Harlow Brothers’ mystery, Civility Rules, is out in ebook format and paperback. To find out more, visit her website at http://www.jacquelinevick.com.

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I love flinch-free fiction. Think Agatha Christie. Rex Stout. P.G. Wodehouse. I want to enjoy the book I’m currently reading, not suffer from nightmares for weeks after I close the pages.  I’m not interested in a sex manual, and I also don’t need to learn any new dirty words. I don’t want the characters to sound like the squeaking mice from an animated cartoon, but I don’t need to be subjected to a diatribe on __________ (insert cause here .) What’s a girl to do?

Fortunately, after reading my Rex Stout and Agatha Christie collection again for the umpteenth time, I ventured–cautiously–into some new writers. New to me. I was pleasantly surprised, and I’d like to share some of them with you in case you’re looking for a good read.

Dave Rosenfeld brings us the Andy Carpenter mysteries. His character is a defense attorney who inherited a pile of wealth, so he spends most of his free time with the Tara Foundation, a dog rescue. The rescue is the launching point for the mystery, such as when a dog is stolen from the foundation only to turn up next to a corpse in Who Let the Dog Out? And yes, I do plan to purchase The Twelve Dogs of Christmas for my holiday reading list.

I picked up Ashley Weaver’s Death Wears a Mask based solely on the cover, so I guess good covers do matter. I found a fun world that revolved around Amory Ames and her playboy husband, Milo. The back cover described it as Agatha Christie updated, and I thought it came close. This is the second book in the series, so I’ll have to go back and start with number one.

I discovered Julia Buckley on a blog. Don’t ask me which one, because I can’t remember. I thought her book sounded intriguing. A writer takes on an apprenticeship with her idol, and the first day there, a dead body turns up on the beach below the house. She reminds me of a slightly restrained Dorothy Cannell (The Thin Woman.)

Robert L. Hecker’s Yankee Peddler is more of a farcical social commentary than a mystery, but it’s so funny I had to include it. Ambassador Elizabeth Sullivan Wexford Adams sets out to sell the Litanians on “The American Way.”  Hard to do when these isolated islanders have never heard of the USA.

That’s probably enough to get you started, especially since, if you enjoy the books as I did, you’ll want to read the entire series.

We don’t usually post on Mondays, but we have a guest post by author Linda O. Johnston that is fitting for this time of the year. Now, don’t get nervous, but it’s October and getting close to Halloween and the post is about superstition mysteries!

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Thank you, Writers in Residence.  I’m delighted to be blogging here.  In case you can’t tell, I enjoy blogging, including guest blogging.

It’s October, the month of Halloween.  Halloween is full of superstitions.   It’s a great time for the debut of my third Superstition Mystery, Unlucky Charms.

My Superstition Mysteries feature Rory Chasen, a pet lover who managed a pet store in Los Angeles… till she came to Destiny, California.  Destiny is all about superstitions, and Rory headed there when her fiancé died after walking under a ladder.  No, the ladder didn’t fall on him, but he was hit by a car soon afterward.  Did the two interconnect?  Did he die thanks to the effect of the superstition?  Rory wants to know.

And when she first gets to Destiny with her dog Pluckie, she learns that black and white dogs are good luck, especially if you’re going to a business meeting.  Pluckie saves the life of Martha Jallopia, who owns the Lucky Dog Boutique.  Martha then asks Rory to stay in Destiny and manage the shop.

That story is in the first Superstition Mystery, Lost Under a Ladder–in which Martha becomes a murder suspect and Rory has to help her in that, too, by trying to clear her.  In book two, Knock on Wood, Rory’s bff Gemma Grayfield comes to  Destiny to be with Rory–and she’s the next one to become a murder suspect.

Here, in book three, Unlucky Charms, Rory’s the murder suspect!

All through this, Rory remains a superstition agnostic.  Sure, it probably doesn’t hurt to comply with superstitions… but does it really help?  She continues trying to figure it out.

And there are a lot of suspicions all over Destiny that Rory gets involved with, including seeding the sidewalks in front of the Lucky Dog Boutique with lucky heads-up pennies.  Since I write a lot about dogs and other pets, more superstitions about them are contained in the stories, too–including how unlucky, or lucky, black cats are.

Like Rory, I’m a superstition agnostic.  How about you?  Do you really believe… or not?

Just in case… well, one thing I will do here at the Writers in Residence blog is to cross my fingers, and knock on wood, that all the writers in residence, as well as all their readers, have lots and lots of good luck!

Linda O. Johnston, a former lawyer who is now a full-time writer, writes two mystery series for Midnight Ink involving dogs: the Barkery and Biscuits Mysteries, and the Superstition Mysteries. She additionally currently writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense as well as paranormal romance for Harlequin Nocturne.

She also wrote the Pet Rescue Mystery Series, a spin-off from her Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries for Berkeley Prime Crime.

Please visit Linda at her website: http://www.LindaOJohnston.com and friend her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindaOJohnston

Latest book: Unlucky Charms

Miko Johnston is the author of A Petal in the Wind and the newly released A Petal in the Wind II: Lala Hafstein.

She first first contemplated a writing career as a poet at age six. That notion ended four years later when she found no ‘help wanted’ ads for poets in the Sunday NY Times classified section, but her desire to write persisted. After graduating from NY University, she headed west to pursue a career as a journalist before switching to fiction. Miko lives on Whidbey Island in Washington. You can find out more about her books and follow her for her latest releases at Amazon.

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I sincerely hope you, our readers, find The Writers In Residence blog as enlightening as I do.

Madeline’s recent post on story endings reminded me of a project several writers and I undertook earlier this year. We analyzed different endings, both satisfying and disappointing, and came up with a list, but nothing as contemplative as Madeline’s. There’s a difference between knowing a subject and conveying that knowledge with eloquence.

Gayle’s piece on mining your past reminded me of the importance of authenticity. In fact I touched upon that subject in my earlier blog post on killing your characters. My protagonist loses someone dear to her very unexpectedly. I summed up her reaction in a brief paragraph, taken from my own experience with an identical situation. I still get choked up when I read it, and more than one writer giving critique has as well. Mining your life goes beyond knowledge and experience. At the deepest level you hit real emotion. To ensure that I do, I’m following Kate’s suggestions regarding beta readers.

Creating authenticity in our writing has been a thread recently. Bonnie’s post on research, Jackie Vicks’ on writing what you want to know, and Jackie Houchin’s story based on her missionary experiences in Malawi reminded me of that. My current novel takes place during World War I on the lesser know Eastern front. The subject hasn’t been covered in English language literature, which makes it both unique and challenging. But the challenges go beyond research for me.

Like many writers, I struggle to balance writing time with all the other obligations in my life. I’ve lost my ability to multitask as I’ve grown older – or maybe it’s the lack of time pressure now that I no longer work – but time seems to move faster as I’ve become slower. That’s why Rosemary’s post hit home with me. Years ago I found a very effective organizing system called the Funnel Method. Picture a letter-sized page in landscape format. Divide it into three rows across and seven columns down to create 21 boxes. Label the seven top row boxes with categories of what you need to do: appointments, errands, writing, etc. and list what you need to accomplish each week in the appropriate box. Then use the boxes in the middle row to prioritize your lists, from most to least important. The third row is your weekly calendar; assign a day and time for each task based on its priority. It works brilliantly if you follow it. Unfortunately, I don’t – I rebel against micro-management; like Rosemary, ideal time management eludes me.

So thank you fellow WinRs for sharing your insight and wisdom. It’s made a difference in my writing and, I suspect, has helped other writers who read this blog. I’ll end this post with my contribution – the list of endings I mentioned earlier. See if you agree.

SATISFYING ENDINGS:

Summation – where you bring the previous elements back into play and sum up the action or make a statement.

Partial Summation – where some story lines are tied up, but a few are left unresolved for the sequel (common in serialized novels).

Cozy – where everything’s gonna be alright; it settles down at the end and they all have a cup of tea.

Cinematic – zoom in from the setting to the character(s), or out from the character(s) to the setting (like a movie).

Emotional – tug at the heartstrings and pull out the stops; needs to be carefully handled to avoid crossing over to sappiness.

Bookend – where it mirrors, and often clarifies, the opening scene.

Ambiguous/Cliff hanger – promotes discussion as well as sequels; doesn’t tie everything up into a neat bow.

UNSATISFYING ENDINGS:

Trite – there’s no surprise element; clichéd.

Incomplete – story doesn’t resolve or too many important threads left undone.

Abrupt – too rushed or sudden, like a curtain dropping; doesn’t provide satisfaction.

Prolonged – too slow or dragged out; destroys the tension of the climax.

Martians landed – euphemism for a scenario dropped in without being set up.

Cheap shot – solving the issue without input from protagonist.

Mismatched – ending doesn’t have anything to do with the beginning.

Incoherent – ending doesn’t make sense or is rambling.

Sappy – emotionally overdone; turns maudlin or trite.

Madeline (M.M.) Gornell is the author of six award-winning mystery novels. Her current literary focus is Route 66 as it traverses California’s Mojave Desert. Madeline is a lifetime lover of mysteries, and besides reading and writing, is also a potter. She lives with her husband and assorted canines in the High Desert. For more information, visit her at website or Amazon Author Page.

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Characters and setting—I’ll expound on both whenever I get a chance—are the two items that are really important to my enjoying a story. Several of our recent posts here on Writers in Residence have been on research, so I thought I’d add my voice to the discussion. And why? Because without research—unless you’re one of those people who already knows everything about everything(smile)—characters and locations have no backbone, no appeal, no enticement, no flavor without it. I know I mention P.D. James a lot, but setting and characters are two of the many aspects of her writing that I revel in; the places, buildings, institutions she took me to, and going there through the eyes of so many multi-careered characters with their own unique back stories was marvelous.

And in my own writing mind, one of the major items in location is sensory experience, and one of the main ways of presenting a character, is explaining how they are experiencing the world through all their senses.

Going off tract a bit with a little back-story, as a child, an elderly and kind lady—still remember her name, Mrs. Shoecraft—in the flat above us, I grew up as a Chicago kid, would often bake yeast-bread. The aroma floating to the floor below, was marvelous. And to my delight, she made mini-loaves and shared. As an adult, and primarily a west coast dweller, I’ve retained my love for good bread, but it isn’t easy making good yeast bread of any type, including rye-bread, ciabata, and baguettes (other childhood favorites and memories), and I have consequently collected various and now seldom-used items like a bread mixer, mix-master kneader, and a lots and lots of books on bread making.

Back to the writing part, Hester Miller, a character in my current WIP, and a carryover from Rhodes – The Mojave-Stone, is baking bread in a scene. Why? Because I think she’s a bread-making kind of Romani housekeeper, and bread baking is a new aspect of her that might explain, or counterbalance some of her other actions. Of course I couldn’t just write the darn scene. I had to do more research on bread! By late afternoon, I’d ordered yet another book from Amazon, and printed out three new recipes from the internet.

Did I write anything that day? No. But two days later, wrote these lines:

Then he caught the aroma in the air. “Is that yeast I smell?”

“Yep,” she answered.

He smiled, not just at her short and enigmatic seeming answer, but his mind shot back to those days eons ago when his father Everett and his mother Sophie would take him to her mother’s house in Austin. Grandma Nelson would always have dough rising when they came over. Invariably Sundays, and she had mini-loaf pans—everyone got their own loaf of warm buttery bread. The aromas at Grandma Nelson’s were heaven; but the homemade yeast bread Leiv knew he would never forget. Yep, a special memory.

Ended up, in my story the reference/memory wasn’t even with the same character in mind. Was the additional research worth it? I’m doubtful. Did I enjoy going back down my sensory bread-lane? Definitely.

And this isn’t an isolated event for me. Research that gets out of hand—at least at “that” moment of interest. Here’s a picture of an ages old bookcase in my kitchen, stuffed with unused recipe books and internet printouts. Many are products of “Research.” Nonetheless, I sincerely believe–not only are past memories, experiences (see several preceding excellent posts here on our site), and travels invaluable to writing, but all the “research gone array” also contributes to the mosaic of our stories. Maybe not exactly at this moment in writing time, maybe even unconsciously, but down the road for sure. To use a bread analogy, to write with texture, flavor,  and aroma (I can smell the bread), research is invaluable. Though it can get out of hand for some of us. But even if I’m completely wrong about the value part, it sure is fun.

I do need to figure out what kind of filming camera one of my characters would prefer. Hmmm, maybe there’s something on the internet…or a book on Amazon maybe….

Happy writing trails!

Kate Thornton is a retired US Army officer who enjoys writing both mysteries and science fiction. With over 100 short stories in print, she teaches a short story class and is currently working on a series of romantic suspense novels. She divides her time between Southern California and Tucson, Arizona.

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I may be one of the luckiest writers around, not just because I have five current readers, but also because they are all smart, talented, capable, and also voracious readers on their own.

What is a Beta Reader? What do they do?

A beta reader is a nice person who will read your manuscript and give you feedback. That’s pretty much the basic definition, but there are as many nuances to beta readers and what they do as there are metaphors and similes in amateur works of fiction.

Give them guidance about what you are looking for and don’t take their criticisms personally. Mine are specialists, and here are the areas in which they excel:

“A” – let’s not use their real names – is a punctuation and grammar specialist. She reads through my completed (or nearly so) manuscript and picks out punctuation and grammar booboos. And what looks worse than misspelled words, incorrect punctuation or awkward grammar?

“B” reads for continuity. She knows I have a 3-book series, and she reads to make sure all the stuff that happens is in the right order and that there are no glaring booboos like the main character is a blond named Alice in one scene and a brunette named Alicia in another. She also monitors the progress of the romances, character development and story pacing.

“C” reads for the story alone. Is it fun? Does it move right along? Does it make sense? Are the characters engaging? Are there boring parts?

“D” and “E” both read for polish – they are my final readers who, once I have corrected anything the others have suggested – make sure that what I have is what I really want to have: a reasonably well-written manuscript that is a fun read, makes sense, and keeps the reader engaged.

My beta readers all volunteer their time and expertise to make my books and short stories better – they are those additional pairs of eyes, additional world viewpoints, and those well-read and highly opinionated people who can save my work from sloppiness and author-blindness. I revere them.

How do you get beta readers? Ask. And be one.

One of my readers is a well-known crossword puzzle writer and is extremely picky about words. She is a style, grammar, and punctuation fanatic who is brutal in her critiques. I love her dearly. I was honored when she agreed to read for me. She is now a fan and is currently looking ahead to a manuscript I have not yet finished, giving me helpful hints as to where some of the story threads should go.

I asked another reader, someone who does not write but is an avid reader of my particular genres, to take a look and she not only agreed, but now asks if there are other works with which she can help.

A third is a friend who just wanted something to read, but came back with a lovingly detailed line edit.

Many times, your critique group partners or your writers’ group can provide you with feedback which will help you move forward. While I have not always found this to be a safe bet, it can be a good starting place. Keep in mind that your beta readers are there to help you, not disparage your efforts. If a reader is nasty or unhelpful, disregard their comments and don’t ask them again.

Volunteer to help your fellow writers. Let them know if you are reading for technical structure, punctuation, grammar or spelling and word usage. Or maybe you want to read for continuity and story progression. Or maybe you just want to read and see if there’s anything you can do to help. The key word here is help.

And lastly, don’t worry if your work isn’t finished or is need of a lot of help. Good beta readers can set you on the right path and help you find the inspiration to continue and improve. They can tell you where you are going off track or where you really need to read up (good grammar texts abound!)

P.S.  Don’t forget to thank them, both in real time and in your finished work. Thank you, Maggie-beth, Mar, Kay, Dina, Tracy, John, Sunny, and all my past readers, too. You help us all to be better writers.