Books

New England Murderbake: Sharon L. Dean

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I love (and write) books where setting comes alive before my eyes. Where  characters live in a special environment that has an important role and becomes  a story “character.” Hence I enjoy the spare and evocative mysteries of Sharon L. Dean. She’s a New England transplant to Oregon, an avid outdoorswomam, a former English professor and my writing-group colleague.

Quiet New England (?) is home to some of the U.S.’s earliest European immigrants. To lovely vistas of farms, forests, fishing ports, tidy towns and the sea. No author captures its ambience or modern vibe better than Dean. Please join me in welcoming her to the blog today. Her latest book, “Calderwood Cove,” is due to be published June 8 by Encircle Publications.

CB: Sharon, thanks for joining us today. Your New England roots reach deep. Did you begin this book wanting to pay homage to an apparently peaceful beach community that may hide evil twisted roots? 

SD: I’m not a Mayflower descendent. My Irish, Swedish, English ancestors arrived in Massachusetts in the late nineteenth century. No secrets there—just the salt of the earth, as the saying goes. I grew up near Concord, Salem, Plymouth, Lowell, Boston, the places where so much of New England history happened. My parents regularly took me to historic landmarks. When I studied and taught American literature, I focused on New England writers. Just nostalgia and my sense of history and place. No evil, twisted roots, I’m afraid.

CB: Share about some of your background that played into the book. Places, people.

SD: I seem to always start with a sense of place. For “Calderwood Cove,” I drew on the many gatherings I enjoyed with my college roommates in the cove in Maine where two of them own summer houses. We’d joke about me writing a novel about all of us. The place is fictionalized, but based on the scenes of our gatherings. I assure you that the characters are entirely fictional.

CB: Fascinating. Tell us about the story, minus spoilers. What was  important for you to bring out?

SD This is the third novel in my Deborah Strong series. “The Barn” puts her in winter in her hometown in Southern New Hampshire where she uncovers the answer to a cold case death. The Wicked Bible moves her to fall on a college campus in New Hampshire where she discovers the connections between something called “The Wicked Bible,” a woman known as “the wickedest woman in New York,” and a letter by a nineteenth-century writer. Now in Calderwood Cove, Deborah finds herself on the Fourth of July in Maine. 

Her suspicions follow her like the Maine landscape–plenty of sunshine, plenty of fog, and plenty of evening mosquitoes that arrive like the sparks of fireworks. Where is her friend Brenda’s husband? Where have Brenda’s caretaker and cook gone? Who is the anorectic young man who keeps appearing? Is one of them a murderer? Or is it the old woman who lives across the street, her son who runs an oyster farm in the face of global warming, her poet-tenant who lives in her apartment? Deborah even suspects each of the friends she grew up with. By the time she finds the answer, she is ready to leave Calderwood Cove where an idyllic summer retreat turned as deadly as contaminated shellfish.

CB: What writing devices and beloved other writers helped power you forward?

SD: As my description of my Deborah Strong novels suggests, I love playing with the power of place and the different seasons that characterize New England. When I write, I find all sorts of lines that I know from my years of studying literature. I love weaving in history and often find unexpected things like the fact that the Native American Squanto had journeyed to what is now Maine. I also have fun sneaking in a few personal things that only those involved will know about—like the salt and pepper shakers I weave into Calderwood Cove.

CB: Do you make any sort of outline, or use a writing critique group? How does each one come to affect the final book?

SD: I usually start with a sense of place and a vague idea of where the novel will go. But then I let the plot unfold. I’ve been known to change the murderer more than once. My critique group––you, Clive Rosengren, Jenn Ashton, and Michael Niemann––are an invaluable resource. I draft longhand, type in revisions, show the revisions to my group, revise again––and again and again. Their comments come at the perfect time to move my writing along.

CB: Thank you for appearing in the blog, Sharon. Your insights are wonderful. I hope readers will check out your books, and tune in to a free Encircle Authors reading roundtable next Wednesday, May 4. It’s free, at https://www.becketathenaeum.org/events/eccentric-circles-readings

Readers, connect and learn more about Sharon L. Dean and her books at https://sharonldean.com/books/

 

 

Write a Winning Series, Part II

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The importance of creating captivating characters ruled our  post about penning an unputdownable book series. Now story arc(s) grab the spotlight. That’s right: arcs, or a character’s overarching purpose, hoped-for results that prevail through changing times, circumstances and novels.

Characters can be interesting as heck in one book. Situations can scare your off socks off–or make them roll up and down. But to keep readers craving more books with these same characters, your main people need a quest, an unputdownable dream that they live by. Not only for one fabulous book but across several books. A morality or driving force. A fiercely held belief. In good, power, magic, family, whatever. Even if that series is only a gleam in the writer’s eye! It must be strong enough to stand through a whole boxed set, or sequential TV episodes. Yes, please!

Your character is captivating. That’s half the battle. He or she is complex, maybe quirky but always appealing, cleverly backstoried. The first book sweeps her through a twisty plot in a smart relevant setting. She prevails at  the end. Or, if you follow several people in a connected quest in this first book, they prevail. For the moment. For one book.

Big point! Because you MUST–in a compelling series with the same or related characters–create people or problems in the first novel that perhaps are non-vital to its immediate resolution, but important to the others that may follow. You finish one story but leave the door open for more.

How to develop the carryover series arc? Think bigger picture for your characters in the one novel. Leave some  threads unwoven, seemingly minor points and issues not pursued. It’s OK to go back through your work in progress and sneak IN such points, kind of “hide” them. You will resolve the book’s main issue at its end. But you also can raise other questions that need answering –often without the reader  knowing she needs answers.

With a story arc that carries and mutates through several books, you have a hero or group’s ongoing quest. Righting wrongs, working on personal or societal flaws, getting/earning something tangible. Understanding themselves or their family. Finding peace, or a home for the heart.

Ask what could develop from other puzzles you’ve brought up or thrown together as set decoration, distraction or backgrounding. What might happen with other marbles you’ve put at the edge of a table. With other characters who have their own issues. That, fellow scribes and friends, plants a  seed of craving more books in a series. A reader might not yet realize they want to know more on side issues, people or coming events (weddings, breakups, battles). But believe me, deep in their heart or mind, they do!

Even if a writer doesn’t know for sure they’ll turn their a book into a series, they should be open to the  idea. Well-written and edited books  make  readers trust the author…and want more of their novels. A good series can be an author’s best friend. As a marketing tool, and as a cornerstone of one’s  reputation.

Writing a series, you already have many characters  developed (at least partly), and settings that are often, well, set. Thank you, authors Robert B. Parker, J.K. Rawlings, Lee Child, Sue Grafton, Robyn Carr and a host of others.

Think your book can make a series? “Saddle Tramps,” the first of my five Pepper Kane Mysteries, certainly did. Along with spawning a spinoff series, The Granny Oakley Mysteries, about my star  sleuth’s feisty 80-year-old mom.

I say go for it. Write as if you might be writing a series. Fill your book(s) with great characters and quests. Consider them friends and family, if they’re decent and interesting to be with. Later you’ll enjoy crafting related stories or taking interesting side trips. This can keep you writing forward. Looking forward to writing. When you can be  with your “friends” and “family” in special places. What’s not to love about that?

What Makes a Winning Series?

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Granny Gets Her Gun by Carole BeersMany of us crave certainty, continuity with “benefits.” Books and TV/film series can provide this. Notably in anxious times. But really in every time, at any age. Did you read all the Nancy Drew books? The Jack Reachers? Stephanie Plums? Doubtless for pleasure or needed distraction.

I love to fall into a good series, as writer OR reader. I write standalones, of course. But I’m probably best known for five (so far) Pepper Kane Mysteries. And now a spinoff, “Granny Gets Her Gun”—a cozy featuring my amateur sleuth’s aged mother, Martha Mosey Kane. Other series characters–including animals–as well.

How to create or find an irresistible bookTV series? One to write or to breathlessly read all the way through? First, I crave a worthwhile main character or group to “hang” with through the hours and weeks. As with Annie Seaton’s Aussie books, or Robyn Carr’s addictive “Virgin River” books that drag you safely but engagingly through thick and thin. Romance, women’s issues, action, crime. 

I also want a believable (read: flawed) leading man, woman or other to laugh and cry with, elbow knowingly, solve mysteries compelling or silly with, take a bite out of evil or uncertainty with. Someone I might want to know in “real” life. who has a welcoming/intriguing voice.

And mainly I meed a main character or group that is INTERESTING. I mean interesting through their job, family role or mission in each book. And not just someone who turns out to be an easy trope, prop or stereotype. Although if you twist a trope on its ear I might bite!

I need to know their interestingness in the first chapter. These attributes can be hinted at in passing, or stated outright with proper authority and confidence—emerging or otherwise. If characters are downtrodden, they must have those elusive qualities I call gumption and “try.” Heart. This makes me want to “help” them or empathize with them by riding along, shadowing. Staying with them. Feeling them.

My amateur sleuth Pepper Kane—in my five-book series with her name—is a fresh go-getter modern horsewoman of a certain age. She has a family she loves, a background in reporting, a yen for a good romantic relationship. Yet her Pop develops dementia, her lover won’t commit, and her grown kids live some distance away and are not always sympathetic to her wants and needs. Sound familiar? Anyone you know?

Plus I need to TRUST her. Believe in her quest or problems, know she will stay on course, not flip on me without good reason. At her core she must be strong. Steady.

Almost as important as cool characters and predicaments are settings. Whether city, beach or desert, settings should be interesting, too. They can help determine and even drive action. Provide a soothing or stirring backdrop. Mirror a character’s thoughts or mission.

But settings abso must have their own aura, good and bad qualities, personality!

In series books–as we explore questions great and small, people watch, make our way through or settle into the landscapes–let’s enjoy the author’s skill (our skill) at weaving all these elements together. Keeping the fabric. Being clear, compelling and true.

Even if in the “real” world, it’s technically UN-true, but lives true in our mind and heart.

Granny Gets Her Gun https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VG1MBZV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_K5QVC9KCN28170QP3YHK

Carole and Granny

THE NEW 60?

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On a recent milestone birthday I called  75 “the new 60.” That may have been a slight exaggeration. But it was how I felt, or desperately wanted to feel.

Some think me young—especially those older than I. On hearing my age, people in their eighties and nineties look at me with amused forbearance, calling me “just a kid.” Is it because I relate well to tots and teens?  I still make up my eyes as I did at 16 when sex-kitten Brigitte Bardot rocked the silver screen with her bouncy breasts, white lipstick and smoldering gaze (although my breasts bounce differently, now). Am quick to dance to a hot tune. Laugh loudly. Walk short dogs up tall hills.

I embrace intellect, fresh ideas. Write books. And, with a nonchalant grin or occasional grimace, heft a 40-pound Western saddle onto the back of my 16-hand horse, Brad, and ride him several days a week.

Youngers consider me old. My skin sags and wrinkles where once it was taut. My muscles, weaker now and slower to recover from stress as they did—even at 60—are quick to slack from underuse. Arthritis gnaws my fingers, knees and hips. It makes me slow to rise, and more mindful doing everyday tasks. Such physical changes feed my genetic tendency toward fleeting depression. I can’t do some things I once took for granted—what differently abled  people never could do, or do with difficulty.Let’s not even talk about my mind, as known names and memories sometimes dodder.

And yet. Folks in their sixties or younger say they hope they’ll be blessed with spunk like mine when they’re old, that they’ll enjoy a “get on with it” attitude. Ouch! There’s a compliment with teeth. OK. Whatever. I’ll take it. It’s what I admired about Marjorie Lewis, a 100-year-old friend. Certainly age depression and mourning the loss of abilities and loved ones, shadowed Marjorie. And yet…

At 75, face it: I am indeed aged. I was born before World War II ended. Years of experience might gild this truth. A wish to keep going  allows me to cling to illusion. But numbers don’t lie. So why do I skip or amble along in apparent denial, swept up helplessly but mostly happily in benign, unfurling time?

Call it faith. Inborn will. And a commitment to being meaner than whatever is chasing me, as my book heroine Pepper Kane would say, “down the tunnels of decrepitude.” Chasing me toward an ending—though I see death as a transition to a another dimension neither understandable nor sought. I grin, read, sip coffee. Watch the TV morning show. Tussle with dogs. Endure the sad fact of our aging and eventual demise. Look for signs and answers. Lunch with friends, attend church, deeply inhale fresh air and silence. And welcome blessings and endure curses as I find them.

Our subconscious, our spirits, see this, and know. They come to know graceful ageing is an act of will, or of NO will. Ultimately we are asked to love, forgive, accept what is, and feel what is. Look at plain truths, even if discomfiting. Just not for too long, nor too publicly. That does no one any good.

“Just do it,” I remind myself sternly or gently. I ask, “What’s next on my calendar?” I stay engaged.

As long as I have life, I must live it and try to love it. Warts and all. Nothing lasts forever in the same form. But one’s individual energy, wisdom and style endure in footprints and soul prints left on the Earth and other beings.

Breathe. Love. Cry. But most of all, smile. In my experience, even those precious aware souls who seem to have lost all, can still convey a smile, if only in their eyes. Show acceptance. Hope. Love.

And that, to me, is the ultimate triumph of mind over matter. Even when mind no longer matters.

Writing Rogue!

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Writing Rogue!

Whew! “Ghost Ranch,” my third Pepper Kane Mystery, has burst from the starting gate and is gathering steam on the backstretch with not one, but TWO giveaways on Amazon.com (one Kindle, one for Paperback). To enter the Kindle giveaway, click https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/98715a51ef93057f.  To enter the Paperback contest click https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/dab5b0b86f77a20d. Or visit Amazon.com and search under “book giveaways.”

If you already have a copy of this fast, provocative novel featuring my spirited amateur sleuth, horsewoman and ex-reporter, enter anyway. If you win, give your prize to a friend or a favorite charity. May I suggest a cause that fights bullying or prejudice—strong themes in this book? Perhaps one that supports American Indian youth. Such as Seattle Clearsky Native Youth Council. These books are suitable for ages 15 and up.

Ghost Ranch by Carole Beers

With “Ghost Ranch” on its way and earning great reviews, notably by authors whose work I admire, I’ve turned my attention to my next book. Its working title? “Night Rides,” fourth in the series. I am setting this one in Seattle AND in Oregon’s Rogue Valley. Southern Oregon happens to be where I live now. Where I graduated from high school (Go Cavemen!) when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Hey. I knew T. Rex personally!

Much as I love the Rogue Valley, the Puget Sound region is where I spent 40 years. After earning an editorial journalism degree at University of Washington, and selling stories to romance magazines and horse periodicals, I wrote for The Seattle Times for 32 years. And King County Journal. So I know and love this area. Bosky forests, steep hills, gleaming waters, energized people, and air scented with saltwater and (yes!) coffee. “Essence of horse” is optional.

With the new book I get to “live in” the best of both worlds. Don’t worry, I’ll figure out how to have the main crime committed at the horse show near Seattle, and how to transport the whole mob including the killer to Southern Oregon, Pepper Kane’s stomping grounds.

You readers have been very helpful in giving me the confidence to go ahead with this unique split approach to setting: Comments on my Carole T. Beers, Author page on Facebook included a lot of thumbs up. Using a venue other than Rogue Valley will freshen things, say some. Give the series added pizazz. Besides. The first two books in my series, “Saddle Tramps” and “Over the Edge,” started in the Rogue Valley and traveled to horse shows in California and Texas for their thrilling conclusion!

RUNNING THE BULLS

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The Oregon sky arcs grey and wide over Red Horse and me as we leave the barn for a relaxing ride at Saddle Mountain Cattle Company. Cold, wet weather has kept us in the covered arena. We need to expand our horizons. But where to go? Down by the whispering Applegate River, to wade ankle-deep into that flashing water? Across the grasslands to where 80 Black Angus cows hang out below the ranch-house? Or to a field by the trees where three bulls graze?

I point my pony past the long arms of the Rainbird sprinklers. Put the sprinkler line between us and the bulls, who seem unconcerned with our presence. They’re 200 feet away. We’ve ridden near them before. No cows in sight, nothing to ruffle their calm. We start jogging large circles. Then small circles, figure eights, serpentines. Move to lope circles, each way. I like to revisit our horse-show moves, not let the training slide. It makes me feel we could compete again if we chose.

A crow flaps by overhead. A dog yelps somewhere on that forest ridge above the pastures. But not an anxious yelp, a bored, lazy one. Is that an eagle’s scree I hear?

Hoofbeats pound softly on cropped grass. I finger the reins to adjust speed and body angles. I rock and sway gracefully. A wonderful ride! Bliss. Like when a novel-writing session goes well. 

Until it doesn’t. The bull start to stir. Suddenly the largest one, a heavy-shouldered beast, lowers his head, strides toward the middle sized bull and rams his face into that of the other who pushes back. They stand locked forehead to forehead. They circle around joined heads that are capped by bony ridges minus horns. Around and around they go, the smallest bull watching.

The oldest bull pushes his opponent backward again and again, their hind ends tracing a larger circle. Then the smaller bull peels off, walks away. But the big bull follows, increasing his pace while the third bull trails these two.

Slowly the group arcs around. They are headed our way! Unnerved, unsure what that they will do, whether they are targeting me, I turn Red Horse toward the barn and start walking there. Safety is a good quarter-mile away. Don’t want to run; that may excite them more.

But they definitely are coming my way. Still targeting each other, or focused on me? I take no chances. I urge Red Horse into a jog. I look back over my shoulder. Still the black bulls come. I halt and turn to have a good look.  They’re coming even faster!  Who knows their intent? My heart races, my mouth goes dry. We trot forward faster.

We reach the barn doors a few dozen feet ahead of the running bulls. I pile off, lead Red Horse inside, and drag shut the heavy door as the bulls stampede by, headed to the cows by the house in the south.

Big exhale. Tragedy averted. But I’m shaken. It’s probable I wasn’t in danger at all. The bulls may have been focused only on themselves. But, better safe than sorry, yes? Corrective action taken in a timely fashion, ahead of the disaster, saves the day.

Note to self: If you THINK you’re in trouble, you probably are. Or at least headed for it. Therefore — as with a rogue, runaway novel in progress — take immediate action. Do not tarry, or be lulled or distracted by pretty scenes and phrases By past success.

Change course. Set your sights on a reachable, reasonable goal and head there. With dispatch. Go. Ride on, write on!

HUMOR, COME HOME!

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Who stole my sense of humor? Why can’t I see “the funny side” as often as I used to do? Is it because the world has lost its sense of humor? I once had one. I remember using it just last week. It’s seen me through tough situations as well as ordinary ones. I really need it back. Actually it’s kind of a trademark — although it occasionally turns around and bites me.

I am fuzzy on when I first became aware there was such a thing as a sense of humor, or that I had one. Like many of you, I saw humor in cute baby animals struggling to do adult things and in young friends making rude noises. LOVED the bumbling antics of Wile E. Coyote in cartoons, or “Howdy Doody” on TV. Laughed like a loon listening to radio comedies such as “The George Burns Show.”  Gorged on the jokes and physical humor of Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball. Well meaning but oddball or clueless characters gone wild. Life lessons delivered in an entertaining way!

In elementary school or as late as junior high, a certain snarkiness about stupid or pretentious people or events snuck past my lips when I believed I’d only thought it. Then I paid attention when an uncle, aunt or other esteemed elder snapped a wisecrack like a bullwhip. Yak yak, KA-POW! Maybe make a crazy copycat gesture or eye-roll for emphasis. They instantly got people’s attention, cleared the air of bullpoop and made their hearers laugh. Lightbulb flash: Who wouldn’t want to gain attention or lighten others’ day? This was power pure and simple. Baby wanted her some.

Most of the folks I admired, my dad included, had keen senses of humor. They could pop a wisecrack with the best. Being pioneer stock raised on ranches, where anything that can go wrong, will, they doubtless used humor as a coping device.

Working with this genetic propensity and armed with lines from Dorothy Parker and Mae West, I copied funny moves and cracks from entertainment icons. Gaining courage and bolstered by my buddies, I graduated to spoken humor and writing. One liners were my forte. Get in, bite hard, get out before drawing fire. Or else learn to duck.

I wrote humor columns for school newspapers. Got in trouble for pranks and reckless comments to the wrong people. But I forged ahead, honing the craft. Finally I found joy penning witty phrases where appropriate (or not!) in my 32 years as columnist and features reporter for The Seattle Times. My headline, “Gentlemen, start your bananas,” earned a Society of Professional Journalists’ award. Topped a tale about a soapbox derby featuring garden produce.

That was a high point of my career, humor-wise. Although describing a famous dance troupe’s “Swan Lake” as “chainsaw ballet” is right up there. The irate calls and letters I got for that one! Truth to tell, some dancers did look more like lumberjacks than lightfooted royalty. Fake trees trembled when the dancers landed. Gratifyingly, others savvy about dance had to agree.

As I age I grow even less tolerant of puffery, transparent subterfuge and other tom-foolery. I often just let ‘er rip, damn the torpedoes and disgruntled looks. I weave humor into my Pepper Kane mysteries, and stories such as “I Ate Thee Ottoman: A Young Dog’s Journey from Shame to Redemption.” Why stop a good thing, an empowering thing?

And yet oddly, I have. At least for the moment. Brood, brood. Here’s a hanky. Cowgirl up, I tell myself. Life circumstances — relationship, money, or minor health issues — seem to have sucked the humor from me. Or at least driven it underground.

I trust it is still intact, somewhere deep inside. Hell-oooo, hell-oooo! Anybody? You can come out now. In fact you MUST come out now. It’s how I cope, part of how I communicate, with offense only to the deserving few. Including myself. It may even be how I heal from The Great Unpleasant, one tentative laugh at a time. Humor come home!

Wasn’t it Norman Cousins who famously said, “Laughter Is the Best Medicine”?