KN Magazine: Articles
Never Make Your Critique Partner Cry!
By Lois Winston
We writers are not the best judges of our own work. Neither are most of our family and friends. They’ll either love everything we write because they don’t know any better, or they don’t want to hurt our feelings. Conversely, some will sic the green-eyed monster on us, telling us not to quit our day job.
That’s why critique groups and/or partners are an invaluable tool in every author’s toolkit. They’re the writer friends we rely on when we’ve developed writer’s block or written ourselves into a corner. They brainstorm with us when the ideas don’t come, and they offer us honest criticism chapter after chapter, helping us hone our work until it’s ready for submission. Then, they either commiserate with us when the rejection letters arrive or whoop it up when we get that offer of representation or a book contract.
And because this is a partnership, we do the same for them.
However, none of us wants to hear that the 400-page baby we birthed through our fingertips onto the printed page is butt ugly. And neither do our critique partners. Just as we hope to find critiquers who will offer us constructive criticism, we also need to be able to give constructive criticism to others in return. The key is always to encourage, never discourage. Luckily, there are ways to do this.
Always remember to point out positives as well as negatives. It’s just as important for a writer to know what she’s doing well and correctly as what she’s doing poorly and incorrectly. As you read a work-in-progress, point out those parts you especially like, but don’t be afraid to point out areas that need work. Most importantly, in both cases, don’t forget to explain why.
Our critique partners often become good friends, and it’s hard to criticize friends for fear of hurting their feelings. But if we can’t be objective and honest with our critiques, we’re not helping each other. We all need to know where our manuscripts are not working as well as where they are working.
It’s important to find a group or partner who either writes in the same genre or has a good deal of knowledge about each other’s genre. However, interests change. Writers often decide to explore different genres. What happens if Helen Historical is suddenly bitten by the vampire bug? You curl your nose up. You shudder. Vampires give you the creeps. You want to be a good critique partner, but try as you might, you can’t read those chapters with an open mind. If that’s the case, it’s time to step aside—at least until Helen returns to her historicals or you fall in love with bloodsuckers.
Some writers have a hang-up about red ink. They feel like someone has taken a knife to their manuscript and slashed it to death. Bold type in all caps will make some writers feel as though they’re being yelled at. Be sensitive to how your partners feel about how you deliver comments. Avoid red type and all caps when making notes on digital pages. When working from printed pages, avoid red ink and thick black sharpies. Never write comments in script. Print them. We can all read our own handwriting, but others may struggle to decipher our scrawls.
If you’re one of those writers with a great handle on punctuation or grammar, your partners might ask you to do line edits. Rather than correcting their work, point out problem areas. This way, the writer will learn from the experience and not make the same mistake in future works.
Keep in mind that just because you would write a scene or a character differently, it doesn’t make the author’s way wrong. If your partner is having problems with a sentence or scene and asks for assistance, offer suggestions, but never rewrite her manuscript in your style.
Often, writers gravitate toward other writers of the same experience level. This usually makes for a group or partnership that can work together more comfortably. If the various members are at different levels in their writing journeys, the more novice writers may begin to depend too much on the more advanced writers, and the more advanced writers may begin to feel that they aren’t getting much out of the group. Since we all progress at a different pace, you may discover over time that you’ve outgrown your present group and need to move on to another.
Manuscripts should be free of typos and spelling errors, but we all occasionally suffer from a short circuit between our brains, fingers, and eyes. No matter how many times we read and reread something, we often miss a “there” for a “their” or a “that” for a “than.” If your partner is getting ready to send her work out to an editor or agent, offer to read through her work with an eye toward the technical, but keep in mind that punctuation and sentence structure is often a matter of style. Point out grammatical errors such as misplaced modifiers and subject-verb disagreements, but keep in mind that characters often dictate grammar. A street urchin in Victorian England won’t speak like the Earl of Sussex.
Pay attention to structure as you read a work-in-progress. Every scene should have a purpose. Make sure the pacing is appropriate for the scene/event taking place. In the middle of a chase scene, the heroine shouldn’t be noticing the intricately detailed pattern of the hero’s tie.
Sentences should be clear and understandable. Point out if the writer has gone off on a tangent about something superfluous to the scene, such as extraneous background information or too much detail. By the same token, note if the author doesn’t supply enough details and description for the characters and settings to come alive.
Highlight non-descript words such as “it” or “thing” or bland words such as “pretty” or “nice.” Suggest substituting more specific or descriptive words. If the author uses clichés, suggest she find another phrase. Clichés bore readers. Also note repetitive word usage and sentence structure.
Understand basic rules of writing before you offer to critique someone else. For many writers, passive voice is a difficult concept to grasp. Not every sentence using the various forms of the verb “to be” is passive. Passive voice is when the subject is acted upon. Active voice is when the subject is acting.
Point of view is another difficult concept. Make certain you understand it before you criticize others for misusing it. Check for bouncing points of view within a scene, but keep in mind, point of view can change from scene to scene. However, if you feel like you’re at a ping-pong match, make the author aware of that.
Finally, know your facts before criticizing someone else. If you suspect the writer’s information is inaccurate, ask if she’s done any research on the subject. If she tells you she saw a similar event on a television show or in a movie, suggest she check the library or ask an expert. The media is notorious for taking liberties with facts and events.
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 Mysteries, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, won the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Her most recent release, Sorry, Knot Sorry, is the thirteenth book in the series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
When the Words Won’t Come
By Lois Winston
This is not an article about writer’s block. That’s a topic for another day. Today, I’d like to discuss Brain Block, that deer-in-the-headlights moment when you suddenly find yourself at a loss for words, no matter how well-prepared you thought you were. Or how unprepared because you never thought you’d need to prepare.
There are those people who always seem to pull a snappy rejoinder from their gray matter whenever the situation presents itself. Not me. I’m the person who thinks of the perfect response hours or days later. Sentences may flow from my fingertips onto my computer screen, but rarely do they trip off my tongue in the same pithy manner.
Back in my school days, no matter how well-prepared I was, I morphed into a complete failure during oral book reports, once even forgetting the name of the main characters, even though one was the title of the book! Then there were the dreaded oral exams. I could easily fill several blue books with my knowledge on a topic, but stand me up in a one-on-one with the teacher who held my GPA in his hand, and Brain Block took hold of me.
As writers, we’re told to craft an elevator pitch, that concise short paragraph that will catch the attention of an agent or editor who might turn to you while waiting for the elevator at a conference and say, “Tell me about your book.” Memorization has never been my strong suit. If I couldn’t whip out my index card and read my pitch, Brain Block would take over.
I’m also the person who never remembers the punchline to any joke. Heck, I never even remember any part of the joke! Which makes it quite ironic that for nearly two decades, I’ve spent my days writing humorous amateur sleuth novels.
I started my writing career penning emotional, angst-driven romance and romantic suspense, but my heroines always relied on a sense of humor to help them cope with their problems. Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone. It’s good advice when crafting characters. No one wants to read about a woe-is-me heroine for 400 pages.
I suppose that’s why my agent called one day to suggest I write a chick lit novel. However, coming up with a little humorous dialogue now and then is quite different from writing a humorous novel. Since none of my romances or romantic suspense novels had yet sold, I agreed to try my hand at chick lit. That’s when I discovered somewhere in the deep recesses of my DNA lurked an untapped humor gene.
I may not be able to tell a joke in real life, but on the page I’m the Dutchess of Double-Entendres, the Baroness of Bon Mots, the Princess of Puns. My characters routinely engage in witty dialogue. And they always come up with that perfect rejoinder, no matter the situation. My foray into chick lit eventually resulted in Talk Gertie to Me, my first published novel.
Harnessing my latent humor gene changed the trajectory of my writing career. After one of my romance novels finally sold, my agent called one day to tell me I should write a humorous amateur sleuth mystery series with a crafting theme. She knew an editor looking for one, and she thought I’d be the perfect person to write it.
It’s one thing to write chick lit or to employ a bit of humor to break up the tension in a romance or a romantic suspense, but humorous murder mysteries? Most people find nothing humorous about murder. Or if they do, you might want to steer clear of them. However, an amateur sleuth mystery by its very definition is a fish-out-of-water story, and the fish-out-of-water trope lends itself to situational humor. So I gave it a try. The result was Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.
I have not been kind to Anastasia. I’ve saddled her with debt greater than the GNP of a Third World nation. I not only saddled her with a nasty diehard communist mother-in-law, but her mother claims descent from Russian nobility and is also a member of the DAR. I then forced the two women to share a bedroom in Anastasia’s home. I’ve also added two teenage sons, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and a possible government operative.
And of course, there are the dead bodies, a pre-requisite of murder mysteries. Every time Anastasia makes some headway whittling down her debt, I throw another corpse in her path. Although she sometimes feels tempted to climb into bed and pull the quilt over her head, she copes with all the mayhem I’ve heaped on her by harnessing her quirky self-deprecating and observational Jersey Girl sense of humor.
However, humor is very subjective. I always hold my breath, fingers crossed, that my readers will get the humor in my books. Some do; some don’t. That’s the nature of humor. All I can do is hope more readers laugh than don’t. Besides, one of the first lessons you learn as a published author is that no author is ever going to please every reader, so don’t even try.
This brings me back to the title of this article and the recent Killer Nashville conference. This year A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, won the Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Here was a golden opportunity to tell a captive audience of several hundred people about Anastasia and the thirteen books and three novellas I’ve so far written about her, especially since this book features her on a trip to Middle Tennessee.
I should have jotted down an acceptance speech to read, but I didn’t because I never expected to win. With a few rare exceptions from back in my romance writing days, I have a long track record of always being the bridesmaid, never the bride. But hey, it’s still an honor to be nominated.
So when my name was called, Brain Block accompanied me to the front of the room, and I wound up giving what can only be described as the shortest acceptance speech in the history of awards ceremonies. I doubt if it even qualified as a “speech.” As I walked away from the mic, Clay Stafford commented that I was “a woman of few words.”
Well, at least I didn’t bore anyone with a too-long, rambling monologue where I thanked everyone in my life, going all the way back to my kindergarten teacher and my pet goldfish!
Later that night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I came up with a perfect acceptance speech—pithy, witty, and including a few bon mots. Too bad no one was around to hear it.
Moral of the story: Even if you think you have no chance of winning, always, always prepare an acceptance speech. AND WRITE IT DOWN!
USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston has taken part on many writing panels, taught dozens of writing workshops, and given quite a few solo talks over the years, but she always relies on her notes, never her memory. She 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.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her humorous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
The Myth of the Five Senses
By Lois Winston
The other day, I read a statement that blew my mind—and not in a good way. Someone had written, “Some writing coaches advise that each page should include a reference to the five senses: see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.”
No! No! No! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
The Internet is filled with bogus information and/or people who claim to be experts in fields where they have no expertise. I don’t know where this person got her information, but it’s certainly not from a credible source.
Writing Rule Number One
All dialogue and narrative in a novel must do one of two things: either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know at that moment about the point of view character. If it does neither, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in your novel.
Writing Rule Number Two
Only describe that which is pertinent to the scene and/or character. If it’s not pertinent, it’s filler.
Writing Rule Number Three
Filler is bad! Always. No exceptions. It kills your pacing and bores the reader.
The five senses can either be a writer’s best friend or worst enemy. When used judicially, they can grab readers and pluck them down in the middle of the book’s action. When overdone, they make readers’ eyes glaze over. And any writer who makes a point of cramming the five senses onto each page, will not only have her readers’ eyes glazing over, but she’ll have them tossing the book across the room.
5 senses x 300-400 pages = 1500-2000 reasons to stop reading (and probably never pick up another book by that author.)
So, when should you insert the five senses? Refer to Writing Rule Number Two. Need some examples? Keep reading.
Your character is a New York City commuter, standing on the platform of the #7 subway during a hazy, hot, and humid typical August in the city. She doesn’t notice the trash spilling from the garbage cans or the graffiti-covered walls. She’s become inured to the heat and the stench. Not that they don’t bother her, but she’s too used to them to take note.
As a former commuter, I can tell you the best way to cope with the subway in summer is not set foot in it, but if you must, you learn to close your mind (and your nose) to your surroundings. Which is what our fictional character would do.
Instead of focusing on the heat and stench and how uncomfortable she is, our stalwart protagonist is most likely scrolling through her Instagram or TikTok feed as she awaits the train. She’d only take note of the sights, sounds, and smells if there’s a good reason for her to do so. I could offer examples, but I’ll spare you the gory details because some of you may be reading this while eating lunch.
Now imagine your character is a twelfth century Scottish nobleman. He wakes up one morning to find himself magically transported to that same subway platform, he’s bombarded with all those sensory images and more. Everything he sees and hears is foreign and frightening to him. The one exception? The stench. Since twelfth century Scots bathed as infrequently as once a year or at most, once a month, most of the offensive odors are normal smells to him. Anything unusual would likely be masked by the smells he’d ignore. In such a scenario, have fun describing every detail of the assault to this very confused poor guy’s senses.
In Stitch, Bake, Die!, the tenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, Anastasia enters the victim’s kitchen to find the following:
Someone had ransacked the kitchen. Cabinets lay bare, their contents scattered across the floor in a haphazard array of pots, pans, and broken glassware and dishes. Drawers had been yanked out and tossed aside, appliances swept from the counters. Not a single package of food remained on the pantry shelves or in the refrigerator. Whoever had trashed Marlene’s kitchen had taken the time to open boxes, bags, and canisters and dump all the food. Everything from raisin bran to frozen broccoli florets to dried pasta peppered the room. A dusting of flour and sugar lay over everything like newly fallen snow.
Note, I wrote a short paragraph describing only what Anastasia sees. I don’t mention any lingering food smells or the sound of rain beating on the windowpanes. I don’t have her biting down on the inside of her cheek and tasting the coppery tang of blood or feeling her heart pounding in her chest. I don’t have her going weak in the knees and grabbing the door jamb to steady herself. All that is important to this scene is what she sees when she arrives in the kitchen. Given the plot and what happens next, further description would be filler.
The takeaway here? Describe what needs describing, then get on with your story.
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.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
Three Rules for Creating Cozies that Stand Out in the Crowd
By Lois Winston
Life’s journeys are rarely along a straight path. The same can be said for our writing journeys. I began my career firmly entrenched in the world of romance. Then, one fateful day, I received a phone call that changed my life. My agent asked if I’d be interested in writing a humorous crafting-themed mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth. She knew an editor looking for one. My agent went on to say that she thought I’d be the perfect person to write such a series because I worked as a crafts designer for various publications and manufacturers, and my award-winning first novel, Talk Gertie to Me, was a humorous fish-out-of-water tale.
The closest I’d ever come to writing mystery was my three romantic suspense novels. However, there’s a huge difference between mysteries and suspense. Also, I wasn’t someone who had grown up reading Nancy Drew, and it had been years since I’d watched Murder She Wrote. Still, the challenge intrigued me, and I set out to learn all I could about amateur sleuth and cozy mysteries, specifically, those that involved crafts.
Armed with a stack of books from both the library and my local bookstore, I immersed myself in the sub-genre. I discovered that most crafting cozies centered around a craft shop or a group of crafters, such as quilters, knitters, or scrapbookers. Some featured a production crafter, such as a potter or stained-glass artisan. All took place in small towns, and the amateur sleuth always had a sidekick, usually a friend or relative.
Years ago, I’d been told that it’s never a good idea to follow a trend. If I wrote this series, I’d be competing against well-established authors. To succeed, I needed to stand out, and to do that, I needed to think outside the box. What could I do differently that would set my series apart, yet still be embraced by readers of the genre?
This brings me to Rule One: Give a unique spin to your protagonist, her profession, and/or the setting of your series.
I started out by switching up the setting. Instead of a small town, my series would take place in a metropolitan area, a suburb of New York City. Rather than having a sleuth who owned a craft or needlework shop, I’d make my sleuth the crafts editor at a women’s magazine.
But I didn’t stop there. In the romance genre, clueless heroines are dubbed TSTL, Too Stupid to Live. These are the women who suspect danger is lurking around a dark corner, in a dank basement, or in spooky woods, yet they deliberately turn the corner, descend the staircase, or head for the trees, where they are then usually confronted by an escaped murderer, monster, or serial killer.
As I read through dozens of cozy mysteries, I came across a similar phenomenon—the busybody snoop who is convinced she’s smarter than local law enforcement and will do a better and quicker job of discovering whodunit. I did not want to write a busybody sleuth. Instead, I decided to create a reluctant amateur sleuth, a woman who wants nothing to do with crime-solving but is forced into it by circumstances beyond her control.
Rule Two: Set up an overall situation that will allow the protagonist to make progress toward reaching her goals and resolving her conflicts as the series progresses from book to book.
Writing an ongoing series means the protagonist needs a reason to keep sleuthing. I set the stage in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. It opens with Anastasia yanked from her comfortable middle-class existence after her husband drops dead in a Las Vegas casino. That’s when she learns about his affair with Lady Luck. He leaves her with massive debt and a bookie demanding fifty-thousand dollars.
In each book in the series, Anastasia works at whittling down her debt to keep a roof over her family’s heads. But as she moonlights and takes on side gigs, she keeps running across unsavory characters and the corpses they leave in their wake.
Which brings me to Rule Three: Develop secondary characters that add depth to your series and create additional problems for your protagonist.
I also discovered that in addition to every amateur sleuth needing someone to play Watson to her Sherlock, she also needs to interact with members of her family and her community. However, many of the books I read kept these secondary and tertiary characters to a minimum. The only new characters introduced in each book were always specific to that book’s murder plot and rarely, if ever, appeared again. Throughout my series, I’ve often introduced new characters who have provided ongoing subplots that are intertwined within the mysteries and add layers of depth to the series as they, too, evolve. Not every character appears in every book. They come and go based on the plot of each book, but they’re available when I need them.
Sorry, Knot Sorry, is the thirteenth and latest book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. In each book, Anastasia continues to be motivated toward reaching her goals and resolving the conflicts that impede her from doing so, and she has continued to grow as a person. But of course, the dead bodies keep coming.
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.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
The Difference Between Passive Voice and Passive Verbs
By Lois Winston
I began writing fiction nearly thirty years ago. Over the years, I’ve attended dozens of writing conferences, both in the romance genre and the mystery genre. Most of what I learned was invaluable toward advancing my writing career. However, occasionally I’d come across inaccurate information. Such is the case with passive voice and passive verbs.
Once upon a time, somewhere during some talk or on some panel, someone emphatically stated that authors should NEVER use any form of the verb “to be.” That misinformed person said using “was,” along with its brothers and sisters (is, am, are, were, been,) was passive voice and a surefire way to receive a rejection from agents and editors. Like a bad rumor, this piece of writing advice flew from writer to writer, taking on a life of its own, until it became gospel.
I’d like to set the record straight. There’s a huge difference between passive verbs and passive voice.
Passive voice is when an action is acted upon the subject, rather than the subject acting. The car was driven by Anna is a passive sentence. Anna drove the car is an active sentence. However, Anna was happy to drive the car is not a passive sentence. Anna is expressing emotion. She is acting, rather than being acted upon. Of course, there are more interesting ways to write the sentence to show Anna’s emotions, but that’s a separate discussion.
One of the easiest ways to tell whether your sentence is active or passive is to analyze the position of the subject, verb, and direct object. In active voice, the subject (the one performing the action) will come before the verb (the action), and the verb will come before the direct object (that which is being acted upon.)
There are instances, though, when passive voice is necessary to the unfolding of a story or better suited to the realism of the dialogue. When we speak, we don’t first think whether our sentences are active or passive before uttering them. We just speak them. The same is true when writing dialogue. Manipulate a sentence to avoid passive voice in a conversation between characters, and you often transform snappy dialogue into stilted dialogue.
For example: Billy ran into the house and cried, “Mom! Come quick. Snoopy was hit by a car!” This passage accurately illustrates the way a child might respond to a car hitting his dog. Snoopy was hit by a car is a passive sentence because Snoopy is being acted upon by the car, but the child mentions Snoopy first because the dog’s welfare is uppermost in his mind. Also, by placing the last sentence in passive voice, the author is ratcheting up the tension. We don’t know until the very end exactly what hit Snoopy. A stray baseball? A nasty neighbor? A falling tree limb? Although A car hit Snoopy, is active voice, using it lessens the impact of the sentence.
Still squeamish about the use of “was”? After you finish your manuscript, do a search of the word. Check each sentence to see if you can rewrite it to avoid using “was.” If you can, and it doesn’t detract from the pacing, dialogue, or meaning of the passage, do so. If not, leave it. Some “was” are meant to be.
EXCEPT in the subjunctive.
The what, you ask? Subjunctive case or mood is one of the most misunderstood rules in the English language because it runs counter to subject/verb agreement. In other words, if a subject is singular, the verb must also be singular. But not in the subjunctive.
The subjunctive applies to cases of “wishfulness” or “what if” situations. In these cases, “was” becomes “were,” as in, I wish I were taller. “Were” is also used when a sentence or clause uses “if,” “as if,” or “as though,” but only in instances where the statement is contrary to fact.
Examples include:
If I were taller, I could see the stage better.
Her twelve-year-old son acts as if he were in kindergarten.
The maid behaved as though she were queen.
Because I cannot grow taller, the twelve-year-old is not in kindergarten, and the maid is not a queen, all the statements are contrary to fact, and “was” becomes “were” even though the subjects are all singular.
Keep in mind, though, that the key statement here is “contrary to fact.” “If” statements that are not contrary to fact retain the singular form of the verb. If I was at the store that day, I don’t remember is a correct sentence because the statement is not contrary to fact whether I can recall the event or not.
So don’t be afraid to use “was” and “were” in your writing but be sure to use them correctly.
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.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
Twelve Steps to Writing the Cozy/Amateur Sleuth Mystery Series
By Lois Winston
I started my career writing romance and was first published in 2006 with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water story about a young woman off to New York and the mother determined to bring her back home to Iowa. That was followed a year later with the romantic suspense, Love, Lies and Double Shot of Deception.
I wrote my first mystery after my agent had a conversation with an editor looking for a crafting mystery series. Since my day job consisted of designing craft projects for kit manufacturers, craft book publishers, and both craft and women’s magazines, my agent thought I’d be the perfect person to write such a series. Thus, was born my critically acclaimed and bestselling Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, a humorous amateur sleuth series which sold in late 2009 and debuted in January 2011.
In addition, I’ve written two books in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, which is a modern-day twist on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies, and one book so far in my Mom Squad Caper Series.
The following twelve steps are not a sure-fire guide to success, merely helpful suggestions for avoiding mistakes that could lead to a rejection letter instead of a contract offer.
STEP ONE: DECIDE ON THE TYPE OF MYSTERY SERIES YOU WANT TO WRITE
Before you begin to craft your series, you should decide on the sub-genre of mystery you want to write. Do you know the difference between a cozy mystery, an amateur sleuth mystery, a romantic suspense, a romantic mystery, a police procedural, a detective story, and a noir mystery? If not, you need to educate yourself prior to starting your series. Different sub-genres contain different conventions with different reader expectations. (For a complete list of sub-genres with definitions of each, click here.)
STEP TWO: DECIDE WHETHER YOU WANT TO WRITE A LIMITED OR AN ONGOING SERIES
In a limited series the story arc and characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts develop over a set number of books, usually (but not restricted to) three, and are resolved at the end of the last book in the series.
An ongoing series, typical of most mystery series, features episodic stories that resolve at the end of each book but include the same main and secondary characters throughout the series.
Episodic series can be as few as two books or as many as dozens, depending on various factors—the story the author is telling, the desire to keep writing the series, publisher support, and a fan base clamoring for more stories in the series.
Episodic series books should be able to be read out of order without causing reader confusion (More on that later). Stories are independent of each other with new antagonists and additional secondary characters in each book but can be tied to previous stories. Characters introduced in one book may come back several books later.
In most cases, the main and some secondary characters will continue to grow throughout the series, often going through life-altering changes such as marriage, a job change, birth of a child, or death of a family member.
STEP THREE: DEVELOP A CHARACTER WHO CAN CARRY A SERIES OVER MULTIPLE BOOKS
Readers love to bond with characters and continue to read about them, but as a writer you need to make sure you don’t keep writing the same story book after book. You need to create a protagonist who won’t become stale. You can achieve this by setting long-term goals for your protagonist and placing her in different settings.
Even though you end each book resolving the main plot of that book and having your character solve the murder, you want to leave your reader wondering what happens next in the character’s life. One way I’ve done this is by introducing new characters. For example, in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia series, I introduce Anastasia’s deceased husband’s previously unknown half-brother.
In Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh book in the series, I give Anastasia’s older son, Alex, a girlfriend and created a murder plot that involved her and her father. And of course, there’s the mysterious Zack Barnes, a photojournalist who rents the apartment above Anastasia’s garage in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun. Even though Anastasia suspects he’s really a government operative, a relationship begins to develop between them as the series progresses.
STEP FOUR: GIVE YOUR PROTAGONIST A JOB CONDUCIVE TO DISCOVERING AND SOLVING MURDERS
If you’re writing about a professional investigator, this is a given. However, for cozy and amateur sleuth series, the sleuth needs a career where she isn’t chained to her desk in a cubicle forty hours a week, then spends her evenings watching TV with only a cat for company. Your sleuth needs a logical excuse for getting around to investigate the crime and interact with witnesses and suspects.
Giving her family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to interact with will give you more opportunities for additional plots in future books. If she travels for her job, that’s a plus. You can locate your crimes in various locales, keeping the settings fresh and interesting from book to book. Some of the settings for my series have included the magazine where Anastasia works, the set of a morning TV show, at a convention center, in the town where she lives, on a cruise ship, at a conference center, and at a winery.
STEP FIVE: CREATE YOUR SLEUTH’S WORLD
Decide whether your books will take place in a real town or city, a fictional town or city, or a fictionalized version of a real town or city.
I’ve set my books in and around Westfield, NJ and New York City because I find it easier to keep track of locations familiar to me. Some authors will take a real town or city but change the name. Others will create a fictional location.
If you decide on a fictional location, make it a place your readers will want to continue reading about from book to book. Give the place some unique characteristics. Is it a tourist destination? A commuter town near a big city? A college town? A town with only one industry? A shore town or one nestled in the mountains? Your setting should become an integral part of your series.
For fictitious locations, create a map to use as a reference while writing your books. You don’t want to make a street one way in one direction, then have it going in the opposite direction two books later. Savvy readers often catch such errors and let you know about them.
If you want to set a story in a real town or city you don’t know or don’t know well, do extensive research regarding the location. Don’t just rely on Google Maps. You don’t want to make the mistake of writing about a massive accident involving half a dozen eighteen-wheelers on a roadway where trucks are forbidden.
It’s perfectly acceptable to have your characters visit actual businesses as long as you don’t write anything derogatory about the establishment. Your characters can meet for Frappuccinos at Starbucks, but if you want your victim dropping dead after one sip, give both the establishment and the beverage a fictitious name to avoid a possible lawsuit.
STEP SIX: CUPCAKES, CRAFTS, & CATS
Three of the most popular sub-genres of cozy mysteries are culinary cozies, crafting cozies, and pet cozies. Culinary and crafting cozies generally include a recipe or craft project. In pet cozies, the pet becomes a secondary character in the series, one the sleuth will often view as almost human. In my Anastasia Pollack series, Anastasia’s mother owns a cat. Her mother-in-law owns a dog. Both animals mimic their owner’s personalities. Anastasia has inherited Ralph, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot who squawks situation-appropriate passages from The Bard.
Sometimes the pet will even play a role in solving the mystery. This is often the case in paranormal mysteries, which are also quite popular and usually feature cats. Even non-pet cozies often feature a pet, especially cats and dogs. I’ve known several authors who were asked to add a cat or dog to a submission before a contract was offered.
When planning your series, you need to decide if you’ll follow a trend or buck trends by writing something outside the box. In a crowded market it’s often difficult to break in and find a fan base when you’re competing against well-established series. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
On the other hand, although publishers will always say they’re looking for something new and fresh, they’re often reticent to take a chance on something different from what they know sells. It’s a publishing conundrum.
When I began writing the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, I did some research into crafting mysteries. All either featured a craft shop owner, a crafting club, or a crafter, and all concentrated on a single craft—knitting, crochet, scrapbooking, stained glass, etc. I decided to buck the single-craft trend by making Anastasia the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. That way I could feature a different craft in each book.
STEP SEVEN: BFFS AND SIDEKICKS
Most cozy and amateur sleuth series have a sidekick who becomes Watson to your protagonist’s Sherlock. This can be a coworker, a relative, a best friend, or a love interest. The sidekick often provides certain character traits that your sleuth might lack. She or he might be totally logical whereas your sleuth might appear flighty at times or be obsessively cautious when your sleuth has a tendency toward leaping before looking.
For instance, in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, my sleuth’s college professor husband is forced to tag along to keep her out of trouble when she insists on sticking her nose into murder investigations. But in Anastasia’s world, depending on the book, her sidekicks alternate between several people in her life, including her best friend, magazine food editor Cloris McWerther, and her tenant-turned-love-interest, Zack Barnes.
STEP EIGHT: SECONDARY AND TERTIARY CHARACTERS
Juggling the number of characters in your sleuth’s world can be a delicate balancing act. Too few characters won’t give you enough possibilities for plots to keep your series going, but too many can become confusing to the reader.
Remember, not every character you create needs to appear in each book. Some characters may play a major role in only one book or pop up sporadically from time to time. Resist the urge to force a character into a story because you introduced him or her in a previous book. Only bring the character back when it makes sense to the story.
Even characters you never expect to appear in another book might come back at some point. When I received a note from a reader wondering if I’d ever bring back Tino Martinelli, introduced in Decoupage Can Be Deadly, I was in the middle of writing Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide. I realized Tino was exactly the character I needed to round out that book’s plot.
STEP NINE: CREATE A SERIES BIBLE
If you plan to write a series over many years, it’s essential that you keep accurate track of all the character details. This includes a physical description of each character, their age, profession, back-story, relationship to the other characters in the series, their relatives, hobbies, and likes and dislikes in everything from books to music to fashion to the make, model, and color of the car they drive.
Don’t rely on your memory. Create a database. Each time you add a character or mention a characteristic of that character, add it to the database. Refer to the database routinely to make sure you haven’t changed a character’s eye color or given him a sibling when you mentioned in a previous book that he’s an only child.
STEP TEN: DECIDE ON HOW QUICKLY YOUR CHARACTERS WILL AGE
Most authors write a book a year. Will your characters age a year between each book, or will each book take place days, weeks, or months after the preceding one? This is something you need to decide before you begin writing the second book in your series.
If you choose to have your characters age a year with each book, how will aging affect their world? If your sleuth has teenagers, will they go off to college in book 4 or 5? Is she nearing retirement age? Will she have to deal with aging parents? What about technological advances? Will you incorporate new technologies into future stories?
I realized after I’d sold the first three books in my Anastasia Pollack series that I should have made her sons younger. As teenagers, they were too close to leaving for college. But the first book was already written. Making them younger wouldn’t have worked with the plot. I solved the problem by having each consecutive book start within a short period of time after the previous book had ended. I’ve even opened one book within hours of ending the previous book.
STEP ELEVEN: KEEP A TIMELINE OF EVENTS
It’s far too easy to lose track of the time elapsing in your story as you work on it, especially if you’re a writer who often goes back and tweaks scenes. You can’t always rely on critique partners or editors catching every mistake you make. The easiest way to avoid such errors is to keep a scene calendar for each book in your series. Print out blank calendar pages. Decide on the month and day your story will start. Record the scenes that occur on each day to keep your timeline accurate.
STEP TWELVE: DON’T LEAVE NEW READERS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS
It’s important that each book in your series can be read as a standalone. Most bookstores will not carry all the previous titles in your series. If a reader picks up a book from the middle of the series, you don’t want her to feel confused about the characters in your story. You want readers to have an enjoyable reading experience, enough so that they’ll search out your prior titles and purchase future ones.
Avoid the urge to info-dump, though. It’s not necessary to provide each character’s complete biography the first time you introduce him or her in each book. A few carefully worded phrases or sentences at appropriate times will give the reader enough back-story to avoid having her feel frustrated and lost.
LOIS WINSTON is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author of 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.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.
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