Thursday, August 1, 2013

Why can't I ever take the easy road?

By Gayle Carline
Author of Mysteries and More!

Whoever said timing is everything deserves to be my next murder victim, because he's right and I hate him for it.

While I was writing From the Horse's Mouth, I was thinking about what kind of adventure to send my series character, Peri, to chase. I'm not a cookie-cutter author, so I had to have something happening in her personal life that would collide with her professional one.

That's the way Peri rolls.

I couldn't think of a damn thing, but I did get an idea for a mystery with new characters. Horse shows are interesting places, because everything looks healthy and happy on the outside, and there is a web of backstabbing and illegal practices underneath. Not in my barn, but I've heard rumors.

So I decided to not only write a standalone mystery, set at an AQHA horse show in Burbank, but to throw in some romantic suspense. Mostly this was because I wanted the heroine in this book to be kind of the anti-Peri. She's younger, a sleuth, and unattached. 'Unattached' is the code word for let's hook her up with someone.

(Between you and me, I also kept thinking of cowboys, which fueled the whole romance thing.)

NOW THEN, I could have made it a straightforward mystery with a dash of romance between my sleuth and a handsome cowboy. But NOOOOO, that would be too easy. That would enable me to actually write this book in a timely fashion. Why would I want that, when instead, I could give the cowboy a rival, set up an entire herd of murder suspects, let everyone think the murderer is one person, then reveal it to be another one in a spectacular twist?

Are there no drugs I can take for this desire to be difficult?

I currently have two strong rivals for Willie's affections - such strong men that I don't know how she will chose one of them. I also have a crime with a dozen suspects to corral. In addition, I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that "romantic suspense" as a genre comes with a set of rules I haven't read.

Hey, I read all the directions on every gizmo in our house. Is there a Big Book of Genre Guidelines out there to download to my Kindle?

Oh, and to make it interesting, I'm halfway through writing this book and I suddenly figured out what to do with Peri next. Had I waited, I'd be writing another Peri book. Now I keep chasing her story out of my brain so I can finish this one.

In honor of my penchant for swimming upstream (holding a bowling ball), here's a little Jim Croce song that sums up my life:



Anyone else feel this way?

10 comments:

  1. Dontcha just love it? Busy brains are so much more fun then slow and empty ones!

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    1. I'm sure I'll love it when it's written, but at the moment I'm hating my busy brain for making everything so complex!

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  2. Sounds exciting, Gayle. I especially like the fact you haven't read the rules :-)

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    1. How is it that I have to dissect everything in the user's manual of a curling iron (btw, never use one while sleeping), but I can't even read the rules of a genre, let alone follow them? Gah.

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  3. Rules? Nobody told me about no rules.

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  4. I thought I was writing a mystery when I started my first book, but my daughters told me it was a romance. I'd never read one, so who knew about rules. I just wrote the book I thought I'd like to read, and it worked out fine. In fact, I brought the same h/h together (as protagonists) in a sequel, not knowing that was another no-no. Go for it.

    Terry
    Terry's Place

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    1. Thanks, Terry! You give me confidence to do exactly what I've been doing - write the story I want to read!

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  5. Quit 'yer whinin' and get to writin'. If I'd have had a writer for a grandfather, I'm sure that's what he would have said, instead he was a plumber. So he probably would have said, "Hand me the wrench, kid." Don't know how that relates, but it seems like good advice... :D

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    1. Somehow your comment reminded me of the scene where Patrick Dennis tells his Auntie Mame the tender words of his late father: "Pipe down, kid, the ole man's hung."

      Yes, yes, I'll shut up now and open that file...

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