Homicide Hussey and the Haunted House

Happy Halloween, all. Since I'm on the road, I thought I'd share one of Homicide Hussey's previous posts -- his encounter with the paranormal. I originally ran it in two posts, so it's longer than my usual posts. Hope you enjoy. (And don't forget my first giveaway deadline is tomorrow!)

Here, Detective Hussey is training a new rookie partner, Vlad. They're finishing dinner when they get a call...

“I’ve got a suspicious incident call at the Carpenter’s Home on North. 98. Meet with the security guard who heard noises upstairs.”

Vlad responded, “Fifty-one from Florida and the Boulevard.”

In training new recruits, I always try to encourage them to formulate a plan in their minds. To visualize what they might find when they get to the call. I then caution them not to get tunnel vision. In other words, to develop several scenarios in their minds just in case.

This call, for instance, could be a burglar, a prowler, kids playing where they don’t belong, or just the wind blowing against a loose shutter. It would be our job to investigate, search and locate the source of the noise, or to determine if the security guard was a little stir crazy.

When we arrived, I might have voted for the latter. Twenty-year-old security officer Luther Parton was about 5’3” tall and weighed about a hundred pounds.

His black leather belt was cinched so tightly around his waist, with the uniform shirt and trousers two sizes too large, that he looked like a tube of toothpaste, squeezed in the middle. Luther wore those black rimmed “Buddy Holly” glasses with real thick lenses. He seemed a little breathless when he ran up to the cruiser.

“I heard someone upstairs” he panted. “Then I was going up to take a look, my flashlight just quit.”

“What did you hear?” I asked.

“It sounded like voices,” the kid said. “Third floor of A wing.”

“Any other ways into this place?” my partner asked.

“No, they’re all locked and barred, just the front door, I checked them myself.”

When we entered the lobby area of the building I could see that at one time this was a grand architectural work of art. The exposed beams and huge wooden doors gave it an almost medieval look. “When's the last time the upstairs were checked?” I asked.

"This morning by the day shift,” the guard answered. “What’re you guys carryin' there?” He pointed to the gun on my right side.

“It’s a model 64 Smith, 38 special,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“Ever shoot anybody?”

Jesus I knew that question was coming. It was always easier to say no.

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

I let the rookie go up the stairs first, because I didn’t think we would find any bad guys and he needed the experience of searching buildings. This one would give him plenty. The interior of the building was 180,000 square feet. We checked the first floor together, tediously looking into every room. Opening the room doors first, then looking cautiously into the bathrooms and closets. The electricity was off in the building, and thus the air conditioner was off. All the windows had been boarded up. The hot, stagnant air inside the building made it difficult to breathe. Vlad and I began to sweat profusely.

Friday Field Trip - The Pumpkin Patch

Since I'm away at the Emerald City Conference, I'm re-running last Halloween's post. Hope you enjoy! These are some of the jack o'lanternes my kids have produced over the years.
Which is your favorite?

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Going Indie?

Today, I'm off to the Emerald City Conference. I'm traveling light, since I couldn't find a convenient itinerary with "my" airline, so I'm flying without any of my usual perks, including that free checked bag. Plus, I'm flying out of Denver, which creates issues with parking and schlepping to the terminal. So, it's a 'cram everything into one carryon' trip. I decided I could live without my laptop for the relatively short time I'll be gone.

I hope everyone continues to follow the blog, sign up for my newsletter, and all the other contest-entering options. I just won't be able to respond to comments. But I'll love it if when I come back, I have lots of new followers, contest entries, and comments. I've had two readers offer recipes already.

Last weekend, I attended the monthly meeting of my RWA chapter. Their program was a panel of authors who had recently decided to take the indie publishing route. They shared their approaches, which ranged from "do everything myself" to "pay a company to be my publisher."

There are pros and cons, of course. The author who paid for the service spent several thousand dollars for editing, formatting, and cover art. The company charges a separate fee for print and e-book formatting. Doing it yourself, of course, means learning how to follow all the formatting directions, and spending a lot of time. Time, as we all know, is money, so it's something everyone has to decide on an individual basis.

My thoughts. With the rise in indie publishing, there are going to be a lot of people out there who will take advantage of an author looking for help. You have to do your homework and shop around, because prices vary wildly, and I fear there will be horror stories about ripoffs. I've been lucky finding a good designer with reasonable prices for my cover art—I know I don't have the skills. Likewise, for my two original projects, I also added the cost of an editor. Again, I've been fortunate with reasonable prices. And I do think if you're going to indie-publish, you need to have a professional editor go through your manuscript. It doesn't matter whether you've been published before, or your critique groups say it's great. You need fresh eyes.

Case in point:

What's Cooking Wednesday - German Apple Cake

Thanks to Susan Oleksiw for yesterday's guest post. Characters are my favorite part of reading and writing, and it's wonderful to see how others approach them.

Sorry there's no picture of the completed recipe this week. I'm trying to have everything ready for my trip to the Emerald City Writer's Conference, so I'm not cooking much. I do want to keep sharing recipes on Wednesdays, however, so here's one from my mom. She likes things simple, and this one, like the almond torte recipe which is also one of hers, is done in a food processor.

(And remember – if you share a recipe, you get an entry into my "cleaning out my bookshelf" contest.)

German Apple Cake

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a 9" springform pan

Tips on Developing Characters

Today I welcome returning guest, Susan Oleksiw. Susan is the author of the author of two mystery series, one set in coastal South India, and the other in a small New England town. Today she draws on her experience as a writing teacher to offer some suggestions for developing characters.

The best stories are about people we can't stop thinking about. We get involved in their problems and want to find out what's going to happen to them--we fear for them, worry about them, feel joy at their escape from near death. And if it's a character in a mystery, we wait eagerly for the next installment in the series.

One of a writer's biggest challenges is developing characters the reader will care about and seek out again and again. Coming up with these riveting characters is easier said than done.

I have a few standard exercises that I hand out whenever I'm conducting a writing workshop, and one of them focuses on character development. One exercise is adapted from WHAT IF? WRITING EXERCISES FOR FICTION WRITERS by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. The exercise is to write a paragraph about each of three characters--first is someone you know well, perhaps a relative or close friend; second is an acquaintance, someone you know less well but encounter once in a while; third is an individual you invent entirely on your own.

Do You Need a Dead Body?

What I'm reading: Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues, by Michael Brandman

I've hit Milestone #1 in my giveaway. You can't win unless you enter, so check the Deals & Steals tab.

Last week, on The Graveyard Shift, Lee Lofland shared some important information about property crimes, and how patrol officers work to solve them. He presented a lot of good information, including how useful fingerprints are (usually they aren't), and how people talk to cops. Take a minute to read it here.

But my takeaway from his post, and one that was followed up in the comments of the post, was that there's a lot of police work that has nothing to do with solving homicides. If you tell someone you write mysteries, odds are pretty good they automatically hear "murder mystery."

Can't you have a mystery that doesn't include a dead body? There are certainly enough other crimes out there, and they'll impact the lives of your characters even if nobody dies. And for me, it's always about the characters.

When I wrote FINDING SARAH, I thought it was going to be a mystery. But it began with a robbery (Anyone know the difference between a burglary and a robbery? The terms aren't interchangeable.) which brought a detective onto the scene. Now, maybe I got away without having the detective solve a murder because I discovered, thanks to my beta-reading daughters, that I was really writing a romance.

You Can't Win Unless You Enter

I've reached Milestone #1 by surpassing 375 followers, and am ready to start giving away books. To clarify, these are books I've picked up at conferences, etc., --not the books I've written. Here's how it all works.

The BIG CONTEST has lots of ways to win. Along the way, there will be smaller giveaways, such as the one going on now. You can enter each individual giveaway as well as the one for the BIG Prize -- an envelope crammed with books and goodies.

But you have to tell me you've entered, which means emailing my contest address. Check the Deals & Steals tab for directions, deadlines, and details, and the Sidebar for updates.

Friday Field Trip - More Fall Colors

Jason wanted to shoot some fall colors, but he was looking for early morning light shots. He and Hubster took off before sunrise so he'd be able to capture what he was looking for. Also--although barely a week had passed since I took my pictures, the cold snap before Jason's trip meant some major changes in the scenery. And, because he's a photographer and I merely take pictures, his are definitely works of art. Enjoy! (click to enlarge)

Metaphorically Speaking – or Not

What I'm reading: Seal Team Six, by Howard E. Wasdin

First – a new contest in my Deals & Steals tab. I've got too many books, and would love to find new homes for them.

Next: I'm over at Beth Groundwater's blog today, responding to her interview questions, one of which requires I reveal something I've never posted anywhere else. 

Note: today's post is based on the kind of reading and writing I do--often referred to as "commercial fiction" to distinguish it from "literary fiction." If you're reading or writing literary fiction, feel free to ignore my observations.

I struggle with descriptions. I don't like metaphors. Or similes. At least I don't like having to come up with good ones. And they have to be good, or they're a waste of time.

Things to watch for:

1. Use the vocabulary of your character, not yours.

Here's a snip from DANGER IN DEER RIDGE. Grinch has brought Elizabeth to his private place in the woods.

“I used to sit here and look at the sky. I knew someday I’d be a pilot.”

“Just the sky?” She swept her arm in a broad circle. “What about the way the water sparkles in the sunlight. And how the aspens dance when the breeze passes through their branches. It’s like the trees are wearing sequined evening gowns.”

He smiled. “I admit, I never conjured up that evening gown image. But yeah, this whole place is … serene, I guess.”

Now, Grinch was brought up in the country, became a pilot, and works for a covert ops team. If he'd been the one describing the scene using Elizabeth's words, would it have worked? I don't think so. (Obviously, because I wrote it with Elizabeth speaking them!)

What's Cooking Wednesday - Pastel de Elote

Thanks to Mike Befeler for his post yesterday. Life certainly is a balancing act. 

Once a month a group of neighbors (the ROMEOs, which stands for "Retired Old Men Eating Out") has a pot-luck supper where the spouses of said Old Men are invited to attend. I wonder if it's because some (not all, to be fair) of these men like that the wives often do the cooking.

At any rate, there was a chili theme last month, and there were the usual side dishes, but one stood out for me. I asked the woman, Sally Parda, if she'd mind sharing, and she gladly agreed. She pointed out that she adapted a cookbook recipe, and I've included her modifications. I made it according to the directions, and it was just as yummy as the one she brought. And it's one of those, "toss everything into a bowl, mix, and bake recipes, so it goes together quickly.

Pastel de Elote (Mexican Corn Pie)