Tag: Ilona Andrews

Business…and…Mysteries with Romance

~ Judi Lynn ~ 4 Comments

I finally got my official contract from Kensington.  It takes what feels like a long time between receiving a 3-book deal to getting the official 20+ page tome of subject heading after subject heading that I mostly have no clue about.  That’s when I’m grateful I have my agent, Lauren Abramo, from Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret.  I think most of what Kensington offers is set in stone–like the Ten Commandments–but what I concentrate on are my writing deadlines. And when do my books come out?  I know my deadlines–and I’ve given myself more time between books now that I’m writing mysteries, but I still don’t know when my books will come out.  Kensington won’t decide that until 2018.

My 6th and last romance, SPECIAL DELIVERY, is due out Nov. 7th, and I wanted to give it a fair shot, so I paid for a blog tour.  In truth, I thought Kensington would promote my romances, but not so much.  MOST writers have to promote themselves these days.  That was a learning experience for me, so I’m promoting this one a little myself.  Of course, BookBub is the BEST, but I can’t afford it, and it’s harder to get accepted by BookBub than to pass through the eye of the needle these days.  The price for my tour isn’t terrible–$60.  But it takes a day or two to decide which tour you want and to get everything ready for it if you want each blog stop to be unique with a different excerpt or blog at each spot.   And, yes, this is time well-spent.  You want to start a good two months before your book comes out.  I’m using Goddess Fish Promotions again, and they’re great to work with.

Now, with the business stuff behind me, I can concentrate on my favorite thing–writing. The first mystery is done and sent.  And this time, probably because I just finished writing them–I’ve added a romance subplot to the clues and red herrings.  This is where it got a little bit tricky.  I’ve been reading (okay, I’m a little obsessed with) Jenna Bennett’s Savannah Martin series.  She mixes mystery and romance into almost a fusion.  There’s lots of TALK about sex (nothing graphic, though), lots of steam, and gritty murders.  It makes for an intoxicating cocktail.

This is the thing, though.  I’m finishing book #10, and Rafe and Savannah still aren’t married.  It almost feels like the TV show Castle.  The chemistry is intoxicating, and they keep growing closer, but how long can you flirt with HEA and not deliver?  I’m thinking they get married in the next book.  Thank God.  But this prolonged tease let me know that even though in romances, the HEA comes at the end of the book, that’s not the way it works in other genres.

I make no secret that I’m an Ilona Andrews and Patricia Briggs fan–from the days I wrote urban fantasy.  And werewolves and werelions don’t just walk in and sweep the heroines off their feet either.  It took a few books before the hot guys won the hotter women.  So, I didn’t let my characters–Jazzi and Ansel–walk down the aisle in book one and have their HEA.  I don’t think I can come up with one diversion after another for 10 books, but I know that stalling is a good thing.  And dead bodies are great distractions to keep heroines and heroes too busy to plan ahead.  But what happens after the “death do us part” clicks in?  Do things get (yawn) boring?  I’m thinking of Castle and other TV shows.   Can you keep them interesting after marriage?  What do you think?  I was a sucker for Tommy and Tuppence, Nick and Nora, and marriage didn’t hurt them.  Any opinions?

Happy Writing!

 

My webpage (posted every Thursday):  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

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How Many Bodies does it take?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 2 Comments

I’m working on a mystery.  I finally reached the third turning point (three-fourths through the book–and yes, I do construct my plots that way), and I’m heading into the last 80 pages.  This is when I look at my remaining plot points and pray that I have enough twists and turns to make it to the The End.  If not, a little creativity is in order.

Almost (there must be one out there that breaks the mold, but I can’t think of it) every mystery starts with a dead body.  A crime would work, too, but it’s not as common.  The body doesn’t have to be on page one.  It doesn’t even have to show up by page five.  But someone usually stumbles upon it by the end of chapter one.  Not always.  Mystery readers, especially for cozies or traditionals,  know that while they’re hanging out with the protagonist and getting to know her and the book’s setting, a dead body will show up eventually.  It’s worth the wait.

Martha Grimes, in her early books, grabbed her readers with a hook–a prologue. They’re frowned upon now, but I liked them.  Some nice, oblivious person would be walking along a street or locking her front door, and we KNEW she’d be dead by the end of the chapter.  A great way to build tension.  A lot of thriller writers use that technique–showing the victim in a way that we know they’re already doomed.  It works.  If you’re not writing a thriller, though, you have to space out victims more sparingly:)  You don’t off somebody whenever the pace slows down, so you have to come up with different devices to keep the tension high enough to turn pages.

The thing I loved about witing urban fantasy is that you could write a battle every time you wanted to up the tension.  Pitting your protagonist against someone who could kill her works really well.  I just finished reading Ilona Andrews’s MAGIC SHIFTS, and it was a FAST read because there was a battle in almost every chapter.  Lots of action.  I loved it, but that doesn’t fly in an amateur sleuth mystery.  Protags don’t wield swords or shoot magic.

What does work?  Having the sleuth at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Having her get nosy and digging through a desk that’s not hers when someone walks into the office.  I’m halfway through a mystery by an author who’s new to me:  A Cutthroat Business by Jenna Bennett.   I’m loving it so far!  First, her protagonist is a Southern Belle.  I haven’t read one of those since the last Sarah Booth Delaney cozy I read by Carolyn Haines. Bennett’s protagonist is a real estate agent…so, of course, she takes a client to a showing and finds a body in the last room they stop to view.  See?  The nice, bloody corpse comes at the end of the chapter. More fun that way!

Also, of course, the police show up and the client who wanted to see the house doesn’t seem to have any money, but he has done some prison time–and the protag knew him when they were growing up–a smartass, sexy ex-con. Bennett finds one clever way after another to keep her protag involved in the investigation.  Eventually, though, (and I hate to say this), another body is needed to boost the pace near the middle of the book.  Sacrifices must be made for every novel, and for mysteries, well…. someone must die.

I’m sorry to say (and my daughter wasn’t happy with me, because she fell in love with a certain character when she read the pages I’ve done so far), I had to kill off someone, too, for the second plot twist in my book.  And that made me wonder:  how many bodies does it take to keep a good book going?  In urban fantasy, you’re lucky.  Very rarely does one of the good guys have to die, and you can kill bad guys at random, on every other page if you want to.  In mysteries, though? Bodies are up for grabs.  Good guys die as often as not-so-good guys.  I’m thinking–and I haven’t researched this–that it takes at least two bodies to move a mystery plot.  The first body happens at the beginning of the book and somewhere later, the pacing and clues start to fizzle, and an author has to stick in another victim.

What do you think?  Can you think of a mystery that only has one victim and the entire plot goes from there?  Okay, maybe in a P.I., because usually the private eye gets beat up close to the time a second body would pop up in a traditional mystery.  LOL.  This is probably why it was so hard for me to write romances.  I couldn’t kill anybody:)

Jenna Bennett:  https://www.amazon.com/Savannah-Martin-Mysteries-Box-Set-ebook/dp/B00A6UMNRM/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1496516485&sr=8-8&keywords=jenna+bennett+savannah+martin+series+kindle+kindle

Ilona Andrews’s Magic Shifts:  https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Shifts-Kate-Daniels-Novel-ebook/dp/B00OQSF7GY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1496517298&sr=8-3&keywords=ilona+andrews+kate+daniels+series

My webpage (with a new creepy short story):  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Twitter: @judypost

My author Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

 

 

Writing: How bad can bad boys be?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 4 Comments

I recently read the first books in Ilona Andrews’ and Jeaniene Frost’s new urban fantasy series, and I loved both BURN FOR ME and ONCE BURNED. Both have spunky female protagonists–a must for urban fantasy. And both have love interests who are, of course, stronger and badder than anyone around–another must. On top of that, it seemed to me that both authors ramped up the “heat” index until the chemistry between heroines and heroes sizzled. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Both Vlad and Mad Rogan are sexy as sin. And both break rules to follow their own codes of honor. Which brings me to the question: how bad can bad boys be?

I signed up to read BURN FOR ME as part of Goodreads, but I’m so slow and got so far behind, I ended up reading the comments other readers made and didn’t add any of my own, because by then…what was the point? But it interested me that a few readers agreed with the book’s heroine, that Mad Rogan is a sociopath–a tempting, I’d throw myself at him, gorgeous, smart, intriguing sociopath–but still….
Since I’d read the two books close together, it made me wonder why Vlad didn’t get the same comments, but then, he’s a vampire. And everyone knows that vampires do whatever they please, so being called a sociopath is the least of their worries. Mad Rogan is a mortal with massive amounts of magic, so I’m guessing readers expect him to show more restraint. It got me thinking, and I was surprised by the heroes who have been my favorites lately. Jorg, from Prince of Thorns, is no nice guy. Mad Rogan would gladly eliminate you if you got in his way. And Vlad–well, his magic is fire. You’d probably be a crispy critter. The thing is, to me, they’re NOT sociopaths, because in their worlds, they’re probably better than anyone else who has the same powers they do. It’s all relative. They have a reason–to find and protect usually–for the things they do; whereas, the bad guys only strive to promote self-serving interests.

A true sociopath lacks empathy, but Vlad and Mad Rogan have that. They don’t follow normal social rules because they don’t live in a normal, social world. Their friends and enemies possess lots of power. The bad guys use power to do evil. The good guys use power to battle them. They risk their lives to fight villains. The conflict in the stories is usually good vs. evil. Jorg, he’s a little more ruthless than the norm, but so is his world. In Prince of Thorns, it’s hard to feel sympathy for even the ordinary citizens. They’re not very nice either. And the rulers? They tend to be violent and power-hungry. Jorg just does it better.

I’m shaking my head at myself. It’s hard to believe I went from doting over Mr. Darcy, Deerslayer, and Harry Potter to cheering for Vlad, Mad Rogan, and Jorg. But they’re all heroes, in their own ways, who defy the norm of their social worlds to see beyond it. The one rule a bad boy might get in trouble for breaking? Cheating on the heroine. I’m a fan of Faith Hunter’s, too, and when Rick cheated on Jane Yellowrock–even though, technically, he was a bit coerced–readers weren’t happy with him.

Who are your favorite heroes? And why? Are you hooked on any bad boys?

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Writing: Settings Can Hook Me On Series

~ Judi Lynn ~ Leave a comment

My friend, Paula, and I are buddy-reading Julia Spencer-Fleming’s newest mystery, The Evil Days.   Fleming’s books are as much character driven as plot driven, which we both love.  For me, that’s what distinguishes a literary mystery from a straighforward mystery.  That, and the use of language.  But the other reason we love the series is Millers Kill, the location of the stories–a town in the Adirondack region of upstate New York.

In the best books, settings become integral to the storyline.  If the author picked up her characters and dropped them somewhere else, the whole tone of the story would change.  Sharyn McCrumb wrote mysteries about the Appalachia region with its folklore and traditions.  She took the same coast as Fleming, but painted it with a Southern voice and got an entirely different feel.   Martha Grimes named her novels after English pubs, and Elizabeth George nailed the tone of the English mystery and Scotland Yard.  P.I.s walk the “mean streets” of big cities–like New York, Detroit, or L.A.  When I think about V. I. Warshawski, I think about Chicago.  They’re almost synonymous to me.

Fantasy writers have always had to create a world for their characters to inhabit, and the more real the world–whether it’s dystopian or imaginary–the stronger the series.  In Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels novels, Andrews gives us a world where magic and technology clash with each other.  Sometimes, magic rules and technology goes down.  Other times, technology hums along and magic recedes.  That creates an interesting challenge for her heroine, who uses magic, but knows that sometimes, her energy will surge, and sometimes, she’d be better off with a weapon.  All urban fantasy writers take a world, much like ours, and people it with supernatural characters.  The trick is defining the rules for each supernatural and staying true to those rules.   Some writers only let vampires roam when the sun sets.  Others let them sparkle.  If they can make it believable and consistent, it doesn’t matter.

I’m always happy when a setting becomes almost a character in the stories I write.  It doesn’t always happen, but it did in the Babet/Prosper novellas.  River City is loosely based–and I do mean loosely–on a trip I made to New Orleans.  That city had an essence I haven’t experienced anywhere else.  I wanted to incorporate that feeling in my writing, especially since I wanted to have witches, voodoo, and succubi treading its nooks and crannies.  Faith Hunter cranks New Orleans up even more to give her Jane Yellowrock series its gritty feel.

Emerald Hills came alive for me in a completely different way.  In my mind, it takes place in Nashville, Indiana–with I.U. and Bloomington close by, the Brown County national park a stone’s throw away, and wineries within corking distance.  I could picture the quaint, unique tourist shops, but those can be found many places.  What makes Emerald Hills special is the magic that seeps into the bonbons, shoes, and garden gnomes that are sold.  When I write those novellas, I can almost picture Tinkerbell’s magic dust sprinkled over this shop owner or that.

Some stories are universal.  They can take place anywhere.  The characters and plots are enough to carry them.  But I always love it when a setting sticks in mind–a place so real, I want to return to see what’s happening there.  It’s something to consider when you start your next book.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

Writing: Who are your favorite writers & Do they influence you?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 6 Comments

I’m at the end of reading a novel that I loved–The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence.  And it’s reminded me that I’ve read LOTS of dark fiction in my time.  Dark fiction, to me, is different than horror.  Horror aims to scare.  Dark fiction means to disturb.  I think “disturb” lasts longer.  But that’s not my point for this blog.  I was thinking about which authors have stood out, for me, above others.  And it made me wonder how much they’ve influenced my writing.

I’ve said before that I was a James Fenimore Cooper fan when I was in middle school.  His most famous novel was The Last of the Mohicans, but he wrote an entire series with Natty Bumppo (later known as Hawkeye) as his protagonist.  Natty’s parents were settlers, but he was raised by Delaware Indians and became involved in the conflicts of the Mohican and Huron Indians, and the white settlers and the Indians.  He developed a set of ethics that were his own and a moral ambiguity that combined his Indian upbringing and his white heritage.  And that’s what appealed to me about those books–that feeling of straddling two worlds, sympathizing with the good of both and irritated with the wrongs of both.  I like stories about protagonists that don’t fit in anywhere.   Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson was raised by werewolves, but she isn’t one.  Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels has magic and a bloodline that she tries to hide, and Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock has a heritage that she’s slowly starting to remember.  That type of protagonist–the loner who struggles to live by her own rules–spilled over into my Fallen Angels novels.  Enoch is fighting a losing battle.  He doesn’t want to stay on Earth, but Caleb doesn’t ever want to go Home.

During high school, Latin and Shakespeare filled my mind with myths and legends, tragedies and political intrigue.  I enjoyed the epic battles to wrest power from one another, both on Bosworth Field and at Troy, as the Greeks tried to defeat the Trojans.  Myths have crept into many of my stories, especially Empty Altars and some of my novellas.  And as I read Prince of Thorns, I couldn’t help comparing The Prince of Thorns with Shakespeare’s Richard III.  Both Jorg and Richard decide to become villains and to excel at it–at least in literature.

The next author who captivated me–and held me for years–was Agatha Christie.  With a few deft strokes, she created characters that I felt I knew, and she taunted me with red herrings and clues as I tried to solve her mystery’s puzzle before her protagonist did.  But it wasn’t just the murders that dazzled me.  She often wrote about exotic locations, and she firmly believed…and stated…that anyone was capable of murder, if put in the right circumstances.  Christie taught me the fine art of plotting.  I followed my Christie years with books by Nancy Pickard, Martha Grimes, and Elizabeth George.  They might not be the masters of puzzles and plots that Christie was, but they took mysteries and pushed them into literary gems.  Their use of language and characterization made me long to string words together to higher levels.

The last authors I’ll mention in this post are Jane Austen and Georgette Heyers.  They fascinated me for an entirely different reason.  They excelled at social mannerisms, which was just plain fun, but they also excelled at the independent, feisty female protagonist.  I tried out a few female P.I. novels, but they didn’t give me the same sense of enjoyment.  I don’t mind sarcasm or cynicism–it often appeals to me–but the P.I.s I read felt just plain jaded.  And that didn’t intrigue me.  I didn’t find heroines I liked nearly as much until I found urban fantasy.  And those females added more.  They didn’t just have wits and smarts and a thumb-your-nose at the world attitude, they also carried weapons and knew how to use them.  A literary bonanza.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, among all the authors I found and loved, I also found a supply of short stories that became a steady stream of entertainment for me.  Every Christmas, I asked for the anthology, The Year’s Best in Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.  And I slowly indulged myself in the best twisted, dark stories available for that year.  As I said, I like dark…

What authors are your favorites?  And how have they influenced you?  Or your writing?

Writing: what keeps me turning the pages

~ Judi Lynn ~ Leave a comment

Okay, I hate to admit this, but I started reading Gena Showalter’s The Darkest Night, the first novel in The Lords of the Underworld series, and I’ve found it seriously addicting.  I bought it because it had a Greek myth base as its premise, and I love Greek myths.  I’ve kept reading it, clicking the page button on my Kindle at a furious pace, because I’m hooked on the characters and the storyline.  Now, I like to think that luscious language, depth of character, and intriguing ideas rivet my attention.  And they do.  But obviously, some good, old-fashioned lust and violent emotion can keep me turning pages, too.

I recently finished The Debt Collector series, 9 novellas by Susan Kaye Quinn, and those held my attention with original ideas, page after page of tension, and cliffhanger endings.  You know the strategy–end every chapter with a hook.  Her nine novellas could be used as textbook examples for that.  Ilona Andrews’ urban fantasy novel, Magic Strikes, kept me up nights by upping the stakes with each and every event involved with the secretive Midnight Games–to-the-death matches that aren’t supposed to take place, but do.  Placing a protagonist in peril always increases tension and guarantees that pages turn faster.  And every reader knows that each battle until the last becomes harder and harder to win, escalating to the final showdown.

I’m still a fan of the solid, traditional murder mystery.  Those keep me hooked by offering glimpses of clues, a red herring here and there, and tantalizing false leads.  I don’t need to have the protagonist in mortal danger.  I just want to solve the mystery before he does.  (Am I competitive?  Maybe a little).

There are lots of ways of holding a reader’s attention, but after considering the novels I’ve read this summer, I still think emotional impact is one of the strongest.  Plots have to hang together.  Tension has crank so tight, the reader can’t put the book down.  But I’ve been working harder to include emotion in each scene I write, either subtly or like a sledgehammer.  It sure keeps me involved in the characters I read about and the repercussions of their choices.  And judging by the success of Gena Showalter, who uses it extremely well, I’d say it affects lots of other readers too.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

P.S.  I’m excited.  I have two, new Babet and Prosper novellas that will go online this month.  There’s just something about that witch and werebear.  Or maybe part of it’s River City’s voodoo and magic.  They’re just plain fun to write!