The Cozy Chicks | Cozy Up To Some Killer Books

Ideas? Where?

These past four weeks I’ve shifted between writing on Molly Malone’s adventures in Washington, DC, and two different Kelly Flynn knitting mystery adventures here in Colorado. I wrote on Molly, then stopped to revise the holiday knitting mystery which I just turned in on Dec 15, then returned to plotting the next Kelly Flynn mystery that’s due this summer.

You’ve all heard me talk about how novelists have to “switch gears.” Shift from one book to another as the editorial and production process rolls along. But today, I want to talk about ideas. Because every one of those novels—and all the other novels I’ve written over the years—as well as all of the novels the Cozy Chicks have produced ever since we became ensnared by this crazy busines—has started with an idea.

So. . .where do ideas come from? I get asked this a lot at writers conferences and other places writers gather to graze and network with each other. And my answer is simple. Ideas are everywhere. All around us. On television. In other novels. In the newspaper. On the news. In the movies. Listening to conversations of friends. . .and more interesting, sometimes. . .listening in on the conversations of strangers.

You may be reading a thriller and an incident with the hero sparks an idea that you could use in your cozy mystery. Is it the same idea? Are you stealing it? Of course not. Your Muse simply used that story’s idea as a “spark” to ignite your own imagination. You’ll come up with a variation that will be different and will fit your story perfectly.

The same goes for television shows and movies. I simply LOVE immersing myself in another storyteller’s story. I’m doing it to escape. But often, a whole new idea comes leaping out at me in the midst of the movie.

Newspapers are filled with all sorts of grisly details of true crimes. Believe me, truth really is stranger than fiction. If you’re writing noir or private eye or true crime, start subscribing to more than one newspaper. Get some out of town papers, too. I guarantee you, the Miami Herald will have some unique murders compared to the Denver POST. Kind of hard to find a body on the beach, if there’s no ocean around. And, conversely, ski slopes are pretty rare in South Florida.

And above all—-start observing the world around you. We’ve just had a murder case re-opened right here in Fort Collins, CO, which has made the national news. A woman’s body was found, stabbed to death and mutilated, lying in a field in the city—in 1987. Police investigated but charged no one until 1998. The young man (15 at the time of the murder) maintained his innocence all the time. Yet he was still convicted. And the conviction was upheld in the Colorado State Supereme Court. And you know what? His sentence was recently set aside. Because DNA evidence that didn’t exist years ago, now proved his innocence. And he’s a free man. All because of his tenacious defense team.

Now—-that’s real life. And right here in this lovely university town that Money Magazine has called (repeatedly) the #1 best place to live. :) Hey. . .crime happens everywhere. I guarantee you, it’s happening in YOUR city right now, too. Take a look around and see what’s happening.

In this story above, a novelist could come up with a legal thriller, a police procedural, a private eye, a friend-of-the-accused story. . . and more. Think of the possibilities.

What’s happening in your town?

13 Responses to “Ideas? Where?”

Actually, a true life murder case from a little town outside Boise, Idaho was where I started my first novel (you know, the first one I haven’t finished. ) I still have that first scene I wrote in my mind, knowing that someday I’ll find the right way to tell the story. And I think the real story kept getting in my way because I kept wanting to stay with the way it really happened rather than tell the story that wanted to be told.

Now I live outside of St. Louis and since it’s the number one crime city in America (which all natives will disagree with and give you the falsity the stat was based on) there is lots of ideas floating around. We just had a horrible shooting at a city council meeting that killed four and injured more. Motive, not sure but they guy must have been mad at something. And there was a shooting at the Walmart that’s walking distance from my work.

Finding ideas is never my problem, it’s finishing the dang story. I have one floating in my head about a serial killer who works out of this real life bar in my small town. (And I have his face in my head since I met him one night when we were there.)

And we stopped at a rest stop on our way to Chicago a few years ago and I looked at the trees and bushes surrounding the property and thought, wouldn’t this be a great spot for a body dump. But instead, I used it in my children’s book as a transportation site to move my heroine into the past.

I did write this weekend. I pushed through another chapter in the middle of the kids book and know where the next one is heading as well as what the ending will look like. So I’m making slow progress.

by Lynn on February 12th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Is the holiday knitting mystery coming out this year? One of my favorite things is Christmas releases of my favorite cozies =) Any hints of what to expect?

by Melissa on February 12th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Not long ago I was talking with the person who cuts my hair about writing and murders. I haven’t live here long, but she has. It’s a mid-size New England town. I said, in all innocence, I suppose there aren’t a lot of murders around here. She immediately came up with two examples. In one, a high-school student was killed while walking to school by a short cut through the woods one morning. Her sister came along the same path a few minutes later and found her. (This would have been no less than a mile from where I now live.) In the other, the murderer killed a man and dumped him in a pigsty, assuming the pigs would take care of the evidence (they didn’t).

So it can happen anywhere, anytime. It should make us feel good that in our books, the cases are solved (I can’t say what happened to the two in this town).

by Sheila Connolly on February 12th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Maggie:

I live 10 miles from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Police are close to solving a case there that is over FIFTY years old: a 19-year-old Miami student disappeared one night from his dorm room in 1957 and was never seen again. Just recently, a detective put out the information on the internet and got a call from another detective in Georgia. Seems the body of a young man was found in a ditch down there in 1957, and they never found out who it was. So last week they exhumed the body and are comparing its DNA with DNA from the missing coed’s sister, who was only 11 when her brother went missing.

Isn’t that FASCINATING?

by Krista of Pleiades on February 12th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Maggie:

Oh, I almost forgot: back in the 1930’s my great-grandfather was murdered in Newark, Ohio. He was something of a hothead, and one afternoon he got into an argument with another man over who owned a certain hunting dog. They decided to have a duel, with the winner getting ownership of the dog. (I’m not making this up!)

According to my grandfather (his son, who was in his 20’s at the time), my great-grandfather won the duel by shooting the other man. But when my GG was walking back home, someone shot and killed HIM from an apartment window. I know, live by the sword. . .

Anyway, according to my grandmother, nobody knew at first who killed my GG, so my grandmother had some friends over and they consulted her Ouija board for a name. It gave them the name of a man, who turned out to be a friend of the man my GG had killed in the duel. He was later found guilty of killing my great-grandfather.

As a side note, my grandmother also had the ability to cause things like beds and tables to levitate off the floor, just by putting her hand on them. She suffered a major stroke in the 1960’s (when I was a little girl), and after that was never able to levitate things.

by Krista of Pleiades on February 12th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
That’s it, Lynn. Just do a chapter or a scene at a time. That’s the way you get it done. Keep at it.

by Maggie on February 13th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Yes, the holiday mystery should be released November 1st. And it’s full of warm and fuzzies. That’s all I can tell you. Because I’ll be focusing on DYER CONSEQUENCES which will be out this June. That’s the one where — in addition to a murder that has to be solved — there’s also a real, in-your-face threat to Kelly that keeps escalating and getting worse building to the climax. Someone wants Kelly dead. heh heh heh (evil author laugh)

by Maggie on February 13th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Are those crimes still unsolved, Sheila? Interesting. It goes to prove what we were saying—-crimes happen in everyone’s backyard. Ugly crimes, too. Frankly, I believe that’s one of the reasons mysteries are so popular. The killer is always brought to justice at the end of our books.

by Maggie on February 13th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Whoa. . .all the way from Ohio to Georgia. That is fascinating, Krista. And creepy, too.

by Maggie on February 13th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Whoa, Krista—-you’ve got a story there, girl. Not about the murder, but your grandmother! She could levitate things! Wow!! Fascinating doesn’t begin to describe it.

by Maggie on February 13th, 2008 at 4:25 am
I was scared away from Ouija boards when I was in college and the girls next door were having a seance. They said my dead father wanted to talk to me. I ran.

Krista it’s funny that the stroke stopped her from using that part of her mind. I wonder what was behind it. Interesting, and Maggie’s right, you have a great story there.

So evil author, don’t be to mean to my Kelly. I mean your Kelly! See how readers get protective!

Thanks for the kind words. I’m really trying to finish this one come hell or high water.

by Lynn on February 13th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Maggie, my first book, A Hoe Lot of Trouble, was based on a local situation. And just yesterday I was watching Oprah and came up with a great idea for a new book. Of course, just have to find the time to write it. Ideas truly are everywhere!

by Heather on February 14th, 2008 at 9:54 am
You can do it, Lynn. Believe in yourself. You can do it.

by Maggie on February 14th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

Ideas? Where?

13 Responses to “Ideas? Where?”

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