What made me think I could write a murder mystery is a mystery to me.
When I write characters, I become involved with them as if they were real, but that’s what we do when we read books. Having a good book end is like saying goodbye to a friend you like to spent time with.
I wrote a blog about Margo in Members of the Cast. I had a vision of her at the age of 77, almost 60 years after she walked the halls of Blackstone High School for the first time with the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.
When I finished Whitney & Freddy, a Boyfriend Dilemma, I had a hard time saying goodbye to Whitney and Freddy. I’m not sure it’s true, but in my nostalgia, I saw Whitney as a tragic character who overcame. I felt sorry for her, but wasn’t sure why. This was an “in the back of the mind” sort of thing. Then a single sentence popped into my head: Daddy was murdered.
I wasn’t sure what to do with this nugget of information, but the moment I thought it, I knew it was true. This begs the question: Why hadn’t this dawned on me before, because the moment I typed it, I was thinking, “Duh, of course.”
This has caused an avalanche of problems:
- I have no idea how to write a mystery. I don’t read mysteries—well, now I do.
- Whitney has to be in the new book. What other characters do I bring along? Freddy is going to Juilliard in New York. That had to happen. Does he appear in this book?
- How do I create this new Whitney who is two years older, much braver, and mad? I will say, it’s fun watching her in this book.
- And the elephant in the room: Why? Why was her father killed? I almost have this one, but the true test will be to make it “mystery” enough, and whether I can write “the why” well enough to sell the concept.
So, I’m doing what every writer does when they reach a difficult point. I’m writing this blog, checking my email, and posting some rotating reels about Whitney & Freddy.
At 40K words, I like the new Whitney. She has spunk and agency. She and Loretta are in Ohio, and they are pretty wily. Can I pull this off? Well, not writing blogs, I won’t.
Maybe I’ll go outside and check my broken pipe fix in the yard.
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