Katy McDermott

Okay, I lied. Well, sort of lied. As anyone who read my last post knows, the identity of the victim in my second book simply can’t be changed. However, the identity of the murderer can be – and I’m giving serious consideration to doing just that.

What happened was this: one night last week, I was working on my plot outline, focusing on the crime itself. To keep myself organized, I made a list of suspects from the many pages of notes I’ve written and character profiles I’ve done, asking myself “WHY would this person have committed the murder?” and “HOW would this person have committed the murder?”

Suddenly I had an epiphany – what if So-and-So did it instead of the person I’d been considering? (I told my husband Jack about this, not revealing my new murderer’s identity, and he responded, “You know, I’ve always had my suspicions about So-and-So.”)

Changing the killer will mean writing the book differently, I know. It will mean exploring a different motive, and coming up with different clues and red herrings as well. But if I can do it – and do it right- it should make for a much more interesting story.

Good thing I thought of this now – I suppose there’s a certain freedom in not having started to write the actual book yet!

I won’t post anything new next week, as I’ll be off doing research, but once I get back, I’ll bite the bullet and start writing, and then the fun will really begin. In the meantime, I thank all of you (or perhaps I should say “all 4 of you”!) for your continuing interest – have a wonderful holiday!

My first book signing event! I was so excited! (Well, to be completely honest, it was a vendor fair at the holiday meeting of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, and I was one of the vendors – but still…) A chance to interact with potential readers one-on-one. An opportunity to sell my book directly, sign copies, and spread the word. I dressed specially for the occasion, had lots of books and business cards ready…

Enter winter.

The combination of a freak (translation: early) snowstorm and an overturned tractor-trailer (which undoubtedly overturned because of said snowstorm) turned a one-hour drive into a three-and-a-half hour drive for me.

I wound up missing two-thirds of the event.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely. Frazzled? Assuredly. Upset? Definitely!

But the hour I was there, answering questions about Meeting Murder, signing a few copies, talking about writing my next one, proved to be everything I’d hoped.

“How long did it take you to write it?” and “When did you find the time, with a full-time job?” Those were the questions I was asked most often during that golden hour (by about 10 people, but still…)

The answers: 1) a long time, and 2) whenever I could.

I’ve thought many times (especially during that epic traffic jam!) of giving up, but the truth is that I like to write. More than that: I need to write. And that’s a good enough reason to carry me through just about anything.

My job may have gotten a whole lot busier lately, but I’m continuing to refine my outline for Book 2 when I can – and I’m looking forward to my next research trip. Well, sort of looking forward to it – I’ll be visiting Cape Cod in the dead of winter.

While there, I hope to speak with numerous hotel employees, a realtor, a teenager, a fisherman, a bakery worker, a fire chief, and other locals. (Can you guess the plot of my next book? Hope not!)

Full disclosure: I have family on Cape Cod – and with any luck, they’ll be able to help me gain introductions to the many people I want to interview. I’ll be staying at a ritzy hotel (in the off-season, thank God, so it’ll be slightly more affordable) – not because I need to bask in luxury, but because my main character will be working at a similar property, and I need to make notes of details that I couldn’t get during a fly-by visit.

Interviewing a realtor shouldn’t be a problem. Same thing with the fire chief, the bakery employee, the teenager (more full disclosure: she’s my niece, and she’s actually in her early twenties), and the locals. I’m pretty talkative with strangers, as anyone who knows me will tell you!

What’s got me worried is the fisherman – if I can even score the interview. I’d like to tour a working fishing boat. Since I practically get seasick looking at pictures of the ocean, that will be a real test of my writerly commitment.

It would be so much more enjoyable to do my research on a beach somewhere, drinking Mai-Tais. Why didn’t I choose to set Book 2 in Tahiti??

Forget “how is the crime committed?”, “who are the suspects?”, “what are the clues?”, and “which clues are red herrings?” The absolute hardest question for me to answer, when writing a murder mystery, is “why?”

What could possibly drive one person to take the life of another person?

I read a book (a mystery, as it happens) years ago where the amateur sleuth, in conversation with an associate, listed all the various motives for murder quite logically. It was an informative, well thought-out passage – and unfortunately, if offers me no help at all as I’m trying to come up with a satisfying murder motive for my next book.

The other night, I though I’d arrived at a terrific motive. I’d even added in some elements of “means” that I thought were very clever. I tied the motive to my murderer’s past actions and future goals, and I don’t mind admitting that I was pretty chuffed about it.

I ran downstairs from my office, almost breathless from excitement, and told my husband. He thought about it for a good two seconds before informing me (as nicely as possible) that my motive sounded like something out of an old episode of “Columbo.”

He was right. <shakes fist>

So now it’s back to the drawing board. I have another motive – better, I think. Certainly less obvious and more complex. We’ll see where it takes me. I’m probably going to have to write the entire murder scene for myself (it certainly won’t be in the book!) to see if it “listens.”

And this is still the preliminary work. It’s hard out here for a mystery writer…

By the time I was ready to write the second half of Meeting Murder, I’d been out of the meeting planning industry for several years. No business travel. No fancy hotels. And I had only the vaguest memory of my chosen setting.

Clearly, a research trip was indicated.

Now before you start thinking that jetting to Miami Beach to do research for a book was glamorous, let me share a few things:

1) It was August – not exactly prime tourist time. The brutal heat was relieved only by the biblical downpours (with hurricane season only weeks away, the weather was volatile to say the least.)

2) I had no “status.” Not as a meeting planner, not as an author. In order to gain access to the places I needed to see, I was forced to – shall we say – “pretend.” The fact that the hotel I’d chosen to “case” had been the scene of a highly publicized real-life murder (of all things) just months before made my task even more difficult. No one wanted to talk – especially not to a writer. I did get a few answers though, and took a few surreptitious snapshots that served as definite inspiration once I returned home.

3) I was “between jobs” (translation: unemployed). Unlike the well-fed, cosseted drug reps and executives in my book, I made my trip as cheap as possible (hence Miami in August). And there was no time for lolling on the beach either – I didn’t even pack a bathing suit! Rather, I stayed in my ratty motel room and filled pages with notes, emerging only for “reconnaissance missions” which sparked more pages of notes…

In the end, though, I got the information I needeed – everything from the recollection of how cold it gets on planes to the names of streets in Miami. And I had one truly lucky break – a gentleman from the Miami Beach Film and Production Office took me on a guided tour of the town and gave me incredibly valuable insight (much of which appears in the book).

My characters and plot may be imaginary, but the details I got from that trip were real – and irreplaceable.

I am, however, thinking of setting my next book in Tahiti!

One of the biggest challenges I face in my books is how to make my characters three-dimensional. It’s so easy to fall back on stereotypes – cardboard cut-outs straight from Central Casting. How do I write a cynical police detective in a way that doesn’t put his cynicism front and center? My main character, Laurie, is a focused career woman – what quirks, what shades of personality, can I give her to make her more believable? What drives the two of them to act in the ways they do?

The answer, of course, comes from looking at all the real people I know in my own life. Family. Friends. Co-workers. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a true archetype. Bad people have good qualities (well, most of them do…), good people abound with flaws, seemingly boring people harbor unexpected streaks of color. The only consistent element is that of surprise.

In Meeting Murder, I started to explore that idea, and I tried to give my characters a few unexpected traits. In future books, I’d like to do much more of that – to create characters that are as complicated, as multi-layered, as the people I see every day. As for my own motives, they’re pretty easy to figure out – as much as I want people to enjoy Meeting Murder, I just hope to write a better story each time.

Creating believable characters is hard enough without something on which to base those characters. Often, for me, it’s names. Names can come from anywhere – the phone directory, old yearbooks, novels I’ve read, former acquaintances or current co-workers (but I do try to change the names enough so that I don’t get sued!) 

Most times, though, they just pop into my head. I may have a vague – very vague – idea of who a character will “be” in a book, but picking a name helps me crystallize that character. Sometimes, admittedly, I think of cliches – this one’s a grande dame, this one’s a crusty local – what would they be called? Often the name changes after I develop a character profile (one suspect in Meeting Murder went through 3 name changes before I was satisfied!) – but that first name I think of lets me get to know him or her.

A character’s ethnicity sometimes helps, too. For example, I knew I wanted my main character, Laurie Kilcannon, to have an Irish-American background, but I also wanted to avoid the “Bridget O’Leary” stereotype. “Laurie” came from a passage about an old song in a book I read long ago; “Kilcannon” came from “Irish-izing” the last name of a high school classmate… A Japanese-American character’s name, on the other hand, presented itself to me fully formed – and with an appropriate nickname to boot.

At the moment, I’m working on character profiles for my second book. For one fellow, I have a name and nothing else. I look at the blank space beneath the name I’ve invented for him and think “Who are you?” I know he’ll tell me, in time. Maybe his name will change, maybe it won’t – but the name’s a pretty good place to start…

For good or ill, I got to see pharmaceutical launch meetings from both sides. As a meeting planner, I learned what goes on behind the scenes; as a drug rep during the 1990s heyday of Big Pharma, I saw up close both the decadence and the drudgery that characterized your average product launch.

It was a perfect perspective for writing Meeting Murder. My original inspiration (which takes such a deadly turn!) came from a pharma exec who showed up (having slept through both his alarm clock and the hotel wake-up call) literally minutes before a speech.

Added to that, I was able to draw on my experiences of overcrowded district breakout meetings, yawn-inducing workshops, and the dreaded role plays (drug reps out there will know what I’m talking about!) that make events like the theme dinner featured in Meeting Murder such a relief.

I’m grateful to have had both worlds to inform my writing – and to all the drug reps out there who’ve had deep sea fishing excursions cancelled on launch meetings, my apologies! (Read the book and you’ll see what I mean… believe me, you’ll understand…)

Okay, I admit it – I’m not high-tech. I don’t own a Blackberry. I don’t take my laptop to the beach. Heck, I don’t even write on my laptop. I write – dare I say it? – in longhand. Old-school – that’s me. A notebook and a blue-ink, medium point PaperMate are the tools of my trade…

Recently, however, I realized that I was having trouble (well, more trouble than usual) figuring out “what happens when” in my new book. (I’m doing the character profiles and the plot outline simultaneously.) My husband Jack, knowing what a confirmed Luddite I am, suggested I try a nice, low-tech whiteboard and some dry erase markers. I agreed, but I wasn’t quite sure how they would help me…

After spending an enjoyable half-hour or so at my local office supply superstore (feeling a bit like Goldilocks: “this one’s too big, this one’s too small…”), I found the perfect whiteboard for me. And now that I have every chapter heading of the new book listed there, with the high points of the story in their appropriate places, I can say without reservation: Jack, you were right. (You still have to take out the trash, though.)

So now I go back and forth between my whiteboard and notebook, and I find it much easier to manage the story’s pacing. At the moment, my trusty board still has far too much white space for my liking. But that’ll change…

One thing I learned in the course of writing Meeting Murder was the importance of creating detailed character profiles. Not just what they look like – what they are like. Each character’s emotional history. There was one character I didn’t do that with in Meeting Murder, and his words and actions just didn’t ring true until I did.

The bonus for me as a mystery writer is that as I develop these character profiles, I discover new paths to go down, new plot twists, new suspects, new motives. Readers will never see these profiles – but they’re invaluable to me.

I was comforted and reassured when I read a novel recently (a best seller!) by a writer whose early work, while good, lacked a certain confidence, a willingness to tackle a different world from the one she knew so intimately. My first book focuses on meeting planning and pharmaceuticals – worlds I know. My second will concern itself with many things and many types of people that I don’t know. Yet. Only the two main characters from Meeting Murder will move on to the next book…

I already know who gets murdered in the next novel, and I know who the killer is. I know the motive, and even some of the clues and red herrings. But it’s the character profiles that will help me tell a cohesive – and hopefully compelling – story. It’s the character profiles that will tell me who these people truly are, and where the story needs to go.