How I Came to Write this Book:
Carolyn Haines
BONES OF A FEATHER is the 11th in the Sarah Booth Delaney Mississippi Delta mystery series. To talk about this book, I have to go back to the very beginning. I would love to say that I’ve “planned” my writing life, but that would be a lie. Then again, my ex-husband used to say that writers are “nothing more than professional liars.” He said it without malice, and it always got a laugh out of me and my writer friends.
I started the series back in 1998 when I’d finished a two-book contract for Dutton for some general fiction novels, TOUCHED and SUMMER OF THE REDEEMERS. I was the writer who started out writing short stories for the love of writing with no intention of publishing. I didn’t know what an agent was. My world was journalism, though I loved writing fiction and telling stories, a practice that was “a family affair.” Everyone in my family tells stories—or lies, as the case may be.
At any rate, I was at a place that is both joy and dread for a writer. I wasn’t under contract, and I could write anything I wanted. Oh joy! Oh dread! I’d started out with a few ideas that died on the vine. But as I sat at my computer, looking out over my horses grazing, I heard Sarah Booth Delaney arguing with Jitty. The were going at it tooth and nail. As usual (I didn’t know this at the time) Jitty was winning.
So I started writing what they were saying, and as I wrote I began to see the characters. Imagine my surprise to discover that Jitty was an antebellum-era ghost! But the story unfolded with rapid speed. Imagine my surprise to discover I was writing a mystery! I’ve always loved mysteries, but I never thought I was smart enough to plot one out.
So the story began with one book, THEM BONES. My agent sold the book at auction, and Random House wanted a three-book contract. So I was writing a series!
Again, I wish I could say that I had some grand plan where I knew exactly what I was doing, but that wouldn’t be true. (And when has that ever stopped me, you might ask? But don’t. That’s a rabbit trail with endless loops.)
As it turns out, Sarah Booth, Tinkie, Jitty, Coleman, Graf, Cece and the rest of the Zinnia, Mississippi, gang have become as real as my flesh and blood friends. They are ornery and hard-headed and determined characters who sort of “fall” into the story lines.
At the end of BONE APPETIT, Tinkie had been injured—again. (Tinkie is Sarah Booth partner in the Delaney Detective Agency and a real Daddy’s Girl—from a wealthy background and used to twisting men around her little finger) The men in Sarah Booth’s and Tinkie’s lives are more than a little annoyed at their propensity to get into danger. So, I thought, what about an insurance case! No bodies, no guns, no dire consequences. And lo and behold, the Levert sisters stepped into the scene to hire Sarah Booth and Tinkie to verify the theft of a very, very expensive ruby necklace.
The Leverts are wealthy, and they live in Natchez, Mississippi, a small city on the Mississippi River with a wonderful, sordid, and exciting past. It’s only a couple of hours from the fictional town of Zinnia.
Okay, so now I have Sarah Booth and Tinkie on a case without danger, in a great city with a fabulous history. This will be fun to write. A heist—not a murder. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Wrong!
Nothing about the Leverts is real. Talk about liars! But I didn’t really know any of this until I started writing and Sarah Booth and Tinkie started investigating.
So yet again, I was led into the story by my characters. They do seem to get themselves into some dire circumstances. I can see why the stay in hot water with their friends and loved ones.
All I can say is that I love writing about my home state of Mississippi. I worked as a journalist for 10 years before I started writing novels, and I traveled around the state a lot. Natchez is a unique and wonderful place—the perfect setting for the dark story told in BONES OF A FEATHER.
7 comments:
Patti - Thanks for hosting Carolyn.
Carolyn - Thanks for sharing your story. What a good thing that you listened to the voices you were hearing :-). Part of writing, I think, is paying attention to those voices and doing something with them. And I like the way you weave your own Southern background into your stories.
Since I'm not a full-time writer, I've never had that experience of joy/dread of being between contracts. I can imagine it's a pretty weird feeling. Since I like to know where my next meal is coming from I think it would be more dread for me.
Hi - FFB - Siege At Ma-Kouie is on my blog.
This may sound superficial but I have always loved the DJ illustrations on this series of books. Always enjoy the inside bits of the life of a writer in these guest posts.
Thank you all. Writing is a strange way to make a living--and I am lucky to be able to do so. Maybe a little crazy (my family would say a lot crazy) but it is through reading that I learned to tap into that imagination. So yay! to readers.
Wow! I just finished “Bones of a Feather” I call this series “all nighters” because there is no laying down the book just because its midnight or later. Carolyn, you are such a gifted and fabulous writer! You have such great insights into human nature as well as the contemporary concerns of society, and your injection of humor is so so cool.
Joan and I have talked this week about how one is immediately gripped on the first page and from thereon it is a roller coaster ride of suspense, intrigue, and excitement until the climatic end. G
Although I follow many different authors, your books are the only ones that, as WChinterland said, are "all nighters". When I begin reading one of your stories I just can't put it down. You make your characters seem so real it's as though I'm standing along side them. One of my favorite past authors was Agatha Christie because of her ability to twist the story at the last minute towards a perpetrator the reader would never have suspected. That's another reason I like your books so much. You don't know until the very end 'who done it.'
Post a Comment