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Carolyn Mulford

Carolyn Mulford

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Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Fun Starts Before the Writing Begins

Carolyn Mulford Posted on September 21, 2014 by CarolynSeptember 21, 2014

This is part of the September 2014 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Blog Hop. Authors answer one of several questions. I chose to write about what part of the writing process I enjoy most.

The writing process breaks into three parts: coming up with the idea, writing the first draft, and revising until ready for readers.

Each part of the process delights and frustrates me because each one stimulates a different part of my intellect and emotions. For plain old fun and excitement, though, nothing beats that first step of choosing a story’s building blocks—usually who, what, and where.

Any of the three may spark an idea, but most sparks soon go out. Writing an 85,000-word mystery takes real commitment. My enduring ideas integrate characters, plot, and setting into a story I can’t resist telling either because I can’t imagine how it will end or, more often with mysteries, because I can imagine the ending but not how the characters will get there. Whichever it is, if I don’t think the journey will entertain and satisfy me, I won’t put words on paper.

Here’s how the three building blocks came together for my Show Me series. The idea for the protagonist sprang from a news story about an outed CIA covert operative, drew on my personal experiences in living abroad, and crystallized as I planned to move back to my home state, Missouri, after being away for decades. I had my major ongoing characters and the setting in a struggling rural county.

What took more time was working out a plot that fit the major characters and the setting. I don’t know either the people or where they live thoroughly until I’ve written many pages, of course, and they change somewhat from book to book, but I had to acquaint myself with their goals, flaws, and major personality traits before I wrote the first words of Show Me the Murder.

Some writers know their characters instantly because they and their friends are the characters. I don’t find myself interesting enough to appear in my fiction. While some of my friends and family members would qualify, I wouldn’t expose what makes them so interesting to the world. I create my characters from scratch, blending pieces of hundreds of people I’ve known to create complicated beings who intrigue and amuse me. I revel in exploring the motivations, reactions, and attitudes  of those who come to life on the page.

I approach setting in much the same way. I don’t stage a crime in a real place, but I try hard to reflect the region’s cultural and economic environment, including speech patterns and attitudes.

Ideas for plots often come from conversations with people around me and the local news. That includes not just crimes (e.g., meth cooking and importation in Show Me the Murder and rustling in Show Me the Deadly Deer) but economic and social problems (e.g., elder abuse in Show Me the Gold and racism in Show Me the Ashes, the upcoming books in the series).

Another factor to consider is whether the characters and setting will foster plots that will interest me, and readers, over several books. A part of the challenge is to find an idea you can expand on with pleasure and for profit for years.

—Carolyn Mulford

For other SinC Blog Hops, go to Judy Hogan’s  http://postmenopausalzest.blogspot.com (posted September 21, 2014), and Maya Corrigan’s “Writing While I Sleep” at  http://mayacorrigan.com/smorgasblog (postied September 21, 2014).

Posted in Basic Tools, Mysteries, Mysterious Ways, News, Show Me Series, Writing

Harlequin Will Publish My First Mystery in Paperback

Carolyn Mulford Posted on September 20, 2014 by CarolynSeptember 20, 2014

Harlequin Worldwide Mystery has acquired the right to publish the mass market paperback edition of Show Me the Murder.

The first book in my mysteries series, Murder came out in hardback in February 2013 and as an e-book in August 2013. Harlequin hasn’t set a release date, but the paperback probably will come out in mid or late 2015. The words will be the same, but the cover will be new.

Harlequin Worldwide Mystery issues a number of paperback reprints each month, and many of those books are sold to subscribers to its club (http://www.book-club-offers.com/worldwide-mystery/).

Why didn’t the original publisher put out the paperback edition? Five Star/Gale, Cengage doesn’t buy those rights. My contract called for the rights to the hardcover, trade paperback (larger than mass market paperback), large print, and e-book editions. I retained (but could not sell for one year after publication of the hardcover edition) the film, foreign print, audio, and mass market rights.

I’m open to an offer for film rights.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Media Materials, Mysteries, News, News releases, Show Me Series

Jumpstarting the Stalled Plot

Carolyn Mulford Posted on September 2, 2014 by CarolynSeptember 2, 2014

Like most authors, I spend a lot of time and energy on the opening chapters. That’s where we hook the reader with a mix of plot, character, setting, and tone. The opening presents the greatest writing challenge. It’s also offers the most fun.

A lot of books founder after that sterling opening. For me, the trickiest part of a manuscript often comes when my protagonist, former CIA covert operative Phoenix Smith, starts gathering information and identifying suspects. She’s learning about the case, and research can slow the pace. If pages contain lots of dialogue and little action, the mystery reader slips off the hook.

Having struggled with this slowdown, I celebrated when Killer Nashville organizers assigned me to a panel on jumpstarting a stalled plot. The topic forced me to analyze how I deal with this common problem.

When I begin a book, I know—vaguely—how it’s going to begin and end. I anticipate a few specific events or encounters as milestones along the way. My dead zone falls in the early middle pages—say somewhere between 75 and 150—where Phoenix is running around tricking people into giving her information and figuring out what leads to follow. She hasn’t yet become an obvious threat to the villain, so the plot lacks the inevitable fast action of the last 50 to 75 pages. (Most of my manuscripts run 305 to 335 pages.)

Usually the storyteller’s sense of timing warns me to make something happen. A key sign that I need to pick up the pace is when a chapter ends without anything pushing the reader to say, “Well, just one more chapter.”

Years ago Janet Evanovich, author of the numbered Stephanie Plum series, told writers that when she didn’t know what would happen next, she blew up Stephanie’s car. That sudden, unexpected action became a running gag in her books.

The principle of surprising the reader holds true, but most of us can’t get by with blowing up more than one car. What I usually do is draw on one of three C’s: conflict, clues, and change. All three are constants in mysteries, of course, so I mean really big ones.

Conflict takes many forms, from a physical contest—a shootout, a car chase, a trap—to a psychological dilemma—opposing personal goals, ethical questions, gains vs. losses. Whatever the conflict, it has to grow out of that particular story and the specific characters.

Fortunately any book provides multiple sources of conflict: the villain, a witness, a suspect, the police, a loved one or friend or mentor or employer. And almost any protagonist experiences internal conflicts, but at some point the conflict has to become action, often when and in ways the reader isn’t expecting. In Show Me the Murder, Phoenix dreads attending a recital at the church, and encounters a hit-and-run.In Show Me the Deadly Deer, she responds to a call about a rabid deer and becomes a hunter’s target. In Show Me the Gold, she stops to check a camera left to catch vandals in a rural graveyard and disrupts the killer’s plans.

I work hard to conceal small clues, but one jumpstarter is revealing a major piece of evidence—a license plate, a weapon, a cell phone trace, a fingerprint, an alibi—that turns the story in a new direction.

In the manuscript I just finished, Show Me the Ashes, Phoenix deals with a cold case. She can’t find new evidence. The turning point comes when she realizes what’s missing.

Often Phoenix discovers a clue that contradicts an accepted fact or casts a different light on the connections between seemingly unrelated characters.

One big lesson I’ve learned: Don’t waste characters. If I give a character a name, you can bet that person will provide a clue, often disguised in humor and seemingly irrelevant at the time.

If all else fails, make a change. The most obvious ones are point of view (switching to another person) or time (a flashback or old letter). Thriller writers like those techniques, but I rarely use them.

I prefer switching from one narrative line to another. In Gold, that means going from the main plot of the aftermath of a bank robbery to a subplot, suspected elder abuse or pressure on Phoenix to get together with an admirer.

In Show Me the Ashes, I alternate two story lines, an imprisoned young mother’s (possibly) false confession and a series of increasingly bold burglaries.

Sometimes introducing a new setting or a new person to reveal a surprising twist moves the plot forward. I also like to change the tone occasionally. That usually involves a light scene in which my main characters either spar or work together in an unpredictable way.

No one thing works all the time.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, News, Show Me Series

Latest Postings


I Am a River

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 19, 2025 by CarolynApril 19, 2025

Each week I lunch with a group of friends and discuss a topic. Last time the coordinator posed this question: What is the shape of your life? The answers included a rectangle, a vase, a cloud, and an octagon. Usually I wing it, but this time I wrote my response. The Shape of My Life I am a river, Birthed in a puddle, Nourished by rain, Pushed to overflow And grow broader And deeper.   Springs and creeks fed my flow. Widening waters gathered force, Thrusting me against unyielding barriers And cascading me over rocky falls.   Other streams joined … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Where to Find My Books

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 1, 2025 by CarolynApril 1, 2025

While only one of my books, Show Me the Sinister Snowman, continues to be published in print and electronic editions, several of my novels are available from online sellers. Most of the copies are used, but columbiabooksonline.com, my supportive local bookstore, has a small stock of new Show Me hardbacks and paperbacks. I also have a few copies of all my novels except The Feedsack Dress, my historical children’s book, and Show Me the Murder, the first in my mystery series featuring a former spy returning   home and solving crimes with old friends. Fortunately e-editions still exist. Barnes and Noble … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysteries, The Feedsack Dress, Uncategorized

Looking Forward 60 Years Ago

Carolyn Mulford Posted on February 28, 2025 by CarolynFebruary 28, 2025

Reminders of my attempts to start my writing career arrived last Christmas. A friend, Joyce Campbell, sent me letters I had written to her while we were serving as Peace Corps Volunteers (teaching English) in Ethiopia from September 1962 to July 1964 and in the months after we returned home (Chattanooga, Tennessee, for her and Kirksville, Missouri, for me) after traveling through Europe. On December 21, 1964, I wrote, “Has anything turned up for you yet? People don’t seem terribly impressed with Peace Corps experience for job qualifications it seems to me. I’m going down to the University Placement Bureau … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing

Mid-Continent Earthquakes, Past and Future

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 16, 2024 by CarolynDecember 16, 2024

About 2:30 a.m. December 16, 1811, an earthquake threw people in New Madrid, Missouri Territory, out of bed and crumbled brick houses and cabin chimneys, forced the Mississippi River to run backward and change course, disturbed sleep along most of the East Coast, and toppled dishes from shelves in the White House. That marked the beginning of some of the most powerful, prolonged quakes the United States has experienced. These weren’t the first in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which is centered near where Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky come together. Geologists and other scientists have found indications that powerful … Continue reading →

Posted in Historicals, News, Thunder Beneath My Feet

The Turkey That Bullied Me

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 26, 2024 by CarolynNovember 26, 2024

I grew up with animals as friends, the first being our dog Roamer. He and I wandered around the yard, the barnyard, and the garden. Roamer barked at squirrels and chased rabbits from our vegetables. He made me ponder one of life’s great puzzles: Is it okay to sympathize with Peter Rabbit in the story but condemn him when your own carrots are at risk? Roamer knew not to chase our chickens or cows or pigs, and he joined me in playing with an orphaned lamb and the kittens whose parents kept the barn free of mice. What he didn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

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