Please welcome back
our Vice President, Kathleen Marple Kalb, to our SMFS blog today…
OLD STUFF, NEW
ANSWER
Guest
Post by Kathleen Marple Kalb, SMFS VP
Plot first or
characters first?
It’s a question mystery writers are
asked – and ask themselves – just about every day.
And almost every time, my answer is:
characters first. One of my favorite things about writing is creating and
living with these interesting people through their adventures. The whole reason
I write, and love to read, series mysteries is the pleasure of hanging out with
the characters.
Almost all my story ideas begin that
way: what could only happen to my characters, and why are they the only people
who could solve the crime? It might be their job, their life experience, or
some quirk of their personality, but the story always begins there.
Or I thought it did.
Then, last December, while I was
making final arrangements for my mother, the funeral director used the phrase
“the custodian of the body.” It gave me the idea for a mystery set in a funeral
home: an innocent person burying a loved one stumbles into a murder in the next
viewing room. Before you condemn me as a hopeless ghoul, please remember that
plenty of people use writing as a coping mechanism. I’m one of them.
The problem was, this great story
idea didn’t fit my usual short-story characters, a divorced woman remaking her
life at a little Vermont radio station and her colorful pals. Nobody was a good
fit for serious grief. The idea simmered in the back of my head for a while,
until I stumbled across something related to THE STUFF OF MURDER, my new Old
Stuff series.
The main character is a widow,
Christian Shaw, head of the Unity, Connecticut Historical Society. When we meet
her in the book, it’s about two years after her husband’s car-crash death, and
she’s worked through the initial devastation, building a new life for herself
and her son with the help of found family and good friends.
I’d never used her in a short story
because the cast is so large it didn’t seem workable.
But if it were just Christian and
the person she’d bring with her to make funeral arrangements, her mentor/father
figure Garrett?
Suddenly, the whole thing came
together: step back in time to Christian burying her husband and stumbling
across a murder in the next room – a murder only she recognizes and can solve
because of her unique expertise with old household objects. Give her a little
help from Garrett, his former state trooper husband Ed, and some obligingly
nasty suspects, and there it was.
The end result, “The Custodian of
the Body,” was my first story in Black Cat Weekly – with the help of an
amazing edit by Barb Goffman. (Important aside: anytime you get a chance to be
edited by Barb, the answer is yes, thank you – it’s an incredible learning
experience, and so valuable to have her on your internal soundtrack as you
build a story!)
And, after writing one short story
with Christian, I’ve done several others – so expect to see her again. She –
and I – are a little busy right now, though. Christian’s first novel-length
adventure, THE STUFF OF MURDER, came out this week from Level Best Books. A
fading movie star drops dead on a shoot in her little town, and she ends up
using her knowledge of everything from pewter tankards to Colonial bayonets to
embroidery to track the killer. If you met Christian in “The Custodian of the
Body,” you might enjoy spending a bit more time in her world, and meeting
everyone who was hovering just outside the edges of the short story.
I’m still a characters-first writer,
but the experience of writing “The Custodian of the Body” convinced me that
when a plot is good enough, you can find characters to fit. One more way to up
my writing game.
THE
STUFF OF MURDER: When Hollywood comes to small-town Connecticut, it should be
the stuff of dreams – but when a fading movie star ends up dead, a whole
different kind of stuff hits the fan.
Unity Historical Society head and antique household items – stuff! --
expert Christian Shaw is on set when actor Brett Studebaker falls to his death
from the pulpit in an old church. She, the “dads she should have had,” Garrett
and Ed, her son Henry, who has a photographic memory and Type-1 Diabetes, and
her colorful friends end up helping Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Poli in his
investigation. Along for the ride: her giant tuxedo cat, Cookie, Ed and
Garrett’s big red mutt Norm, and Joe’s tiny dog Cannoli! Woodworking,
embroidery, old poisons, and vintage weapons all figure in the case, which
comes together in a wild scene at the Historical Society on Fourth-Grade Field
Trip Day.
Buy
at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKWFXQ3S/
Kathleen
Marple Kalb © 2023
Kathleen Marple
Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An
award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short
stories and novels including The Stuff of Murder, and the upcoming Ella Shane
mystery, A Fatal Reception, both from Level Best Books. As Nikki Knight, she
writes the Grace the Hit Mom and Vermont Radio mysteries. Her stories have
appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others,
and been short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. She’s
currently the Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and a co-VP
of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She, her husband, and
son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.
Website:
https://kathleenmarplekalb.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Kathleen-Marple-Kalb-1082949845220373/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KalbMarple
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/kathleenmarplekalb/
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