Gin Jones | It's the Little Things That Get You

I've traveled to a number of states, but I'm a New Englander at heart. So when I joined the team of authors writing the Danger Cove Mysteries, set in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), I knew I was going to have to research the area's history and climate and geography, but that was just the beginning.

My first Danger Cove book, FOUR-PATCH OF TROUBLE, features a quilt appraiser as the amateur sleuth. Now, I'm a quilter myself, so I didn't need to research that part of the story, I thought, and I jumped right into outlining the plot.

My initial idea featured a textile mill that had been turned into a museum that housed swatches of fabrics printed at the mill over the course of its 200-year existence, and those swatches would be a major clue to solving the murder. It certainly sounded like a good idea to me. After all, where I live, textile mills are a dime a dozen, and many of them have been converted into retail space, residential condos and even a museum. (Slater Mill Historic Site)

Then I did some research into the PNW and came up with a big problem: the only textile mill in the PNW is the famous Pendleton one, which produces woolen goods, not quilting cottons. Both my museum and my initial plot were dead in the water.

I delved into books about west coast quilt history and—don't ask me why; the ways of a creative mind are somewhat inexplicable—women who were lighthouse keepers. A new and improved setting and plot grew out of that research. In the end, I got both a museum AND a lighthouse for my story.

So I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I'd come up with a story that fit nicely into the west coast setting, with no major gaffes. The manuscript went through the first editing pass with only the usual notes on plot holes and timeline inconsistencies, and then the second editor posed a question I never would have thought to research: are bank ATMs in the PNW located inside a lobby or built into an exterior wall? Every bank I'd ever seen had a lobby, so why wouldn't banks in the PNW have them too? But this editor had the opposite experience; she'd never seen an ATM lobby in person.

Even though the lobby wasn't a key plot point, it was something I really, really, really wanted to keep in the story. And fortunately, I know people who live in the PNW, and they helped me to establish that at least some banks there have ATM lobbies.

But now I'm a little paranoid about all the little things I take for granted when I'm writing, things that might be different in other parts of the country. Thank goodness for hard-working editors with diverse backgrounds! Otherwise, I'm not sure I could write a single word without questioning it.

GIVEAWAY

Is there something that you don't even notice on a daily basis because you take it so much for granted, but have found to be different in other parts of the world? Leave a comment below and be entered to win a digital copy of the winner's choice of one of the four books now available in the Danger Cove Mysteries series.

About Gin Jones

Gin is the author of the Helen Binney Mystery series and one of several co- authors in the Danger Cove Mystery series. The first book in her Danger Cove Quilting Mysteries is FOUR-PATCH OF TROUBLE, available now. Gin is also a lawyer who specializes in ghost-writing for other lawyers. She prefers to write fiction, though, since she doesn't have to worry that her sense of humor might get her thrown into jail for contempt of court.

GinJones.com | DangerCoveMysteries.com | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

About FOUR-PATCH OF TROUBLE

Someone has murder all sewn up.

Keely Fairchild left her previous profession as a high-powered attorney to lead a quieter life as a certified quilt appraiser. But when she's asked by the Danger Cove quilt guild's president to prove that a local dealer is selling cheap reproduction quilts as expensive antiques, Keely's "quiet" new job turns dangerous. While Keely and the guild president are in the dealer's shop, the crooked quilt peddler is killed. Unfortunately, the local police think the guild president has the best motive, and Keely stakes her professional reputation, and possibly her life, on proving that the police have the wrong person.

Suspects abound, including the dealer's business partner, a rival dealer whose quilts were illicitly copied for the reproductions, an arts reporter who's been threatened with a libel suit, and even the director of the local museum. But which one murdered the crooked dealer? And which one has Keely squarely in his sights now...