Like most authors, I get frequent questions about how much of myself is in my
books, and I always have to think about how to answer.
On the one hand, I include quite a bit based on personal experience. For
instance, I truly believe our animal companions can understand a lot about what
we think, which is why, in A
WEE HOMICIDE IN THE HOTEL, I wrote several scenes from the point of view of
Silla, the Scottish Terrier that eventually becomes Peggy’s dog. I don’t think
this is a spoiler, because it’s probably pretty obvious from the first time the
dog shows up that Silla will become an integral part of the ScotShop. Here’s an
example of one of those scenes:
Silla pranced beside her person. She did not like the other one, but she enjoyed
the walk along the winding streets. She tried not to listen to the two people.
When they moved between two houses, left the buildings behind, and entered the
forest path, she fairly quivered with excitement. This was a new place, one she
had never seen before.
“Okay, you win,” her person said, and Silla heard the sadness in his voice. “But
after that, I want you to leave us alone.”
Us. That was right. Silla and her person. Us.
Silla wanted that other person to go away.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” that person said. “I never want to see you
again. Not after what you did to her.”
Silla looked around. To who? She didn’t see another her anywhere. Only
an empty path.
Her person looked at that shiny thing on his hand and then he reached into the
place where he kept Silla’s treats. Silla’s ears perked up, but all her person
took out was that other thing he kept with the treats. Silla had tried to chew
on it once when he left the little bag on his bed, but he had taken it away from
her.
“Here they are,” her person said. “And I never want to have to deal with you
again.”
The other person said something, but Silla had lost interest as soon as her
person closed the treat holder. She saw a squirrel cross the path up ahead, so
she ignored all the rest of the words.
As you can see, I wrote this scene using fairly simple vocabulary and sentence
structure, since an animal communicator I’ve spoken with a number of times over
the years informs me that animals don’t think in subordinate clauses.
The Vermont setting of WEE HOMICIDE is based on the fact that I lived in that
lovely state for 26 years, and even though the town of Hamelin is pure fiction,
it has enough similarities to several Vermont towns, that the inhabitants might
recognize a few features.
But then there are all the questions I never thought to ask, the places I never
thought to explore, the people I never got to know well enough. How can I
include those parts of myself in my books when those parts are still incomplete?
Well, here’s one way. It’s called imagination. What would I like to know, where
would I like to go, and who would I like to meet? I can have it all; all I need
to do is make it up!
My grandfather, who was a Mississippi farmer all his life, used to have
beehives. He kept them for years and harvested gallons of honey from them.
According to my sister, Grandpa got badly stung one day, and almost died from a
severe allergic reaction.
The trouble with third-hand stories like this is that one can't get details. My
grandfather died years ago. I never thought to ask him about his role as a
beekeeper, because I didn't know to ask. Was he really stung by the bees, or did
he perhaps stumble on a yellow-jacket nest?
What other stories have I lost along the way, simply because I didn't know what
to ask about? What are the stories you haven't heard -
or haven't told anyone?
I’m (obviously) toying with the idea of putting something about beekeeping in a
future book, but my imagination hasn’t quite shaped those scenes yet. But that’s
okay. I have notes about it in my “Maybe” file, a scroungy collection of scraps
of paper that I look through periodically, most often when I’m stuck in the
middle of a first draft with no idea where to go. You’d be surprised (or maybe
you wouldn’t) to learn how often one of those scrawled notes provides the
impetus for the precise scene I need. That scene with Silla, for instance, came
from a nearly illegible note I’d scribbled in the middle of the night that said,
“chewed up treat bag.”
I’m not sure where the idea for that note came from, a dream perhaps, but since
it led to a scene I rather enjoyed writing, it was worth groping for a pencil at
two or three a.m. Now if I could just decipher that other note that says
eigwimz. Or maybe it’s siyming. Or aiynnyj? Sigh. Someday I’ll figure it out.
Maybe. In the meantime, there are plenty of other, more legible notes available
whenever I need to put some of myself into a story.
ScotShop
Mystery
The national bestselling author of A Wee Dose of Death returns to
Hamelin, Vermont, where Peggy Winn, owner of a Scottish-themed shop, is
spectator to caber tossing, sword dancing, and just a spot of murder...
Hamelin is overflowing with tourists enjoying the Scottish-themed games—and
most of them are donning tartans from Peggy Winn’s ScotShop. And her
fourteenth-century ghostly companion, Dirk, has been indispensable, keeping an
eye out for shoplifters and matching customers’ family names to their clan
plaid.
Adding to the chaos is Big Willie, a longtime champion of the games, but not
everyone is happy to have him in town. So when he misses the first event of the
weekend, Peggy senses something is awry. After Willie is discovered dead in his
hotel room, the victim of a bagpipe-related crime, Peggy decides it’s up to her
and Dirk to suss out a murderer.
Mystery Cozy [Berkley Prime Crime, On Sale: February 7, 2017, Mass
Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780425270332 / eISBN: 9781101639573]
Always looking for inspiration and frequently finding it, Fran lives her life
with enthusiasm and expectancy. Author of fourteen books, including the Biscuit
McKee mystery series (seven so far) and the three ScotShop mysteries, as well as
A SLAYING SONG TONIGHT and FROM THE TIP OF MY PEN: a workbook for writers, she
lives and writes quietly beside a creek on the other side of Hog Mountain,
Georgia, after having moved repeatedly from her birth through her fourth decade.
The small fictional towns she writes about embody the hometown she always
wanted—except for the murders.
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