If there’s MAGIC, is it still a MYSTERY? By BC Deeks, Paranormal Mystery Fiction Author

 

From the time I read my first Nancy Drew Mystery, I was hooked on the puzzles that are at the root of every mystery book. From Nancy, I moved on to my brothers’ stack of The Hardy Boys, dived into my best friend’s collection of Agatha Christies, and the rest is history. Now I’m a career author, and my stories always have a mystery at their core, but I don’t stop there. 

Mysteries form the PLOT, but what about CHARACTER and SETTING. There’s nothing that says I can’t add more layers to my story through the other elements while staying true to the bones of a good mystery. Why can’t I let my imagination run wild and weave in magical spells, alternate universes, and portal magic? …As long as I still follow the rules of a good mystery!

Mysteries are stories that have, as their base, a crime (most likely a murder) and someone who strives to solve the crime or catch the killer.  I’m not the only author running amok with the genre fiction. Today's mystery and suspense writer can go literally in any direction, genre, and sub-genre.  Romance, Science Fiction, Paranormal, and Mainstream novels routinely tap into the elements of mystery fiction. This has opened the doors to some new and exciting direction like the cozy paranormal mystery series from authors like Mary Stanton or Heather Blackwell. That doesn’t mean that you can throw out the traditional bones of a mystery. The tried-and-true formula still applies along with many of the other fundamentals we’ve relied on for decades.

Mysteries must meet the expectations of its audience, but are its components really so different from other genres?

· Strong Mystery PLOT

· Depth of CHARACTERS

· Multiple sources of CONFLICT

· Strategic Placement of CLUES

·Creative use of RED HERRINGS

With the exception of the last two, not so much.

The mystery form is not as rigid as in the past, although you need to observe some accepted boundaries or readers tend to get upset with you. The crime must be serious enough for the reader to want it solved, and there must be a penalty for NOT solving the murder. There must be detection--a crime cannot solve itself. You must play fair with the reader. Every clue discovered by the detective/sleuth must be available to the reader somewhere in the book and clues and red herrings must eventually lead to solving the crime. If it is a whodunnit there must be several suspects and the murderer must be among them. If is a whydunnit, you will know the murderer and the question becomes which of the motives is the reason the crime was committed.

In my paranormal mystery, WITCH UNBOUND, two murders bring Marcus Egan, a magically powerful Guardian Warlock to the mortal realm. The daughter of the murder victims, Avalon Gwynn, is an untrained hereditary witch who is a danger to herself, and both the mortal and supernatural realms, without his help. Together they battle dark forces while trying to find her parents’ murderer. It’s a traditional whodunnit wrapped in magic and romance that I hope readers will enjoy.

I write heartwarming stories of mystery and magic. WITCH UNBOUND is the first book in my paranormal mystery series Beyond the Magic and is available OCTOBER 1. To learn more about my Beyond the Magic series or my author life, please find me on my website at www.bcdeeks.com or on Facebook.

Walk In Beauty

 Find my BWL books here

Dine Woman, 1905

In beauty I walk

With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again

Hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shitsijí’ hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shikéédéé hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shideigi hózhóogo naasháa doo
T’áá altso shinaagóó hózhóogo naasháa doo
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’

Here in the US, Columbus Day has ben replaced by Indigenous Peoples' Day, celebrating the first peoples of lands throughout the globe.

I am so grateful to my Huron and Chippewa grandmothers and all the native people who have welcomed me into their lives and shared their culture. I could not have written these novels without their guidance and encouragement. 

Deep gratitude and a hail and farewell  to our precious John Wisdomkeeper who has been such a friend to all of us here at BWL publishing.  He walks in beauty.

Ageism in Writing

 

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Some years ago, I read an award-winning novel about intergenerational family relationships. Every character in the story over age fifty was physically or mentally decrepit, and often both. The author was in her thirties. This was a comic novel and I realized she was exaggerating the characters for laughs. As an official senior citizen, I didn't find it funny. 

Physical and mental problems do tend to creep in with age. Aching joints, dementia, type two diabetes, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, and a host of cancers strike seniors in large numbers. I know several seventy-year-olds who have broken bones from a simple fall. In their youths, they'd have escaped with a scratch, which healed quickly. I find recovery from injuries and medical procedures takes longer now and my body parts don't always completely return to their former normal. "You're only as old as you feel" would be nice, but it isn't quite true. Portraying seniors as no different from fit twenty-somethings only works in science fiction and fantasy -- my fantasy, in particular. 

But I also have many friends over age seventy-five who regularly spend full days hiking up steep hills, over rocky and rooted terrain. And don't try to put something over on my ninety-year-old uncle. He's as sharp as many people decades younger, although he needs a wheelchair.  

Look closely to see a group of seniors hiking - they're specs on the landscape

I think one trick for writing realistic older people is balance. For each character brought down by the trials of advanced age, show another senior in peak form. I wouldn't have minded that award-winning humour novel as much if one character over fifty, and preferably over seventy or eighty or ninety, climbed a mountain, clobbered a skilled opponent in chess, or published a successful humour book. 

It's not easy to avoid ageism in writing. A friend, who is a few years older than I am, once admonished me for a having character in her mid-fifties struggle to rise from sitting on the floor. I'd thought this was realistic, since most people in my seniors' gym glass hoist themselves up awkwardly from the mats. Kudos to my friend for being able to leap to her feet.  

   

My Aunt Edith mastered the internet in her nineties

The Problems of Having a Genius in the Family, by Karla Stover

 

Visit Karla Stover's BWL Author Page to purchase Parlor Girls

     "Ineffectual," "Inept," "A consistent failure." This are just a few of the ways Ernest Hemingway described his brother, Leicester. Harsh comments from a bullying brother, so what could Leicester do to make his mark on history? How about work hard and create and become president of a foreign country--a made-man country built on a platform in the Caribbean Sea six miles off the island of Jamaica which he called New Atlantis.

It's hard to know how serious Hemingway was about his enterprise but perhaps very serious. He used his own money, money earned from the proceeds of his book, My Brother, Ernest Hemingway, and waited for three years after his famous brother's death before launching  the kingdom.

"Anything we build there is legally called 'an artificial island,'" he said of a spot in international waters. Interestingly enough, the ocean floor was only fifty feet down there, an anomaly from its normal 1,000 feet. There he put down a foundation made from used steel, iron and cables, a ship's anchor, a railroad axle, steel wheels, an old Ford motor block, and assorted other scrap metal. Attached to it was an 8 x 30-foot bamboo log platform. He claimed half for Atlantis and half for the United States government, based on the U.S. Guano Act of 1856. To quote Wikipedia, "The Act enables U.S. citizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano for the U.S., and empowered the President to send in armed military to intervene. This encouraged American entrepreneurs to search and exploit new deposits on tiny islands and reefs in the Caribbean and in the Pacific."  Guano was both a fertilizer and a necessary ingredient in gunpowder. Leicester wasn't interested in guano, though. He planned to found an International Marine Research Society on the island. He hoped to raise money for further marine research, to build "a scientifically valuable aquarium in Jamaica, and to help protect Jamaican fishing."

            One of the island's stamp.

The island's flag.

The first residents were Leicester, his wife Doris and their daughters seven -year old Anne and three-year old Hilary and Lady Pamela Bird, a Brit holding two citizenships. A letter from President Lyndon Johnson addressed to Acting President and Republic of New Atlantis inadvertently gave the fledgling republic an act of formal recognition.

     None of his plans came to fruition. In 1966 a storm destroyed New Atlantis and Leicester, who was diabetic, began experiencing bad health. After two operations and fearing the loss of his legs, he committed suicide in 1982. Like his brother, he took himself  out with a shotgun.

What Happens Next? By Barbara Baker

Baker, Barbara - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

After the release of What About Me? I panic. Do I need to post another ad on social media? Or have I done enough? Do stories and reels attract more viewer traffic than posts? Is Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram sufficient? Should I try Pinterest or Booktok? Don’t get me going about hashtags. There are so many to choose from. How and when do you know if any of them work? With my first novel, book trailers were in. This time round, they’re old school. It’s hard to keep up with the trends.

I don’t want people to stop following me because they’re tired of hearing about my new release, so I resist all of the above and post a picture on Facebook of a pelican coming in for a rough landing.

Even Google waffles about which is the best approach to increase sales. Have you found the right way to get your book more exposure?  And, as if advertising isn’t frustrating enough, checking views, likes and comments becomes addictive and my thumb aches from scrolling.

I move on to counting down the days until I can check my book reviews. So I don’t drive myself (and my husband) bonkers about what readers are saying, I only check reviews on the 17^th of the month. I embrace my vacuum and give the floors a good workout if I’m tempted to peek earlier than said date.

Yes, I realize readers have a life. And when they get to the end of a book, they carry on with that life. Most readers never leave reviews. If they only knew how much they meant to authors, my vacuum wouldn’t be so exhausted and I wouldn’t cringe when I ask them to post a review (the reader, not my vacuum).

When I’m done fretting about what’s next and the fact the 17^th of the month is still a week away, a different worry sneaks in. Can I write another story about Jillian and her adventures in Banff? If so, what will be the crack in her world that makes the story unfold?

As I insert a fresh cartridge in my favourite pen and grab a brand-new notebook, words from an editor replay in my head. “You need to be a more prolific writer. You need to get out of Banff and find new characters.” I look up prolific - producing much fruit or foliage or many offspring. I must have picked the wrong definition. I'm done having kids. Grandkids are way more fun.

A tarot card reader told me “Stop playing it safe. Write what you really want to write about.” What the heck does that mean? Is it a coy way of saying get out of Banff? Ditch Jillian? Who are these people and why do they insist on taking up space in my head? They certainly aren’t paying rent and they bring on a wave of imposter syndrome.

Should I even write another book?

The perfect solution to all these chaotic thoughts about writing – a colourful fall road trip. Maybe Jillian will tag along. Maybe she’ll meet someone new and start an adventure somewhere else. Or maybe she’ll only come for a mini-vacation and return to Banff after all. Regardless, road trips inspire me. And yes, I realize I’m procrastinating but is that a bad thing?

For all those celebrating Thanksgiving, have a fabulous feast and enjoy the fall colours. In Calgary we haven't had snow yet and there's none in the forecast. Although I already have my ski pass purchased, I'm loving the unseasonably warm weather. I hope you are too.

  

What About Me?: Sequel to Summer of Lies : Baker, Barbara: Amazon.ca: Books

What About Me? | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store! (books2read.com)