WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Whatever happened to Charlotte McNally? Where’s Jane Ryland these days? I say—the characters in my series are off having wonderful eventful lives while I write my standalones. And eventually we’ll find out about that.

But did they leave the nest? Or did I? The iconic and fabulous Betty Webb’s been thinking about that--since she’s just experienced a singularly pivotal moment in the writer’s life.

BETTY WEBB:  Ever hear of Empty Nest Syndrome? If you’re a parent of grown kids, you have probably experienced it yourself. One day your children go off to lead their own lives and you find yourself missing their smelly bedrooms, their snarky comments, and the sea of fast food wrappers surrounding them.

Have you ever wondered what writers go through when their protagonists leave the nest? As the mother of two wonderful young men who left home years ago to create their own families, I can tell you that missing your fictional children is eerily similar to missing the real ones. I’ve been sniffling around the house ever since Lena Jones, the Scottsdale, Arizona PI who has lived with me since 2000, finally left home in “Desert Redemption.”

BETTY in Lena Land

Lena and had I covered a lot of ground together. We snuck into northern Arizona polygamy compounds in “Desert Wives” and “Desert Lost,” poked through an A-bomb testing site in “Desert Wind,” and paced the perimeter of a state prison complex in “Desert Rage.”

But now Lena’s ridden off into the sunset on her Appaloosa mare.

I was whining about this the other day while having lunch with a friend. Not being a writer, she didn’t understand.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Betty,” she snapped. “Lena’s not real.”

“To me she is.”

“Off your meds again, are you?”

Well, you see what I mean. Lena would never talk to me that way. Granted, my girl was prone to getting into fistfights, and sometimes even shoot-outs, but she was always sweet as molasses with me. She was respectful, where my flesh-and-blood children were defiant and unpredictable, especially during those interminably long teenage years when they didn’t agree with a word I said. That is, if I was fortunate enough to have them talk to me at all.

Thus, Lena was – is? -- the only person in my life I felt I could control. Tell her to saddle up her horse for a ride across the Rez, and she’d do it. Tell her to investigate that funky-smelling garbage bin, she’d hurry right over. Why, I could tell Lena to do any crazy thing – sky dive, climb a mountain, insult a politician – and she’d do it with gusto.

My flesh-and-blood children?

Oh, ha.

But now that I’ve written my complaint down in black and white (or whatever color this blog will be printed in), I’ve discovered something interesting. When I look back along the years Lena and I spent together, I can recall incidents where she didn’t obey.  Yet I seem to remember feeling especially close to her during those occasions, like the time I told her not to investigate that cult, or the time I told her to stay away from that abandoned building, and like all those times I told her to break up with that two-timing cowboy.

Arguably, Lena was more like my defiant sons than I’d realized. Did I write her that way on purpose? Or did it just “happen”? 

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

How have you handled empty nesta in your life?

If you’re a writer, do you feel closer to your characters when they’re following orders, or when they’re defying you?

 If you’re not a writer, what do you think about this whole writer-versus-character “control” issue?

Or--which do you most enjoy most -- the good girls or the rebels?

HANK: Since 2000! WOW. Standing ovation to you both. 

As to your question--tough one! Certainly I’ve seen my characters come to life, and say things I’m surprised about. My newest heroine, Ellie Berenson (so far, it could change) definitely has said some things that surprised me. (hurray.) And every time I try to write a good girl, it’s a complete failure. 

How about you, Reds and readers?

Ed. Note: Yes, yes, I'm behind! Winners from this week to come asap!

 

ABOUT BETTY WEBB

For 20 years Betty worked as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, and polygamy runaways. A nationally-syndicated literary critic for more than 30 years, she currently reviews for Mystery Scene Magazine. She is the author of 10 Lena Jones books and 5 Gunn Zoo mysteries.

You can find Betty at www.bettywebb-mystery.com

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Desert Redemption: A Lena Jones Mystery

Betty Webb. Poisoned Pen, $26.95 (328p) ISBN 978-1-4642-1095-2

In Jones’s electrifying 10th and final Lena Jones mystery (after 2017’s Desert Vengeance), Scottsdale, Ariz., PI Lena is approached by Harold Slow Horse, one of Arizona’s leading artists, who insists that she investigate the Kanati Spiritual Center, a compound promoting a mishmash of Native American symbolism and philosophy, where his flighty ex-wife, Chelsea, has taken up residence. Lena reluctantly agrees, and discovers that Chelsea is thriving on the fresh air, sunshine, and gourmet cuisine on offer at the center. When the body of a woman with a possible link to the center turns up in the desert, Lena begins to think that there is "something more horrific than religious plagiarism going on at Kanati." Lena gets on a trail that leads her at long last to answers about her troubled past: "I was an orphan… I’d been found comatose on a Phoenix street at the age of four with a bullet in my head. No one came forward to claim me." The resolution will satisfy series fans, though they’ll be sad to see the last of Lena. (Mar.)

Leap of Faith: a guest blog by Zoë Sharp

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Our friend Zoë Sharp is one of those writers who hardly needs an introduction. A prolific novelist and short-story author, Zoë has been shortlisted for almost every crime-fiction award out there, including the Edgar, the Anthony, the Macavity and the Shirt Story Dagger. Today, she's going to talk about one of the biggest decisions in a series-writer's career: to break away from the series and, perhaps...the genre.

There’s no doubt about it that continuing characters in fiction are very popular. Some of my favourite authors write series books and I open each new installment with a special sense of pleasure. Not only am I confident that the author is going to take me on an exciting journey but I have the added thrill of making that journey with old friends.

I’ve been taking people on that same journey myself with the ten books so far in my series featuring ex-Special Forces trainee turned bodyguard Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox. I’m constantly being emailed and messaged by people who’ve discovered the books and the character and are bemoaning the fact that I don’t write fast enough to satisfy them.

But having written the tenth book about Charlie, her troubled relationship with fellow bodyguard Sean Meyer, and her boss in the NYC close-protection agency she works for, Parker Armstrong, I had the urge to do something different.

I must be mad.

Crime and thrillers still have the strongest pull for me but I have quite a few ideas I’d like to explore that don’t sit comfortably within the boundaries of Charlie’s world. Plus they would be difficult stories to tell in a first-person narrative, which is how I’ve always written the series books. Or maybe the voice that comes to me to me as that of the main protagonist is simply somebody new.

It took me a while after Charlie introduced herself to me before I discovered her voice. I really want to write KILLER INSTINCT: Charlie Fox book one in third-person but she just wouldn’t talk to me that way and after ten books from her exclusive point-of-view I think it would be too much of a jolt for readers if I tried to change things. 

However, it’s harder to write a multi-strand novel from inside the head of only one character and when I had the idea for THE BLOOD WHISPERER—about a disgraced crime-scene investigator turned crime-scene cleaner who went to prison for a crime she can’t remember—I knew I needed a fresh start.

But it’s still a step into the unknown. The main protagonist of THE BLOOD WHISPERER—Kelly Jacks—is not Charlie Fox although there are similarities. Kelly can take care of herself but prison tends to do that to you pretty fast. She emerges from her experiences tougher, warier but with a lack of faith in herself and everyone she thought she could rely on. All she wants to do is get on with her life and forget the past. The past, it seems, does not want to forget her.

I don’t intend this to be the start of a new series except possibly in a very roundabout way. In between the Charlie Fox novels I’d like to tell the stories of other strong female protagonists, like Kelly. The only common feature apart from that would be that these are all people for whom calling in the cops at the first sign of trouble is not an option. In Kelly’s case this is because she rapidly becomes a suspect in another murder that eerily mirrors the one she was convicted of.

Still, I’m aware that it’s a step in the dark for me. A leap of faith. Will the fans of Charlie Fox jump with me, or will they wait instead for the next installment in that series? Fingers crossed!

I’ve read various series by my favourite authors but I know I tend to prefer one in particular. I loved Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, but didn’t take to her travelling salesman sleuth Montague Egg at all. I read JD Robb’s IN DEATH futuristic cop series, but not her Nora Roberts romances. On the other hand I followed the late Robert B Parker across from crime fiction into Westerns and one about baseball player Jackie Robinson.

So, maybe if I want to stretch myself beyond Charlie Fox I might be better making it a long stretch and moving further away from crime? And with all the cross-genre novels currently abounding that’s more of a reality. Is this a good time to mention that I’ve also written a supernatural thriller (with slight crime overtones—there are murders and policemen in it) about a mysterious hitman who you summon with grief but pay with your soul …?

So my question is have you followed an author across different series and with what result? Or across genres? And if you’re an author are you tempted to write outside your current genre? Have you tried it already? And if not, what’s stopping you?

Any of you over in the UK for CrimeFest at the end of May, please stop by and say hello. I’m honoured to be on three panels—one on Thursday afternoon and two on Saturday morning. We’ll be covering topics of Forgotten Authors, Guns For Hire, and When Can You have Too Much Research. Be great to see you there if you’re going!

It’s always been my habit with blogs to have a Word of the Week. This week’s is concilliabule, meaning a secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot. Also concilliabules, secret plans.

You can find out more about Zoë and her work at her website. You can friend her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter as @authorzoesharp and see what she's reading on Goodreads.  Zoë was also one of the longest-standing contributors to the much-beloved Murderati blog.