Oh, The Mistakes You Will Make!

by Barb, in Maine, where it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Our guest today is a woman who needs no introduction, at least to crime writers in New England. She’s a founding member of the New England Crime Bake, Level Best Books, (first publisher of several Wickeds) and the Maine Crime Writers blog. She’s been publishing for twenty-five years and writing longer than that. She’s here today to give us the benefits of her wisdom.

Take it away, Kate!

There are those who will meticulously research the field before embarking on their first story. Most of us, though, have an idea, a character, and incident, a story to tell that we manage to put down despite our terror of the blank page and the certainty that we have no idea what we’re doing. Our mistakes often begin when we have no idea that we’re embarking on a series.

I had no idea, more than a quarter of a century ago when I started my Thea Kozak series with Chosen for Death that I would write another story with Thea in it. I didn’t know I was using a cliché (unless it was a trope) when I made her a young widow with a sad past, determined never to love again. When she and Andre, the Maine state trooper investigating her sister’s death, battle their way to a relationship, I intended it to be a minor thing. Then I submitted book two (having been given, to my surprise, a three book contract) and got back a nine page critique from my editor, about every other line of which was “pump up the Andre quotient.”

He wasn’t supposed to be a major character. Thea was supposed to rescue herself. For the next several books, I was stuck with the battle of two strong-willed characters, both of whom are rescuers, trying to create a relationship where he can give her the space she needs to be who she is. Not part of my plan.

Conventional series wisdom suggests that you don’t let your character get too entangled in relationships, because having a significant other makes it hard for the amateur detective to leap out of bed at three a.m. to go asleuthing. Someone is going to say “Are you okay?” or “Where are you going?” or “I’m coming with you.” Or someone is going to say, “It’s too dangerous. Don’t go.” Especially when that someone is a “serve and protect” kind of guy. Some of this can be solved by long-distance relationships: Thea in Massachusetts and Andre in Maine. But in the long term, that couple who weren’t meant to be will want to be together.

A mistake that time will make? The writer gets older and the character does not. Technology changes. Music changes. Clothing styles change. Over a quarter of a century, Thea will age a few years. I will age, well, a quarter of a century, and be calling on my nieces and daughter-in-law for advice about the music in Thea’s car.

Don’t let your character get married. Relationships are okay but don’t tie your character down too much. I dragged it out for a few books, but then the inevitable happened. Perhaps there was a nudge from readers when several other series writers killed off their character’s significant other and I started getting mail that said: If you kill off Andre, I’ll never read you again. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting how much readers get invested in your characters.

Biggest mistake you can make? Bring children into the picture. As a former attorney for the Maine Department of Human Services in the area of abused and neglected children, I always used to say that I would take Dave Robicheaux’s daughter away from him because he was such a careless, risk-taking parent. Now I fear I may have to do the same to Thea.

In the latest book, Death Comes Knocking, she is very pregnant when another very pregnant, and mysterious, woman knocks on her door. She and Thea are on track to become friends when the woman disappears, and Thea needs to rescue her. Cue in a demanding job, a house renovation, a protective husband, and a woman the shape of whale. Thea has always been a rescuer. She describes herself a “Thea the Human Tow Truck,” someone who finds people broken down on the highway of life and has to stop and help. But now she is responsible for the baby she’s carrying and must balance her need for caution with her desire to help.

For a while now, Thea and Andre have called their prospective child MOC, for Mason, Oliver or Claudine. They don’t know the sex of their child, so they, and readers, will learn it together in the next book. All they know so far is that they will be the parents of a acrobat. Meanwhile, before book eleven, this writer had better find them an excellent nanny, or readers will be writing to say she’s not taking good care of the baby.

Here are two Christmas stories for you:

A Christmas Story

Angel’s Christmas Eve

Readers: Is there a mistake you’ve made that only could be revealed with time?

About Kate

Kate Flora’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers’ discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty-two books and many short stories, Flora’s been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Her most recent Thea Kozak mystery is Death Comes Knocking; her most recent Joe Burgess is A Child Shall Lead Them. Her crime story collection is Careful What You Wish For: Stories of revenge, retribution, and the world made right. Her latest publications include a romantic suspense, Wedding Bell Ruse, a story in The Faking of the President and one in Heartbreaks and Half-Truths. The next Joe Burgess police procedural, A World of Deceit, will be published in 2021.

Flora divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine, where she gardens and cooks and watches the clouds when she’s not imagining her character’s dark deeds.