Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
Yes. An explanation was needed to justify taking our pet rat, Sandy, to the pound due to my husband's allergies. Since the children were young I believed a story would help them understand. I wrote a fairy tale and used our names spelled backward to disquise the real characters in our sad situation.
What is your writing process?
Since I write murder mysteries I use a loose-leaf binder to jot down answers the story must address such as who gets murdered, why they were murdered, who the murderer was, and how the victim was killed. Then I create the cast of characters and write a backstory on each.
I create a random list of elements I want to include and a list of events, then I divide the elements into groups of ideas that seem to fall together. Once I have about a hundred elements, I create twenty chapters and give them titles best suited to the five elements I place in each.
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