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Forensic Genetic Genealogy: A Crime Writer’s Field Guide

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Marcia King’s mother kept the same telephone number for thirty-seven years.

She kept the same house in Arkansas. She didn’t move. She didn’t disconnect. Marcia had hitchhiked out of town in 1980 and stopped calling, and her mother — like every mother in this position has done since the invention of the telephone — left the line open in case her daughter ever picked up on the other end.

In April of 2018, the call finally came.

It wasn’t Marcia.

It was the Miami County Sheriff’s Office in Troy, Ohio, telling a woman who had waited almost four decades that the unidentified body found beside Greenlee Road on April 28, 1981 — the young woman the press had nicknamed Buckskin Girl for the fringed leather poncho she had been wearing — was her daughter. Twenty-one years old. Strangled and beaten. Buried under a headstone that simply said Jane Doe.

The case had not been solved. Her killer was, and remains, unknown. But her name had come back.

Marcia King’s identification was the first cold case ever solved by forensic genetic genealogy. A blood sample preserved in an unrefrigerated tube since 1981 was processed, uploaded to the public genealogy database GEDmatch, and matched within four hours of computer searching to a first cousin once removed. A team of volunteer genealogists at the newly founded DNA Doe Project built the tree out from there. Two weeks later, a mother in Arkansas got the call.

Three weeks after that, on April 24, 2018, a 72-year-old former police officer named Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested in his front yard in Citrus Heights, California. The Golden State Killer. Caught the same way: GEDmatch, family tree, candidate identified, confirmation DNA pulled from his trash. I remember standing with my cohorts from the Los Angeles Forensic Science Academy and talking about this case and the validity of using discarded DNA and familial DNA databases to find criminals. It was walking a fine legal line at the time.

This case began a change in the way cold case investigations worked in the U.S.

Eventually, it seeped its way into crime fiction. I tackled the topic a few years ago when writing What Darkness Does.

If you write the genre, you can no longer write around forensic genetic genealogy. And if you’re going to write it, you have to write it right.

Why This Matters for Crime Writers

Cold case fiction used to live in a forgiving place. The case had gone cold because the science of the era couldn’t read the evidence. Your investigator’s job was to be present-day-clever about a past-tense problem.

Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG) moves the goalposts. Evidence that was useless for forty years is suddenly usable and trackable. Crimes from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s are now solvable in ways the original detectives couldn’t have imagined. Hundreds of cases have been resolved this way since 2018. The U.S. Department of Justice issued formal policy on its use in 2019. CRC Press is releasing the first comprehensive practitioner’s guide to FIGG this month.

That’s not a problem for fiction. It’s a gift. Forensic genetic genealogy gives you a mechanism that finally works the way readers want a cold case to work — the past speaking, after years of silence — without the cheap rescue of a deathbed confession or a buried diary in the attic.

It only works on the page if you understand what FIGG actually does, what it doesn’t do, and where the writer’s instinct toward speed and tidiness is going to trip you up.

What Forensic Genetic Genealogy Actually Is

Plain English: FIGG combines DNA recovered from a crime scene with consumer genetic genealogy databases — places like GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA — to find relatives of an unknown suspect or an unknown victim. A forensic genealogist uses those matches to build a family tree backward and outward until the tree narrows to one viable candidate.

That candidate is a lead. Not a defendant. Not a confirmed suspect. Just a lead.

For a suspect-identification match, investigators then need to collect what is called a surreptitious sample. This is typcially an abandoned or discarded source of DNA sample — for instance a coffee cup, a water bottle, a tissue from a public trash can. This is legal if the sample is taken from public domain. That sample is then tested and compared against the original DNA profile from the case at hand.

For a victim-identification case like Marcia King’s, a relative agrees to give a confirmation DNA sample, and the unknown person becomes a known person again.

Two distinctions matter for fiction.

FIGG is not CODIS. The Combined DNA Index System is the federal database of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, arrestees, and unsolved crime scenes. CODIS hits when your suspect is already in the system. Forensic genetic genealogy works when they aren’t. That distinction is the whole point of the technique. A writer who collapses the two will lose any reader who has paid attention to the last six years of true crime.

FIGG isn’t fast. The lab work to generate a sequenceable profile from old, often degraded evidence takes weeks to months. The genealogy work that follows takes even more time. Difficult cases take months. The famously hard ones take a year or longer. The science moves quickly. The genealogy is patient, careful, and slow.

Where Crime Writers Are Getting It Wrong

After watching the field for the last several years, here are the misnomers that show up most often regarding FIGG.

The instant match. A writer’s investigator submits DNA on Tuesday and gets a name on Wednesday. In the real world, even Marcia King’s case — which made a hit in only four hours of searching — had been preceded by weeks of lab work to extract usable DNA from a 1981 blood sample most labs had already given up on. We have to compress the timeline some, but compress the timeline that much and you lose the texture that makes cold case fiction interesting in the first place.

Skipping the confirmation step. A FIGG match is a candidate. It’s not legal proof. The story doesn’t move from genealogy hit to courtroom. It moves from genealogy hit to a separate, traditional confirmation DNA sample, almost always from something the suspect discarded in public domain. A writer who skips this step is writing a case that wouldn’t survive the first defense motion.

Using the wrong databases. Since the 2019 DOJ policy, U.S. law enforcement is restricted to genealogy databases where users have explicitly opted in to law enforcement matching. That means GEDmatch (with the right setting) and FamilyTreeDNA. It does not mean Ancestry. It does not mean 23andMe. Those companies have refused law enforcement access. A writer who has investigators pulling matches from Ancestry is writing a scene that gets the case thrown out.

Treating the genealogist as scenery. Forensic genetic genealogy is not done by detectives. It’s done by trained genealogists. Not sworn officers of the law. Many of them are civilians. Some of them are former hobbyists who turned professional after the Golden State Killer breakthrough. They are the people who actually build the tree. If your manuscript is about a cold case solved by FIGG and there is no genealogist in the story, you need to go back and add them.

Ignoring the ethical layer. Real investigators, real prosecutors, and real defense attorneys are arguing about FIGG every day. About consent. About whose DNA gets used. About what happens when one family member’s spit kit puts their cousin in prison. That tension belongs in your fiction. It’s exactly the kind of moral territory crime writers were made for.

How I Used FIGG In What Darkness Does

In What Darkness Does, a fourteen-year-old named Flora finds a bone in the woods.

Flora is sharp, stubborn, and exactly the kind of kid who doesn’t let go of a question once it’s in her teeth. The bone goes to a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Samantha Eckhardt, at the University of Michigan. Dr. Eckhardt invites Flora to a two-day workshop where she’ll learn how to use forensic genetic genealogy to try to give the bone a name.

I wrote the workshop scenes carefully. I gave Dr. Eckhardt a line I want every crime writer to internalize before they write a single FIGG scene of their own:

I want you to have realistic expectations. You may not leave here today with a candidate lead.

That’s the whole field guide in one sentence. Realistic expectations. Maybe not today.

One scene I love in that storyline isn’t the moment Flora gets a DNA hit. It’s the scene where her aunt, Emily Hartford, comes back to the lab after a break and finds Flora hunched over the keyboard, fingers moving fast, eyes locked on the screen, refusing to come up for air. Emily asks if she wants a snack. Flora doesn’t hear her. Emily asks again.

Without looking up, Flora answers: What if this were your child or sibling or best friend who had gone missing, never to be heard from again? Wouldn’t you want to know as soon as possible?

That’s the heartbeat of FIGG.

The drama isn’t the technology. The drama is the moral urgency the technology gives a fourteen-year-old at a keyboard, condensed into a single sentence by a kid who has only just learned what the work costs.

Flora’s storyline didn’t come from nowhere. It came from a real program at Ramapo College in New Jersey, the same one I credit in the back of the book — Ramapo runs an investigative genetic genealogy boot camp, and the youngest person ever to help resolve a case using IGG was a high school student who took part in it. The classrooms are real. The cases are real. The kids are real.

What I needed Flora to model — and what I want every crime writer to take with them — is that FIGG is not glamorous. It’s tedious, careful, full of stretches where the only thing happening on the page is a person staring at a screen.

The drama lives in the patience. But the reward is worth the wait. And to illustrate this I stretched Flora’s FIGG storyline into book 6, Walking On White, releasing October 20, 2026. Flora will get her answers!

The Field Guide: FIGG Best Writing Practices

Practical things to do when forensic genetic genealogy enters your story.

  • Write the timeline honestly. Give the lab time. Give the family tree time. Let your investigator be frustrated by the wait. The slowness is the realism.
  • Write the genealogist as a character. Let them have a personality, a method, a doubt. Let your reader watch them work.
  • Show the confirmation DNA moment. The discarded coffee cup, the swab from a hospital, the cigarette in a parking lot. That’s the beat where the candidate becomes the suspect. Don’t skip it.
  • Use the right databases by name. FamilyTreeDNA. Mention the opt-in setting. Get this right and the readers who care will trust you on everything else.
  • Build the family tree onto the page. A scene where your detective sees a name three generations away from a killer and starts to feel the case shift — that’s a scene that didn’t exist in the genre until 2018. It’s yours to invent.
  • Let the candidate be a real person before they’re proven guilty. FIGG often surfaces ordinary people — fathers, neighbors, retired church deacons — whose DNA matched because their nephew did a Christmas-gift spit kit. Sit with that for a paragraph. The moral weight of the technique lives in that pause.
  • Don’t forget victim identification. Most crime fiction uses FIGG to catch killers. Marcia King’s case is a reminder that it also gives names back to the dead. A novel that works the missing person’s side of the technique has a clear field in front of it.

The Ethics Seam Writers Should Rip Into

When a great-aunt sends her DNA to a consumer genealogy site to find out where her ancestors came from, she is not consenting to a future case being made against her grandnephew. The chain of relationship is invisible, intimate, and one-way. She doesn’t know who she is implicating. She can’t know.

That’s the moral seam every crime writer working in this space should put pressure on. Not to take a side, necessarily — only to acknowledge that the technique that brings closure to one family creates exposure for another. A character who has thoughts about that is more interesting than one who doesn’t. A scene where a relative is told your DNA is the reason we found him is one of the rawest moments fiction can offer right now, and almost no one has written it well yet.

That could be you.

Why This Tool Earns Its Place in the Genre

The cases forensic genetic genealogy has solved are the cases that broke families for decades. Children waited their whole adult lives to learn who killed their mothers. Parents died not knowing what had happened to their daughters. The technique can’t undo any of that. It doesn’t give back the years.

What it does is end the unknowing. And the unknowing, as I have written before, is the part of grief no one survives well.

In April of 2018, a mother in Arkansas finally got an answer about a daughter she had never stopped waiting for. The headstone in Riverside Cemetery in Troy, Ohio, that had said Jane Doe for thirty-seven years got a name carved into it: Marcia Lenore Sossoman King. The murder is still open. The killer hasn’t been caught. But Marcia is no longer Buckskin Girl. She is herself again, in death, the way she was in life.

Every crime writer who writes in cold case territory is, in some sense, writing toward that exact moment — the unknowing that finally breaks. FIGG deserves a place in crime fiction. It deserves to be written without shortcuts. It deserves to be written by people who understand that the truth at the end of the family tree belongs first to the family of the victim.

Get the science and technique right. Get the genealogy right. Get the long process right.

The story takes care of itself from there.

Want more on writing forensics that actually holds up? My Crime Writer’s Toolkit and the Master Crime Writing Course at forensicspeak.com walk through the procedures, evidence types, and craft principles that separate the novels readers trust from the ones they put down on page forty.

Jennifer Dornbush is an author, screenwriter, and forensic specialist who brings crime stories to life with authenticity and heart. With a background rooted in real-world forensics and a passion for crafting unforgettable mysteries, Jennifer offers readers and viewers a front-row seat to the intersection of science, justice, and human nature. Jennifer’s crime expertise has made her a sought-after speaker, consultant, and educator. Through her webinars and master courses, Jennifer guides writers in melding suspenseful storytelling with forensic realism to the screen and page. Meet her at www.jenniferdornbush.com

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You Meet Characters in the Most Interesting Places

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Before I begin today’s post, I’d like to thank my colleagues at TKZ for their good wishes, and especially James Scott Bell and Dale Ivan Smith, for covering for me during my absence.

TKZ is the greatest. It’s nice to back.

Now on to some interesting fictional characters…

“Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.” — Elizabeth Bowen

* * *

I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately in a few unfamiliar settings – at least they’re new territory to me – hospitals, rehab orgs, and skilled nursing facilities – as we deal with my husband’s recent medical problems.

Now you might think such places would be depressing. After all, they’re  home to the wrinkled and veiny aged population with their wheelchairs and walkers, prescription drugs and hospital beds. However…

I found these places not to be depressing at all, but fascinating. Most of the folks I’ve met aren’t persistent bellyachers despite their disabilities. Instead, they are people who have lived full lives and are up to facing adversity in their last years.

Take Jeb (not his real name). We met the 92-year-old at dinner one night in a skilled nursing home. Jeb is down to earth and fun to talk to, although he needs his hearing aids to stay in the conversation.

When Jeb noticed my husband was wearing a navy hat, our talk turned toward the military and veterans. We discovered Jeb had retired as a Colonel from the U.S. Army after thirty years of service and had served three tours of duty in Vietnam as a green beret.

Jeb is a relatively small man, not the muscle-bound giant I would have expected of a green beret, but he was a well-respected leader. He’s even the subject of a chapter in the book The Wars of the Green Berets by Robin Moore.

But in addition to his stories about the war, it was Jeb’s demeanor that captivated me. Although he lived through some horrific events, he is genial and warm, and his conversation is peppered with exclamations like “Oh heavens, yes!” and “Now, whaddya know!”

I realized after we’d spent a few hours with Jeb that he was the perfect model for Jake, a character in my WIP. I had been developing the character of Jake, a Korean War veteran who had lost his hearing in the war, and I had a good sense of who Jake was, but I couldn’t quite picture the physical character in my mind. Then I met Jeb and realized he was the model I had been looking for.

Jeb wasn’t the only character I met. Madeline (also not her real name) was another one whose determination to get out of the nursing home was funny and inspiring. As a matter of fact, it was during a conversation with Madeline that I suggested we form a team of residents to create a short story – a murder mystery set in a nursing facility. We’re getting suggestions for plot elements and characters from all sides to our tentatively named story, “The MerriLax Conspiracy” where the murder victim is, of course, one of the nurses. Madeline will play a leading role.

* * *

So TKZers: Where do you find characters for your stories? Are they based on people you know or always products of your imagination? Care to let the rest of us in on some of your experiences?

* * *

 

“DiBianca’s plot is tightly woven, but her cast of quirky and lovable characters steal the spotlight” —BookLife Reviews, Editor’s Pick

Click the image to go to the Amazon book page.

Reader Friday-Mickey Mouse or Hannibal Lecter?

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Scary title this morning, yes?  🙂

Just a quick, non-scary question for this Friday morning.

Who is the one fictional character you relate to most? Can be from your own writing, or another author, or even from a movie. And please tell us why…

 

 

Here’s a few more to get your juices flowing…

 

 

 

 

 

(Fun fact: if you do a search on this morning’s question, there are links to websites where you can take a quiz to find out the character you’re most like.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee Words of Wisdom

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Coffee.

Not only is it the beverage of choice for many millions of people, it’s a staple of fiction, movies and TV. The bleary-eyed police detective pouring sludge from the bottom of the pot to keep going during a long day at the station house, or maybe pouring out one more cup of java from the thermos while on stakeout during a long, cold night. Or perhaps what our two prospective romantic leads are waiting to order in line at the local coffee shop when they meet cute.

It’s also the fuel of choice for many writers needing a kick to get themselves going at the keyboard.

Coffee is also at the center of a number of cozy mysteries, such as a favorite of mine, the Coffeehouse series by Cleo Coyle, and I don’t even drink coffee.

In honor of coffee, I delved into the KZB archives to find three posts about “the sacred bean.” Not one but two posts by James Scott Bell, and a third by Sue Coletta. All three posts were short enough that I am sharing each in full here.

What do you brew to do what you do?

For most writers through the centuries, it’s been the coffee bean, the seed of the genus coffea. Nothing like a good cup of joe in the morning to get the mind rolling, the fingers pounding and the mind coming up with stuff to happen in the scene you’re working on.

Perhaps the greatest exponent of the jamoke treatment was Honoré de Balzac. He believed its properties were magical, and proved his devotion by writing over 100 novels, novellas and stories on what was, essentially, speed.

His practice was to wake up around midnight and have his servants cook up the thickest coffee imaginable. Think tar with a little sugar. He’d down brew after brew, for up to fifteen hours, letting the stimulant feed his imagination.

He died of caffeine poisoning at the age of 51.

In more moderate quantities, coffee has proved to be universal in its appeal since its discovery in the fifteenth century. According to the definitive treatise All About Coffee (William H. Ukers, 1922):

All nations do it homage. It has become recognized as a human necessity. It is no longer a luxury or an indulgence; it is a corollary of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect—the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces.

Coffee has an important place in the rational diet of all the civilized peoples of earth. It is a democratic beverage. Not only is it the drink of fashionable society, but it is also a favorite beverage of the men and women who do the world’s work, whether they toil with brain or brawn. It has been acclaimed “the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine,” and “the most delightful taste in all nature.”

Personally, I have found coffee to be as Kipling found a good cigar: Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes. 

And a companion for every novel I’ve ever written.

So do you have any coffee rituals, favorite blends, or go-to coffee joints? If you don’t you have a speciality brew, you should look at websites like Little Coffee Place for some inspiration.

And if the coffee bean is not your thing, what is your drink of choice for doing time at the keyboard?

James Scott Bell—September 17, 2012

 

In my one-day workshops I do an exercise called “Shocking Coffee.” You, the author, imagine you are seated with your main character over a cup of coffee. She tells you she doesn’t think you’ve quite captured her. That surprises you a bit. I mean, after all, you created her.

So you ask, “In what way?” And your character tells you something that shocks you. What is it? (I have the students write for one minute.)

Then I say: You’ve spit out your coffee. Your character hands you a napkin and then tells you something even more shocking! (Write for one minute.)

I was conducting this at a recent conference, and while the students were writing a voice said, “Wow!”

Another voice chimed in. “Exactly!”

And everyone laughed. When we were done I asked a few people to share what they’d come up with. One woman said this clarified the entire novel for her. Another said this offered a whole new direction she’d never thought of.

But one student, a middle-aged man, seemed troubled. He had explained earlier in the workshop that his story was about a man carrying around a load of guilt because he’d accidentally killed his brother years ago. He fears that if his secret ever gets out it will hurt a number of people.

Now he said, “The more shocking thing he told me was that he intended to kill his brother, because he was jealous.”

There were audible oohs and ahhs throughout the room.

“But,” the man protested, “this would make him totally unsympathetic.”

The oohs and ahhs turned to No! and You’re wrong! 

I asked the students, “Who is more interested in this book now?”

All the hands shot up.

The author still seemed confused.

I told him it doesn’t matter where the character has come from, or what he’s done, so long as he’s got the capacity to change and the will to try. We will follow a character like that, hoping for his redemption. Indeed, it’s one of the most powerful engines of fiction.

What had just happened was that the author, by way of a simple exercise, had gone deeper into his material than ever before. Before, he’d stopped at a “safe place.” Now he had pushed past that, and it scared him a little.  (For more on this, see my post here.)

To push through the safe places, try these exercises:

  1. Have a cup of shocking coffee with your Lead. Shocking and more shocking.
  2. Chair through the window: Imagine your character in a nice room with a big, bay window. She picks up a chair and throws it through the glass. Why would she do that? Come up with a reason. Next, write a crazy reason she’d do that. What is this telling you about your Lead?
  3. Closet search: What does your character have hidden in her closet that she doesn’t want anyone—anyone—to find?

More material like this can be found in my course, How to Write Bestselling Fiction.

James Scott Bell—February 23, 2020

I recently had a reader comment, “I noticed most of your characters are tea drinkers. Is that because you are?”

I said yes. Here’s the expanded answer…

I’m allergic to coffee. So, I have no frame of reference for it. None. I’ve never stepped foot inside Starbucks. Wouldn’t even know what one looked like, never mind the sights and smells inside. When my son and daughter-in-law rattle off half-cap, blah, blah, blah, with a shot of blah, blah, blah, they may as well be speaking a foreign language. They’d gain the same reaction from me—a blank stare, my eyes glazed over.

Now, I’ve never serial killed, either, but neither have my readers (I hope). Coffee is too well-known for me to fake it. And let’s face it, we live in a coffee-rich environment, where it’s one of the most popular products on the market. Even if I researched the subject to death, I’m bound to screw up a minor detail. And nothing tears a reader out of a story faster than a mistake about something they know well. The few times I’ve ever even mentioned coffee, I got in and out in one sentence.

I’m not a wine connoisseur, yet Mayhem is. The difference is, I’ve tasted wine.Many wines. 😉 It’s not a favorite of mine, but at least I have some frame of reference. Mayhem is also well-versed in fine dining, and I’m not. But the average reader won’t spend $500-$1,000 on one meal, either. For those that do, I listen to my editor, who not only knows her wine but has made almost all of the fancy dishes I’ve included in my books. When she says that appetizer doesn’t go well with this meal, I change it. No questions asked.

I love how she handles it, too. The comment will read something like, “Mm-mm, sounds yummy… but you know what works better with that dish? Blah, blah, blah.” Or “Yum, but that dish isn’t typically made with cream. It’s made with blah, blah, blah.” Cracks me up every time!

Know your limits. It’s okay to include a detail you’re unfamiliar with if you’re willing to reach out to consultants to check your scene. If you get it wrong, don’t be too stubborn to fix it. We can’t know everything.

You might be thinking, “Why don’t you ask someone about coffee?” It wouldn’t work. I’d have to follow a coffee drinker around to figure out the tiny details they don’t even consider. Things like:

  • How do you order? In the movies it looks complicated.
  • How does it feel to wait in line for your morning coffee?
  • What if they run out of your favorite? Then what?
  • Does everyone have a backup flavor?
  • What’s the difference between flavor and brew?
  • When is the right time of day to switch from hot to iced?
  • Does iced taste different from hot? How so?
  • What do all those pumps do?
  • What do those cap things mean?
  • Do you get jittery afterward?
  • Do you get tired without it?
  • How many cups is enough? How many is too much?
  • What does it taste like? (Describe coffee to someone with no frame of reference)
  • Is it an addiction or pleasure? Or both?
  • How did you decide on half-caps and pumps? What did that transition look like?
  • Does everyone start out drinking it black?
  • Why is espresso served in a tiny cup?
  • Is espresso different from regular coffee? I know it’s stronger, but why?
  • Is coffee measured by caffeine? Quality of beans?
  • What about cappuccino? How is that different from regular?
  • How do they draw those little hearts on top?
  • Do baristas use special tools? What do those look like? Do they get hot? Cold?
  • Why are coffee shops so popular?
  • Why do people hang out in coffee shops? Is it a social thing?
  • Why do the sound of coffee shops soothe some people?
  • Describe the sound and smells of Starbucks.
  • How long would you wait in line for your favorite coffee?
  • Why can’t you make it at home?
  • How much do the fancy coffees cost per cup?
  • Is iced cheaper than hot? Or vice versa? And why.

I could go on and on. There are too many variables with coffee.

Sue Coletta—September 18, 2023

***

This time the questions for you all come from the original posts.

  1. “So do you have any coffee rituals, favorite blends, or go-to coffee joints? If you don’t you have a speciality brew, you should look at websites like Little Coffee Place for some inspiration. And if the coffee bean is not your thing, what is your drink of choice for doing time at the keyboard?”
  2. “So when was the last time one of your characters surprised you? Did you go with it or resist it? What techniques do you use to deepen characters in your fiction?”
  3. “Anyone want to take a crack at any of my questions? Try describing the taste to me.”

Two Kinds of Cats

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Today’s post is a call back to “Pet Words of Wisdom” from March 2024, posted just after we had to say goodbye to our beloved cat, Mittens, who was nearly eighteen when he passed. He was the last of the six cats in the many years my wife and I have lived in our little house. All of them brought great joy and liveliness to our home. After he died, we decided we needed a break.

That break ended last Saturday when we adopted Maeve and Moxie, pair of nine-month old kittens, who were part of the last litter born to an outdoor colony. The two were very underweight when they went into foster care, but now are glowing with life, love and energy.

Maeve in a rare moment of rest.

Moxie imitating a work of art, with the window frame serving as a faux picture frame.

Suddenly our quiet house has returned to an earlier time, with cat toys strewn about and the thundering of small paws down the hallway at 2AM when the wee furry ones have zoomies in the wee hours.

Now, despite being a lifelong “servant to cats” as well as a friend to dogs, I hadn’t included a pet in any of my books until my second Meg Booker mystery, Book Drop Dead, which sees Meg adopt a stray kitten she finds outside the library. However, little Honorius does not help solve any murders.

Writing a cozy featuring pets that are involved in solving a mystery is enticing, but of course there are already many such mysteries out there. Not that that’s ever stopped me before when an idea takes hold, but, just as I did with cozies in general, I’d want to read a stack of pet mysteries.

I’m already huge fan of Jeffrey Poole’s Corgi Casefiles series which give much inspiration for a potential pet-centered mystery, with his clue-detecting corgis Sherlock and Watson.

Now if I were to write a “pet helps solve mystery” novel it would of course have to star a cat or cats.

With that in mind I have Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy cat mysteries, Shirley Rosseau Murphy’s Joe Grey series, Lillian Jackson Brown’s Cat Who books, and Miranda James’ Cat in the Stacks series on my to-be-read list of cat mysteries.

In honor of cats in mystery fiction, today we have an excerpt a from 2024 post by Elaine Vets on including pets in mysteries, as well as a 2016 post by James Scott Bell, on herding very different kinds of “CATS.”

Both post are well worth reading in full.

We all know that getting a reader inside a lead character’s head is one of the keys to compelling fiction. But it has to be done seamlessly so it doesn’t jerk us out of the narrative and put a crimp in the fictive dream.

Which means we have to learn to handle what I call “Character Alone Thinking Scenes” (CATS) in a deft manner.

The first issue is whether to begin the book with a CATS. As last Wednesday’s first-page critique demonstrated (in my view, at least) the answer should almost always be No. 

Why? Because we have to have a little personal investment in someone before we can care deeply about their feelings.

Imagine going to a party and you’re introduced to a fellow with a drink in his hand. You say, “How are you?” and the guy says, “I’m really depressed, man, I wake up every day and the room looks dark and the sun never shines, even though it’s out there, and I don’t see it because of the dark dankness in my soul, and life has lost its meaning, its luster, whatever it was it once had for me when I was young and ready to take on the world. Ya know?”

AHHHH!!!!

Well, the beginning of a book is like walking into a party. The reader wants to meet interesting people. And interest is aroused by what people do. The way you catch readers from the start is through action and disturbance, not feeling and expounding. 

I can’t tell you the number of manuscripts I’ve read over the years that did not begin with a real scene, but instead opted for the inside of a character’s head. What I usually do in such cases is flip the pages until I get to some dialogue, because that automatically means we’re in a scene. And 98% of the time that is the best place to start. (Sure, an argument can be made that a great style might be enough to carry the opening pages. But it better be truly great and truly brief.)

So, re: the opening—save your CATS for later.

Once you’re into the novel there are two types of CATS to herd—active and reactive.

In an active scene, the character is alone but with a major scene objective (something that materially relates to the plot), and thinks while trying to overcome whatever scene obstacles are in her way.

In a reactive scene, the character is alone with a chance to reflect. She may be thinking about what’s already happened in the story, or her current psychological state, or the other characters. When done well, reactive scenes strengthen our emotional bond with the character.

James Scott Bell—October 1, 2017

 

I’m writing a new mystery series set in South Florida. Here’s one of the hairiest problems I considered: did I want my protagonist to have a pet?

I like pets, and they’re popular with mystery readers. Especially cat and dog mysteries.

Many cozy readers are familiar with Laurie Cass’s Bookmobile Cat series. And that’s just the start of the good felines. There are series with Cat Cafes, Klepto Cats, Magical Cats, witches’ cats, library cats, bookstore cats and more.

Cats who talk and solve mysteries aren’t my cup of tea – my cats can’t even open a can of food for dinner. But what do I know? Readers love felines who can perform semi-human feats.

I could also give my new protagonist a dog. Dog mysteries are definite people pleasers. There’s a pack of them, including David Rosenfelt’s series, featuring work-avoiding, dog loving lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara.

Tara is a lovable companion. Other mystery series feature working dogs, such as FBI special agent Sara Driscoll and her search and rescue Labrador, Hawk.

Here are more good reasons to have pets in mysteries:

Walking a dog is a good way to meet people.

Animals are good judges of character. Dogs (and some cats) can rescue or defend you, warn you with a timely bark or hiss, even uncover a clue.

A pet in your mystery can be plus. Readers identify with pets. “Your cat reminds me of my orange tabby, Ginger. She loves to . . .”

But there are major downsides to consider. Pets need care. Your detective can’t be on the track of a killer and suddenly stop the investigation to make a phone call. (“Psst! Mark. I’m staking out the killer’s house. Will you walk my corgi? I just got a new living room rug.”)

Dogs also have to be fed and groomed. Cats are a little more easy care. Your detective can open a big bag of dry food and leave out a bowl of water, but sooner or later the litter box has to be cleaned.

Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series has a unique, easy-care animal, a hamster named Rex. Rex lives in a cage on her kitchen counter. Rex sleeps in a soup can and runs on his hamster wheel. Stephanie occasionally tosses him a grape for a treat.

But she’s such a good writer, Rex seems real. Once, some thugs held Rex for ransom, and I genuinely hoped the little critter would survive.

For this new series, I decided to go pet-free.

Elaine Viets—August 8, 2024

***

  1. Do you enjoy reading mysteries about pets? Any favorites?
  2. Have you included pets in your fiction? If so, what sort and in what fashion?
  3. How do you herd JSB’s “CATS” when you write?

Picturing Your Characters

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

One of my favorite noirs is the 1944 classic Laura. Dana Andrews plays a NYC detective investigating the murder of the beautiful Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). It becomes personal when he sees a framed portrait of Laura and is enraptured by it. And why shouldn’t he be? It’s Gene Tierney, after all.

I thought about this the other day when I read a story about the artist Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) and his painting “Portrait of a Young Woman.” The subject was Simonetta Vespucci, wife of Marco Vespucci who was cousin to Amerigo, the explorer for whom our country was named (history lessons are no extra charge here at TKZ). Sadly, Simonetta died at age 22 or 23, probably of tuberculosis. Botticelli was clearly captivated by her beauty. I am, too.

Sandro Botticelli, “Portrait of a Young Woman” (1485)

I understand the allure of the Mona Lisa. Her enigmatic smile has been the source of centuries of speculation, and even song. Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? Or is this your way to hide a broken heart? But I admit sometimes she frustrates me.

Simonetta invites. I gaze at her eyes and wonder what’s going on behind them. She wears the trappings of wealth—a head covering festooned with pearls and feathers, and a medallion that may have been the gift of Lorenzo de Medici, the Florentine who was patron to both Botticelli and Michelangelo, and whose brother Giuliano may have been Simonetta’s lover.

Is she thinking, How did I ever get into this mess? Or, I’ve finally found happiness and I am at peace.

Well, just like with Mona Lisa, it’s not the answer that counts, but the imaginings and the various pathways they open in the vast neural networks of the mind.

Which is why I always find a visual for my characters.

When I start assembling my cast I first choose a name. I usually use Scrivener’s Name Generator for this. I start a Character Sheet and write what their role in the story will be.

Then I go looking for an image. Several authors I know use AI for their character images. My preferred method is simply to search Google Images for “Middle aged fisherman” or “Thirty year old businesswoman.” Then I scroll around looking for a face, and especially eyes that spark something unanticipated in me. That’s the key. I want to be surprised. I’ll copy that image into the Character Sheet then write some notes on what the eyes are saying to me.

Later I can open up the Corkboard View and see all the faces at once. When I write a scene, I can put the picture of a character onscreen as I type.

In the years before Google I used to buy magazines with lots of pictures, like Us and People (and no, I didn’t buy that picture magazine). I’d go through them and cut out faces and toss them in a box. When I started a project I’d take out the box and play casting director.

Much easier now.

Shell Scott

In the 1950s, Richard Prather wrote a series of PI books that outsold all others except those by Mickey Spillane. His hero was Shell Scott, and his defining feature was a buzz cut of white-blond hair. The publisher, Fawcett Gold Medal, decided to put a picture of Shell on the books.

 

Travis McGee

In the 1960s, John D. MacDonald gave us Travis McGee, and Fawcett did the same thing.

[FWIW, Sam Elliott played Travis in a TV movie and didn’t fit the profile at all. Much better was Rod Taylor in a little seen adaptation of Darker Than Amber (1970). Catch it if you can. Taylor is spot on.]

Personally, I think it’s better when readers form their own picture of a series lead. When I first conceived of Mike Romeo I went looking for a face…and found one that was, and is, perfect (for me). But I shan’t reveal who it is. Let the readers form the image for themselves. That gives them a “personal” Mike.

But for my own use in a project, a picture is a portal into a character’s soul.

What about you? Do you like to find pictures for your characters? Or are the pictures in your head enough?

Reader Friday-Character for a Day

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Remember the old TV program called Queen For A Day? (I might have just dated myself…)

It ran from 1945-1964. From Wikipedia:  “Queen for a Day was an American radio and television game show that helped to usher in American listeners’ and viewers’ fascination with big-prize giveaway shows.” I remember watching it on the old B&W. Do you?

Let’s play that game, but with a writerly/readerly twist. Instead of Queen for a Day, let’s play…wait for it…Character for a Day. You game?

Here’s how it goes–but, alas, no big prize money in the offing–just some good, old-fashioned fun. And God knows we could use some fun.

Pick a character you would like to be, either from your own book, another author’s book, or from a movie. But not just any character, please! Pick one whose spirit speaks to yours.

Here’s my pick…Tauriel, Lord of the Rings…beautiful and lethal!

 

 

 

 

Okay, TKZers…your turn. Tell us what character you want to be for just 24 hours. And, tell us why…1, 2, 3, GO!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heroic Words of Wisdom

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What is a hero? One answer is a legendary figure, such as Hercules, who accomplishes great deeds. Yet another is an ordinary person who does the right thing, no matter how lonely that might be. This being the Kill Zone, the answer to the above question is the principal character of a story. A character who strives to right a wrong, stop a threat, or protect the weak, who faces and overcomes challenges despite the odds to triumph in the end, sometimes at great personal cost.

We have three excerpts dealing with heroes today. Joe Moore ponders the role of beauty and intelligence in a hero. PJ Parrish looks at the different sort of supporting characters who team up with heroes. Larry Brooks considers how the hero’s role changes over the course of four-act structure.

As always the full version of each post is worth reading as are the original comments, date-linked at the bottom of their respective excerpt. Joe’s original was short enough I included all of it, but it’s worth checking out the comments.

This summer I attended an interesting workshop by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who discussed his approach to crafting thrillers. It was his opinion that main characters need to be handsome (or beautiful, if female), intelligent, and successful. As he described his approach, “I write a main character that women want to sleep with, and men want to be. ” In other words, more James Bond than Monk. His reason for his writing main characters that way? “I like to write books that sell.”

It’s an interesting thought. I’d always assumed that a main character didn’t need to be particularly genetically or intellectually gifted. I always assumed that overcoming adversity was what made a hero appealing to readers.  But when I think back about books I’ve particularly enjoyed–SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, COMA–I have to admit that those protagonists were handsome and brilliant. I just never thought of those characteristics as being requirements for popular appeal.

What do you think? Is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?

Joe Moore—August 19, 2014

If you are considering a series, it’s a good idea to think hard about second bananas. First, they have great appeal. (Sorry, I had to get that out of my system before I could go on). But they are also very useful. More on that in a moment but first, it might be useful to examine the different types of pairings you might create:

The Teammate: This is actually a dual protagonist situation, wherein there are two equally active case solvers. The classic example is Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles. (Maybe Asta the dog was the sidekick?) Modern examples are Paul Levine’s Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord, and SJ Rozan’s Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (who appear in alternating books and sometimes together).

The Sidekick. This character is not an equal to the protag but almost as important in propelling the plot. He or she is a fixture in a series, a reoccurring character. The classic example, of course is Holmes and Watson. But others include Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin, or Cocker and Tubbs from the old Miami Vice series.

The Confidant: One step lower on the totem, this character might not actively work a case with the hero, but acts as a sounding board for the hero. My fave confidant is Meyer, who sits on the Busted Flush sipping scotch and spouting wisdom about chess and economics as he listens to Travis McGee ponder out the case. (or his latest lady problem) Meyer serves as an anchor of sorts when McGee’s moral compass wanders. More on that later!

The Foil: Some folks use “foil” and “sidekick” interchangeably, but I think the foil deserves its own category. This a character who contrasts with the protag in order to highlight something about the hero’s nature. Hence the word “foil” — which comes from the old practice of backing gems with foil to make them shine brighter. We can go all the way back to the first detective story to find a great foil: In Poe’s The Purloined Letter, the hero Dupin has the dim-witted prefect of police Monsieur G. Some folks might even say Watson is a foil for Holmes because his obtuseness makes Holmes shine brighter.

Or consider Hamlet and Laertes. Both men’s fathers are murdered. But while Hamlet broods and does nothing, Laertes blusters and takes action. And the contrast sheds light on Hamlet’s character. Hamlet himself says, “I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star in the darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.”

PJ Parrish—August 18, 2015

In her book “The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By”, Carol S. Pearson is credited with bringing us life’s hero archetypes, four of which align exactly with the sequential/structural “parts” of a story.  (For those who live by the 3-Act model, know that the 2nd Act is by definition contextually divided into two equal parts at the midpoint, with separate hero contexts for each quartile on either side of that midpoint, thus creating what is actually a four–part story model; this perspective is nothing other than a more specific – and thus, more useful – model than the 3-Act format from which it emerges.)

Those four parts align exactly with these four character contexts: 

Orphan (Pearson’s term)/innocent – as the story opens your hero is living life in a way that is not yet connected to (or in anticipation of) the core story, at least in terms of what goes wrong. 

And something absolutely has to go wrong, and at a specific spot in the narrative.

The author’s mission in this first story part/quartile, prior to that happening, is twofold: make us care about the character, while setting up the mechanics of the dramatic arc (as well as the character arc) to come.  There are many ways to play this – which is why this isn’t in any way formulaic – since within these opening chapters the hero, passive or not, can actually sense or even contribute to the forthcoming storm, or it can drop on their head like a crashing chandelier.  Either way, something happens (at a specific place in the narrative sequence) that demands a response from your hero.

Now your hero has something to do, something that wasn’t fully in play prior to that moment (called The First Plot Point, which divides the Part 1 quartile from the Part 2 quartile).  In this context, and if your chandelier falls at the proper place (in classic story structure that First Plot Point can arrive anywhere from the 20th to 25th percentile; variances on either end of that range puts the story at risk for very specific reasons), you can now think of your hero as a…

Wanderer – the hero’s initial reactions to the First Plot Point (chandelier impact), which comprise the first half of Act 2 (or the second of the four “parts” of a story).  The First Plot Point is the moment the story clicks in for real (everything prior to it was essentially part of a set-up for it), because the source of the story’s conflict, until now foreshadowed or only partially in play, has now summoned the hero to react.  That reaction can be described as “wandering” through options along a new path, such as running, hiding, striking back, seeking information, surrendering, writing their congressman, encountering a fuller awareness of what they’re up against, or just plain getting into deeper water from a position of cluelessness and/or some level of helplessness.

But sooner or later, if nothing else than to escalate the pace of the story (because your hero can’t remain either passive or in victim-mode for too long), your hero must evolve from a Wanderer into a…

Warrior – using information and awareness and a learning curve (i.e, when the next chandelier drops, duck), as delivered via the Midpoint turn of the story.  The Midpoint (that’s a literal term, by the way) changes the context of the story for both the reader and the hero (from wanderer into warrior-mode), because here is where a curtain has been drawn back to give us new/more specific information – machinations, reveals, explanations, true identities, deeper motives, etc. – that alter the nature of the hero’s decisions and actions from that point forward, turning them from passive or clueless toward becoming more empowered, resulting in a more proactive attack on whatever blocks their path or threatens.  Which is often, but not always, a villain.

But be careful here.  While your hero is getting deeper into the fight here in Part 3, take care to not show much success at this point (the villain is ramping things up, as well, in response to your hero’s new boldness).  The escalated action and tension and confrontation of the Part 3 quartile (where, indeed, the tension is thicker than ever before) is there to create new story dynamics that will set up a final showdown just around the corner.

That’s where, in the fourth and final quartile, the protagonist becomes, in essence, a…

Martyr (Pearson’s term)/hero – launching a final quest or heading down a path that will ultimately lead to the climactic resolution of the story.  This should be a product of the hero’s catalytic decisions and actions (in other words, heroes shouldn’t be saved, rather, they should be the primary architect of the resolution), usually necessitating machinations and new dynamics (remember Minny’s “chocolate” pie in The Help?), which ramp up to facilitate that climactic moment.

This is where character arc becomes a money shot.  Because by now everything you’ve put the hero through has contributed to a deep well of empathy and emotion on the reader’s part.  This is where the crowd cheers or hearts break or history is altered, where villains are vanquished and a new day dawns.

Larry Brooks—November 2, 2015

***

  1. As Joe asked, “is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?”
  2. Do you have a favorite type of supporting character AKA second banana? Personally, I love a great sidekick. Do you have a second banana of any of the type’s Kris listed from your own fiction you’d like to share?
  3. Do you agree that a fictional hero can go through a sequence of roles over the course of a novel or movie? Any thoughts on Larry’s mapping that to four-act structure?

Reader Friday-Those Characters Who Charm Us

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We talk a lot about characters here at TKZ.

  • Development of said.
  • Protagonists vs. antagonists.
  • Relationship-building.
  • What makes them tick.

 

But what about those characters in books and movies who are usually in a supporting role, waiting in the wings to charm us, perplex us, and teach us? I’m talking about those other species of characters–the non-human ones.

 

Here’s mine…

 

 

Real charmers, these two!

 

 

 

TKZers: What (or who) is your favorite non-human character in book or movie? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Heart of the Matter

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Writing fiction is a mental and physical endeavor. But in different ways, heart is central, too.

Today’s Words of Wisdom reaches into the KZB archives to look at writing with heart, finding out what your characters love in their hearts, and summing up the heart of your novel in a slogan, thanks to posts by James Scott Bell, Joanna Campbell Slan, and PJ Parrish.

Lesson: If you’re going to get your writing noticed, read, published and re-read, you have to put your heart into it.

You’ve no doubt heard that before. At least once at every writer’s conference, you’ll hear someone on a panel say, “Forget chasing the market. Just write the book of your heart.”

I understand what’s being said, though I would tweak it a bit. You have to find the intersection of the market and your heart, then get that heart beating.

I’m a professional writer. I cannot afford to frolic in the fields of eccentric experimentation. But that doesn’t mean I only write what I think will make money.

There are those who have done that. Nicholas Sparks is right up front about how he chose his genre. He saw the tear-jerker-romance-by-a-male-author slot as a great business opportunity. David Morrell talks about this in his fine book, Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing. Morrell himself says he couldn’t do it that way. He has to have something “gnawing” at him to write. He has to find the heart of the matter.

It’s like when I was a criminal defense lawyer. (Spare me the jokes. When your son or daughter is arrested, you’ll call someone like me.) Anyway, defense lawyers have an essential part to play in our system of justice. It’s called upholding the Constitution. That’s what you have to believe when you’re defending someone who is pretty much cooked as far as the evidence goes. You have to believe that, or you’ll do a lousy job.

I write for readers. I write so that readers will enjoy what I write and buy my next book. But to do that, I have to find the heart of the story and ramp up the passion level.

See, the unexpurgated “book of my heart” would be a post-realistic satirical look at the philosophy department of a major university, written somewhat in the style of Kurt Vonnegut channeling Jack Kerouac.

Could I sell such a book? I don’t know. I know I’d enjoy writing it, but I also know it would be tough to sell a marketing department on it.

I could write it for fun, and might someday, but right now I need to keep earning a living.

So what I do is take my favorite genre, thrillers, think up concepts and then make them the book of my heart. I find ways to fall in love with my story.

The way it happens for me is through characters, getting to know them deeply, creating a colorful supporting cast –– and then scaring the living daylights out of them in the plot.

James Scott Bell—June 13, 2010

Here’s the Test

There’s an old adage: “Tell me who you love and I’ll tell you who you are.” It’s a great test to apply to our characters. Ask yourself, “Who or what does my character love?”

What Characters Are Driven to Do

Love is not only powerful; it also makes fools out of most of us. As authors we can use this primal drive to explain situations that would otherwise seem absurd.

Think back to Gone with the Wind. In the book, it’s Scarlett’s love for Tara that compels her to marry one unsuitable man after another. It’s her love of family that sends this fragile flower out into the fields to work like a common laborer. And her love of Ashley Wilkes forces her to remain beside his wife, Melanie, even as the Yankees approach.

Love Causes Conflicts of All Sizes

We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet, but love for life’s small pleasures can also cause our characters problems. Kiki Lowenstein loves food. Especially desserts. In many of my Kiki books, this amateur sleuth’s attention gets side-tracked when someone waves a particularly luscious treat under her nose. In one book, a nasty crafter ruins Kiki’s artwork while Kiki is too busy eating a gingerbread cupcake to keep an eye on her materials.

Telling Versus Showing

Of course, it’s not enough to tell our readers that our character loves someone or something. We have to show this emotion in practice. One way is by forcing our characters to make tough choices. When Cara Mia Delgatto adopts a Chihuahua with a broken leg, she doesn’t need one more complication in her life. However, she’s willing to adjust her world to accommodate the ailing pup because he’s a rescue dog, and Cara is all about second chances.

How our characters spend their time is another way we show what they value. If a character doesn’t spend time with his children, readers might assume they aren’t an important part of that character’s life. However, if a tattered family photo falls out of the character’s wallet as he pulls out a dollar bill, we have to believe his children matter, but something keeps him away from them.

Characters can demonstrate their love by their reactions. Perhaps your character’s voice changes when he’s talking to his wife. Or maybe your protagonist gets teary-eyed when coming across a man’s jacket in her closet. These responses show the reader a powerful emotion at work.

The next time you create a character, ask yourself who or what this particular player loves. Make a list. Using what you learn will help you build a more realistic, well-rounded character that readers will relate to.

Joanna Campbell Slan—May 6, 2015

All great stories can be summed up in just a couple words. And if you can’t boil your own story down to a juicy headline, then maybe you don’t really know what your story is about at its heart.

If you’ve ever had to write a concept or produce your own back copy, you know how hard this is. Or if you’ve ever tried to convince an editor at a writers conference to read your manuscript. This is known as “the elevator pitch” — you have to sell an agent your story in time it takes to go up four floors in the hotel elevator.

And when you do get published, it’s useful if you ever find yourself at a book signing and someone asks you, “So, what’s your book about?”

You don’t regurgitate plot. You give them the elevator pitch. And if you can’t answer in three sentences or less, chances are you’ve lost a sale.

Think about advertising. A pithy pitch sells the product. Take the slogan “A Diamond Is Forever,”  which has appeared in every De Beers ad since 1948. Diamonds are inherently worthless. Your ring drops in value 50 percent the moment you leave Zales. But with one slogan De Beers made a diamond into a symbol of wealth and romance. It perfect captures a deep sentiment — a diamond, like your relationship, is eternal.

Coming up with a headline or slogan for your story is a great clarifying exercise. It makes you think beyond mere plot and deep into that sweet spot where story, character and theme mesh.

Okay, enough lecture. Let’s have some fun.

Here is a cool little exercise to get your brain moving to think about story slogans. It was created by screenwriter Nat Ruegger. Take any common advertising slogan, like for Kentucky Fried Chicken or Volvo. Put it into the past tense and make it the first line of your book and see where it takes you.

I struggle coming up with opening paragraphs so I was leery. But I tried this with the Lays Potato Chips slogan — “You Can’t Stop At Just One.” (later changed to “Betcha can’t stop at just one.”)

I couldn’t stop at just one. Believe me, I tried. Maybe it was because I was so hung up on blonde hair, especially when it was braided, falling down a girl’s back like a piece of rope. My first had braided blonde hair. I strangled her with my bare hands, but for all the others after that, I used a yellow rope. I guess because I wanted to get the taste of that first one back again. The first is the most delicious, you see.

I almost went with Nike’s “Just Do It.”  It was inspired by the death row words of murderer Gary Gilmore — “Let’s do it.” Seems to me there’s a good serial killer first-person thriller that opened with “I just did it.”

Then I thought of Taco Bell’s slogan “Head for the Border!” That made me think of consummate storyteller Bruce Springsteen and his song “Highway Patrolman.” It opens with these lyrics:

My name is Joe Roberts, I work for the state
I’m a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8
I always done an honest job as honest as I could
I got a brother named Franky and Franky ain’t no good
Now ever since we was young kids it’s been the same comedown
I get a call on the shortwave, Franky’s in trouble downtown
Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
But when it’s your brother sometimes you look the other way

The song ends with Joe in squad-car pursuit after his brother, who has stabbed a man and is on the run. I could see a story beginning late in the scene with this line: “He headed for the border.” Here’s how Springsteen ended his song:

Well I chased him through them county roads
Till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here
I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear

One more. I next tried Clairol’s famous slogan “Does She Or Doesn’t She?” (Only her hairdresser knows for sure). It seemed ideal for a cozy set in a hair salon:

Did she or didn’t she? No one would ever really know. Because when Marcel Marseau, the owner of the chi-chi Palm Beach salon To Dye For, was found floating in the water hazard of the  17th hole of the Everglades Golf Course, we all suspected Lily Van Pulletzer.  But then her body was found stuffed in the butler’s pantry at Mar-a-Lago, and I knew this was going to be the toughest case of my career.

Okay, now you see why I don’t write humor. But you get the point. A great slogan can get your motor running when you’re stuck in neutral. And maybe if you can write a great slogan or headline for your story, you can figure out what you are really trying to say.

Now it’s your turn. Think of a good slogan and put it in the past tense. Pick first person or third and give us a great opening paragraph to a fabulous crime story.

PJ Parrish—October 6, 2020

***

  1. Do you have a book of heart you’ve written or that is waiting to be written?
  2. How important is knowing what your characters love to you?
  3. Can you come up with a slogan that sums up your novel? If you do, please feel free to share.