Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today musing about names. Selecting the right name for each character, of course, is a crucial part of writing fiction. The name has to either fit, or deliberately not fit the character it is assigned to. Simple, right? Not so much, especially if the writer has a backlist. Giving the…
Kate Flora: Over the years, I accumulated quite a library of reference books related to writing, to crime writing in particular, and to crime investigations of all sorts. I never stop acquiring books that someone I regard as credible has suggested. This week I added The Bestseller Code: anatomy of a blockbuster novel. I usually…
Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Brace yourselves. This is another one of my long book-origin stories. As I've mentioned here before, I believe in recycling. If an idea doesn't work for one book or short story, I'm likely to end up using it somewhere else at a later date. More often than not, the first incarnation…