If you can't say someting nice...sit by me!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I recently posted on Facebook about an absolutely stomach-churningly ridiculously intimate discussion I could not help but overhear. I was having a manicure at my neighborhood place, and these two women were right beside me, and they were not talking, they were TALKING, and I won’t even begin to tell you what they were saying.

 Well, I will begin—let’s just say it had to do with how easily they got pregnant, various diseases you would NOT want but that they HAVE, the quality of their pre-pregnancy fat (“smooth”) and post-pregnancy fat (“Cottage cheesy”) the quality of their breast milk, honestly!  And a whole lot of other truly remarkably disgusting and inappropriate stuff—oh! Including a “friend” of theirs, who they mentioned BY NAME, who had just found out, to her dismay, that although unmarried, she was pregnant.  (There was somewhat of a theme, as you can hear.)

    Readers, I had two choices. One, run screaming out of the place with half-polished nails. Or two—make ‘em characters. Let me just say—my nails look great.

 And that, dear Femmes, is what the talented and marvelous Lucy Burdette (whose brand new and wonderful MURDER WITH GANACHE goes on sale today!) calls:

 

 

 

IDEAS FROM THE UNIVERSE

  LUCY BURDETTE: I've heard some writers complain that they hate to field the question "where do you get your ideas?" Whereas I don't mind that question one bit. Maybe my imagination is more limited than theirs, but I can trace a lot of the ideas in my series to life around me in Key West.

 Recently I had the chance to hear Carl Hiassen and greatly enjoyed listening to him talk about why South Florida is a hard place for fiction writers to work. In a nutshell, he complained that the real life events that occur in Florida are so bizarre that there is no way to improve upon them in novels. In fact, readers wouldn't believe the stories if he wrote them as fiction.

 Since I'm lucky enough to write books set in Key West, my experiences are somewhat similar. Except I embrace the weirdness of the town and its characters and welcome them into my books. If I feel the well of words is beginning to run dry (ack! more often than I'd like to admit) or a scene is flagging, I ford out into the busy town streets or crack open the newspaper to read the column called "The Citizens Voice." Here, locals call in their complaints and observations about life on the island. And here, a wealth of strange plot possibilities and character options flood in.

 
Let me show you how it goes...

  In the opening scene of the fourth book in the Key West mystery series, MURDER WITH GANACHE, Hayley Snow, my food critic character, is making hundreds of lime green cupcakes for her best friend's wedding reception. (She lives on a houseboat with an elderly roommate and two cats.) But right away, I need tension. And, I need to use the name "Schnootie the schnauzer," because a nice lady bought a character name in her dog's honor at the SPCA auction. What if a new dog on the boat next door bursts onto the deck, chases the cats onto the counter, and mayhem occurs with the batter? Meet Schnootie the schnauzer!

 Now, let's suppose Hayley's extended family is bearing down on the island to attend the wedding--parents, stepparents, and worst of all, a surly teenage brother. Imagine Hayley taking her mother and stepmother to lunch. The situation is already tense between those women, but what if the meal is terrible and both the "mothers" want Hayley to speak up? What dish would be that bad? I call on the memory of a lunch with my friend Paulette--terrible salty lobster bisque and limp-to-the-point-of-comatose caesar salad. Oh, and a desiccated lime floating in a glass of powerful tea. (Actual restaurant shall not be named…)

 Suppose I need real details about a late-night ride along with a cop during spring break on infamous Duval Street? I pull up my notes from last spring, when I attended the Citizens' Police Academy. Presto--two perfect pearls are handed to me--the nightmarish crowds of spring break, where Hayley's stepbrother could disappear. And the dimpled and adorable Officer Ryan, who could become a possible love interest for Hayley.

 And one last example: I'm wandering through the crowds at the Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square on the Key West harbor, thinking about how my protagonist, food critic Hayley Snow, is insecure about making her own decisions. Who would she turn to for help? (She definitely would not endorse psychotherapy.) Then I spot a tarot card reader set up at a card table, wearing a deep blue turban with an enormous teardrop rhinestone bisecting his forehead. My mind begins to spin. And so Marvin the card reader is born as a character. Only then one of my pals says 'who'd go to a psychic named Marvin?' So I change his name to Lorenzo, but later he admits that he grew up as Marvin but who'd want their cards read by a guy with that name?

  Thanks for allowing me to visit Femmes Fatales! Where do you get your ideas?

 HANK: See, I think this is a terrific excuse for us all to run out and get manicures. It’s all research, right? Right?

 And I'm offering a copy of the first in Lucy’s delicious Key West mysteries, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER,  to one lucky commenter (US only please.)—just enough to whet your appetite for a little MURDER WITH GANACHE!

 **************************

 Lucy's fourth Key West mystery, MURDER WITH GANACHE (NAL), is in bookstores today! You can read more about Lucy and her characters at her website (www.lucyburdette.com), or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/lucyburdette), or Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/robertaisleib.) She also blogs with the wonderful women at Jungle Red Writers.

Comments

[Karen in Ohio]

How delicious, to knead and twist observed characters and dialogue into story fodder.

At the British Museum cafeteria I sat down for a little lunch next to a couple of women. One was bitterly complaining about her daughter, and her daughter-in-law, but openly admitted that she loved her son way more, and forgave him every transgression. The other woman kept trying to tell her why that was wrong, but she couldn't get a word in edgewise. It was so entertaining, like reading a scene in a well crafted novel.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

OH, KAren..amazing. I often wonder why people don't realize that not only can they be heard, but that some of us ( ;-) ) will listen with fascination!

[Lucy Burdette]

thank you for having me over to FF Hank!

And yes, we'll not only listen, we'll write it down and use it:)

[Mark]

I'm not a writer, so those types of things pass me right by. However, I'm sure if I were thinking of it, I'd find lots of every day things I would enjoy.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of Murder with Ganache, so it was fun to see where some of those scenes came from.

And go out and buy the book. It's a great read!

(I already have the book, so please feel free to give it to someone else.)

[Ann M]

I love reading where the little things in a book come from. ;)

[Betty Escobar]

Dont we all like overhearing some people talk, lol

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

MArk, thank you! Always a treat to hear from you! ox

And I know, Ann and Betty, doesn't it make you be extra careful? We never know who's is passionately listening!

[Sally Schmidt]

At first it's fun and a little naughty to overhear a few words - but then they keep talking. Ewwwww.

I love the fact that on the various blogs I follow you are all so excited and supportive as each others' books come out. What a wonderful community you have. And what a wonderful linkage for us readers, more and more fun books to add to my TBR list.

[Deb Romano]

I'm pretty quiet when I'm in a crowd, and one reason is that I like listening to the stories people tell (even when they don't know they have my attention:-)Good thing I don't talk about some of the things I overhear! Once when I was on a ferry, I overheard a man calling his attorney to discuss personal details of his divorce and custody arrangement. There was a whole boatload of people around him as he did this!

[Lucy Burdette]

Here was another bad one, Deb--I was riding the train home from New York to Connecticut. A well-dressed woman got on our car with her cell phone and proceeded to tell her boyfriend about her day and announce that she was on the way over to his apartment. Every single one of us saw her face and heard her voice when he told her not to come. How humiliating...hmmm...next book?

And thank you Sally--the mystery writing community is truly an incredible bunch of people!

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

OH, that's incredibly sad, Lucy! Sigh. ANd it's rally interesting--pushing this now--how that tells you a while story, doesn't it?

DebRo, hi! and yeah, people just forget there's a real world out there.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Sally, thank you. Yes,it's a terrific community. And delighted you are part of it!

[Mary]

Congrats, LucyRo! Sounds like another winner. And I love the cover. That looks like my cat rolling in the grass. :) I'm looking forward to reading about Schnootie. :)

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

And the winner of LUCY's book is SALLY! Sally, email me at hryan at whdh dot com --and tell me your address!

[Tuscan]

It's funny to overhear a few sentences,but then the people keep talkin" and talkin" and so it gets boring.

[Charlaine Harris]

Airport bathrooms are the worst. The WORST. That's where the staff go to get out of the sightline of their supervisors, I suppose, and conduct intensely personal conversations, though they must be aware anyone in the stalls can overhear!

Charlaine Harris

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Oh, you are SO right, Charlaine! I suppose they don't care..after all, we're not going to rat them out...

Hmmm...