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.