Research Part 2: Guest Author Kristina Stanley

 

Kristina Stanley's debut novel, Descent, was an instant bestseller and continues to garner rave reviews.  She's a fellow Imajin Books author and a great addition to our Imajination team with her enthusiasm, inspiration and support. I'm thrilled to have her here as a guest to talk about research, my pet topic this summer.


Catherine has asked me to talk about researching my novel DESCENT, so let’s talk research.

We’ve all heard the saying write what you know. Well, I think it should be write what you love. If you’re not interested in something, and I mean deeply interested, how can you spend endless hours researching and writing your novel?

In order of fun and importance, my methods of research are:

• Life experience
• Interviewing experts
• Online research

Being the director of security in an isolated ski resort inspired me to write the Stone Mountain Mystery series. I lived the life for almost six years and paid attention to what happened around me. I wrote the first in the series, DESCENT, after I moved from the ski resort to a sailboat in the Bahamas.

In DESCENT, there is skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, night hikes, employee terminations, medical emergencies and interactions with RCMP. Due to my job and my lifestyle, I’ve participated in all these things. This provided the basis of facts. Then comes the imagination. One dead ski racer, many suspects: all the more believable because the underlying story is believable.

When using real life experience, I was careful not to write about actual events or people. The trick is to use an event to spark the imagination, turn it into something evil or dangerous, exaggerate it, expand it, and go from there.

Now here’s an important research tip. Keep in touch with all you work or play with. This group of people will become your experts. After I left the resort I interviewed ski technicians, RCMP constables, snowmakers, lift operators and security officers.  When I needed details, these people were there for me. I found most were happy to contribute to the process of writing a novel. In return, they get mentioned in the acknowledgement section of DESCENT.

Online research is my last resort. For DESCENT, I used the Internet to ensure I used the right language for a skier aiming to be part of the Alpine Canada ski adventure.

So why not descend into fiction and order a copy of DESCENT at amazon.com, amazon.ca or the amazon hosted in your country? To entice you, here is what DESCENT is about:

http://www.amazon.ca/Descent-Stone-Mountain-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B01053N6CA

When Kalin Thompson is promoted to Director of Security at Stone Mountain Resort, she soon becomes entangled in the high-profile murder investigation of an up-and-coming Olympic-caliber skier. There are more suspects with motives than there are gates on the super-G course, and danger mounts with every turn.

Kalin’s boss orders her to investigate. Her boyfriend wants her to stay safe and let the cops do their job. Torn between loyalty to friends and professional duty, Kalin must look within her isolated community to unearth the killer’s identity.

BLAZE (to be release this fall by www.ImajinBooks.com) is the second in the Stone Mountain Mystery series and is a tale about arson, betrayal and revenge. Heading up security was again a great asset. The security team was tightly linked to the fire department, and you guessed it, the firefighters were an awesome group to interview. A first person account of what it’s like to walk through a burning building is terrifying but makes for a good story.

The third in the series, AVALANCHE, has Kalin Thompson searching for a thief, struggling to prove her brother is innocent of a major theft. Unfortunately for Kalin, her brother disappears in an avalanche hours after the theft and is the prime suspect.

REQUEST FOR READER ASSISTANCE: I’m writing the fourth in the Stone Mountain Mystery series. A business partner of Kalin’s is murdered while driving his ATV on a mountain trail. He’s forced into a frothing river… My problem with the fourth novel is I have to stop calling it “the fourth.” I need a title. If you have any suggestions for a title that fits with DESCENT, BLAZE and AVALANCHE, please leave a comment below.

You can find out more about me at www.KristinaStanley.com. I’d love to hear from you so drop by and leave a comment or connect with me @StanleyKMS. Follow me and I follow back.

Thank you, Catherine, for hosting me. It’s a pleasure to share your blog with you.

Research: Guest Blogger: Author Gloria Ferris

 

Gloria Ferris is one of those naturally witty people who make you feel comfortable and happy in her presence at hello. She adds that intelligent humor to her books, along with well-researched, exciting plots and hilarious characters who  ought to be real so we could follow them around and have fun with them.

Here's Gloria's treatise on research for your enlightenment and entertainment!

 

For my first four books, I’ve researched spirit guides, guns, antiques, architecture, Honduran laws and policing, gangs, jungle plants, motorcycles, body putrefaction, WWII weapons, greenhouse construction, poisons, witchcraft, abandoned cemeteries...

The list goes on. And I loved the time I spent on every subject.

 I think the most challenging research came about because my publisher added the sub-title “A Cornwall & Redfern Mystery” to the cover of my second novel, CORPSE FLOWER. 

Bliss Cornwall was my protagonist and Neil Redfern was the Chief of Police. I hadn’t intended that Neil become a co-protagonist, but now I had to ramp up his role in the second book, SHROUD OF ROSES. I knew nada about small town policing so reached out to the police chief of the small town on Lake Huron where I lived for over 20 years and which is the inspiration for my fictional town of Lockport.

We corresponded for over a year, and he answered my most inane questions with patience and good humour. Each summer I rent a cottage for a week in my former hometown and last year I asked if we could meet. He offered to give me a personal tour of the station. Heck ya! Here was my chance to see how a real, small town police service operated. Keep in mind I was a law abiding citizen while I lived there so I had no personal experience with the police. (Okay, once I had to bail my dog out, but that wasn’t my fault. Oh, yeah, and the time I backed out of my driveway into the car parked in the suicide spot. Again, not my fault.)

I presented myself at the station on time and was asked by the teenage receptionist to have a seat in the conference room. I was a bit nervous. With my notebook and pen ready, I waited a couple of minutes. And then the door opened.

Holy mama! May I be struck dead by a Taser jolt if the guy in uniform standing in the doorway wasn’t the living embodiment of my hot fictional Chief Neil Redfern. Right down to the spiky blond hair. How could this be? Could I have channelled him into my fiction?

He showed me the cells (really clean), interrogation room, state-of-the-art fingerprinting machine, weapons room, evidence storage (eau de pot!) but I neglected to jot down a single note. I tried not to stare, but subtlety isn’t one of my several virtues. It’s all a bit of a blur.

Next month when I have my lakeside holiday, I’ll drop off a copy of SHROUD OF ROSES at the station, to thank Neil … I mean, the chief, for all his help. I believe I should also give him a copy of CORPSE FLOWER, the first Cornwall & Redfern mystery written before I met the real deal. Just to prove I didn’t use him as the model for Neil Redfern. However, I must not simper. I must not giggle…

SHROUD OF ROSES comes out TODAY, July 18, 2015! 

http://www.amazon.com/Shroud-Roses-Cornwall-Redfern-Mystery/dp/1459730607

Gloria Ferris is the award-winning author of humorous mysteries Cheat the Hangman, Corpse Flower and Shroud of Roses. Her first co-written suspense venture with author Donna Warner, Targeted, will be released in the fall of 2015. When not writing, Gloria works on character profiles, researches plot lines, reads continuously, and is often heard to mutter, “I wish I’d written that!”. She is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada, the Crime Writers’ Association (UK), and the International Thriller Writers. She lives in southwestern Ontario.

GUEST POST! Author Alison Bruce: Take Off First, Plot Course Later

If I flew an aircraft like I write a book, Transport Canada would be revoking my pilot’s license. When I sit down and start a new story, it’s strictly seat-of-the-pants. Some idea, or scene, or opening line will strike me and I take off from there.  Later, I start plotting my course. (I think they have a rule about making flight plans first.)

For me, it’s important to get that first creative surge going so I can get a sense of whether or not the story is worth the hours of research, writing and rewriting necessary to produce a novel. Some ideas just don’t fly. I have notebooks full of openings, with maybe a brief outline, and nothing else. Sometimes I go back to them, looking for an idea that might have found its time.

A Bodyguard to Remember was a little unusual in that I wrote almost the entire first draft by the seat of my pants. I don’t usually get further than the first couple of chapters before I go into planning mode. Partly this was because I had a most of the basic law enforcement research at my fingertips after working on Deadly Legacy. I also had a good background in military protocols because of personal and family experience and academic research.

Okay, let’s be honest. I had to update my military research and make some significant changes in the story details. Most of my previous research was circa WWII except my own experience which was circa 1980. Can we say a bit out of date?

A lot of the military parts ended up being jettisoned. They weighed down the story and had to go. If I had planned things earlier in the story, they might not have been there at all. One set of characters, that I was very fond of, didn’t make it into the book at all. I didn’t just dump them, though. They’ll take flight in another story.

A BODYGUARD TO REMEMBER
Book 1 Men in Uniform
By Alison Bruce
Lachesis Publishing Inc
 “Classic romantic suspense spiced with warmth and humour”

Prudence Hartley has the same problems of every other single mom: getting her kids to school on time; juggling a gazillion errands while trying to get a full day's work done; oh, don't forget about dinner. But everything is about to change for Pru when she finds a dead man in her house. Or a dead spy to be exact.

Suddenly Pru's problems become a tad more complicated and a lot more dangerous. When a federal agent named David Merrick shows up and whisks her and her kids into protective custody, Pru has so many questions running through her brain she doesn't know where to begin.

How is she going to keep her kids safe? What was the dead spy looking for in her house? Why are they after her now? Oh and there's one more question . . . just a pesky, minor thing. Why does Merrick have to be so damn sexy and protective?

Available at:
Amazon US 
Lachesis Publishing Inc
Chapters/Indigo Online

Author Bio:
Alison Bruce has had many careers and writing has always been one of them. Copywriter, editor and graphic designer since 1992, Alison has also been a comic book store manager, small press publisher, webmaster and arithmetically challenged bookkeeper. She is the author of mystery, suspense and historical western romance novels.