Saturday, August 25, 2012

Write What You Know?

Every writer knows the old adage “ Write what you know.” 
My father used to ask me “How can you write this stuff?”  You see I had intended to right sweet romances but the universe had other ideas for me. Dead bodies kept showing up. He couldn’t understand how his only daughter, who dreamed of knights and princeses, was writing about killers.

Actually how could I not. I’m the granddaughter and niece of a police man. Growing up I watched, police and cowboy shows. Yes there was murder and death but there was something else, there was honorable men, men of principle who treated their women right. These are the men I use as model for my heroes.

A few years back, I was invited by my then publisher to be part of a paranormal series. She wanted me to do one particular story but then I got a look at the bible for the series.
One story line in particular caught my attention and it wasn’t the one she wanted me to do. Luckily I knew just where I was going to set the story and  Murder on Dark Fort Isle was born.

Up until then, I had set all but one of my books in New England, where I grew up. This would follow that but go one better. I set it in the part of town I grew up. There was one problem, I hadn’t lived there in over twenty years. Luckily I still had family there and was able to double check everything.  When the book came out I put chapter one on my website.  I had changed the names of places but anyone who  lived there for anylength of time knew where I was talking about. One day my dad called. “You’re brother showed me your website and I read your pages.  I knew right where you were.” That was almost as good as making a bestseller list.

Someone is killing the teenagers of South Boston. Detective Allison Wynn and her partner are assigned the case. Working with Orlando Valentine, college professor, psychic and so called vampire expert, they race the clock to find the killer. Before they become the next victims. 
Murder on Dark Fort Isle (ISBN-13: 978-1468144086) available on Amazon.com and on Smashwords

2 comments:

Judith Ashley said...

Good for you, Elaine. I think it takes a special stick-to-itiveness to write a book set in a real location because the people who live there will know and call the writer on any errors.

There are many aspects of where I live I wanted to incorporate into the setting of my books but I didn't want to be hampered by the realities of the streets and buildings. Voila, Fremont, Oregon was born.

Thanks for adding guesting to your regular Genre-ista duties!

ElaineCharton said...

I enjoyed doing it Judith.