Merryvale Songs

By Robin Weaver

This month's theme is Holiday Read Recommendations; while I love Christmas, I'm not a fan of celebrating too early. Too much of a good thing, and all that...  

Anyway, I haven't yet ready anything holiday and have no recommendations. Instead, I'm going to blog about how much fun I had writing the Merryvale novellas.  Thanks for your indulgence. 😊

The Gingerbread Skirmish Writing Experience

“They” say writers should avoid being clever. At all cost. But while writing my Merryvale holiday novellas, I didn’t listen.

Cleverness was attempted. Sort of.  

I did restricted my attempts to the chapter subtitles. For each of the three stories in the series, I tried to modify the title of a Christmas song to create a one-line summary of my chapters.  Thinking this would be fun for the readers, and definitely fun for me, I also hoped those kind of subtitles would help get the reader into the spirit.

For example, in CHRISTMAS TREE WARS, the first chapter is called O’ Little Town of Bets—a play on O' Little Town of Bethlehem. Obviously, there’s a wager (to goad our heroine into entering the Christmas Tree Contest). Chapter Two of the second book (Full Contact Decorating) chapter two is subtitled, Deck the Halls…with Shiny Red Balls.  It’s not what you think—or maybe it is. :)

What was the reaction? Mixed.  One reviewer loved it, another considered it kitschy.  Even my own critique partners had opposite opinions; one said I should cut the subtitles, another said the carol-word-play was the best part of the book. Since I’d kitsch’d my titles in the first two novellas, I felt I had to continue the trend in book three, THE GINGERBREAD SKIRMISH.

My personal favorites include:

·       Do I Have to Be Home for Christmas

·       What Childishness Is This

·       Chestnuts Roasted

·       Do You Hear What I Heard Wrong

·       I Saw Mommy Hugging Santa Claus…Cost Him Five Percent

 

Perhaps it’s just as well that The Gingerbread Skirmish is the last story in the series—I’ve run out of Christmas songs. :)  I hope readers can at least tolerate the subtitles, because I had so much fun with them. At the end of the day, don’t we writers deserve a little fun with words?

Have the best holidays ever!

Robin

Contemporary Settings: In the Here and “How”

By Robin Weaver

As an author whose first love is mystery/suspense, I keep scenery description to a minimum. Thus, the imagery I do include on the page has to carry a lot of impact. While the locale doesn’t have to be Rio de Janeiro exciting, any setting information must be pertinent to the plot and more than “just a little” interesting.

Unless I’m writing fantasy, I don’t typically set contemporary stories in a place I’ve never been. Why? Because when it comes to scenery, I need to “feel” the location before I can write about the place. Sure, I could easily Google any place on Earth. There are millions of pictures, videos, and detailed descriptions; all the information a writer needs. Only you can’t smell a JPEG. Nor can you can’t sense the hustle and bustle of a city by reading a street map. I can get into my character’s head without ever meeting her, but I need to actually plant my feet in the place she lives to portray the setting vividly.

Even when I set a scene in a place I’ve visited before, I like to return to the scene of the crime if possible. For example, when I decided to have my heroine experience a scary encounter on Chimney Rock in North Carolina, I took a hike—literally.  I absorb the details and incorporate the majestic views into the scene, from my character’s perspective, of course.

She hobbled outside and across the wooden walkway, heading toward the clear-span bridge leading to the chimney. The scent of pine intertwined with pure, fresh air and rushed into her lungs, displacing her wooziness. The spectacle of the mountain backlit with bright blue skies almost made her forgot she had to get in the same elevator for her return trip.

But scenery is just prose without a plot. During my visit to the mountain, I spotted a shadowy figure in the Opera Box (a ledge in the side of the mountain) that inspired another scene.  I also discovered a really cool niche—perfect for hiding the body in my next book.

Do I ever use fictional places in my contemporary stories?  Absolutely. In my holiday novellas, The Christmas Tree Wars, Full-Contact Decorating, and The Gingerbread Skirmish, the town of Merryvale does not exist—not to my knowledge anyway. Even so, it’s not entirely fictional. I incorporated parts of Concord, Massachusetts, Burlington, Vermont, and a little taste of three North Carolina towns--Concord, Asheville, and Boone--to create my fictional backdrop. 

For my non-contemporary novels, I do make up places. My fantasy novels are set on a different planet. I haven't been there. Honestly .J