by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I struggle to find the energy to blog anymore. Now that I’ve gotten to the point where I can, in the distance, see the Promised Land of potentially selling at least one novel…blogging for about a hundred people doesn’t engender a lot of interest. But, occasionally someone interesting coming from, say, New York City or LA, will read this blog and I have a sudden burst of interest in blogging again just because.
Anyway, as I’ve written a lot before, there are two major creative works that have influenced these five novels I’m working on. One is Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, or, more specifically, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and, second the limited series Mare of Eattown.
When I saw Mare of Easttown, I instantly knew I needed to up my game. The reason is — it was exactly what I wanted in these novels. It was character driven and had a lot of twists and turns. A character driven series, rather than a pulp police procedural is something I can do. I love Larsson’s work and have read The Girl Who Played With Fire over and over again, but when it comes to a police procedural, it’s going to be a real stretch. That type of writing just isn’t in my skillset.
But a character driven mystery based around an older woman, I can do — even though I’m an older man. Wink. The first two novels of these five novels really deal with a Mare Of Easttown-type woman. She’s a little older and has a fractured family situation to deal with. Other than that, however, the two characters could not be more different.
The most important thing is, I have some sense of the motivation of my major characters AND I know the macro elements of these five novels well enough to be able to sprinkle things I’m going to need during the course of the macro story in the first book.
I will remind you, however, that all of these books are their own thing. If I do my job well, you will be able to pick any one up them up, read it to the end and be content without having to read any of the other books.
