I’M WRITING NEW BOOK

A few years ago I published my first mystery novel, Murder In The Inn, followed, the next year, by Another Murder In The Inn and now, I’m working on Murder In Another Inn .  This might seem like a lack of imagination in titles but there’s  a good reason.  The first two Inn books  are set in Washington DC where I lived but, since I moved to Miami Beach, I decided that the  protagonist, Sandy, the owner of the Inn,  should move too.  Sandy, and her husband, the comedian Joey Jason, will decide to buy  a bed and breakfast inn in Miami Beach and become snowbirds, dividing their time between DC and Florida.  I’ve  become very attached to Sandy and Joey,  Noah the house-keeper, Janie, Sandy’s step-daughter and Allison, Sandy’s twin sister and it feels so good to be  writing about them again; its sort of like catching up with old friends.  I’m going to write the book in the same format as the first two; each chapter  will begin  with a telephone message from Sandy and continue with her narration of the events.

There will be lots of new characters like  Chef George, the celebrity chef, Sophie, the owner  of the catering company Sophie Says Eat, Tommy Silk, a dance instructor at Smooth as Silk Dance Studio, Marsha, the president of the Temple Sisterhood, Jay Harmon, the best-selling author,  and Joshua Greenburg, , a young, single rabbi.   They and several others  will be staying in the Inn and will participate in a murder mystery week-end, a Jewish Passover Seder and a book-signing event.  Janie will begin a romance with a very unlikely suitor and of course, there will be a murder (or two) to keep Sandy busy

I think about the book and the characters constantly; they are almost as real to me as friends  I see everyday. I  talk to Sandy and Janie and Noah  in my head and almost dream about them.  I can see the book, I can see myself holding it in my hand and turning the pages.  I picture  it on Amazon and in bookstores. I feel like it is already written and finished but it’s  not even half-way there, except in my mind. I’ve been  been working on it on and off for a few months but now, I’m going to get serious and focused. So far I’ve  completed a brief outline, a rough draft  and a  character description detailing each person’s personality and  relationship tothe others. That was a  really fascinating thing to do, I didn’t  know, until I wrote it, that Marsha was divorced from Chef George or that Sophie had a terrible temper or that Melvin owned Glass restaurant. I get so attached to my characters, it’s really hard to murder one of them and even harder to decide which one will turn out to be the murderer.

My plan  is to  write a thousand words a day plus edit the previous day’s work and to have the book finished by my birthday in April. I’m going to blog about my progress from time to time because  I work best under the pressure of a deadline, even if that deadline is self-imposed.  I’m going to pretend that I have an editor breathing down my neck saying “write, Write, write that book.” I’m going to imagine  that there are hundreds of readers clamoring for it and empty shelves in bookstores waiting for it.   I’m starting tomorrow morning, right after I swim and eat breakfast and read the newspaper and check my email.

www. booksbybarbara.com

BINGO! IT’S MURDER

Two years ago I wrote a seven character murder mystery play called “Bingo! it’s Murder” It takes place in a bingo parlor and the audience actually gets to play several games of bingo as the characters appear, until a murder happens and a detective takes over. I named the characters Belle, Irene, Nick, Oliver and Ginger. Why is that important? Well, what do the first letters of every name spell? Ooh! As someone who shudders when people name the lawyers in their plays something like Dewey, Cheatem and Howe I’m sort of surprised at myself but…I had to do it!
Several theaters have expressed interest in producing “Bingo! It’s Murder: and one is actually planning to do so in 2015 but i’m the kind of person who likes things done “yesterday”. I’m getting impatient so…I decided to turn “Bingo” into a One woman play and produce it myself using people in the audience as the other characters. I’ve already produced several other plays using that system and it’s been very successful and cost effective. Take a look at my website, murderisserved.com for more information about the one woman plays.
“Bingo, IT’S MURDER” will be presented in Miami Beach the end of February, I’m busy buying bingo cards…should I get the disposal paper ones or the heavier, re-usable ones? finding bingo trivia for the before-play game…did you know bingo was first called Beano? and buying cute, clever and inexpensive prizes. I love dollar stores!
Everything is in place, all i need is an audience. I’ve sent out press releases, emailed information to my mailing list..(want to join?) tweeted and put information on Facebook and distributed flyers. Anyone want to make a reservation?

barbara@mysteryonthemenu.com

MURDER MYSTERY CHARACTERS ARE (ALMOST) REAL

I’ve been writing interactive murder mysteries since 1986 and  in that time  I’ve  created a whole collection of characters  who have become almost more real to me than actual, live people  Some of my favorites are   Elizabeth Crandall, the society hostess, Dr. Audrey Taylor who writes the advice column Ask Audrey Anything, Countess Maria, the noted fortune-teller,  Danny (Duke Carleton) the notorious gambler,  Robby Ray the famous singer, Ms. Maddy the matchmaker  and Senator Bobby whose campaign speech is short and simple.  “I stand on my record”

These people pop up in several different plays.   Sometimes  they are suspects, sometimes, (although its getting harder and harder for me to write it)   they are the guilty person or even the victim!   I’d really rather  create a whole new character for the victim or the “bad guy”,  a  new character who I haven’t bonded with, who I don’t especially care about or like.  I love Elizabeth and Countess Maria and Dr. Audrey,  Robby and Ms Maddy;  Duke and Senator Bobby make me smile. It feels wrong,  almost cruel and unfeeling,  to kill them or make them into criminals.

The setting of the play determines who the characters will be. Reunions Are Murder,  about a nineteen fifties high school reunion,  has a cheer-leader, a class president, the football hero, a prom queen and the greasers.   A Corporate Crime has the CEO, , his ambitious assistant, the advertising and marketing directors and the competitor;  “Lights, Camera, Murder” features the director, the stars, the jealous understudy and the financial backer and “Murder At Sea” has the captain, the cruise director, the entertainer and the chef.

Finding just the right name for  these people is a challenge; I  sometimes  make several changes (Laura, Joan, Angie??)   until one sounds just right for the character.    Since the plays are participatory I  include complete backgrounds, histories and relationships for these characters so that the actors who play them are prepared  and can answer any questions the audience might ask.  And they do ask!

“Where did you meet your bride?”  “How long have you worked at The Crumpert Cookie Company?”   “What did you do before you were a Senator?”  “How did you get started in show business?”  The actors in the show have to know the correct answers so as not to mislead or confuse the audience.

I recently met a woman who has the same name as one of my characters; it’s hard to think her as an activity director because,  in my mind she is ….i won’t print her name—the former actress who now makes Wolf Dog Food commercials

The characters  are truly real to me ; I  wanted to remember them, keep them in a more permanent form than the plays so I put several of them into mystery novels , Murder In The Inn and Another Murder In the Inn  and   Murder Is Served (short mystery stories which use all of the characters that didn’t fit into the Inn books).

I’ve also created a whole “mystery world” but, that’s another article.

mysteryonthemenu.com—-murderisserved.com

WRITING IS A MYSTERY

I started writing murder mysteries in 1986 when I was asked to  organize an interactive  murder mystery dinner theater  at a resort. I searched libraries and contacted agencies that leased plays  but I  couldn’t find a suitable script; this was before the internet and before participatory mysteries became popular.

I was, (in addition to being an actress in local theater) a free lance newspaper reporter.   I  wrote articles about businesses, travel and shopping, did interviews,  even published a shopping newsletter but I had  never tried writing fiction.  A book was on my “someday in the future” list but it looked like the future had caught up with me.  I needed a script–yesterday.

So, I wrote a script.   Murder In The International Hotel, was staged at Coolfont Resort in West Virginia on Friday, June 13th, 1986. It had a  sinister gangster, a glamorous singer, a debonair detective in a tuxedo, a mysterious couple, a suspicious photographer, even a handsome playboy with his leg in a cast  (an important clue) and of course, a murder (or two)  That phrase “A murder (or two) was used in all of the advertising; I still use it today.

Since then, I’ve written many, many scripts  and created dozens of characters , Countess Maria the psychic, Elizabeth Crandall ( society hostess), Duke Carleton ( shady Casino owner)  Senator Bobby from Texas,  Ms Maddy the matchmaker and many others who are, sometimes  more real to me than actual real, live  people.  I created a who  Mystery world,   Greenway  country club, Appleton University, The Best Deal Auction House, The New Wave Art Gallery,  Brookings Publishing Company, the island of Topaz, a government agency FACE which stands for Federal Agency for Criminal  Examination, even a whole country, Latvaria  which is an emerging nation in Europe .

I became so  attached to these people and those places;   I  wanted to keep them in a more permanent form than the plays so a few years ago I   put  them into a book, Murder In The inn and a sequel  Another Murder In the Inn and finally, since there were so many characters and places and plots, into a book of short mysteries, Murder Is Served.  

I sometimes wonder if all this would have happened   if I had been able to find a mystery script back in 1986?

mysteryonthemenu.com–murderisserved.com–booksbybarbara.com