Co-Creating Characters by Will Zeilinger and Janet Elizabeth Lynn
July 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as co-writing, crime fiction, mysteries, writing partners
CO-CREATING CHARACTERS
by
Will Zeilinger
Question from a guest at one of our recent book events: “You two write crime fiction but how do you come up with some of your characters? Are they like, people you know—people like me?”
We get asked that question more often than you’d think, and the answer is that creating characters is probably one of the aspects of a story we spend the most time discussing.
Since we are co-writing the fifth book in the Skylar Drake Mysteries, our main characters are pretty much fleshed out. In each story, we reveal a little more about their personalities and histories. But these were developed before we ever wrote a word.
We made a profile of each character which included their backgrounds, their physical description, their likes and dislikes, and added any little quirks they might have. Please understand when we say quirks, we’re not mocking or making fun of a person’s physical or mental challenges, rather, some of the people we’ve known are downright weird.
This is the same process we’ve used for new characters in subsequent stories. Some of the “quirky” traits are more pronounced in some characters than in others, to the point that we always seem to find a character for our story who is plainly odd.
As to whether our characters are disguised versions of real people—We’d have to say, no. Not really. We like to “people watch” at malls, concerts, airports, the checkout line, at church and even in our writers’ groups.
When we were both working full-time, we found a never-ending supply of personalities and quirks in the people we worked with every day.
For instance, one of us worked with a person who would sit at lunch and eat in a circular pattern around his plate – usually clockwise. If you asked him a question or distracted him in any way, he would stop and return to the top or “12 o’clock” position on his plate and start over. This person had a management position but clearly qualified as quirky. We haven’t used this quirk yet, nor the one of the woman who would not eat or drink anything purple.
We’ve even drawn on classmates from childhood, high school or those we’d met on a few of our first minimum-wage jobs.
From our discreet observations, we write character sketches, talk about them and morph them into a unique personality.
These “people watching” experiences for character development also lead us to great conversational snippets that we use in some of our dialog. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t write this stuff.” And in truth, sometimes great characters or dialog falls into our lap.
In our fourth co-written mystery, Slick Deal, you’ll see how Skylar Drake and Casey Dolan react with quirky characters to work out the murder. With our fifth Skylar Drake Mystery in the works, we are still discussing and creating characters for his latest adventure—and yes…we are still married!
1 0 Read moreAutoettes: The tiny cars of Avalon by Will Zeilinger
June 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as autoettes, cars, Catalina, mysteries, research
My wife, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, and I co-write the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series, a hardboiled series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, Slick Deal, begins News Year’s Eve 1956 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, The first murder and clues lead to Avalon, Catalina.
While researching this island for 
our story, we discovered it exists a whole world apart from the car culture of Los Angeles which, if truth be known, does not provide a lot of incentive to bring a conventional automobile to the island when the wait is fourteen years.
Why would the wait be so long for an island just twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide? According to our unscientific research, cars and trucks were posing quite a problem for the residents and visitors to the island. Pollution, soaring fuel prices, traffic, and parking were causing the kind of environment most people came to the island to escape. So a limit of 800 “personal use” vehicles was imposed for the entire island.
Prior to this ordinance, many islanders had already switched from conventional vehicles to smaller modes of transportation, such as motor scooters, and “autoettes” which is the name for vehicles no more than ten feet long and four and a half feet wide. Most of these are electric or gasoline golf carts, and tiny Japanese commercial trucks and vans. Recently “Smart Cars” have begun to appear.
There are separate waiting lists for residential vehicles and commercial vehicles. Importing an autoette doesn’t provide any loopholes either. The vehicle waiting lists apply to both cars and autoettes.
While ferries travel from Los Angeles to Avalon daily, they accommodate passengers only. If you’re importing a vehicle, you have to arrange for private transportation
As a property owner or a potential property owner looking to import a personal vehicle to Catalina Island, all the restrictions make for a frustrating task, but it’s for the good of the island. Avalon currently (2017) has space to park fewer than 1,000 autoettes in the main downtown area. As there are already over 1,100 autoette permits issued for residents. Adding more would only create stress on the limited space. Even now, Avalon seems overrun by puttering rental golf carts, courtesy vans from hotels and local residents in their four-wheel drive pickups. But Catalina Island retains its laid-back air and restrictions like these keep the island from turning into the polluted perpetual traffic jam and parking nightmare that looms on the mainland.
In Slick Deal, you’ll see how Skylar Drake and Casey Dolan use the technology of the time to solve the mystery.
SLICK DEAL is the fourth in the series and yes…we are still married!
Website: Janet Elizabeth Lynn
Website: Will Zeilinger
1 0 Read morePartnering in Writing
May 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as co-writing, partners, research
Partnering in Writing: Researching with two brains and four eyes.
My husband, Will Zeilinger, and I co-write the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series, a hardboiled series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, Slick Deal, begins News Year’s Eve 1956 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the first murder and clues lead to Avalon, Catalina.
Having to research can be overwhelming, especially for period pieces. Because we write about the 1950s, research is a must for the reader to get the feel for the setting, decade and culture of the novel.
Since there are two of us, we want to make the most of the time spent at the library and/or museums. Splitting the work up and knowing what each of us is looking for needs to be planned rather tightly. Phone calls to the librarian asking how the information is filed can help. Also, the librarian, given enough time, will many times pull the material for you and have it ready when you arrive.
We still use pen and paper because of the rapid pace we research. Be sure your partner is situated at the same table. When we were researching SLICK DEAL at the L.A County Library in Avalon, I came across an article about the Catalina Grand Prix. It was held from 1951-58. I nudged Will. He read it, and his eyebrows went up. We were thinking the same thing…an unexpected subplot!
Then there are the meetings to decide what fits in the story. Several meetings and discussions followed by making lists of plots and subplots.
SLICK DEAL was released April 16, it is the fourth in the Skylar Drake series…and yes, we are still married!
Website: Janet Elizabeth Lynn Website: Will Zeilinger
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The Luxurious Fur Coat
April 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1950s Fashion, hardboiled mysteries, The Skylar Drake Murder Mystery Series
My husband, Will Zeilinger and I co-write the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series, a hardboiled series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, Slick Deal, begins News Year’s Eve 1956 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the first murder and clues lead to Avalon, Catalina.
One of the challenges of writing a period piece is finding the right styles to dress our characters to match their personality. The rich matron, Mayme Wright, was a challenge because she was an integral part of the story. She lived in a mansion in Avalon. So I researched the beautiful fur coats I remembered ladies wearing in New York, (I was born in Queen) in the 1950s. The feel and the weight of these coats were etched in my memory.
Fur coats were glamorous and dressier than the everyday coat used by most people, i.e., the shopping, doctor appointments, etc. They were cut in the same shapes as everyday coats of the fifties. Certain furs looked better in certain styles. The box coat and swagger style looked best with thick fox, sable and seal fur. Faux furs were an option for the less affluent as well as the cheaper squirrel and marmot dyed to look like sable.
The sleeves were wide and open and collars were high and closed with a longer hair fur piece trimming the collar. To keep with the polished style of fur coats, closures were two or three buttons or clasps on the upper part of the coat. Some box styles coats had a single clasp at the neckline. Pockets were slash openings on the coat sides. The wealthy woman showcased themselves by the fur and beauty of her 1950s fur coat.
While most fur coats were full length or at least hip length, a few came in shorter waist length styles. The cape coat, popular in the 1940s, remained common into the 1950s. Coats like the short fur Diamond brand coat became increasingly popular in the late ’50s and ’60s when styles changed to the slim sheath dress rather than the full circle dress.
For those who could not afford a full-length coat, fur stoles, muffs and shawls were a popular alternative. Fur trim on short or long jackets also added a touch of richness without the outrageous price tag.
Mayme Wright was wearing her sable full-length coat when she went missing in Avalon.
SLICK DEAL is the fourth in the series and…yes we are still married!
Website: Janet Elizabeth Lynn
Website: Will Zeilinger
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Visiting the Scene or Vacation? by Will Zeilinger
March 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as mysteries, research, writing partners
My wife Janet Lynn, and I have been writing together for several years and are just completing our fourth co-written murder mystery novel. Since our stories are set in the 1950s, we have to research many of the locations that have either changed or no longer exist. And because our storylines take us to distant places, we travel to many of those sites in order to get it right. Google Earth is great, and the web is invaluable, but there is only so much you can learn from these resources. Nothing beats being there in person. This works out great because we both love to travel.
For our first Skylar Drake Mystery, SLIVERS OF GLASS, we traveled to the northern California wine country, including Sonoma County, Bodega Bay and Santa Rosa.
STRANGE MARKINGS took us to Molokai where we researched pre-statehood Hawaii. This was the only Hawaiian island that wasn’t overly developed and gave us an idea of Hawaii before all the high-rise buildings. 
Las Vegas in the mid-1950s was the setting for DESERT ICE. Most of our time was spent in the Special Collections at the UNLV Library, the Clark County Library and the Nevada State Museum. The Mob Museum to really give us the flavor of Vegas in 1955. We also had the opportunity to interview a Las Vegas Dancer and the daughter a notorious mobster who lived there in the 1950s.
When we tell friends and family about our trips, they turn green with envy and mistakenly think we are on a vacation. Nothing could be further from the truth, although we do learn things a “normal” tourist wouldn’t. We are entertained by the people we meet and the historical tidbits that come to light during our research.
Success in our research may stem from the questions Janet asks hotel staff, restaurant wait staff and sometimes random residents we meet on the street. She’ll ask, “If you needed to dump a dead body around here… where would you put it?” The result is one of two different reactions. First: The person will take a couple of steps back and look around for an escape route. Or Second: They’ll provide specific locations of abandoned buildings, intersections, cemetery names, coves, cliffs or other places. This can seem a bit disconcerting, because that response means they’ve thought about this in depth. There are times I’ve felt like taking a couple of steps back myself.
Our most recent book is a prime example. SLICK DEAL is set in 1956 on Santa Catalina Island. (only twenty-something miles off the coast of southern California.) We did exhaustive online research before consulting the Long Beach Main Library. We happened to be on Catalina Island for other reasons a few months ago and stopped in at the Visitors Center. They also referred us to the Avalon branch of the L.A. County Library , which happened to be closed at the time we visited. We next visited the Chamber of Commerce, who, once again, referred us to the Library. This wasn’t going to work, so we visited the Catalina Conservancy. Guess where they referred us. Yes, the Library. We thought we had it solved when we went to the Catalina Island Museum. Again, they said, to try the Library. This prompted another visit to the Island when the Library was open. We scheduled it during the month our story took place and many questions were answered. The staff was helpful and even provided white cotton gloves so we could rummage through their archives.
Some of the most interesting facts came from the guide at the Avalon Casino “Frankie of Avalon,” who grew up on Catalina. There was also a fellow at the golf-cart rental shop, and a couple of waiters. Does that sound like a relaxing vacation?
Once we visited these locations, we were struck with inspiration and appreciation for the locales.
Online research is great, but physically visiting the places where your story takes place can supply all your senses with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the personality of the people you meet. As a couple writing together, we have a great time and, after four books, we’re still married.
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