Co-writing: A Wonderful Partnership by Janet Elizabeth Lynn
August 3, 2017 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as co-writing, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, research, Will Zeilinger
My husband, Will Zeilinger, also a published author, and I decided to come together and write a 1950’s hard-boiled mystery, the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series.
Having a research buddy makes all the difference in the world when deadlines loom for a manuscript. Alone, research can be a bear. But with two it goes faster and more comprehensive. This can include traveling, libraries and investigating 1950s style restaurants (and food). Splitting the work up and deciding what fits in the story works better with two brains and four eyes.
The results? SLIVERS OF GLASS, STRANGE MARKINGS, DESERT ICE and SPIKE HILL (to be released 2/2018)…and yes, we’re still married.
Website: www.janetlynnauthor.com
Blog: www.themarriedauthors.blogspot.com
Janet Elizabeth Lynn
How TV Changed Hollywood
July 3, 2017 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1950s, Hollywood, Janet Lynn, Will Zeilinger
Researching our stories which are set in the mid 1950s led us to discover the huge changes that came to Hollywood. Television was stealing customers from theaters and color TV was coming into the mainstream. So what did the big studios do?
The movie screens got wider, the color got more vivid, and they even tried 3-D! Drive-in theaters were going strong, but the fact you could stay home and watch a variety of different programs for FREE made competition for customers fierce.
Many actors who had staked their careers in the big screen movies were, at first leery of the little box with the small screen. Some thought it was only for game shows and low brow comedy. It didn’t take long to see that was where steady work and the money was.
What about books? Books were doing great, and many stories were adapted to both movies and television. Take Perry Mason for instance. Erle Stanley Gardner was a well known mystery writer, but when his stories came to television, he became rich!
Will
SLIVERS OF GLASS
Southern California 1955: the summer Disneyland opened, but even "The Happiest Place on Earth" couldn't hide the smell of dirty cops, corruption and murder.
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Published authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Lynn had been writing individually until they got together and wrote the Skylar Drake Mystery Series. These hard-boiled tales are based in old Hollywood of 1955. Janet has published seven mystery novels and Will has three plus a couple of short stories. Their world travels have sparked several ideas for murder and crime stories. This creative couple is married and live in Southern California.
http://www.willzeilingerauthor.com/
www.themarriedauthors.blogspot.com
0 0 Read moreHE SAID, SHE SAID: HOW WE MADE TWO WRITERS SOUND LIKE ONE
June 3, 2017 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as co-writing, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, mysteries, partners, Will Zeilinger
My wife, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, and I have been crime writing fiction for several years. In the beginning, Janet was the first to take a of couple classes and workshops. That was after we discovered we didn’t know what we were doing. I was a bit reluctant because the whole writing thing was foreign to me. But she came home with tools and information that opened my eyes.
When Janet was writing solo, she would often ask me to read some of her work. I’d make comments like, “A guy wouldn’t care what brand of shoes a woman was wearing” or “A guy wouldn’t say/think that.” It got to the point where one day Janet was writing and said to me—“Will, if you were a guy…” to which I replied, “What?”
Thus began our co-writing partnership. I would tweak many of the male characters’ voice styles while Janet handled the female roles. We’d brainstorm the plots, discuss our characters’ quirks and make sure the characters’ voices sounded different enough while maintaining the voice of the story. Next, we read aloud to each other. Sometimes one of us would fall asleep during the reading, but that just meant we had to fix that part. If it bored us, it would surely bore our readers.
The result is that our writing had become a true partnership in authorship and our stories sparkled (in our eyes.) We now take turns polishing and refining our work before handing the manuscript over to our editor.
And after all that… we’re still married.
Will
STRANGE MARKINGS
The Pacific breezes blow many things in from the ocean, this time its power, greed, and murder.
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Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger
Published authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Lynn had been writing individually until they got together and wrote the Skylar Drake Mystery Series. These hard-boiled tales are based in old Hollywood of 1955. Janet has published seven mystery novels and Will has three plus a couple of short stories. Their world travels have sparked several ideas for murder and crime stories. This creative couple is married and live in Southern California.
http://www.willzeilingerauthor.com/
www.themarriedauthors.blogspot.com
6 0 Read moreDeadlines
April 3, 2017 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as 1950s, co-writing, Hollywood, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, The Skylar Drake Murder Mystery Series, Will Zeilinger
Co-writing
Here is how it works
by Janet Elizabeth Lynn
Deadlines
My husband, Will Zeilinger, a published author also, and I decided to come together and write a 1950’s hard-boiled mystery, the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series.
People warned us to would tarnish our 45-year marriage. They insisted it wouldn’t work. Concerned, we took a business approach and set rules of professionalism, respect and overall patience. We learned the value of the difference in style we brought to character dialogue and personality. We set deadlines and nothing, but nothing, got in the way of those deadlines short of death and a fever over 102. And the most important thing was to check our egos at the door from the day we started to the day we finished our final edit.
Of course, differences of opinions reared their ugly head from time to time. When this happened, we tabled the discussion for 24 hours then looked at the issue again.
The results? SLIVERS OF GLASS, STRANGE MARKINGS and released in January, DESERT ICE . . . and yes, we’re still married.
Published authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Lynn had been writing individually until they got together and wrote the Skylar Drake Mystery Series. These hard-boiled tales are based in old Hollywood of 1955. Janet has published seven mystery novels, and Will has three plus a couple of short stories. Their world travels have sparked several ideas for murder and crime stories. This creative couple is married and lives in Southern California.
www.themarriedauthors.blogspot.com
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