What can I tell you–your blog gets a little bit popular and folks want to come post on it. Well, anyway, I was contacted by a new author who wants to get her name out. She writes romantic suspense (like me) is mostly a pantser (like me) so how could I refuse? Her name is Patricia Guthrie and here’s a little bit about her:
Patricia A. Guthrie is a resident of the South Suburbs of Chicago. A recently retired music teacher from the Chicago Public Schools (May Community Academy and Chicago Vocational Community Academy) and former opera singer. Pat is now an avid horse lover-owner, dog obedience trainer and writer. She lives with three feisty collies who act as “ghost writers” and help her write at every given opportunity.
Here’s what she has to say about her writing:
Why do I write?
I love to make up stories. I used to do it walking to and from school every day then on my way to work. I started writing on a dare from my friend. We were talking murder mysteries, so I wrote one. It will never see the light of day, but it was a start. Back in the “old” days (late 90’s) and until recently, I had a stressful job teaching music in the inner city. There were large blocks of time I couldn’t write at all. But I managed to finish four novels in five years. I retired from teaching and lucked out. I met my publisher. It was a rare fit. I’m grateful to Linda Daly and the Light Sword Publishing folks.
Oh, why do I write? I have no idea. It’s just something inside of me that insists on it.
How do I come up with characters?
I usually daydream them. I have a seed of a story and I let them wander in my head. No kidding. They develop certain traits and personalities. Then, I sit down and write their biographies. Their history, description, blemishes and knock-out features, traits and habits and characteristics down to their favorite food and drink. This is important, and it’s important that I have it handy. You’ve heard the old reader’s cliché, he had blue yes in chapter one and brown in chapter eighteen. (ouch) Besides, giving the “kids” a history breathes life into them. Makes them more three dimensional and believable. It’s those pesky habits and character traits that provide the opportunity to get themselves into trouble later on. (nosiness, talking too much when you should be quiet, listening at doors etc.) Oh yes, make sure each one has a goal, a reason for wanting this goal and a conflict–what they can’t achieve this goal. And know how they resolve this conflict.
But, to answer the question: I daydream my characters. They’re composites from people I know, including me. For descriptions I have “casting calls” and play producer/director. I go to movie sites and look up actors and actresses I think my fit the part. Then I imagine them in the role.
How do I plot?
I started out as a pantser (write straight through without any guidelines except those that are in your head, creating as you go along.) But after deciding that wasn’t working well for me and after taking mega-workshops I decided working it out before hand was the best way. So, based on the story I have in my head, I’ll give the story a tagline (children are playing hide and seek, runs into a wardrobe and lands in Narnia etc) I already know my genre is romantic suspense, so I don’t have to worry about that. Then a brief description of characters (this isn’t when you do your 30 page character sketch) and a brief synopsis. The shorter the better. Include goals, motivations and conflicts. That’s when I start doing chapter outlines. It’s like writing the whole book. It makes writing the chapters easier. Notice, I didn’t say easy.
Here’s an Excerpt from her book In the Arms of the Enemy
Maggie kept glancing at Adam as they walked back into the barn. There was something that didn’t ring true about the man. She just couldn’t figure out what. An undercover investigator?
No. He didn’t act like a cop. But then, she didn’t really know what cops acted like. And somehow, he looked familiar.
“Maggie?”
Cullum’s voice boomed from his tractor at a level that declared he’d forgotten he’d turned off the engine.
She stopped and grinned at her father. His age hadn’t slowed him down much, but his hearing wasn’t what it had been.
“Go up to the loft and pull down some hay bales for tonight, would you, me dear?” he called.
“Hang on, Adam.” She put her hand on his arm. “This won’t take me a minute.”
“Can I help?” Adam offered.
Maggie looked at him and almost thought about letting him get his hands dirty, then thought better of it.
“Thanks. I do this every day. I’ll be down in a minute.”
Maggie climbed up the wooden rungs of the ladder, skipping the last rung as she’d done thousands of times since she was a young child.
When they were kids, she and her cousins had played ‘cowboys and Indians.’ They’d hidden in the hayloft and thrown hay down on each other until their annoyed parents would cart them and their dust-strewn bodies back into the house. The hayloft had always been her playhouse, her refuge.
She threw the hay bales down onto the concrete, while Adam leaned an elbow against a stall, watching. The man might be an idiot, but he was a good-looking one. She reached for the last bale and thought that her assessment of him was wrong. He wore a mask and behind that mask, he was alert–wary, as though he were watching, waiting for something. Adam Grant was nobody’s fool.
She threw down the last bale and decided something else about him affected her. Sorrow. Underneath that façade, Adam was a very unhappy man.
An internal warning voice went off just before Maggie stepped onto the top rung of the ladder and–it disappeared. A shiver of momentary panic hit when her foot slipped to the second step.
She lost her balance. Her hands caught the sides, but her grip wasn’t strong enough to hold
her weight. She pitched backward, twisting around, before slamming off a bale and onto the concrete.
~
Maggie lay stunned, her breath compressed right out of her body. For a brief second, she panicked when her lungs didn’t seem to work. No. Not quite. She was able to take a few shallow breaths at first, until she gasped back to normal. She assessed the damage. Her head and chest lay on a hay bale. The rest of her lay on prickly stalks stranded on the solid concrete. She tried to move, but everything hurt so badly. She knew she’d banged her head coming down, because she was seeing stars. She turned over and looked up into a handsome, chalky-faced man with dark eyes clouded with concern. The stars seemed to form a halo around his head–no, make that heads.
She giggled. At least she thought she did. “You’re cute,” she said.
“I’m what?” Adam looked taken-aback.
“You’re adorable and you have two heads.” And, those heads seemed to take on a life of their own, spinning around her. “Oh no.” She grabbed onto his arms for support and tried to pull herself up. “Don’t try to move,” Adam said.
Her father was now bending over her, and she had two male bookends. “Oh good. Now you have four heads.”
“I have what?” Cullum answered.
“Think she has a concussion,” Adam said.
“No. No. No!” Maggie tried once again to move, her efforts thwarted by this well-muscled city boy. “I’m fine, except….” She reached up and touched the back of her head. “Oooh.”
Cullum took out his cell phone and dialed. The barn spun round her like an out-of-control carousel. She turned her finger in a circle and said, “Whee!” The men didn’t seem to share her amusement.
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” Cullum said, his mouth spreading into a thin-lipped line.
Maggie willed the carousel movement to stop and pulled herself away
from Adam. “No, really, I’m fine. I don’t…paramedics. Hate hospitals.”
But Maggie wasn’t fine. Her stomach was somersaulting as if it was in a hurricane at sea. Pulling away from hands that grabbed for her, she staggered to her feet and tried to make it to the closest empty stall. She missed and threw up in the aisle.
Then the throbbing began and a ringing in her ears started to drown out the men’s protests. Her knees buckled and she went down. Her father hovered over her, and Adam knelt behind, supporting her with his broad shoulders. The men’s lips moved, but no sound emerged. Finally, she gave up and started to float away, losing the pain of consciousness and drowning in the solid strength of Adam’s arms.
~
Adam watched the ambulance pull away from the barn, with Maggie and Cullum inside. His stomach still clenched from the fear that had overtaken him when Maggie fell. Something inside his gut told him she hadn’t just ‘fallen.’ Unease settled over him. His hands started to sweat. Something wasn’t right.
He stared up at the ladder and at the dangling rung. Something about the wood. That was it. Normally, when wood snaps, there’d be a cracking sound. What had been significant about this break was the lack of sound. His apprehension grew. Except for that empty space on top, the ladder looked safe.
Adam climbed the steps, checking each step for cracks or rotten wood, but found nothing. When he reached the second step, he placed his finger along the cracked edge and felt a rubbery substance coating the wood. He pulled some of it off with his nail. Dried glue. He checked the dangling edge of the break. Both sides were smooth–not the jagged edge of a normal break. Someone had cut and glued it back together, just waiting for someone, possibly Maggie, to climb the ladder and put down her full weight.
Who’d try to hurt Cullum? Or, was it Maggie they’d been after?
Hope you enjoyed hearing about Patricia. You can find out more about her and her stories here.
