Please Welcome Novelist Jan Christensen

with Jan Christensen

We are delighted to welcome novelist Jan Christensen to Omnimystery News today.

Jan's new novel of suspense is Blackout (Jan Christensen; September 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had a chance to chat with her about her work.

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Omnimystery News: You've written both series books and stand-alones. When planning a book, how do you decide which it will be?

Photo provided courtesy of
Jan Christensen

Jan Christensen: My first published book, Sara's Search, is a stand-alone. Sometimes I think about writing another one with some of the same characters, but I'd already begun a series and a semi-series, so I'm working on those, plus yet a third series. What I call a semi-series is one that takes place mostly in the same made-up town in California, with some recurring characters, but entirely different lead characters in each one. Each book starts with someone walking down the road into town, and it's both mysterious as to why they came, and then soon after, a murder takes place which puts them in the middle of two dilemmas. These stories are pretty dark. All my other books are much lighter and often have quite a bit of humor in them. I guess I'm just restless and need the variety, but I do like writing and reading series.

OMN: How do you catagorize your books?

JC: The Valleyview Tales are suspense. The Tina Tales are cozies. The Paula PI Mysteries are female-sleuth mysteries. The disadvantage I have is that I didn't stick to just one series/type of mystery. I hope it's not confusing some readers. But overall, I'm happy to mix it up, both as a writer and as a reader.

OMN: Have you included any of your own personal or professional experience into your books?

JC: Some, but not a lot. I've never murdered anyone, for one thing. Never been in a cult, never been a private investigator, and so on. Some things I include I do know quite a lot about. I have lived in Newport, RI, where the Tina Tales take place. I worked in the corporate office of a large nursing home chain and visited many of them as an inspector for the company. The second Valleyview Tale takes place mostly in a nursing home. I've never been a professional organizer, as Tina is, but I've studied the subject, and time management for years. But I've never been a male, and I use the male POV in a lot of my writing, both in novels and short stories. My main trick is that I read a lot. Every day. I read fiction most every day, and nonfiction every single day. I'm always learning something from both.

OMN: Describe your writing process for us.

JC: I just sit down and write. I try to put up a thousand words a day, but if I do that three times a week, I'm good. I might think some about the story during the time I'm not writing, but I rarely have time to do that because I'm usually reading or busy with other things. Most of the time it goes pretty fast. Once in a while, I do get stuck, and I just sort of force myself to forge ahead. This has worked for me for eight finished novels and about sixty published short stories (haven't kept track of how many I have sitting around unpublished), so I'm going to keep going that way. I don't outline, do character bios, or anything. Saves a lot of time. More time to actually write. The one thing I'm systematic about is keeping a list of characters with their descriptions, and a timeline as I write each chapter with a tiny synopsis of that chapter. I also do research on the fly, and I dump it all into a notes document as I go.

OMN: How do you go about conducting research for the plot points in your stories?

JC: I've asked a couple of police officers some questions to be sure I got things right. I'm vague about guns and try to work around using facts most of the time. The trouble with facts is that even when you get them right, someone will swear you got them wrong. And you shouldn't argue with them because then you look bad. Especially to the people who agree with the one who has it wrong. I do use the internet for things like restaurant names, spelling slang words that aren't in the dictionary and other miscellaneous stuff. Most of what I write I already know about and is common knowledge. But if I'm not sure about something, I do check it out. It's not that I don't like research — actually I love it. It's again that it can take a lot of time. Time I'd rather spend writing.

OMN: How do you imagine your characters would look in real life?

JC: I never do this. I'm not a very visual person — so I'm myself pretty vague about what all my characters look like. That's probably one of my strangest quirks, I admit. For one book I decided to get on-line and find pictures of people I wanted my characters to look like. So many people suggest doing this. But several years later, those images have faded from my mind, and I couldn't even tell you the exact hair color I picked for most of them.

OMN: Tell us a little more about the settings of your books.

JC: Only the Tina Tales take place in a real place — Newport, Rhode Island. Oh, wait, Sara's Search took place in NYC some of the time and in a fake NJ town the rest of the time. For the series set in Newport, I make up some things but mostly use real restaurants (looked up one today, as a matter of fact — The Mooring — to be sure it didn't end in an "s" and to check out the menu — I've eaten there, but it was a long time ago), a real neighborhood, real main streets that are well-known to people who are familiar with Newport. I know I'll use even more as I keep writing the series. Mansions, parks, beaches and so forth. I wouldn't dare do this for a place I wasn't so familiar with. But Newport is fascinating in and of itself, so it's fun to include things I do know about it in my series.

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?

JC: Put seat in chair and write every day is the best advice I've ever seen, and the best advice I can give. Not that I always follow it, but it's great when I do.

OMN: What questions do you most enjoy receiving from your readers?

JC: I like questions about process. My answer isn't too long (like the one I gave above) so I've not seen anyone's eyes glaze over while I'm talking. I consider that a good thing.

OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?

JC: I didn't read much by myself until I was in high school, except Nancy Drew books. Then I read a lot of best sellers and Earle Stanley Garner. Later I got into all the private eye novels by Richard Prather, Mickey Spillane and others, plus Ian Fleming, and my favorite, John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee stories. So, all of those influenced me a lot. (And probably one reason why I don't have any trouble writing from the male POV).

OMN: And what do you read now for pleasure?

JC: Same kind I write, plus best-sellers in the mainstream genre and quite a bit of nonfiction about writing, personal organization, time management, biographies, business, social media, and any subject that catches my eye.

OMN: Do you have any favorite series characters?

JC: Travis McGee and John Dortmunder.

OMN: What's next for you?

JC: More writing. And more reading. Hopefully, more exercising, but that's iffy.

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Jan Christensen grew up in New Jersey and now resides in Texas. In addition to her novels, she has had over fifty short stories appear in various places over the last dozen years, two of which were nominated for a Derringer Award. She mainly enjoys writing mysteries, but every once in awhile steps out of that comfort zone and goes for something else, including non-fiction articles.

To learn more about the author and her work, please visit her website at JanChristensen.com or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Blackout
Jan Christensen
A Darker Side Mystery

A loss of memory, a series of strange deaths, a killer with an evil mission …

Who is she? Battered and bruised, she first becomes aware of her total loss of memory while walking on a dark, lonely road. Before she arrives in an unfamiliar town called Valleyview, she makes up a name — Alice Strong — and claims she's eighteen. Her injuries heal and she accepts a job at the local nursing home. During her first day of work, a patient passes away, posed as if ready for burial. Alice can't understand why the death of an old woman she doesn't know hits her so hard. When a second resident dies in the same position, the director of nurses, Betty Cranston, is positive residents are being murdered. She fears for her paralyzed mother. And she suspects Alice.

Alice must remember her past to help prove her innocence. When she remembers this wasn't her first blackout, dread holds her back because what she does recall might all disappear a third time. Can she piece her puzzle together before the killer strikes again? Should she even try?