Please Welcome Back Mystery Author Lauren Carr

It's always a pleasure to welcome back mystery author Lauren Carr to Omnimystery News.

Lauren begins a new series featuring, in part, a cast of characters from her other series, with Kill and Run (Acorn Book Services; September 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked her if she wanted to share any of her writing secrets with us. She titles her guest post for us today, "How To Kill Your Boss Without Getting Arrested … or Sued".

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Photo provided courtesy of
Lauren Carr

I can say with confidence that every time I make a new acquaintance who discovers that I write murder mysteries, they are bound at some point to shoot me a worried expression and ask, "Do you ever kill anyone you know in your books?"

I will reply quite honestly, "Yes."

That's why I have no friends.

I don't always kill people I know. Sometimes I kill absolute strangers. Sometimes I make people who tick me off killers. Or sometimes I'll make them just plain so nasty that everyone sees them for the evil villain they are.

However, as anyone who is not living under a rock will tell you, and me, and any writer, to blatantly write someone you know into a book can be a litigiously dangerous operation.

For this article, I am addressing the use of real people and situations from the artistic point of fiction writers can and have been sued and there have been cases in which the plaintiff has won such lawsuits. So, before you kill your mother-in-law into your next whodunit, you should do your legal research on how best to do it without getting sued. Since I am not a lawyer, I am talking about the creative aspects of killing her … or your boss, or your ex, or just that nasty psycho neighbor across the street arrested without ruining your literary masterpiece or getting arrested.

Frankly, writers have every right to kill real people on paper. What writer isn't inspired by the things, people, places, and circumstances around them? If you make all those things off limits for fear of being sued, then you are turning off the faucet for an abundance of material to draw upon.

The best writers will not write someone into a book simply because they got ticked off and wanted the world to know about it, even subconsciously (usually … mostly … okay, generally).

Here's why. Say you're writing a book and your boss really ticks you off. I mean really, really ticks you off and you decide, "I'll get her."

Seventy-two pages into your work-in-progress, you insert your boss. Maybe you even go back to the beginning and insert scenes with her in them. You changed the name and maybe make her a dyed blonde with gray roots, but it's her nonetheless and you're telling the whole world what she did to you in the subplot of your comedy. Most likely, the reader, not knowing anything about what happened between you and the boss, will come away scratching his head and wondering, "What was the point of that subplot?"

Experienced authors use real people and situations in fiction the way an accomplished chef uses ingredients in a delightful recipe. A chef doesn't simply throw spices in because it strikes her fancy. With the first priority being the meal, the chef will only put in that which will improve on the final experience of the diner.

For example, while preparing the plotline for Kill and Run, the first installment of the Thorny Rose mysteries, I discovered that I had a dilemma with the character of Murphy Thornton, the male half of my two protagonists.

A recent naval academy graduate, Murphy Thornton is a lieutenant in the navy. He is also part of a covert elite team who works exclusively for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is also newly wed to Jessica Faraday, the lovely daughter of Mac Faraday, the protagonist in the Mac Faraday mysteries. At the beginning of Kill and Run, the newlyweds have recently moved into their first home together, located on the bank of the Potomac River.

Yep, for the Thorny Rose detectives, life was perfect. For a person, this is great. For a fictional character, perfect is bad. Perfect equals lack of conflict. Lack of conflict equals predictable. Predictable equals boring.

While murder does add conflict in a murder mystery, main characters need some sort of antagonist to make daily life just a little more interesting.

No one can make life less than perfect than a bad boss … believe me, I've had my share to draw from for Kill and Run. Who hasn't? There are bosses who are manipulative, back-stabbing. Others take credit for their employee's work or ideas. Then, I've had bosses who are practically pathological liars. Some are just plain nasty — ugly and foul both on the inside and out. Granted, I have had good bosses — they usually ended up quitting, getting promoted, or dying.

In Murphy's case, his life is so perfect, that I had to curse him with the worst of the worst. The character of Hillary Koch, who Murphy calls "Crotch," is a compilation of many bad bosses I have worked with throughout my years in the workforce. (Note: One way to not get sued is to make your character a Frankenstein — yes, Crotch is a monster, though compiled from many different people.)

To make Murphy's day job even more less than perfect is his boss's distinct hatred toward him in particular. In this excerpt, Murphy has just been awarded the Bronze Star in a surprise presentation at his office — which inadvertently leads to his first official murder case. Upon meeting Hillary for the first time, Jessica, a psychiatry student, hypothesizes Hillary's jealousy and dislike for Murphy:

  What had previously been a meeting quickly dissolved into a party with the agents on the staff wanting to get a close look at the Bronze Star now displayed in Murphy's chest, and to meet his heiress wife.
  "Murphy," Boris shook his hand, "you are one humble guy. All that stuff that the admiral said you did? I never knew. You never told us that."
  "It was a classified mission," Murphy explained.
  On the other side of the conference room, he was aware of Hillary Koch hanging back, with a bitter frown on her face. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest.
  "Did he say domestic terrorism?" Susan asked. "That means it happened here in the United States, but I don't recall seeing on the news anything like that going down." She turned to her partner Perry. "Did you ever see anything like that on the news?"
  Perry was confirming that he hadn't while Jessica laid her hand on Murphy's elbow.
  "What about that lunch?" With pride, she fingered the star hanging on his breast pocket. "I know it's early, but I was hoping you could take a couple of hours leave to celebrate." With a naughty grin, she winked at him.
  Abruptly, Hillary provided Murphy with the answer to Jessica's invitation. "Thornton, come here. I need to talk to you." The tone of her voice made the hair on the back of Murphy's neck stand up on end.
  Wading through the agents, who sensed by Koch's tone that she was not calling him over to bestow her congratulations, Murphy made his way to the staff chief.
  "Yes, Crotch —" In response to her glare, he corrected himself, "I meant Koch."
  "Sure you did," she muttered.
  Murphy noticed her eying the shiny addition to his chest. She had to refrain from touching it. To do so would be to acknowledge his achievement, and she would be damned if she did that. Instead, she grasped her cell phone with both hands.
  "The Virginia State Police have what appears to be a home invasion in Reston. Five women murdered in a town house. One of the victims is a petty officer from the Navy Yard."
  Wondering why she was telling him this, Murphy cocked his head at her. It was the duty of her staff to investigate criminal cases involving military or civilian navy personnel. He was only the liaison.
  Koch planted her hands on her hips. "Since this petty officer appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we need someone to go to the scene, scope it out, and then allow the state police to take the lead."
  "Why are you sending me?"
  "Because this award ceremony of yours has set us back. This meeting is going to have to go through lunch," she said. "I need the rest of my staff here. This multiple murder was most likely a robbery or one —"
  "Was it our petty officer's home?"
  "No," Koch said. "If she was just collateral damage from another crime, then it's not our case. But we have to send someone out there to go through the motions with the state police and then let them take it. Just make sure they know to keep us in the loop on the investigation." She smirked. "I'm sure a super man like you can handle that, Thornton." She glanced over at Jessica who was standing a couple of feet away. "Sorry to ruin your date."
  Stepping around Murphy, Koch clapped her hands. "Okay, boys and girls, the show is over. We need to get back to work."
  Jessica murmured into Murphy's shoulder, "What a —"
  Murphy's mouth clamped over hers to stifle the rest of her protest. Caught off guard, she stumbled on her high heels to fall into his arms, which he wrapped around her tightly while whispering with a husky voice into her ear, "Smile. Don't give her the satisfaction of seeing that she's ruined anything."
  Seemingly oblivious to the mouths of the agents hanging open at the abrupt display, Murphy gathered his folders and tablet from where he had been sitting before the admiral interrupted the meeting.
  Jessica smiled broadly and grasped his elbow with both hands. "Are you going to show me your office?"
  Taking note of her visitor's badge, which meant that she needed to be escorted at all times by someone with security clearance, Murphy took her out of the conference room and down the corridor to his office located next to the staff chief.
  Admiring their wedding picture displayed on the bookcase behind Murphy's desk, Jessica asked in a casual tone, "Why does Koch hate you so much? Based on the tension I picked up from her, it is more than a simple personality clash. Did she make a pass at you and you turned her down?" She shot a naughty grin to his back, which he didn't notice. Instead, he was taking his gun and holster out of his desk drawer and snapping it on.
  "I'm the last man she'd make a pass at," Murphy said. "I'm too WASP for her taste."
  "WASP?" She slipped onto the corner of his desk and crossed her long legs.
  "White Anglo Saxon Protestant," he replied. "Don't tell me you never heard that term before."
  "But she's —"
  "Caucasian," Murphy finished. "And she loves men of every different color — except white."
  "How do you know that?"
  "Because she brags about it," he said. "Her sex life is common knowledge. In the four months that I've been here, she's slept with six men. She said at the last breakfast meeting that she's been averaging one and a half men a month."
  "And none of them are Caucasian?" Jessica asked with a tilt of her head and an arched eyebrow.
  "Three African-Americans, two Mexicans, and one Native American."
  "Any of them in the military?"
  "No," Murphy said with mock disgust. "She hates the military and she despises every suspect and victim her staff investigates."
  "That sounds like a conflict of interest to me," she said. "Why —"
  "I have no idea," he said. "It makes me wonder if that is why the Joint Chiefs assigned me here — to investigate her." He muttered under his breath, "They put me here for some reason. Wish they'd give me more direction."
  "Didn't you tell me that she was former navy?" she asked. "Did she retire?"
  "Left," Murphy said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I know there's a story there, but no one I've spoken to knows it. She's clearly bitter toward the military, the government —"
  "And white men," Jessica said. "Murphy, no wonder Koch hates you. You're the personification of everything that she blames for ruining her life."
  "You're making quite a leap there, aren't you, Dr. Faraday?" Murphy asked.
  Jessica grinned. She was still in the process of applying to Georgetown University Medical School for her doctorate in psychiatry. She ticked off on her fingers. "You're a successful, handsome, white, male, military officer serving your country." She sighed. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was a white male she blamed for drumming her out of the military."
  "We don't know if she was drummed out."
  "I saw her when the admiral pinned that Bronze Star on your chest," Jessica said. "She about dislocated her jaw gnashing her teeth with fury and envy. She was drummed out."
  "Well," Murphy told her in a low voice, "whatever Crotch's story is, I need to get along with her."
  "She's not your commanding officer," she replied.
  "She's my supervisor," Murphy said. "Since CO is not on site and doesn't see me on a daily basis, Crotch sends a regular evaluation report on my performance to her and makes a recommendation about promotion or reassignment. She could very well keep me from getting promoted or get me reassigned to a hell hole someplace."
  "CO loves you," Jessica whispered to him. "She recommended you for this Bronze Star. I'm sure that if Koch bad-mouthed you, your CO wouldn't believe a word of it."

Admittedly, it is not only my worst enemies who inspire me. I've been inspired by friends and even total strangers who I have not even spoken to.

A few years ago, while on a pit stop on the way to Snow Shoe, West Virginia, I was sitting in the car when I saw a man come out of the bathroom, purchase a soda at the machine, and go to his car. He was medium height, black hair on top of his head with gray from the temples down, like a gray strip around his head. Under a hook nose that was so huge it looked fake, his mustache was bushy and gray and he had a gray goatee. He also had a pot belly above his waist that made him look nine months pregnant and about ready to burst.

This stranger's appearance was so intriguing that I have stored him away in my memory to use later in a book. I still don't know what book yet. I may kill him. Or maybe he'll turn out to be a killer? Maybe. Maybe not. You'll need to read my books to find out.

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Lauren Carr is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.

The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit the Acorn Book Services website for more information.

Lauren lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

For more information about the author, please visit her website at MysteryLady.net and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Kill and Run by Lauren Carr

A Thorny Rose Mystery

Publisher: Acorn Book Services

Five women with seemingly nothing in common are found brutally murdered in a townhome outside Washington, DC. Among the many questions surrounding the massacre is what had brought these apparent strangers together only to be killed.

Taking on his first official murder case, Lieutenant Murphy Thornton, USN, believes that if he can uncover the thread connecting the victims, then he can find their murderer.

Before long, the case takes an unexpected turn when Murphy discovers that one of the victims has a connection to his stepmother, Homicide Detective Cameron Gates. One wintry night, over a dozen years before, her first husband, a Pennsylvania State trooper, had been run down while working a night shift on the turnpike.

The Thorny Rose Mysteries, the Lovers in Crime join newlyweds Lieutenant Murphy Thornton and Jessica Faraday to sift through a web of lies and cover-ups. Together, can the detectives of the Thorny Rose uncover the truth without falling victim to a cunning killer?

— Kill and Run by Lauren Carr