with Lauren Carr
We are delighted to welcome back mystery author Lauren Carr to Omnimystery News.
Lauren has a new Mac Faraday mystery coming out next month, Twelve To Murder (Acorn Book Services; February 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats); more details about the book, including a trailer, below.
We asked Lauren about story ideas, and she titles her guest post today "Ripped from the Headlines: Truth that Fact is More Creative than Fiction".
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Photo provided courtesy of
Lauren Carr
"Where do you get your story ideas?"
"How do you come up with these ideas?"
Some readers, and a few of my relatives, think that I've got a twisted mind to have come up with some of my murder plots. I wish I could say it was only me. That I have a brilliant imagination. But, like many crime and mystery writers nowadays, the germ of my ideas are —
Ripped from the Headlines!
Back before the days of the Internet, I used to get the daily newspaper and would scour it for story ideas. Since I wrote murder mysteries, I was fascinated by the stories about, of course, murder! If an idea intrigued me, I would clip it out and save it.
I still remember one murder that had me giggling for days. It was about a husband who stabbed his wife to death. They had been married for more than sixty years. Suddenly, out of the blue, he stabbed her to death with a butcher knife because, "I just couldn't stand listening to her yapping at me any longer."
Yes, it was a great tragedy. But I could not help thinking about, "You've been married to her for sixty years! Now, after all these years, you suddenly couldn't stand listening to her any longer?"
Who would have thought?
Truth is stranger than fiction. Think about what you see in today's headlines. Real people, especially those who are twisted, are much more imaginative than most writers. Good writers ask the right questions (usually, What if …) to make a great mystery out of it.
Such was the case for my Mac Faraday mystery, The Lady Who Cried Murder. A combination of headlines had captured my attention. From The Balloon Boy father, who faked his son's disappearance in a hot air balloon, to the media's fascination with every move made by reality stars, whose only talent is grabbing attention.
What if, I asked, a beautiful young woman dying to be famous faked her abduction, and then, at the height of the media's frenzy over this horrible crime, she made a grand entrance in order to catapult herself into the headlines?
It is entirely possible. Some people will do anything to become famous, as readers will find in The Lady Who Cried Murder.
Of course, the media laps Khloe Everest up because she is gorgeous. However, fame is fleeting, especially when you have no talent to sustain it. In the end, Khloe is murdered and Mac Faraday is on the case.
Anyone who is near the news can't help but hear about the fall of one child star or teenybopper idol after another. Miley Cyrus twerking everywhere. Lindsay Lohan going in and out of rehab centers like they had revolving doors. Has-beens arrested and committing suicide or dying of overdoses. One-time teen idol David Cassidy got his third DUI in as many years last week. Remember when he was the highest paid performer in the world? (Okay, I'm dating myself.)
How about Corey Haim? In the eighties, he was a very successful child star, became a teen-idol, and ended up dead before he was forty.
The writer in me asked What if …
What happens to someone when he realizes he’s reached his peak before he was even of legal drinking age? What does it do to a man’s mind when he discovers that for as long as he lives, most likely, he’ll never reach the same level of success that he had when he was a child? Success had come and gone when he was too young to even recognize it.
What does he do when suddenly, he’s featured on the news again, only this time, it is because he has been accused of a double homicide?
Such is the case of former child-star and teen-idol Lenny Frost when he steps into a pub in Deep Creek Lake to see his face on the television over the bar with the announcement that the police are looking for him for the murder of his talent agent and her husband.
How does Lenny Frost react to this sudden celebrity? He takes everyone hostage and gives Mac Faraday twelve hours to find the real killer or he's going to kill them all.
Like The Lady Who Cried Murder, Twelve to Murder (scheduled for release February 2014) was ripped from the headlines.
As a murder mystery writer, I don't make up the news, I only give it a special twist from the imagination.
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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 and her work, please visit her website at MysteryLady.net, read her Literary Wealth blog, or find her on Facebook.
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Twelve To Murder
Lauren Carr
A Mac Faraday Mystery
Two people are brutally murdered in their summer place on Deep Creek Lake. Suspected of the murders, former child star and one-time teenybopper idol Lenny Frost takes innocent bystanders hostage in a local pub and demands that Mac Faraday find the killer.
Can Mac save the hostages and himself from the wrath of the enraged has-been by piecing together the clues in less than twelve hours, or will it be a fatal last call at the stroke of midnight?
Use this link to see all the the books in the Mac Faraday series by Lauren Carr.
