Book Title: Broken Strings
Author: Nancy Means Wright
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: GMTA Publishing, LLC
Presented by: As You Wish Tours
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: GMTA Publishing, LLC
Presented by: As You Wish Tours
Let
the Character Shape the Plot
Conflict,
suspense, humor, plot, setting, point of view, juicy suspects,
pain-in-the-butt adversaries and great writing—all these elements
enter the mix for a first class mystery. But the most important of
these, I insist, is character. Create a charismatic, dynamic
character as protagonist, let the story unfold through his or her
flaw, quirk or passion, and you’re off to a flying start!
In
Sophocles’ fifth century B.C.’s Oedipus the King, one of our
earliest “mysteries,” it’s the latter’s hubris and his blind
passion to find a killer that leads him to question folk, one by one:
Come here…You must answer everything I ask! Until he discovers
that he himself killed his father and slept with his mother—wow!
Centuries later, in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, it’s
Montresor’s obsessive desire for revenge—since naïve Fortunato
“ventured on insult”—that leads the hapless victim down into
the damp bowels of the family vaults and doesn’t let go until the
last trembly jingle of bells. And no detectives in the story—just
the two unforgettable characters. Whew!
In
1868, Wilkie Collins deliberately set out in his novels, especially
The Moonstone (read it!), to let his characters “direct the course”
of events. And more recently, vibrant characters lead the way in Kate
Atkinson’s Case Histories, in which a reluctant detective Jackson
Brodie tries to solve three old murders. The nonlinear plot is spun
through several points of view, and the story leaps in and out of
time and the characters’ minds. To me the dead bodies are less
significant than the three-dimensional characters whom she portrays
with humor, humanity, and surprise. A brilliantly written subversion
of the detective-thriller!
As
for this humble writer, much of what happens in my mysteries stems
from the volatile nature of my sleuths. The protagonist of my
historical novels is 18th-century Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (her daughter wrote Frankenstein).
A conflicted woman who wanted “to live independent or not at all”
but who longed for a grand romantic passion, she was both impulsive
and rebellious. She once kidnapped her sister from an abusive
husband, and later went to revolutionary Paris as a war
correspondent.
And
in Broken Strings, my sleuth Fay Hubbard is thrown into one situation
after the next through her impulses, her anger at an injustice, and
her passion for marionettes. So I say: choose a flawed but passionate
character, and let the rumpus begin!
Nancy Means Wright
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
When puppeteer Marion collapses during a performance of Sleeping Beauty, her friend Fay Hubbard promises to carry on. But Fay already has her hands full with three demanding foster children, Apple and Beets, who have a fractious jailbird father—and sixteen-year-old Chance, who has a crush on a much older guy in a band called Ghouls. And now Marion’s husband Cedric seems more interested in a drop-dead-gorgeous French teacher than in any string puppets. And who is the mysterious Skull-man who warns of death if the show goes on with one of Marion’s offbeat endings? When an autopsy reveals that Marion had swallowed a dose of deadly crushed yew—and a friend finds her sister dangling from a rod like a marionette, a shocked Fay goes after the killer.
AUTHOR BIO
Nancy Means Wright has published 17 books, including 6 contemporary mysteries from St Martin’s Press and two historical novels featuring 18th-century Mary Wollstonecraft (Perseverance Press). Her two most recent books are the mystery Broken Strings (GMTA publishing) and Walking into the Wild, an historical novel for tweens (LLDreamspell). Her children’s mysteries have received an Agatha Award and Agatha nomination. Nancy lives in Middlebury with her spouse and two Maine Coon cats.
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