Author: susancbell

Lynn Slaughter – We’re Back!

From Lynn Slaughter

After months of being unable to meet due to Co-Vid, our chapter met on-line last Saturday, January 9th, followed by a fabulous workshop presented by award-winning crime thriller writer Libby Fischer Hellmann. I felt like a kid wanting to scream from the rooftops, “WE’RE BACK!”

It was so good to see familiar faces I hadn’t laid eyes on in months and to introduce our new board members who’ve been working hard behind the scenes: V-P Carol Preflatish; Secretary Susan Bell; Program Coordinator Elaine Munsch; Treasurer Sheila Shumate; and at-large board member Linda Rees (who got us on YouTube!).

I miss seeing members in person so much, but I have to say that the advantage of going on-line for meetings and events has meant we can include other chapter members and interested writers. Within twenty-four hours of announcing Libby’s workshop, we had well over our 100-person Zoom limit wanting to sign up. Thank goodness we were able to make a recording of the workshop available to all those interested (view recording here Libby Fischer Hellman Workshop).  Special thanks go to Susan Bell who handled registration and made this all possible technically. Linda Rees also helped me get the word out—and out it went!

Libby’s workshop was chock full of strategies to build suspense in our work. In addition to paying attention to hooking our readers with strong opening sentences and chapter endings, she advised continuously raising the stakes in the body of our works to increase readers’ emotional investment. She advised paying attention to:

  • creating complications
  • using time limits (the ticking bomb, etc.)
  • thinking of the worst-case scenario and making it worse
  • tempting protagonists with situations involving morality, ethics, and values
  • isolating the protagonist with no help around
  • including the antagonist’s POV from time-to-time
  • avoiding all-good, all-bad characters (“The bad guy always thinks he’s a hero in his own story”)
  • avoiding sudden resolution (deus ex machina) that comes out of nowhere
  • using structural misdirection, such as red herrings in mystery fiction
  • stretching time in dramatic scenes
  • using variations in pacing so that there are “pools of calm” between action sequences
  • limiting back story
  • creating urgency in action scenes using short sentences, no adverbs, and crisp dialogue
  • avoiding dwelling on violence (“A little goes a long way”)

Libby included interactive writing exercises, and I loved working on them and listening to the creative responses of several volunteer participants. All in all, it was a super-stimulating event, and I am very grateful to the Speakers Bureau of Sisters in Crime for making her appearance possible—not to mention our former president, Beth Henderson, and all others who worked on the grant that brought us Libby!

Meantime, a small group coordinated by the amazing Susan Bell has been spending Sunday afternoons working on scripts for three short “who-done-it” plays set in a 1920s Speakeasy. If all goes well, we hope to present these at the Frazier museum once we get through the current pandemic. Currently, Susan Bell, Elaine Munsch, Linda Rees, Patience Martin, Lorena Peter, Jeanette Pope, Miki Reilly-Howe, and I are working on a script called “Iced at the Easy,” with a premise created by Jeanette Pope. I think this may be the closest I’ll ever get to working in the writing room of a television show! Everyone throws ideas in, and somehow, the work gets done, interspersed with a whole lot of laughter.

Our next chapter meeting will be on Saturday, February 13. At eleven, we’ll critique new work by Elaine Munsch and get a tutorial from Susan Bell on how to track changes in documents. Then, at twelve, we’ll have our business meeting, in which we’ll discuss our spring retreat to address where we go from here as a chapter.  At one, program coordinator Elaine Munsch has arranged for a guest speaker presentation by Mark J. Downing, local author of a paranormal Sherlock Holmes series. Mark will talk to us about “putting on the Sherlock hat to write in the Victorian frame of mind.” Susan will be sending out the Zoom link to members. If you’re a visitor and would like to attend, please contact Susan at: susancbell@yahoo.com

I also want to encourage anyone who hasn’t yet bought a copy of the anthology, Mystery With a Splash of Bourbon, to pick one up. Edited by Susan Bell and Elaine Munsch, it includes stories from several of our members. It’s available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and wherever good books are sold.

Finally, if you’d like to learn more about some of our author members, I’d love for you to go to my website, www.lynnslaughter.com, and check out their guest blogs. So far, they include: Linda Rees, Beth Henderson, and Carol Preflatish. Upcoming blogs will feature: Elaine Munsch (January 23), Susan Bell (February 13), and Jeanette Pope (February 27).

And that’s all I have to say for now. To think that when I started writing this “endless blog,” I doubted I had much to say!

A Note from our New 2021 Board President

by Lynn Slaughter

I’m honored to serve as the next president of Derby Rotten Scoundrels. My term will begin on January 1 of 2021. With multi-published author Beth Henderson opting to step down from the presidency, I have big shoes to fill. We are all so grateful to Beth for her wonderful work on our behalf.

Speaking personally, I’ve always found change hard. We have a brand new board  in the middle of a global pandemic! But change also offers us an opportunity to evaluate where we’ve been, and where we hope to go as a chapter.

Our first order of business is to resume meeting, albeit via Zoom. On Saturday, January 9th, we’ll meet from noon to 12:50 for a welcome back meeting and then at one P.M., we have an exciting guest speaker, courtesy of the Sisters in Crime Speakers Bureau. Award-winning thriller writer Libby Fischer Hellmann will speak to us about “Building Suspense.” (see Events Calendar for details).  Regardless of what genre we write in, we all want to keep readers turning the pages, and suspense is an essential element. In her interactive workshop, Hellmann will illustrate techniques we writers can apply to our own work immediately.

Hellmann left a career in broadcast news in Washington, DC and moved to Chicago where she began writing gritty crime fiction. Sixteen thrillers and twenty-five short stories later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first. She has been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community and says she’s even won a few! A past president of Sisters in Crime, she’s also a member of MWA, CWA, and the Society of Midland Authors.

Susan Bell, our new secretary of the board, will be sending an invitation and a link to all chapter members. We also plan to invite other interested writers and readers to join us free of charge. If you’re interested in attending, please email Susan for the link at susancbell@yahoo.com. We have Zoom capacity for 100, so get your request in to Susan as soon as possible.

In addition to Hellmann’s presentation, our new program chair, Elaine Munsch, has an exciting array of speakers lined up for the coming year. Meantime, we’ll resume the critique portion of our meetings in February with a slightly altered format. But more on that in our January welcome back meeting.

I should also mention that I’ve begun hosting guest authors once or twice a month on my weekly blog at www.lynnslaughter.com. I’m beginning by featuring chapter members. I’d love for you to take a look at my December 5th guest blog by new member Lynda Rees at https://lynnslaughter.com/2020/12/05/meet-author-lynda-rees/ Coming up is a guest blog by outgoing president Beth Henderson on December 19th and another by Elaine Munsch, author of the Dash Hammond comedic mystery series, on January 9th.

I’ve missed our chapter meetings so much and look forward to seeing you on January 9th!