Kelley Kaye

Mystery Mondays: Kelley Kaye on Writing Idiosyncrasies

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 13 Comments

This week on Mystery Mondays we welcome Kelley Kaye (also known as Kelley Bowles), The exciting news…Her second novel Poison  by Punctuation (Chalkboard Outlines Book 2) is being released tomorrow!  If you’ve read Death By Diploma, you won’t want to miss Poison by Punctuation.

Little Idiosyncrasies

My ideas for Character Development.

by Kelley Kaye

I’ve been told my strengths as far as writing fly in voice and character. So I wanted to take a minute to kind of examine a couple of neat things I’ve been finding out about, and trying for myself, as far as character development. Do they work? I can only go back to comments I’ve heard about my strength as a writer being in voice and characterization… So here we go:

As far as character goes, I think small is big. While it’s great if you have a big idea for the trigger that shapes your character’s basic personality, like a traumatic event from his youth or a colorful uncle from her present, that’s important. But I think it’s in the idiosyncrasies—the little habits or the minuscule events, all combined in to one big personality that make the character most memorable.
Does your character press her left toe into her shoe all the time? Left toe only? Why does she do that? My character was stung by a bee on that toe when she was four, and there’s a little scar there. Maybe it tingles when the phone is going to ring, if you’re looking for a small paranormal bent, or maybe she has to take off her shoe to rub the scar as the only way she knows to calm herself down. If she takes off her shoe to rub the scar before her calculus test or before the goodnight kiss at date’s end, it’s a small thing. But either scene tells the reader something about the character.

Yesterday I was clearing out a bunch of old books and I found a book on palmistry. I haven’t looked at it since I was a very young adult, I think I bought it because I had some sort of idea for myself, about reading palms for fun at parties. That never went anywhere, but now I thought, wow! Character who reads palms at parties. or at the breakfast table, or at Starbucks? That’s cool and interesting and could go all sorts of different places as far as plotline. Just from looking at a book on palm reading.

For my upcoming murder mystery—Poison by Punctuation—I continued with a tiny character trait for Leslie, one of the two main characters, but it’s turning bigger by the day. Leslie is super stylish, graceful, a fashion plate who (almost) always has every hair in place. But she has a sort of magic trick to correspond with her perfection, which works to help the reader know what kind of a person she is underneath. Whatever people around her need, she is able to produce. From where, nobody knows, but if it’s a Kleenex or a protein bar or…a pair of ski boots, somehow Leslie has it. She’s a little snarky, a little irreverent, and has no idea how intimidating she can be, but her magic whatever-you-need ability shows the big heart hiding in the sarcasm. It’s a small thing with a big impact.

The coolest new character trait I’ve decided to experiment with is a big thanks to YA Indulgences blogger Amber Barnes, and it’s called a character playlist. Thanks Amber! Seems like the most basic of ideas, but I never thought about it in terms of characterization. What’s your character’s top 10 musical playlist? Why are these songs in his top 10? We all know music triggers the most intense memories, so how can you use the playlist to help expand and define your (and your reader’s) knowledge of the character?

For me, all my characters have elements of me, but the playlist was nice because I could play with it beyond my own personal memories associated with the song. Anything by Peter Cetera transports me immediately to a dance in the gym of my junior high school, but Emma Lovett, my main Chalkboard Outlines cozy character, is only 27 years old. If I want Peter Cetera on her playlist, what cool little story is behind the reason she loves him? It doesn’t have to be a life-changing story, just something small. A little idiosyncrasy that can turn into big character relating.

Thank you for joining me today on the eve of my new release of Poison by Punctuation! I’m leaving you with Harper, my YA character’s playlist as an example, because I haven’t made playlists for Emma and Leslie yet… 😊Maybe I’ll make a list for Edward the librarian and Nate the skateboard-riding-through-hallways principal too, who knows?

Character PLAYLISTS

  1. Belly of the Whale Burning Sensations ‘Belly of the Whale’   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZgtKt8K3hoThis is, of course, Harper’s theme song. She feels so isolated in her body – like most teenagers do – that it’s like she is down in the belly of a whale in the bottom of the ocean.

    2. Closer to Fine Indigo Girls Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZgtKt8K3ho

    Harper‘s mom, Isabelle, introduced her to this song. Isabelle wrote a paper on this song when she was in college, and she’s loved it and the message ever since. Isabelle definitely feels this way—like the more you can go with the flow and roll with the punches, the better off you’ll be. Harper is trying.

    3. No Roots Alice Merton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUdyuKaGQd4

This, again, reflects Harper’s life theme. Since she’s not even sure she’s in the right family, she certainly doesn’t feel like she has roots anywhere.

4. The Man The Killers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3xcybdis1k

This song is for Harper’s Uncle Pasta—the gay uncle who lives in the basement. He’s hilarious and awesome—totally The Man! 😜

5. Uptown Funk Bruno Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1F0lBnsnkE

  1. Every Little Thing She Does is Magic the Police The Police – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ

Since Harper can envision her glorious future with basketball star Larson McCready—even though she’s never even talked to him—she can imagine him singing this song to her.

7. Breathe Anna Nalick- Breathe (2am)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRHSuPxgXo
The ability to say the right thing at the right time is an important and as yet unrealized skill for Harper. This song confirms how scary it is to put yourself out there for others to judge, but the song helps her know she’s not alone in feeling that way.

8. Blackbird The Beatles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRHSuPxgXo

Harper’s father, Michael, is this intense and driven man with very strong ideas and opinions. He’s the one who introduced her to the Beatles, but he was careful to explain that there are only a certain amount of Beatle songs that are genius, and some bubblegum poppy kinds that are lame. This, thankfully, he considers one of the genius ones because Harper thinks it’s beautiful, and feels like she is only waiting for HER moment to arrive…

9. Bohemian Rhapsody Queen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

Harper and Uncle Pasta like to headbang to this song.

And, for 10., Harper chose Michael Jackson, because, well, any playlist is incomplete without Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURRmWtbTbo

Poison By Punctuation

Screen Shot 2018-04-22 at 7.21.30 PMHigh school teacher Emma Lovett is finally recovering from her first year of teaching when she discovers another dead body. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this time, someone has killed a student, Kisten Hollis.

Emma and her best friend, Leslie, are desperate to solve this murder. But suspects abound. The perpetrator could be a teacher, an administrator, a member of Kisten’s zealous church community, or even another student.

Emma must juggle her teaching responsibilities, her new romance with handsome Hunter Wells, and interest from a hunky second suitor, all while searching for evidence to bring a killer to justice before someone else dies.

Who Kelly Kaye?

Kelley

Kelley Kaye is the pen name for the cozy mystery fiction of Kelley Bowles Gusich. Kelley taught high school English and Drama for twenty years in Colorado and California, but a 1994 MS diagnosis has (circuitously) brought her, finally, to the life of writer and mother, both occupations she adores, and both of which were dreamed of clear back at stories surrounding her Barbie and Ken. Her debut novel, cozy mystery Death by Diploma  was released by Red Adept Publishing February 2016, and is first in the Chalkboard Outlines®series. Book #2, Poison by Punctuationis coming out April 24! She’s also writing YA under Kelley Kay Bowles with her novel Down in the Belly of the Whalecoming May 5. Yay, books!

Kelley is active on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedinand GoodReads, with a combined over 3500 followers. Her website is www.kelleykaybowles.comwhere she’s valiantly attempting to blog once per week. She has two wonderful and funny sons, and an amazing husband who cooks for her. She lives in Southern California.

http://www.kelleykaybowles.com/

https://www.facebook.com/authorkelleykaye/

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kelley-kaye

Mystery Mondays:Kelley Kay(e) Bowles on How She Became A Mystery Writer

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 11 Comments

Welcome to Mystery Mondays. I took a break last weekend to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.  The funnest part. A bear came by and checked us out at Happy Hour. He climbed a tree, so he could see us on our balcony. How Canadian is that?

We’re also celebrating the 2nd anniversary of Mystery Mondays. I’d like to take a moment and than all the wonderful authors who have contributed. You know who you are and you rock!

To kick off the third year of Mystery Monday, we have author Kelley Bowles here to talk about how she became a mystery writer!

Kelley Bowles on Becoming a Mystery Writer:

I am a Pacifist. My whole family is a pack of Pacifists. Proof of our Pacifism, beyond the fact that I must gently deposit all spiders outside, is shown in a much-loved family story. My father, when he was 17, was taken deer hunting. This happened in 1950, when definitions of masculinity were, however right or wrong you feel this is, more clearly defined. Hunting is manly, and was considered a crucial rite of passage for many generations of men.

For my father, (who was in my opinion very manly, 

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but, you know—he’s Daddy) as soon as he picked up the gun and pointed it at the deer he put it right back down. “The deer and I made eye contact,” he said, “and that was all she wrote.” He never picked up a gun or raised a fist to another living thing, on two legs or four, ever again. Well, he did slam some guy’s arm in a door once, but that guy was trying to steal a camera from his office!

I, personally, have never owned or used a gun or even been in a fight, although I broke up a few during my 20 years of teaching. But I love murder mysteries. I’ve loved them since before I’d read every possible Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Encyclopedia Brown I could find, and I learned this from my father.

He was a voracious reader and a lifetime learner, who by the age of 32 hadn’t figured out what to do with his hundreds of college credits that had never turned into any kind of degree. He asked my mother, who was his girlfriend at the time, what he oughta do with his life. She said, ‘Well, how many books do you have?’ He said, ‘I dunno…five thousand?’ ‘Why don’t you open a store?’ was her response.

So he did—in 1966 he opened a used bookstore way before the idea became normal (I call him the ‘inventor’ of the used bookstore). He ran the bookstore for 40 years and always forwent some of his sales to bring his favorite books home to my mother, my sister and me. No question about it, the mysteries, thrillers and spy games were his favorites, and consequently became mine. Now I even write them!

The question then becomes WHY?

 Why does this family of Pacifists revel so in humanity’s worst behavior? This is a question people ask me, and I ask myself, all the time. I remember watching my dad fly through book after book, from Elmore Leonard to Clive Cussler to Agatha Christie, and he never slowed down and he never tired of the genre. I am more of a Harlan Coben Sarah Paretzky James Lee Burke kinda gal, but I feel the same way. And writing them? Fuggedaboutit. I practically salivate at the thought of solving the mystery, whether I’m writing my own or inhaling somebody else’s. None of us want to cause death or think too much about dying, but we love these stories about it SO MUCH! I think, for me it’s as much about looking at what good things people can do in the face of bad behavior as anything.

The cozy mystery series I write, called Chalkboard Outlines®, follows Emma Lovett and Leslie Parker, two high school English teachers in the fictional town of Pinewood, Colorado. They are way into Shakespeare, an obsession of many real or imagined English teachers, and his quotes and stories are integral to the books. Shakespeare, in my opinion, knew more about human nature than…anyone, really. It’s turning out to be a wonderful element for cozy mystery amateur sleuths who have more than a passing knowledge of him and his themes—the ladies can tap into his vast understanding of humanity when they’re searching for a killer (Shakespeare understands our love of the murder mystery, for sure!). I love seeing what good things Emma, Leslie and the other characters in the books try to do in the face of bad behavior.

I, also, was a high school teacher in an actual Colorado town. The high school setting is such a perfect place to examine this theme. I’ll be honest–sometimes it was tough to be a Pacifist there. J But as far school being this macrocosm of the larger society, with every possible character and event, outlook and reaction on display, it was a writer’s dream. Thomas Jefferson High School in my books is based on my Colorado school (and the one in Lake Tahoe where I landed my first teaching job), but when people ask me if the characters are based on real people, the answer is no. But also yes, because I draw from a huge pile of things that I’ve seen and experienced in this tiny universe. It’s the perfect place to continue my journey to answer the question of why this Pacifist is obsessed with murder mysteries!

I’m super excited to say the Chalkboard Outlines® adventure endures! The first book, Death by Diploma, published by Red Adept Publishing, came out in February 2016 and went #1 for Cozy Mystery on Amazon in August. Book 2, Poison by Punctuation, is under contract with RAP and will be released in early 2018. I am currently working on book 3, working title Strangled by Simile. I’d love to hear from other mystery lovers about their own answers to the question of why!

Kelley’s Mystery Novel: 

covernameEmma Lovett leaves her philandering husband and crosses the country to begin her teaching career at a high school in Pinewood, Colorado.There, she meets Leslie Parker, a fellow teacher given to quoting Shakespeare to fit all situations, and the two become fast friends.

Arriving at work early one morning, Emma discovers the body of the school custodian, a man who reminds her of her late father. When the police struggle to find the killer, the ladies decide to help solve the murder. Their efforts lead them to a myriad of suspects: the schizophrenic librarian, the crude football coach, the mysterious social studies teacher, and even Emma’s new love interest.

As Emma Lovett discovers the perils of teaching high school, she and Leslie learn more than they ever wanted to know about the reasons people kill.