Let me tell you a story... by Cathy Ace

Plot, character, setting - how do they fit together in your work? Which do you find the most tricky (if any) and which do you have the most fun with?

Oh heck – complex question, complex answer!

For my Cait Morgan Mysteries: I tend to start with a title. Yes, I know that’s odd, but that’s how it goes for me. I am almost ready to reveal the details of the 13^th book in the series, but not quite yet…so forgive me for talking about book 12, which came out in 2022. The title of this book was THE CORPSE WITH THE TURQUOISE TOES. As soon as I had the title, I saw the titular corpse in my mind’s eye: turquoise means (to me) somewhere where turquoise originates, and I had it…of course, a cult headquarters in the Sonoran Desert, way out beyond Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, I, too, hate it when authors tell me that stories just pop into their heads, so I’ll explain my thought process, I promise. I’d been “fortunate” enough to have encountered an actual cult back in 2020, and a story had been percolating about them…and I’d once got to know a high priestess for a volcano-worshipping cult whose HQ was in Sedona…then the turquoise thing just fitted in, and I was off! Yes, EVERYTHING I encounter in life is story-fodder.

Because Cait Morgan and Bud Anderson are in every book, those characters were in place, as was the setting itself (a fictionalized cult HQ built to be a “spa retreat”) but I wanted to use the framework of a seemingly-innocent cult-like life approach I’d invented back in book 2 in the series, and there was a great character I wanted to bring back from the same book, so I fitted her in (the daughter of an ageing rock star and his ex-groupie wife, who’d also been in book 2). She was a chef ,so I had her as the person setting up the restaurant at the desert retreat…then I built from there.

The plot? Because of my behind-the-scenes experiences with the cult I’d encountered in 2020, many of the storylines (how it operated, and could exploit the weak) were threads I could weave to a more substantial yarn…and I added in an extra layer – which I always do with the Cait books: there’s always some sort of ongoing (even if subtle) reference to other works of art – in this case it was the Oz books. I used every one of the wizard’s names for characters, used emblematic nods (Cait and Bud are transported to the cult’s HQ in a ruby-red vehicle, for example) and followed it all the way through there being characters there who are akin to the lion, the scarecrow, the tin man…and then there’s the “wizard” too, of course. Great fun to write, and all woven into a plot that’s complex and a bit tricky. Is plotting a challenge? Always, but it’s great fun. Yes, I’m a plotter not a pantster, so it’s all worked out ahead of time, as well as red herrings, real clues, and the final denoument.

For the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries: a bit different, though I still start with a title. These books feature a large, and ever-growing, cast of characters…though some come, and some go, with each book. The setting always includes the stately Chellingworth Hall and its Dower House, plus the village of Anwen-by-Wye. Beyond that? Often real local places like Builth Wells, Hay-on-Wye, and Brecon are in play, and I usually have at least one of my four private investigators having to head off to “another place” to do some digging about – which might be London, or the south-west corner of bucolic Scotland, or even the rugged coastline of Wales. In the most recent book it just so happened that all four of them remained within about a thirty-mile radius of their home base…but next time…no, can’t say! I enjoy writing about all these settings because – be they real or fictional – they are real to me, and I like to visit them…and I enjoy spending time with my characters too.

For these books there are always several cases being handled by the PIs, so that’s the hardest part – scheduling all the events that happen to each individual, and making sure they link up with their colleagues in the right way, at the right time. This means I plot these books in a different way than my Cait Morgan books - which are plotted in a linear form, with me starting the plot at the beginning and writing up across a forward-moving timeline. For the WISE women, I work up each case, then weave the whole set of cases together over the timeline, making sure that every person is only in one place at a time, and knows or doesn’t know that which it is imperative they know or don’t know at the right time, too. Post-It notes – I thank you!

I suppose, in summary, I find the setting, the characters, and the main story points to be the easier parts, but spend most time on the detailed plotting to make sure I am able to weave a complex story that hangs together, has the right pace to keep readers wanting to know what happens next, and to (hopefully) deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Then all I have to do is WRITE THE BOOK – which is what I am going to get back to asap!

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