Keep it Fresh

 

Terry here with our question of the week: How do you avoid repeating yourself? Do you reinvent your approach to storytelling, or do you lean into what already worked and risk creative stagnation? 

 I write a long-standing series (twelve to date) so it’s important to me to avoid repeating plot ideas, murder methods, and resolutions. Here’s how I do it: 

 1) My characters are always moving forward. Into new situations, with new relationships, new settings. They’ve learned from the past and looking to the future. My protagonist, Samuel Craddock, is an older chief of police in a small town. He could easily become a stock character. But I’ve given him different love interests, different relationships with friends, both men and women, and growth in the way he reads the world. For example, in Murder at the Jubilee Rally, I introduced his nephew’s feisty teenaged daughter. She gave Craddock some trouble, and he needed to figure out how to engage with her. It was both funny and enlightening. It was fun to write, and it opened up scenarios that wouldn’t occur in his everyday world. In one of the early books, a neighbor introduced him to fine wine. Never much of a drinker, he discovered the enjoyment of sipping a glass or two of good red wine. Which also got him in trouble in a later book with The Baptists. 

In one of the early books, I had Craddock courting a woman who shared his interest in art. Alas, she was also a vegetarian, and no matter how good vegetarian dishes were, he simply couldn’t keep up. To jazz things up, I had several people be huffy when he broke up with her. Then I introduced his “wild child” lover, Wendy. As his relationship with her unfolded, I discovered that I didn’t like her very much. But how was I to get rid of her? The easy way would have been to kill her. Booorrring. I think I came up with a delightful solution in The Curious Poisoning of Jewel Barnes, a solution that will spill over into the next book, The Redemption of Allie Pryor. 

 2) I have a revolving number of secondary characters, especially his deputies. It’s a small town, and deputies come and go as young ones go on to bigger jobs and older ones retire. There are two recurring secondary characters, Loretta Singletary, and Craddock’s deputy, Maria Trevino. The way these two characters, one young, and one older, interact with Craddock keeps things fresh. It was a surprise to me when the two women became good friends. In each book I reveal something new about the these characters. For example, in The Troubling Death of Maddy Benson, I revealed that Loretta is an avid reader of romance novels. It keeps characters fresh for me, as well as for readers. 

 But there are other characters who pop in from out of town, or as supporting character with an opinion. One of my characters is a “gun nut.” He believes if everyone carried a gun, we’d all be safer. He showed in a few books spouting his gun culture beliefs before I decided he was becoming a cartoon. I needed to give him another dimension. So I gave him a mentally disabled son, whom he adored and treated with great kindness and respect. 

 3) There are only so many ways to murder someone, but I vary it. For example, in A Reckoning in the Back Country, a man is murdered by being savaged by wild dogs. I’ve used knives a couple of times, guns, poison, and assault, among others. 

 4) I vary the way criminals try to cover up what they’ve done. This is my favorite variation. It means really having to be creative. It also means that a really creative murder makes it harder for Craddock (and me) to figure out. One of my favorites was the coverup of the murder in Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store. I had set myself up for what seemed like an impossible cover-up. It took a lot of research. When I discovered the perfect cover-up, I was absolutely gleeful. 

 5) I try not to use too many tropes. I sometimes get impatient when I’m reading a book and there’s yet another “secret” uncovered that set the story in motion. Not to say that I don’t understand that secrets can be deadly, but reliance on them can also be deadly boring. 

 6) I vary the entry into the books. At some point, I realized I often began with Loretta coming to Samuel’s house in the early morning, bringing the baked goods that she gifts her friends with. I decided I needed to get into the next few books from a different angle. Again, refreshing for me as well as for my readers. 

 7) I always have some element of social justice in the books. It’s a way of expanding the horizons of the characters, bringing in real issues from the outside world that townspeople may not even realize impinge on their small town, but which often does. For example, in the latest book, The Curious Poisoning of Jewel Barnes, the poisoning of one character is echoed in the poisoning of communities through toxic dumping. 

 8) Each time I approach a new Samuel Craddock book, I look at the overall arc of the series to see who hasn’t had a role in a while, where Craddock is in his life, and what people in town are riled up about. There’s always something in a small town. For example, in one book the Baptists are determined to wrest control of The Goat Rodeo from the Catholics. In another, townspeople are up in arms about the Jubilee Motorcycle Rally, with its loud motorcycles roaring through town. The reader may laugh, but the people of town take it seriously. And it gives me a center for the book. 

 Every time I think I’ve run out of ideas for another Craddock book, I think about these points, and so far something new has always jumped out at me. The next book, which I’m working on now, is no exception.