Lisa Gardner’s Top Five Writing Tips When I started my career as a suspense novelist, I was seventeen years old. I wrote my first novel on a shared computer in the college computer lab during my free time after my classes, homework and work-study job were all completed. Basically, I drafted three unpublished novels in […]
Tag Archives: Womenofmystery
Travel the Pacific Northwest With Five Mystery Authors
Travel the Pacific Northwest with Five Mystery Authors The Pacific Northwest is much like the mystery genre. It’s vast and diverse and has something for everyone. Just as mysteries range from gentle whodunits with no violence to graphic depictions of serial killers, the Pacific Northwest is a region of uncharted forest alongside cosmopolitan cities. This […]
Five Ways That Being An Engineer Has Made Me a Better Writer
Five Ways That Being An Engineer Has Made Me a Better Writer People always want to know how I made the career shift from my work as an environmental engineer into a career as a crime novelist that is now in its fifteenth year. Truthfully, it has never felt like such a big jump to […]
Can a Kitchen Inspire Suspense Novels?
Can a Kitchen Inspire Suspense Novels? A few years ago my husband and I sat down and looked over our life plan. After a lot of soul-searching and investigation, we realized that he could retire at the end of that year. We could move from the Chicago suburbs, buy a couple of acres near our […]
Female Cops Throughout History
Female Cops Throughout History I work for the Denver Sheriff Department and we handle the jails. I’m not on the front lines, but in the Data Science Unit where I conduct research. But women are on the front lines. It’s not unusual for one female deputy to guard an open pod of 64 men […]
Top Ten Quotes from Writers
Top Ten Quotes from Writers I’ve lived in France for twenty years and when I tell people that I’m a writer, they often gasp in awe and say that I must be so terribly inspired to be able to write. The French greatly esteem writers and writing. Which brings me to my first quote: […]
The Dark Side of the Human Psyche
The Dark Side of the Human Psyche Write what you know, they say. It’s good advice that I sometimes wish I followed better. My current series features co-protagonists: Tai, my gun-shop-owning narrator, and Trey, her ex-SWAT partner. Their lives are filled with murder and mayhem, corpses and criminals. My life is filled with laundry and […]
Bringing Back Gothic Mysteries To New Readers
Bringing Back Gothic Mysteries To New Readers One of the interesting things about being a writer is reading a fabulous book, finishing it, and thinking, “Why did that work on such a visceral level? What gave it that special pop that made me put it on my keeper shelf?” Okay, most people, notably my […]
Top Five Female Detectives
Top Five Female Detectives The mystery genre is filled with interesting sub-genres: domestic suspense, spy thriller, political thriller, noir, cozy, legal thriller, supernatural thriller, romantic suspense. But procedurals, populated with amateur and professional sleuths, may be one of the best-known sub-genres. From classic detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe to more modern-day examples such […]
Five Ways to Foil a Kidnapping
Five Ways to Foil a Kidnapping Imagine that a dastardly villain is out to kidnap you. Perhaps he’s a ruthless serial killer who’s been foiling police for years and is now out to make you the latest victim in his complicated plot. Or maybe he’s a Victorian count set on whisking you off to his […]
Don’t Start your Typewriter Without these Five Writing Tips
Don’t Start your Typewriter Without these Five Writing Tips I wanted to discuss some of the “nuts and bolts” of the writing business from my observations and lessons I’ve learned over the forty years I have been writing. This profession has changed drastically over the past several years with the rise of self-publishing and e-books. […]
Are You Really Who You Write?
Are You Really Who You Write? Is that really you? When you write historical fiction, how much of the contemporary writer goes into a protagonist who lives in another era? And why do you want to write about the long-ago past anyway? Good questions, and ones I am asked often. The answers aren’t as simple […]