Brainstorming

Jackie Layton

Jackie Layton

Dog-Gone Dead is the second book of A Low Country Dog Walker Mystery series. I created the fictional town of Heyward Beach, South Carolina for the setting of this series. It’s south of Myrtle Beach and north of Charleston. I took parts of some of my favorite beaches to create this special place. The island section of Heyward Beach has a few shops, homes, a pier, and of course a beach. A marsh separates the island from the mainland area of Heyward Beach.

I love the ebb and flow of island life. There’s so much life, beauty, and movement, it’s hard to get bored. Each morning there are new shells to be found, birds to see, and if you’re lucky dolphins to watch playing in the ocean. People who enjoy fishing can choose to fish in the ocean or the marsh, or as the locals often call it, the creek. People may fish from their boats, off a dock, from the bridge on the causeway, and some even pull on their waders and walk right into the creek and fish with nets.

Andi Grace Scott is the main character in this series. She’s a dog walker and grew up in this community. She knows the locals, and they trust her to take care of their pets. In creating Andi Grace, I wanted a character with a big heart who loves people. She thinks everybody needs a dog, and she enjoys matching stray dogs to people. She likes people who aren’t dog people, but she feels sorry for them. When Andi Grace isn’t working

When I started brainstorming this series, I researched careers with flexibility and mobility. I didn’t think my sleuth could be a pharmacist, stockbroker, or banker because these jobs don’t allow people to run around tracking down clues. I also wanted something fun, and what’s more fun than hanging out with animals?

Another interesting aspect of the Low Country is the warm weather and ability to grow different varieties of flowers throughout the year. Oak trees with Spanish moss, pine trees, palmettos, front porches, raised houses, plantation homes, sea turtles, alligators, and golf courses are all part of life in the Low Country.

Dog-Gone Dead opens as Andi Grace and her best friend head to a local historical site early one morning before it opens for tours. Before long, they discover a body and soon Andi Grace is investigating another murder. 

If you love small-town coastal life, dogs, and strong heroines, you’ll love Dog-Gone Dead.

South Carolina has been my home for three years. I’ve fallen in love with the people and the area, and it was easy to pick this for my setting. I hope readers enjoy visiting Heyward Beach and hanging out with Andi Grace and her friends. 

Former Kentucky pharmacist Jackie Layton loves her new life in the Low Country. Walks on the beach, bike riding, and collecting shells are a few of her hobbies when she's not writing. She and her husband also enjoy spending time with their family in Kentucky and Texas.

Jackie enjoys connecting with readers, and she can be found on social media as well as her blogs.

Social media links:

https://jackielaytoncozyauthor.com/

http://jackiesbackporch.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Joyfuljel

https://www.facebook.com/JackieLaytonAuthor

https://www.facebook.com/Joyfuljel

https://www.pinterest.com/jackielaytonauthor

https://www.instagram.com/jackielaytonauthor

Lord Save Me From Critique Groups

By Duffy Brown

Critique group is two words, two parts. The group part builds your story; the critique part ruins it. Brainstorming with others develops, creates and unites; critiquing destroys frustrates and separates.

There are boatloads of how-to books out there on the basics of writing and lists of workshops that can hone skills, but when it comes to writing your story, it must be one-hundred-percent told in your voice. If you let a critique group at your story, you get book-by-committee. It’s sliced, diced, and put back together to suit them, not you. Nothing fresh and new comes from working with a group. Fresh, new, and exciting comes from deep inside the writer when she has an idea just bursting to get out.

Critiquing is like throwing a rock through a window. The original work is shattered. Brainstorming is like throwing a rock in a pond. It lands and the ripples start building from small circles to every widening ones that seem to go on forever. The brainstorming group forms a pool of creative energy where great ideas feed off other great ideas. Goals, motivation and conflict of the story are explored in ways you never even thought about.

Brainstorming an entire story doesn’t mean someone else writes my book. It means you come with the basic premise, characters, maybe a beginning and end and some turning points.

You bring these ideas to the group, ply them with chocolate-chip cookies then write down their ideas as they suggest ways to fill in the rest of the story. Do this in three stages--the opening and beginning of the story, the middle action and turning point, the climax, black moment and epiphany. You explore what makes the story unique, the characters unique, what hooks fit and how pitch the story to an editor.

You can take notes but a tape recorder is better. You write down and take into consideration all the ideas, even ones you think will never work. What sounds crazy now may very well be what works the best when you’re actually writing the story. One idea often sparks another idea that you’d never have thought of on your own.

In brainstorming, the most important things to remember are there are no wrong ideas, no one insists their idea is best or someone else’s won’t work and pass the cookies.

Brainstorming doesn’t have to be for an entire book. Maybe it’s the beginning or end or a scene that needs help. Perhaps a character’s gotten into a mess and you don’t know how to get him out of it. Maybe he needs to get into a mess and you’re looking for the right motivation.

A fun and incredibly productive way to brainstorm is a brainstorming weekend. This is not a vacation; this is work. In fact, when you get back you’ll need a vacation. Being with other authors lets you see how they plot and create wonderful intriguing characters that bring their stories to life.

Brainstorming is far better than critiquing. It’s a positive experience, not negative in any way. Editors say, write the book of your heart—not lots of people’s hearts. It has to be your story told your way in your voice. When that editor buys your book, the most important thing they buy is your voice. The way you tell the story...not the way the group tells the story.

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Duffy Brown loves anything with a mystery. While others girls dreamed of dating Brad Pitt, Duffy longed to take Sherlock Holmes to the prom. She has two cats, Spooky and Dr. Watson, her license plate is Sherlock and she conjures up who-done-it stories of her very own for Berkley Prime Crime. Duffy's national bestselling Consignment Shop Mystery series is set in Savannah and the Cycle Path Mysteries are set on Mackinac Island. Connect with Duffy at her website www.DuffyBrown.com and on Facebook: Facebook.com/authorduffybrown  Her latest book is a Consigmnet Shop Mystery, Demise in Denim.  

ACK!

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director

Over the 15 years I’ve been online, I think I’ve done a pretty fair job keeping up with the acronyms of internet jargon. Way back when, I was the first on my block to know “LOL”.  (Just for the record, I have yet to use “ROFL”, because I never actually do roll on the floor laughing in real life and am all about truth in advertising.  I will, however, admit to typing the occasional courtesy “LOL”, suggesting that I’m laughing out loud when I’m really just Politely Acknowledging a Pun. But responding with “PAP” would sound disrespectful, so I stick with the old standby, LOL.)

I felt a little less hip to net lingo a couple of weeks ago when one of my clients emailed me to ask if I was available to help him record voice tracks of his children for an audio project. He ended his brief email with “LMK”. That was a new one on me. I almost wrote back, “Loud Mouthed Kids?” but I had the good sense to Google it first. 

Of course, acronyms have been in use long before the worldwide web. We’ll get it there ASAP. I need a little R&R. Elvis knew how to TCB.

And in business, the list of corporations better known by their acronym is endless. IBM, AT&T, NHL, UPS, NBC, AAA … each makes their full real name seem laborious by contrast, plus you can imagine what the companies save on signage.

All of which brings me to this: what if everyone’s first name was actually an acronym?

I’d like to share with you a mindbending little word game my friend Bad Dog and I often played while warming up for a brainstorming session (also known as lunch). It was creative fun with lots of laughs. A good name for this game is “Ack”, for acronym.

You simply take the first name of any person you know anything about – from a family member to a celebrity – and come up with what their name could be an acronym for.  

Examples:

MARK (as in Twain) = Missouri Author Regaling Kids

CONAN (O’Brien) = Comedian Ordinarily Noticed At Night

HANNIBAL (Lector) = Hungry Antagonist Nibbling Neighbors In Beans And Liquor

Obviously, the longer the name, the trickier it can get. But the real challenge is coming up with something fitting, having some measure of accuracy. That’s really the only rule; anything else goes.

As well as being an entertaining diversion, “Ack” enhances writing skills by forcing you to find the perfect words within a very specific, limited framework. I myself have found that it develops a readier ability to conjure up useful phrases at other, more important times. 

Additionally, if you use the names of people you know, you’ll be surprised how soon you discover what you really think of somebody. You hone in pretty quickly on those revealing key words. So you get a little free psychology at the same time.

I invite you to try this little word game, and truly hope you’ll enjoy it. LMK.