Cozy Florida

Cozy Florida welcomes Eve Calder as our March guest to answer the question:

How do you organize a cozy murder?

Writing a cozy is a little like throwing a party.

You prep the setting, invite a bunch of friends, and add some great food. But you’re never sure exactly what will happen – or who else might show up.

I like to work out the puzzle aspect – the crime – before I start writing. So I already know the victim, the villain, the motive, and how the dark deed will be discovered.

But one of the many things I love about writing are the surprise gifts that just drop into your lap. Characters suddenly stride onto the page demanding attention. Situations

between characters turn into subplots. Or scenes take an unexpected twist as you’re writing them. Maybe that’s why I can’t bring myself to use an outline when I plot a book.

I admit, I’ve never been very good at coloring inside the lines.  

When the middle school English teacher introduced us to the concept of story outlines, all those neatly indented rows of descending points and facts were just a little too sterile. Mechanical.

I loved English class. But I hated outlines. Their rigid structure was constricting — fine for analyzing a book that’s already been written. But for creating a story from scratch? Not so much.

That semester, we were directed to squeeze all of our stories and essays into that stilted format before we wrote a word. It was stifling. I mean, in the real world, whose life follows a list moving neatly from point to point? (Mine sure hasn’t.)

Even as an adult, I’m still allergic to outlines. Or maybe I should say “outline intolerant.” I know they won’t kill me, but I feel a lot better when I avoid them.

Still, when I started writing And Then There Were Crumbs (the first book in the Cookie House series), I needed something to help me see – and juggle — all the characters, motives, and plots simultaneously. (At least, all the ones I knew about when I started the book.)

I also needed a tool flexible enough to allow for changes on the fly: new characters popping up unexpectedly (like John Quincy, a beagle with a past), evolving subplots (the appearance of the town’s new vet, Jack Scanlon), and maybe a surprise red herring or two. Bottom line: an outline just wouldn’t cut it.

So I took a lesson from some of my favorite TV mysteries: I created my own murder board. And why not? All the best sleuths use them — everywhere from Law & Order to Midsomer Murders. So if they can use a board to solve crimes, why can’t I use a board to plot one?

Glamorous it’s not. Mine is an oversized corkboard that I dragged home from a neighborhood store. Literally.

Almost too large to hang, I propped it up against a bookcase in my living room. Within a week, it had more pins in it than a voodoo doll.

Around the edges, candy-colored 3×5 cards detailed each of the (many) characters with their most important traits or thoughts. Interspersed between those were sketches and photos to set my scene — the fictional south Florida island of Coral Cay — turquoise waves, lush flowers, palm trees, classic Florida architecture, and puppies (to help me get into the head of Coral Cay’s resident dog-about-town, Oliver.) Even better, the board provided a visual reminder to describe the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that my protagonist – New York pastry chef Kate McGuire – finds so enticing about island life.

In the center of the board, I lined up the plot points in the order I expected they’d likely occur. But unlike a rigid outline, I could switch cards in seconds if my characters suddenly had other ideas. And, as I wove various scenes into the book, those cards came off the board – I didn’t need them anymore.

Three books in, it’s a system that still works for me. No toil, pure fun. Best of all, every time I glance at the board, I smile. Just like I want readers to smile when they visit Kate, Oliver, the Cookie House bakery, and Coral Cay.

I like to think of it as the outline, humanized.

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Eve Calder is the author of the Cookie House mystery series, featuring pastry chef and amateur sleuth Kate McGuire. The series and her latest book, “A Tale of Two Cookies,” (from St. Martin’s Press), are set on the fictional southwest Florida island of Coral Cay. Eve grew up in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando – with frequent trips to Sanibel and Captiva. Those locales, along with Winter Park – where she attended Rollins College – have helped inspire the setting for the Cookie House mysteries.

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Cozy Florida has several copies of A Tale of Two Cookies to giveaway to a few lucky commenters.

Comment below with your FAVORITE TYPE OF COOKIE.

Winners will be chosen at random on April 1st from the comments.