Posts Tagged mystery
‘Tragedy and loss are cornerstones of my story’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Anne Allen
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on April 2, 2014
One of the special pleasures of hosting The Undercover Soundtrack is the honesty of the writing. My guests are ready to delve into their innermost creative spaces and share the bare, exacting process of turning memories, experiences and feelings into stories. My guest this week is one of those writers who drew on raw times to create the novel she shares with us. Music helped her examine two tragic losses, with their conflicting emotions and struggling hours. The soundtrack is haunting and melancholic, but is also rakish and fun – Rod Stewart makes a welcome appearance as life recovers and warms up again. The author is romantic mystery novelist Anne Allen and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Intensity, humor, romance, piety, mystery – and protest’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Ted Oswald
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on January 15, 2014
Fasten your seatbelts for a trip to Haiti. My guest this week was inspired to write his first novel by a spell as a volunteer after the 2010 earthquake. When he returned to the US he began to write a story of friendship, the struggle for justice in the face of impunity, sacrifice for the community and the foolishness of scarcity in a world of plenty. To recreate that distinctive place and define his characters, he returned to the music he heard pouring out of the radios in Port-au-Prince – folk, rock, rap and hip-hop. He says his work is a protest novel and so he’s donating the proceeds to aid organisations he worked with to help further education, advocacy, justice reform and prosecute human rights abuses. The novel is Because We Are; he is Ted Oswald and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.
‘The perfect song for my characters to flourish’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Candace Austin
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on December 18, 2013
My guest this week says she can ignore just about any distraction and write – except if she can hear music. But she also can’t write a character until she has found the perfect song as a vehicle for their personality, back story and secrets. Her debut novel fits rather well with this blog for another reason too – it’s the story of the world’s most reincarnated man, with all the troubles – past and present – that that implies. She is Candace Austin and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Sex, drugs, metaphysics and rock’n’roll’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, David Biddle
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on November 27, 2013
Music, dead rock gods, psychedelia consciousnesses and the CIA – this novel definitely had to feature on the Undercover Soundtrack. Its title came from a Jimi Hendrix song, and germinated when the writer was just 17 years old. It took him another 15 years to write, though, when an Elvis track kicked his imagination and gave him a vivid scene set in a bar in rural Missouri. The novel is Beyond the Will of God, the writer is Talking Writing columnist David Biddle, and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Whistling past the graveyard’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Joni Rodgers
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 23, 2013
My guest this week is another old-timer on The Undercover Soundtrack. She returns with a playful story about a dishonoured cop and a pulp fiction writer who investigate a series of murders. Her soundtrack is sassy, full of fun and energy, but also undershot with an awareness of the tragic and macabre. She is Joni Rodgers and she’s on the Red Blog with the Undercover Soundtrack to her hardboiled mystery homage, Kill Smartie Breedlove.
When to trust the reader’s intuition – and when to spell out what a character feels: post at KM Weiland’s Wordplay
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Creating a character on May 17, 2013
Readers don’t have to be told everything. Sometimes they will intuit how a character feels about a plot development or another character. Or they know what’s unsaid. Or they understand that the quiet character who rarely says anything is vibrating with mysterious depths.
Good storytellers are masters of the reader’s curiosity and emotions. They know what they can plant between the lines and how to make readers fill the blanks. So how do they do this? And how might it go wrong?
Today KM Weiland has invited me to her fabulous blog Wordplay, where I’m discussing this tricky – and exciting – balance. Do come over.
‘A piece of music with dark water running through it’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Timothy Hallinan
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on May 1, 2013
Sometimes I find there’s an inexplicable moment when the tune in my ears tells the story back to me and from then on is part of its world. My guest this week became wedded to a Ravel piano concerto when it started at exactly the moment he began a long, brooding sequence with a killer. He likes to write in public places and his playlist is forever topped up by suggestions from his wide fanbase. Indeed his musical roots run deep; in the 1970s he was in a band that recorded an album for Universal and which ultimately, minus him, became the gazillion-selling group Bread. How cool is that? As cool as this – songs he’s written have been recorded by a number of top artistes in several genres. Now he’s an Edgar- and Macavity-nominated author of thrillers and mysteries. Could it get any cooler? His name is Timothy Hallinan and I’m thrilled to have him on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Notions of past and present hold no sway here’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Andrew James
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on April 3, 2013
My guest this week describes his novel as having a subliminal soundtrack that wormed into his head and influenced the period, the tone, characters and the ties that connect them. The novel, Blow Your Kiss Hello, is a mystery and a thriller with a bit of Other too. It’s the story of a man searching beyond the boundaries of here and now in the hope of finding his missing girlfriend. It’s set mostly in the 1990s with threads of 1640, a crossing that becomes apparent as Faithless meets Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aenas. He is Andrew James and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.