Inspiration

Once again, Larry, my husband and partner in crime—novels, that is, wanted to share where we have gotten some of our inspirations. Please tell us your own stories, as well. Sometimes the 'back-story' is as interesting as the finished tale.

Recently Lorna and I attended a memorial luncheon for our friend Les, and it brought back memories of how we sometimes get inspiration for our writing.

Lorna’s day job some years ago was working in IT for a bank. One day she was having lunch in the cafeteria when Les placed his tray on the table and sat next to her.

“How’s the book coming?” he asked.

At the time we were working on our first mystery, Murder… They Wrote, and Lorna explained how one of our characters was going to be a protester at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. 

“I was there,” he said.

“You were?"

“Yeah, I was in the park.”

“Really? Tell me about it.”

He related the story of being in Grant Park during the clash between police and protesters, and hearing Phil Ochs sing “I’m Gonna Say it Now.” It was a life-changing experience for Les, and it became the same for our character.

During the luncheon, his niece told us Les had been cremated and his ashes spread at sea with those of his wife who died a year before. In our books, many of our victims’ remains are given the same kind of ceremony. The ashes form a silver-gray sheen on the water, often surrounded and caressed by rose petals thrown by the mourners.  Some individuals have commented on seeing shapes of hearts or faces in the spreading ashes. A final goodbye perhaps. I can attest to the sense of closure and the feeling of oneness with nature and the creator that others have expressed.

We were inspired to use that method because it is a common practice where our mysteries are set in Hawaii, and we have personally participated in the spreading of ashes of family and friends.

* * * *

Another inspiration came in the mid-seventies when I worked with an engineer on a refinery in Texas. His call sign on the plant radio system was Blossom, referring to his former “flower child” life. During one morning break, our discussion turned to rock music of the sixties.

“I was at Woodstock,” he volunteered. “It was bitchin'. Best time ever.”

“Tell me about it.”

Among the adventures he described was waking on Sunday morning to the sound of Jimmy Hendricks playing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

“I was blown away,” he told me. “I’d never been much attracted to patriotic music, but his rendition changed my life.” I tried to duplicate his excitement and enthusiasm in my story, “Wayne,” in Lakeview Park. 

* * * *

I  only need to close my eyes to recall the worn blue metalflake finish and missing volume control knob on the Fender Stratocaster guitar owned and played by our friend Wayne. Lorna sang while Wayne and I played guitars in a church praise band for several years.

 Wayne, the guitarist in my book Lakeview Park, contains elements of the real Wayne and shares the stories told by Blossom.

* * * *

Lorna has a sweatshirt with “Careful or you may end up in my next novel” printed on the front. It’s intended as humorous, but as any author knows, there is a lot of truth in it.

Wayne McKibbin and Les Senour are gone now, but small pieces of their lives remain, immortalized in the words we have written and in our hearts as well.

Creating Characters

We’re often asked how we create characters. Do they just appear or do we make them up? The answer is “YES”!

The truth is that we sometimes start with a plot, and the characters emerge from that. At other times we ‘cast’ them based on friends or celebrities. Here are a few examples:

AGAPÉ JONES

We were attending the Maui Writers Conference when Larry got the idea of writing a mystery set at a writers’ conference. So Murder… They Wrote began as his brainchild.

The next day, we met Love Smith and talked to him about ten minutes. As we walked away, I said to Larry, ‘We have to write that guy!” Thus our protagonist Agapé Jones was born. He’s loosely based on Love. However, whenever we see him, we discover that we’re writing what he’s actually doing! So maybe we’re channeling him… And here we thought we were creating the whole story.

AMY & DAN

For my novella, “Winter’s Song” in the anthology, Seasons of Love, I decided to use our friends Amy and Dan as the inspiration. He’d been after me for years to write their story, and this was the perfect opportunity. (I used their real first names with their permission. Find out what happened after the story here: )

Of course, I fictionalized most of the story. At least I thought I did.

Amy’s mother is a member of our writing group. Several times we’d read a chapter and she’d say, “How did you know about that?” I’d answer, “I thought I’d made it up.” Then she’d proceed to tell me the real story which was eerily similar to what I’d ‘made up.’

COUNTESS ELEKTRA ROZANSKA

For Murder… They Wrote, we decided to create an older lady as one of the suspects. Larry’s speech teacher in grammar school was Countess Elektra Rozanska. I said, “I’d love to use her real name!” “So would I,” he said. So we tried to locate her family without success.

We decided to use her name anyway since she was long gone and she’d have loved being a suspect! So we wrote the character based on her with a few embellishments. (Find out why she was so important to Larry here: http://bit.ly/cERPQc)

A couple of years after the book was published, we were contacted by her grandson. He was delighted that we had written her as a character, and he agreed that she’d have loved her role. He later contacted us to let us know that, although she’d convinced Larry that her title and exploits were all true, she had actually made up not only the name but also part of her back story! Still, we’re so happy that we could pay homage to this very special person in Larry’s life.

LOVEY JONES

Another special lady in my life was Lovie Cooper. (You can see her photo and read about her on our website (http://bit.ly/LBSdjM). When we created Agapé, we decided he needed someone to confide in. Thus was his dead mother, Lovey created, based on our own Lovie. She’s really easy to write since I just close my eyes and imagine her talking to me.

KIMI MCGUIRE & JASON NAKAGIRI

When we first discussed our anthology, Directions of Love, I knew I wanted to take the west. I love Hawaii and wanted to set at least some of my novella there. So “Finding Love in Paradise” was begun. I also decided to take advantage of our own experiences even farther west: Japan.

In this case, Kimi grew out of the storyline. She had to be at least partially Hawaiian so she had a connection there. I’ve seen many lovely Hawaiian girls in our many trips to that special place. We also know many young Japanese women. So Kimi’s appearance was based on a composite of them. Since she was raised in the US, her personality, speech, etc. were easy to write.

Her love interest, Jason, needed to be Japanese/Hawaiian for the story to work. Again, he grew out of the story. However, one night we were watching “The Mentalist” on TV, and Detective Cho (Tim Kang) walked onscreen. “That’s Jason!” I exclaimed. From that moment on, Jason looked like the actor.

However, that wasn’t the end of the story. A couple of years later, we were visiting Oahu and decided to spend a day at Queen Emma’s Summer Palace. We were assigned a docent, and when she appeared I gasped. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But you look exactly like a character I created for a book.” I went on to describe “Finding Love in Paradise” to her. It turned out that this young lady shared many characteristics with Kimi. Both were Irish/Hawaiian. Both studied anthropology at UH. Kimi was a docent at the Bishop Museum, and this one was at the Summer Palace.

And once again I wondered just how much I’d made up.

NAN BURTON & MAX MURDOCH

The character of Nan Burton in my new novel Ghost Writer is loosely based on the young ladies I worked with at my last job. I tried to capture their speech patterns and language since they were close to her age.

Max Murdoch, the ghost, was really based on some of the characters portrayed by Clifton Webb in his old movies, particularly Three Coins in the Fountain (http://bit.ly/JucuHy). He is an old curmudgeon, egotistic, and insensitive. He’s also a bit arrogant and British like the character Jonathan Harris Played in the TV Show Lost in Space (http://bit.ly/5n79q).

Even though I think I made them up, I have a sneaky suspicion that, given my record to date, I may actually meet people like them someday.