MUSE MONDAY
Susie Black is a welcomed guest here on Discover... Her muse has guided her to write a cozy about a young sleuth. She's here to tell us all about it on Muse Monday.
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But writing a
series with a teen amateur sleuth who again was based on me—this time as a high
school newspaper investigative reporter presented several challenges that had
to be overcome to make the tale realistic.
Fourth down…you’re dead.
How much danger
could I/should I put my young sleuth into?
Would she tell her
parents what she was doing or lie to them? The protagonist insisted on not
revealing to her parents what she was involved in. I had to enlist the help of
her Nana who figured out what Hannah was doing to convince Hannah to fess up to
her parents.
Who would take a
teenage amateur sleuth seriously? If she interrogated an adult suspect would
they even give her the time of day, much less answer her questions? How would
she know what questions to ask? Even her school friends asked these same
questions.
If she had
suspects in mind, how would she go about investigating them? How would she know
what to do? How would she gain access to conduct her investigations?
If she did somehow
discover proof that a suspect was the killer, would the homicide detective take
her information seriously or blow her off?
While the series
is based on my experience as a high school newspaper investigative reporter, I
thankfully had never made such a gruesome discovery as Hannah White did. How
should she react? Terrified? Shocked? Faint? I took a risk and had her react
exactly as her wise-cracking, irreverent personality would dictate. And the
result was one of the funniest one-line zingers of the story:
Dean gulped. “Who are you
calling?”
“Donofrio’s Pizzeria. Dead
bodies give me the munchies.”
So, how did I overcome seemingly
insurmountable challenges?
1. I
created two adult characters who interacted with the teenage sleuth:
Bart White: Hannah White’s uncle and
the defense attorney for the teenage murder suspect. He enlisted her to get the
information he would be hard-pressed to obtain on his own.
H.S. Whiperski: A Private Investigator
Bart hired to work with Hannah. H. S. tailored the questions to ask and the
steps the teenage sleuth could realistically and safely take.
2.
I incorporated Hannah’s investigative reporter skills into
how she approached suspects and the methods she employed to question them.
Hannah questioned several teacher suspects under the guise of interviewing them
for a story she was writing for the school newspaper.
3.
I created a group of Hannah’s friends called the Young
Yentas who served as a sounding board for Hannah to bounce ideas off of and as
assistant sleuths.
4.
I added a teenage sidekick for Hannah who gave her access
to a key site at the high school to search for proof that a teacher had
committed the murder.
5.
I created a school janitor who served as a trusted source
of information, to bounce ideas off of, and who helped Hannah save a teacher’s
life.
6.
I devised a
“rope-a-dope” mechanism Hannah employed to interview suspects without them
realizing what she was doing.
The Case of the Croaked Coach, the debut title of The Hannah White Mystery Series was simultaneously the easiest and most difficult manuscript to write.
There wasn’t an honest
bone in Buzz Bixby’s body. The Encino High School’s head football coach was an
equal-opportunity scoundrel. Bixby cheated and lied his way to the top and
screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the
coach dead. The question was, who didn’t? Student
reporter Hannah White’s interview with the coach is a nonstarter when she
discovers varsity football hero Dean Snyder standing over Bixby’s battered
corpse holding a bloody trophy. Despite how guilty Dean looks, Hannah is
convinced he’s innocent. When Snyder is arrested for Bixby’s murder, the
wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the
real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing
turns out how Hannah thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer
hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
I
peppered Dean with questions. “Call 911? Try to help him. Check his pulse.
Perform CPR? Anything?”
Dean
hung his head. “No.”
“What the heck is the matter with you?”
He
bunched his shoulders.
“ If
you’d at least called 911 he had a chance of being saved.”
He
pointed the trophy at the corpse. “Is he dead?”
Dean bent over the coach’s crumpled body. “I’ve never seen a dead body before. How do you tell?”
The back of the guy’s head is smashed in like roadkill. How much more proof do you need?
I rolled
my eyes. “Well, since he hasn’t so much as twitched, it’s a safe bet the
next game Bixby coaches is gonna be played in the stadium located at the Great
Beyond.”
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Named Best US
Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, multi-award-winning cozy
mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny
Southern California home. She has published seven books and # eight is slated
for release in May 2025. A
voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly
intelligent man and is the mother of one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck
adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Susie Black Social Media Links:
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Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
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