Patricia Stoltey

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When Inspiration Whacks … by Edith Maxwell

March 24, 2016 By: Patricia

2016_Edith Maxwell

Edith Maxwell

For me as a writer, inspiration sometimes jumps out of the bushes and whacks me on the head. Other times it’s a little more stealthy. For example, once a man I’d seen walking on the street hung around in my brain until he became a character and then had a story form around him.

2016_Maxwell_Delivering the TruthCover

My Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Midnight Ink) sprang up from a convergence of several events (and then whacked me on the head). One: I moved to an antique house in a lovely historic mill town in northeastern Massachusetts where I’d been attending Friends Meeting (what we call church) for more than two decades. Two: I quit my day job to become a full-time mystery writer. Three: I read a news story about a fire in 1888 that destroyed many of the factories producing Amesbury’s world-famous carriages.

2016_Maxwell_2-4WagonBailey

As I walked to church one Sunday morning, a character gently whacked me on the head and said she wanted to solve the crime of arson that started the Great Fire of 1888. She was a seventeen-year-old Quaker mill girl – and she lived in my house. Okay! I listened to Faith Bailey and wrote a short story, even though historically the fire was not caused by arson. John Greenleaf Whittier was still alive at the time and lived down the road, so he got a bit part, too. “Breaking the Silence” was published in Stone Cold: Best New England Crime Stories 2013 (Level Best Books) and won an Honorable Mention in the Al Blanchard Short Crime Fiction Contest.

Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse, used by permission from Kathleen Wooten

Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse, used by permission from Kathleen Wooten

Then Faith, the setting, the era – they all refused to go away. More whacking on the head. It was clear I needed to write a book about them, but I decided Faith wasn’t strong enough to carry a series, and I didn’t want to write a young adult novel. So I added Faith’s not-much-older aunt, Rose Carroll, her late mother’s sister, and I made Rose a midwife who turns out to have a talent for amateur detecting. She can go places no male detective can – a woman’s bedchamber – and hears secrets during client visits and labor that otherwise might never have been revealed.

Noshery Building

Noshery Building

I found I love the era, too. So much is on the cusp of change. The horse-drawn trolley didn’t become electrified for another two years. Rich people would have had gas stoves in their homes, and telephones, but not those with a modest income like Rose. Germ theory of infection was starting to be known, so Rose knows to wash her hands frequently, but almost all births were still done at home with midwives. Even fingerprinting was still some years off.

Hamilton Mill Buildings

Hamilton Mill Buildings

I have been happier writing the books in this series than any of my other books, as much as I enjoy them, too. I don’t mind the extra work of the historical research, and I keep seeking out new facts, new old photographs and maps, new stories I didn’t know about my town. Maybe the stories that whack you over the head are the ones that need to be written. I don’t know. I’m just grateful for that whack, and that I’ll be writing book three starting in June.

Readers, where do you get inspiration? Have you had the experience of being whacked over the head, or are your insights more subtle?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Her short story, “A Questionable Death,” is nominated for a 2016 Agatha Award for Best Short Story. The tale features the 1888 setting and characters from her Quaker Midwife Mysteries series, which debuts with Delivering the Truth on April 8.
Maxwell is Vice-President of Sisters in Crime New England and Clerk of Amesbury Friends Meeting. She lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats, and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and at her web site.

More from my site

  • Fifteen Tips for Writing Mystery Novels that Sell … by  Jacqueline SeewaldFifteen Tips for Writing Mystery Novels that Sell … by Jacqueline Seewald
  • The Making of a Mystery Author by Paty JagerThe Making of a Mystery Author by Paty Jager
  • Sometimes I Wonder Where My Next Idea Will Come From … by Marilyn MeredithSometimes I Wonder Where My Next Idea Will Come From … by Marilyn Meredith
  • Writing from Experience … by Bill LamperesWriting from Experience … by Bill Lamperes
  • The Message That Demands to be Heard … by Tracee SiouxThe Message That Demands to be Heard … by Tracee Sioux
  • ON LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION … by David FreedON LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION … by David Freed

Category: Books and Authors, Guest Blogger Tag: Edith Maxwell, inspiration Quaker Midwife Mysteries, mystery writing, Quakers, research, where ideas come from

Comments

  1. Rachna Chhabria says

    March 29, 2016 at 3:57 am

    Nice to meet you Edith. I like the way inspiration sneaks up on writers and catches them by surprise!

  2. Susan Gourley says

    March 28, 2016 at 10:14 am

    that was really interesting how the ideas came about. I actually like reading crime stories and mysteries set in that era too. I wouldn’t dare the challenge of writing them. My ideas usually come to be for setting and plot before characters.

  3. Dean Miller says

    March 24, 2016 at 8:47 pm

    Every now and then inspiration sneaks up on me, but usually I’m eyes wide open taking mental notes, have conversations with ideas and characters and letting life roll open its doors for me. When it settles, I write. Pretty simple and special for me.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 25, 2016 at 7:40 am

      I love that special feeling when the characters lead you to the writing, Dean.

  4. Natasha Wing says

    March 24, 2016 at 8:31 pm

    More like sneaking up on me. Less violent but I still have their attention.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 25, 2016 at 7:39 am

      That works, Natasha!

  5. John Paul McKinney says

    March 24, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    I think I get whacked when I least expect it. Thanks Pat and Edith.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 24, 2016 at 8:09 pm

      That’s always the best, John!

  6. Margot Kinberg says

    March 24, 2016 at 10:28 am

    So delighted to see Edith here! Thanks both. And I think that’s exactly why authors need to pay attention. Inspiration does sometimes sneak up. And if you don’t pay attention, that’s when you get head-whacked.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 24, 2016 at 11:54 am

      Exactly, Margot!

  7. Tonette Joyce says

    March 24, 2016 at 10:01 am

    Absolutely been whacked! The most amazing one was that I saw a picture a friend posted online of a wall. A WALL! A whole story involving two couples came to me completely in a couple of seconds. The rest of the story and characters keep writing themselves whenever I take the time for them.
    I really need to get to this series of yours, Edith.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 24, 2016 at 3:47 pm

      Thanks, Tonette! Don’t you love it when stories write themselves?

  8. Edith Maxwell says

    March 24, 2016 at 9:36 am

    Thanks!

  9. L. Diane Wolfe says

    March 24, 2016 at 7:57 am

    Once I began writing my series, the secondary characters all whacked me upside the head and said “Write my story, too!”

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 24, 2016 at 9:36 am

      Don’t you love that?!

  10. Alex J. Cavanaugh says

    March 24, 2016 at 6:00 am

    Interesting place for a sleuth to get clues!
    My ideas are more subtle. The unfold slowly.

    • Edith Maxwell says

      March 24, 2016 at 3:48 pm

      Subtle is good, too.

Meet Patricia

I read, I write, I blog, and sometimes I do the laundry and cook. My 2014 novel, Dead Wrong, was a finalist in the thriller category of the 2015 Colorado Book Awards. Wishing Caswell Dead (Five Star/Cengage, December 20, 2017) is a historical mystery set in 1830s Illinois in the fictitious Village of Sangamon. The novel was a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards for General Fiction. My most recent release, In Defense of Delia (Five Star/Cengage, November 2022), is available in hardcover and will soon be available in ebook and trade paperback. Read More…

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