Patricia Stoltey

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Self-Editing One Step at a Time: How to Identify Dragging Narrative

February 8, 2016 By: Patricia

I’m focused on novel revisions and self-editing for a mystery manuscript, so I decided to publish a few posts based on segments of my Self-Editing One Step at a Time presentation/handout. Today I’m presenting a few clues to find spots in your novel that sag (as in that “sagging middle”) or drag (as in “boring …Read More

Tag: dragging narrative, Revisions, sagging middle, self-editing

Taking the Bitter with the Sweet

January 17, 2016 By: Patricia

I have bad news and good news.   Bad: My publisher, Five Star/Cengage, is ending its mystery line and going forward only with westerns and Frontier Fiction. Those writers who had mysteries in the queue but no contract yet must start the search again….or self-publish. Good: The novel I submitted to Five Star in October …Read More

Tag: Alexander Graham Bell, Brainy Quotes, Five Star/Cengage, mysteries, Wordpress

How I Wrote a Historical Novel Set in an Era I Knew Nothing About … by Jennifer Kincheloe

November 5, 2015 By: Patricia

Five years ago, I knew nothing about the Progressive Era. I mean naught, nothing, nada. I had some vague notion that they washed their hair with egg yolks and drank Coca Cola laced with cocaine, but that was about it. I ran across a brief article about a police matron, Alice Stebbins Wells, who became …Read More

Tag: guest blogger, historical fiction, Jennifer Kincheloe, research for historical fiction, The Secret Life of Anna Blanc

Writing by Sticky Note: Saving Those Fleeing Ideas … By M. K. Theodoratus

October 29, 2015 By: Patricia

A fortune cookie once told me: A short pencil is more enduring than a long memory. I don’t know about you, but that little slip of paper knew how my brain works. Yeah, my memory has the half-life of a gnat. “Brilliant” ideas appear at the most inopportune times and fade away before I can …Read More

Tag: M.K. Theodoratus, organization, Sticky notes, The Ghostcrow

Finding a Voice … by Kathleen Ernst

September 24, 2015 By: Patricia

In the book world, “voice” is a difficult-to-define but prized element. “I can’t describe voice,” editors say, “but I know it when I see it.” When conceptualizing my latest Chloe Ellefson mystery, Death on the Prairie, I’ve thought a lot about finding a voice—and not just my own as a writer. Chloe is curator of …Read More

Tag: Death on the Prairie, finding voice, guest blogger, Kathleen Ernst, Laura Ingalls Wilder, taking risks in writing

The Art of Stealing Character … by J.A. Kazimer

August 20, 2015 By: Patricia

All authors are thieves. We steal constantly. In fact, I’d keep watch over your family jewels whenever one of us is in sight. Now that I have your attention, and maybe even your outrage if you’re the kind of person who avoids the take a penny, leave a penny jar at your local gas station …Read More

Tag: guest blogger, J.A. Kazimer, the Lady in Pink, writing

ON LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION … by David Freed

August 6, 2015 By: Patricia

I marvel at the capacity of those authors who can pinpoint that precise moment when inspiration struck. There they were, waiting in line at Starbucks, or shampooing their hair, or staring out over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon at sunrise with their legs twisted in some impossible yoga position, and then, suddenly—Bam! Huzzah! …Read More

Tag: books set in Vietnam, David Freed, The Three-Nine Line, where ideas come from, writing setting

Do You Know Your Nominative From Your Objective? … by Lois Winston

July 23, 2015 By: Patricia

There are certain grammar errors that are like chalk screeching on a blackboard to me. I cringe when I hear them, and it’s all thanks to Peggy Riley Hughes. Mrs. Hughes was my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, a veritable martinet who literally beat grammar into us by smacking a yardstick on her blackboard …Read More

Tag: A Stitch to Die For, Anastasia Pollack mystery series, grammar, guest blogger, Lois Winston

Make of it what you will: In defense of challenging the reader in Red Lightning … by Laura Pritchett

June 25, 2015 By: Patricia

My newest novel, Red Lightning, will annoy some people. Yes, I know it, and I suppose I should be sorry. But I am not. Let me explain, if I may: For the first several years I was writing this book, it was “normal”—there was a standard arc, plot, characters, narration—and I just didn’t like it. …Read More

Tag: Laura Pritchett, Red Lightning, Skies Go Blue, taking risks in writing

Wrecked … by Scott Graham

June 11, 2015 By: Patricia

A couple of decades ago, I courted trouble when my wife, Sue, and I went on a November backpacking trip into the Mummy Mountain Range in Rocky Mountain National Park. Because it was the off-season, I convinced Sue it would be okay to leave our car in the deserted trailhead parking lot without the required …Read More

Tag: Canyon Sacrifice, Mountain Rampage, National Park Mystery Series, Scott Graham

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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. Read More…

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