I primarily process my discomfort with humor. The problem is that my entire family does the same thing, so funerals are… a challenge.
My characters share this macabre tendency, so when I started writing my first proper murder mystery, A Proposal to Die For, I knew—no matter how life-or-death the story was—there was always going to be humor. And there was going to be romance, because I’ve written forty or so romance titles. I can’t fathom writing a story that doesn’t have some romance element to it. That meant juggling the mystery arc and its necessary plot points (i.e., finding the body, the investigative phase, revealing the killer) with the plot points needed to complete the romance arc (the meet-cute, the vaguely inappropriate banter, the sex scene)—which was a new process for me.
There was always going to be some sort of “happily ever after” for Jess, a wedding proposal planner stuck at a luxury mountain resort with the clients from hell. To save her office building/home, Jess is tasked with planning an Instagram-perfect proposal for a “difficult” former high school classmate, Diana. She’s expected to pull off and impromptu betrothal at the Golden Ash Spa, when the Pecan Prince of Tennessee, Trenton Tillard IV, crashes Diana’s pre-bridal retreat. She’s supposed to display her logistical prowess while also serving a stand-in friend in Diana’s limited bridal party. Jess prefers to spend her time with the Osbournes, the big quirky family that runs the spa. This precarious pseudo-social work situation is made even more awkward as Jess finds several dead bodies on the spa property.
That is plenty for Jess to keep up with, and yet, I had to be a smart aleck and add a romance story line. It took me years to become a “plotter,” creating a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline before I start writing. My process involves writing plot points on color-coded index cards. The index card colors reflect whether a plot point is action (blue), romance (red), exposition (green), etc. I spread them out on my dining room table, according to a plotting timeline described in Alexandra Sokoloff’s Screenwriting Tips for Authors. If I see too much or not enough of one color in the plot timeline, I am doing something wrong. With this new mystery element, I used orange “murder” cards to make sure I didn’t write an entire chapter without some element of investigation in it.
It was fun to try the index card method with a mystery because for the first time, I wrote “MURDER HERE” and “WHERE’S THE WEAPON?” on the cards in my terrifying, poor handwriting. It was extremely off-putting for my family. And again, I needed to mix in a romance storyline with all that mayhem—but before I can do that, who am I writing about?
Anytime I’m designing a new couple, I sit down with a notebook and ask it, who are you? My heroines usually come to me first, because most of my stories are told from their perspective. And yes, I will admit, there’s a lot of myself in my heroines because I am also socially awkward, physically clumsy and quick with a quip. But I have to determine whether they’re quiet and shy or are they boisterous and loud. Do they get along with their families? What are their defining quirks? How do they handle conflict? What sort of job do they have?
Jess isn’t shy, but she prefers to stay in the background because it allows her to get her job done with little fuss. Jess opened her small proposal planning firm after years serving as a wedding planner. Her years in that industry have made her quietly competent, resourceful and adaptable to rapidly changing situations. She has a limited romantic history and her family has dwindled down to her loving grandmother and a mother who abandoned her as a tween. She gets along well with people, but rarely has time to socialize because she’s also a workaholic. She’s not looking for love, because she’s not sure what sort of person could fit into her life.
There were several possibilities for a potential match for Jess. The lecherous fellow guests were out, as were Trenton’s equally creepy friends. Sev, the one reasonable fellow guest Jess has contact with might have worked, but Jess finds his wealthy, fancy background to be a little intimidating. There were several lovely staff members who might serve as Jess’s romantic foil, but ultimately, it was gruff, reclusive chef Dean Osbourne, who stepped out of the character-generating part of my brain.
How is Dean going to complement, clash and change with Jess? Dean has retreated to the kitchen of his family’s luxurious spa and wellness center after finding himself dissatisfied with success in elite, chic-chic restaurants. Like Jess, he is driven primarily by the love of his work and he is also highly capable. Dean is guarded and grumpy in the face of Jess’ customer service cheerfulness. Dean is very close to his large, loving family, and they’re thrilled to have him join the family business. They tend to tiptoe around the wound of his girlfriend disappearing twenty years ago and the local police considering him a suspect. Jess clomps all around those eggshells and challenges him. She makes him laugh, even when he really, really doesn’t want to. He does not understand how her brain works, but he really wants to figure it out.
Beyond displaying the Dean’s surly charms and Jess’s ability to hone an entendre, the romantic plot ultimately gives Jess the access she needs to solve the mystery. Growing relationships with the Osbourne family brings Jess into contact with much more information about the on-site deaths than she would have as a regular guest. She can ask questions about the operations of the spa, the guests’ schedules—and yes, she makes excuses to ask Dean menu-related questions so she can flirt aggressively with him in his own kitchen.
The jobs that Jess and Dean love so much have made them decent amateur/accidental investigators. Dean doesn’t necessarily like people, but he knows how to read them. Years of remembering orders has given him a memory for details. Jess is observant. She sees crises coming and knows how to handle them when they happen. Together, they might make it through this pre-bridal retreat alive.
I enjoyed writing Proposal so much that I’ve written another currently untitled mystery with romantic undertones. I created even more disturbing index cards for that plot. My family is learning to take them in stride.
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