CREATING CHARACTERS WHO PUSH READERS' BUTTONS

Lois Winston, she who writes about me, came up with the idea for the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries from a combination of events. Her husband had recently lost his job, and although he’s nothing like the man I now refer to as Dead Louse of a Spouse, it sent her into a tailspin of worry regarding money. She was also dealing with massive mother-in-law problems at the time. On top of that, when Lois first started contemplating the series, The Sopranos was still airing on HBO. Like me, Lois is a Jersey girl. How could she not set a mystery in her home state and involve the Mafia in some way? All of those elements came together to form the basis for Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. 

The premise for the series (if you’ve stumbled across this blog for the first time and don’t know who I am) is that when my gambling-addicted husband permanently cashed in his chips in Las Vegas, my life crapped out. I was left with two teenage sons, a mountain of debt, and a loan shark demanding fifty thousand dollars. 

 

Over the course of the series, Lois has me look for ways to whittle down the massive debt I’ve inherited, a task made more difficult by my spend-thrift mother, a self-proclaimed descendant of Russian royalty, and my curmudgeonly mother-in-law, a card-carrying communist, both of whom live with me. 

 

And did I mention the dead bodies? It’s not like I work in law enforcement. However, ever since Karl Marx Pollack’s death, I keep stumbling across murder victims, which is definitely not something found in the job description for any women’s magazine crafts editor, even ones working in New Jersey.

 

Lois has always been drawn to quirky characters. They make her laugh. It’s the reason she writes humorous amateur sleuth mysteries. She firmly believes we need more laughter in the world. We all get enough of the grim and gritty from the realities of real life, especially these days. I can’t say that I disagree. I just wish she wouldn’t do it at my expense. I can use the laughs, but I can do with fewer dead bodies. 

 

Lois often bases her characters on people she’s known. Usually, she takes traits from various people, exaggerates them, and blends them together to create the unique characters that fill the pages of her books. That’s because most people aren’t as quirky in real life as they are on the printed page. 

 

The exception is Lucille, my mother-in-law. With a few minor differences, Lucille’s personality (along with her communist leanings) mirrors that of my author’s deceased mother-in-law. In the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Lucille is the character readers love to hate. Some readers have wanted Lois to kill her off, but most love her, probably because they see some of their own mothers-in-law in her. I chalk this up to misery loving company.

 

Some people think Lucille is a witch. Others use stronger language. Love her or hate her, Lucille pushes readers’ buttons. Lois tells me that’s a good thing because you always want the characters in a book to stir a reader’s emotions. So, in honor of Halloween and the witch (or the stronger word that rhymes with it) the two e-book bundle of A Stitch to Die For and Scrapbook of Murder is on sale throughout October for only .99 cents.

 Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Books 5-6

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