How to Make Your Series Stand Out in a Crowded Genre – Guest Post!
- J.H. Jones
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
What an honor to host LOIS WINSTON this week! Lois is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling author who writes the ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERY series. I met Lois through Sisters in Crime, where she teaches writing craft, and generously gives advice, helping authors who are early in their careers. But what inspires me most about her is how she started with humorous amateur sleuth mysteries: An opportunity presented itself and she seized it—which must have taken self-confidence and a delightful sense of fun. You’ll get a feel for her fun when you read the post below and enjoy any of the series’ fifteen novels and three novellas! Sign up for Lois’ newsletter, and catch her blogging on Booklover’s Bench and The Stiletto Gang.
Before I began writing my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, I did extensive research, reading dozens of crafting mysteries to get a feel for the genre. What I discovered was that most of these series centered around a craft shop in a small town. The amateur sleuth was either the shop owner, an employee, or a close friend or relative of the shop owner.
One piece of writing advice I had heard for years and years was don’t follow trends. If you want your book to stand out in a crowded genre, you need to put a unique spin on the conventions of that genre. So I began to brainstorm as to what I could do differently but still produce a series which readers of crafting mysteries might embrace.
I decided to take my protagonist out of the shop and stick her in a different crafting profession. I made Anastasia the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. To my knowledge, no other author had ever featured a crafts editor as an amateur sleuth.
But I went a step further. Another observation I made in studying amateur sleuth mysteries in general, not just crafting mysteries, was that most of the protagonists were busybody snoops who channeled Nancy Drew or Jessica Fletcher and often believed they knew more than the professional investigators assigned to the crime.
In real life this would never happen, but fiction—especially genre fiction—is all about the suspension of disbelief. Readers of amateur sleuth mysteries are happy to suspend disbelief for a good whodunit. However, once again, I wondered what could I do differently so that my series would stand out, yet still give readers the type of satisfying read they expected from the genre?
What if I made Anastasia a reluctant amateur sleuth?
My amateur sleuth would like nothing better than to turn the clock back to a time not so long ago when she led a typical middle-class life with a devoted husband, two great kids, and a job she loved. But that’s not going to happen because to write an ongoing series, the protagonist needs a reason to keep on sleuthing. However, where is it written that she must enjoy sleuthing?
A successful book needs a story arc with a protagonist who is not the same person at the end of the book as she was at the beginning of the book. This is called character growth. But in an ongoing series, you can’t resolve all the protagonist’s goals, motivations, and conflicts at the end of the book. Doing so will end the series. You want to keep the reader coming back for more of your character’s adventures. But at the same time, you need your character to learn from her experiences and move toward her goal. So in the very beginning you need to set up a situation whereby your protagonist can make inroads toward her goal with each subsequent book.
In Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I set the stage for what would be Anastasia’s ongoing goals, motivations, and conflicts. The series opens with her discovering that her recently deceased husband led a double life, more devoted to Lady Luck than his family. When he drops dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas, Anastasia discovers he’s gambled away all their savings and left her with huge debt. In each book she tries to find new ways to earn extra money to whittle down that debt. But since this is an amateur sleuth mystery series, she also winds up dealing with unsavory characters on the wrong side of the law, not to mention tripping over dead bodies.
But no amateur sleuth operates in a vacuum. She needs friends and family in her life. Creating conflict within a protagonist’s personal life adds another layer of depth to a series. Not only does the amateur sleuth need to figure out whodunit in each book, she also needs to deal with life’s normal problems. Adding fully developed secondary characters that readers will enjoy will keep them coming back for more.
In my series, Anastasia must deal with a hateful communist mother-in-law. Lucille is the character my readers love to hate. I receive the most fan mail about her. Half want me to kill her off; the other half hope I never do because she’s so much fun to hate. But I went further with family as well. In addition to a communist mother-in-law, Anastasia has a mother who’s a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. And both mother and mother-in-law are forced to share a room in Anastasia’s home. Conflict. Conflict. Conflict. You can never have too much.
Embroidered Lies and Alibis, the fifteenth book in my series, recently released. Anastasia’s life has changed considerably in the nearly two years that have elapsed since the beginning of the series (even though fifteen years have gone by in my life.) She’s resolved some conflicts and achieved some goals, although others have cropped up along the way, not to mention more dead bodies. There will be more in the future because I’m already mulling over a plot for the next book in the series.
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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author LOIS WINSTON writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.
About Lois' latest book (buy links below):
Embroidered Lies and Alibis
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 15
A Stitch in Time Could Save a Life…
When Anastasia’s mother Flora is offered a free spa vacation from Jeremy Dugan, a man connected to her distant past, Anastasia and husband Zack suspect ulterior motives. After all, too-good-to-be-true often spells trouble. Their suspicions are confirmed when the FBI swoops in to apprehend Dugan. However, Dugan isn’t who he claimed to be, and his arrest raises more questions than answers.
The Feds link Dugan to a string of cons targeting elderly single women across the country, but his seemingly airtight alibi leaves investigators stumped. Then, shortly after his release on bail, he’s kidnapped. A certain segment of New Jersey’s population is known for delivering deadly messages, and the FBI believes Dugan received one of them.
Meanwhile, bodies begin showing up in the newly created public garden across the street from Anastasia and Zack’s home. With two baffling crimes, no clear suspects, scant evidence, and every possible motive unraveling, both the FBI and local law enforcement are once again picking Anastasia’s brain. This time, though, her involvement is far from reluctant. Will she stitch together enough clues before she or someone she loves becomes the killer’s next victim?
Craft project included.
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