Lauren Carr is the best-selling author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Killer in the Band is the third installment in the Lovers in Crime Mystery series.
In addition to her series set in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, Lauren Carr has also written the Mac Faraday Mysteries, set on Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland, and the Thorny Rose Mysteries, set in Washington DC. The second installment in the Thorny Rose Mysteries, which features Joshua Thornton’s son Murphy and Jessica Faraday, Mac’s daughter, A Fine Year for Murder, was released in January 2017. The next book, Twofer Murder, will be released at the end of the year.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing…
Title: Candidate for Murder Series: A Mac Faraday Mystery #12 Author: Lauren Carr Publication Date: June 20, 2016
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Synopsis
A Mac Faraday Mystery
It’s election time in Spencer, Maryland, and the race
for mayor is not a pretty one. In recent years, the small
resort town has become divided between the year-round
residents who enjoy their rural way of life and the city
dwellers who are moving into mansions, taking over
the town council, and proceeding to turn Deep Creek Lake
into a closed-gate community—complete with a host of
regulations for everything from speed limits to clotheslines.
When the political parties force-feed two unsavory mayoral
nominees to the town’s residents, David O’Callaghan,
the chief of police, decides to make a statement—by
nominating Gnarly, Mac Faraday’s German
shepherd, to run for mayor of Spencer!
What starts out as a joke turns into a disaster when overnight,
by Amy Metz, author of The Goose Pimple Junction Mystery Series
Click on Book Cover to check out Amy Metz’ entire Goosepimple Mystery series on Amazon.
In the Goose Pimple Junction mystery series, the goosepimpleisms and Goose Pimplese are plentiful. The former are euphemisms, and the latter is the way the locals talk. When Tess arrives in Goose Pimple Junction in book 1, she has a little bit of trouble understanding the Goose Pimple culture. Luckily, she has Jackson to translate for her. By Book 4, Tess has come a long way in speaking and understanding Goose Pimplese, and Louetta tests her abilities, with Lou’s homemade award of a mason jar on top of a candlestick at stake. Can you pass the test? If you can, you’re eligible for the Probably Pretty Proficient award.
Do you speak Goose Pimplese?
Translate: “Let’s skwinta the diner.”
What would you do with bob war?”
Define this: ‘sump’n teet.'”
If I said Pickle was the sinner of the basketball team, would I be implying he needs to go to church more often?
Translate “sumose.”
Translate “Utcha doon.”
What do you do with a flosswater?
Translate “Wongo.”
Translate “Yonto.”
Translate “Impa tickler.”
Answers
Let’s go into the diner.
Make a barbwire fence.
Something to eat.
No. You’re saying he plays center on the team.
Some of those.
Whatcha doing?
Swat flies.
Do you want to go?
Do you want to?
In particular.
How’d you do?
5 answers right: you’re in a heap of trouble.
8 answers right: you’re satisfactual.
10 answers right: Pull out the mason jar, hon. You’re probably pretty proficient.
About the Book
Rogues & Rascals in Goose Pimple Junction is the latest in Amy Metz best selling mystery series. Released today! Click on book cover to get it now at Amazon!
Like any good Southern belle, Caledonia Culpepper was raised by her mama to be gracious, charming, witty, and above all, a devoted mother and loving wife, so she’s baffled when her marriage falls apart.
Wynona Baxter is a master of disguise but is often a ditzy airhead. A hit woman wannabe, when she’s hired for her first job in Goose Pimple Junction and things don’t go as planned, she’s forced to resort to Plan B. She’ll also need Plan C and D.
Crooked lawyers, restless husbands, a teenaged hoodlum – it seems there are rogues and rascals everywhere you look in Goose Pimple Junction.
When Caledonia and Wynona’s paths cross, they prove there isn’t a rogue or a rascal who can keep a good woman down. Mama always said there would be days like this . . .
Amy Metz is the best-selling author of the Goose Pimple Mystery series. Click on author pick to visit her website to learn more!
About the Author
Amy Metz is the author of the Goose Pimple Junction mystery series. She is a former first grade teacher and the mother of two sons. When not writing, enjoying her family, or surfing Pinterest, Amy can usually be found with a mixing spoon, camera, or book in one hand and a glass of sweet tea in the other. Amy lives in Louisville, Kentucky and loves a good Southern phrase.
Fantasy author E.D. Tice recently released his debut novel, Whisper, the first in a series aimed towards middle-school and young adult readers.
Whisper is the story of Whitney Roseman and her adventures in the northern wilds. Central to the story is her ability to talk to the wind, and the life-changing things she learns from those conversations. Readers young and old alike will enjoy Whitney’s pluck and verve.
The novel consists of a series of four short stories and novellas, each focusing on a different age in Whitney’s life. While beginning with stories of Whitney when she is 11, the second half of the book jumps ahead several years to when she is in high school. Readers will find that, though the story begins relatively quiet and peaceful (if you call an attacking coyote, a charging moose, and a fistfight with a local boy “peaceful”), the story really gains in volume during the second half with the introduction of a shadowy, supernatural villain, hell-bent on Whitney’s destruction.
An ambitious project, Whisper not only bridges different ages in Whitney’s life, but different genres of literature. Starting out as a magical realism story in the vein of Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist, the story weaves together elements of fantasy, supernatural, and psychological thrillers.
A graduate of Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Tice says he first began work on the story as a character-development exercise, and as a test of his own abilities. “I’d once heard said that men can’t write from a woman’s perspective, and I wanted to challenge that notion,” Tice says. “Originally, my main story centered around a different character, a boy. The current protagonist, Whitney, was in a supporting role.”
E.D. Tice’s debut novel sat dormant for many years until he shared it with his wife Amanda, who pushed him to finish the work. (pic: author with wife Amanda and their son Judah.)
Tice says that, as he began writing more stories about Whitney, he found that he liked seeing the story through her eyes. “There was a freshness to writing from Whitney’s point of view—the story had grown almost stagnant in my mind and switching to her perspective really opened up a lot of creative possibilities. Plus, I relished the challenge of writing from the perspective of a young girl, and watching her grow and develop as a character. From there, I chose a short-story/novella approach—as well as going cross-genre—because I wanted to experiment with the structure of novel-writing, and even the concept of ‘genre’ to see what ways altering those conventions can bring out new methods of story-telling.”
Since graduating from Shepherd in 2009, E.D. Tice says that the story has sat dormant on his computer and in his mind, occasionally dusted off as he’s thought about trying to finish it, only to push it back and focus on other priorities.
It wasn’t until E.D. Tice shared his stories with his wife, Amanda, that he again felt a strong urge to finish. “She really encouraged me to get this first book written,” Tice says of his wife. “She keeps telling me I have to finish the whole story because she needs to know how it all ends.”
E.D. Tice aims to have the second book in the series available for purchase by late June 2016.
American Journalist and Biographer Gene Fowler once said, “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”
Yeah, right. Try writing murder mysteries. Not only will drops of blood be forming on your forehead, but it will be dripping out of your eyeballs as well.
I’m sure any author of any genre will claim that theirs is the most difficult to write.
Take romance, for example. Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. They fight. They realize their hatred for each other is really sexual tension. They give into “the urge.” They fight again. They discover they can’t live without each other. They get married. The End.
For a twist, let’s do romantic-suspense. Girl meets Boy. Boy meets Girl. One of them is a secret agent or hit man working for the government or undercover cop—whatever—one of them is in a dangerous line of work that puts the other in the line of fire. They are running for their lives and both look really hot while bullets are whizzing over their heads. They find a moment of peace to do the deed. Bad guys get the jump on the couple. One of them is taken hostage. The other saves him/her. The bad guys are killed and the couple lives happily ever after. The End.
Admittedly, it is tough for writers of these genres because putting the twist to the general plotline to keep things fresh for their readers is a real challenge. How many ways can you kiss? How many ways can you describe a kiss?
Lauren’s latest best-selling mystery, Cancelled Vows, will be released Thursday, January 28. Click on book cover to pre-order from Amazon.
As a mystery writer, I claim that writing murder is the tougher game, especially for writers, like me, who prefer to keep their books character driven and to have their protagonist solve the case with his brilliant intellect.
Some readers, and writers, have found that the reality of technology and the justice system has thrown a monkey wrench into the general murder mystery premise:
Someone gets killed. Detective surveys the scene. Questions all of the witnesses. Tracks down suspects. Cunning Killer lies. Detective is stumped. Cunning Killer slips up. Brilliant Hero detects the Killer’s mistake. Traps Killer. Killer confesses and goes off to prison.
Justice prevails.
Anyone fourth grader knows that such is not the case in real life.
Between technology: “Oh, you say you were never in that room? Well, we found your DNA from where you sneezed on the victim’s baloney sandwich right before you slit his throat with the butter knife.”
And justice system: “Is that all you got? A car filled with nuns saw your suspect running out of the house with a bloody knife in his hand at the time of the murder? His defense attorney is going to claim that they are conspiring to railroad him into jail because he’s Jewish. Come back with something more and I’ll get you a search warrant for the bloody knife.”
Some mystery writers see this as a killjoy. What fun is there in having a dull computer database spit out the name of the killer, especially when it’s someone who wasn’t even on the protagonist’s radar? Then, many readers, myself included, get frustrated when the mystery turns from a whodunit, but how-are-we-gonna-catch-‘em?
This is where the rubber hits the road. In reality, these hurdles add to the fun for the author. It doesn’t take away from the protagonist. Real detectives, true-life protagonists, deal with these real issues every day.
Sure, the computer database, devoid of personality, may spit out the pieces of the puzzle, just like the collection of witnesses may lay out their pieces of the puzzle. A clever defense lawyer may throw up legal hurdles to protect the killer—but hasn’t that always been the case?
Today’s real detectives come up against different types of hurdles than the investigators of fifty years ago, which were different from the hurdles fifty years before that.
While the murder investigation game may be different than it was in the days of Hercule Poirot and Perry Mason, it hasn’t become any less thrilling.
One thing that has not changed: Murder has been around since the days of Cain and Abel. As long as there are motives for murder, it will never go away. Also, protagonists will always have to be on their toes to anticipate and find their way over hurdles thrown up by their antagonists.
The game of writing murder mysteries is always changing—and never dull.
About the Author:
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries. The eleventh installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series, Cancelled Vows is scheduled for release on January 28, 2016 and available for pre-order on Amazon.
Best-Selling Mystery Author Lauren Carr … and Gnarly, too.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs (including the real Gnarly) on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Finally! It appears as if the day that Mac Faraday mystery fans have been waiting for is right around the corner. Less than five days away, Police Chief David O’Callaghan and Chelsea Adams’ wedding is fast approaching. Unfortunately, at the last minute, David discovers that there is one small problem he must resolve before he can say, “I do!”
Cancelled Vows is scheduled for release 1/28/2016. But fans of Lauren Carr’s hit mystery series can preorder now from Amazon by clicking on book cover!
He must divorce his first wife!
In her eleventh installment of the Mac Faraday mysteries (available now for pre-order!), Lauren Carr provides yet another unexpected kink in the love life of Mac Faraday’s half-brother, David O’Callaghan.
“Over the last few books, readers should now know that weddings in Deep Creek Lake just aren’t going to go as planned,” Lauren explains, in referring to her best-selling and critically acclaimed Three Days to Forever and A Wedding and a Killing.
Cancelled Vows opens with one of Lauren Carr’s trademark twists when David O’Callaghan and his fiancée are turned down for a wedding license because David is already married—shocking news not only to the bride, but the groom as well. “Nothing throws a damper on an upcoming wedding like finding out that the groom is already married,” Lauren says.
Of course, fans of Lauren Carr’s internationally best-selling mystery series must be wondering which lucky lady did the dashing David O’Callaghan marry while drunk in Vegas. After all, Mac’s half-brother has been romantically involved with quite a few women in the previous ten installments of her best-selling mystery series. “All I’ll tell you is that David’s wife is someone fans of the Mac Faraday Mysteries have met,” she says.
While Lauren isn’t saying who the lucky (Or should we say unlucky?) lady is, she will provide a clue. “David has to go to New York City to divorce her.” Sounds simple? Right? Nothing is ever that easy in a Lauren Carr mystery.
Lauren Carr takes fans of the Mac Faraday mysteries to the Big Apple in this nail biting adventure. In Cancelled Vows, David, Mac, and Gnarly, too, rush to New York City to dissolve David’s marriage to an old girlfriend—and he’s got five days to get it done. When murder throws up a road block, it is up to David’s best man, Mac Faraday, and Gnarly, his K9-in-waiting, to sort through the clues to get David to the church in time!
As always, Lauren Carr fans will want to get on board for her upcoming Cancelled Vows book tour, full of guest posts, reviews, and interviews (not to mention giveaways!), hosted by iRead Book Tours. The tour bus takes off on February 1! Check out the fun-packed schedule below!
So fasten your seat belts for another thrilling Mac Faraday mystery!
About the Author
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday and Lovers in Crime Mysteries and the Thorny Rose Mysteries.
Best-Selling Mystery Author Lauren Carr … and Gnarly, too.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs (including the real live Gnarly!) on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
People are impressed with anyone who has completed the task of writing a whole book. There are thousands, if not millions, of people who have sat down to a keyboard to start writing a book but never finished it.
After all these years of working at it, I have to pinch myself with the fact that my fifteenth mystery, Kill and Run, the first installment of my new series, The Thorny Rose Mysteries, was released on September 4.
Released Sept 4, Kill and Run, Lauren’s 15th mystery, has been in the top 100 on Amazon in three different mystery categories. Click on Book Cover to view on Amazon.
My goal is to release five books this year. Struggling writers who are unable to complete even one book, often ask, “How is that possible?” As a matter of fact, I was recently asked to conduct a workshop entitled, “Writing that Bucket List Novel” to answer that question. Most writers assume that I am able to do this simply because I do write full time. I treat my writing like a job.
“Me,” they say, “I have a full time job and family to interrupt me. No way can I write a full book in less than a year.”
Believe it or not, I completely understand. I was there. But contrary to the dream of being able to sit at a desk, uninterrupted, left alone to create literary masterpieces at my leisure—this is not—
Hold that thought. My husband just came running into the room because his computer screen looks different and he got scared.
Where was I?
Unless you are totally committed to not just working on—but completing—your book, all the freedom from working for a living, family obligations, finding wallets and remotes, feeding dogs, running sweepers, finding your son’s athletic clothes, cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, flying in to the school because your son forgot his essay which is due today and he’s going to flunk out of calculus and end up living in your attic for the rest of his life if you don’t stop writing the gun fight scene right now to get it there in ten minutes—
In a nutshell—it takes total commitment!
International best-selling author Lauren Carr invites aspiring writers to join her in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, for a writers retreat in November (during National Novel Writing Month). Click on photo to visit Lauren’s website for more details.
A young writer who attended one of my workshops told me that he had quit his job. He had a full time job with the federal government and was making good money. Young, unmarried, and living at home with his parents, he saved up enough money to support himself for a full year. Then, he quit his job to finish his book.
A year later, he had a half dozen uncompleted manuscripts. He spent much of that time doing favors and running errands for friends and family who said, “Since you’re not doing anything …”
Believe it or not, this is a perception that many people make. Even after all these years, my family assumes since I wear my grungy bathrobe all day and sit around with a laptop in my lap that I’m not doing anything.
Yes, I am doing something!
If you don’t consider your book important, no one else will. When you make a commitment to something, you make it a priority. If you have a full time job and your buddy calls you to help him move a sofa, would you leave your job to go do it? No, because if you leave your job it may not be there when you get back. Same with your book. If you keep leaving it to go do other stuff, then you won’t ever finish it.
This means you have to put your writing ahead of Keeping Up With the Kardashian.
Now, let’s address the half dozen unfinished manuscripts.
This is what I call the Forty-Page Block. It’s not always page forty. Sometimes it’s page twenty-five or page one hundred and twenty-five. Whichever page number it is, at some point there’s a block that separates the authors from the wannabes.
At this hurdle, many writers will simply throw in the towel and walk away without looking back.
Others will try to get around the block in this book by starting a second book. Inspired by ideas from Book One, Book Two may even be a sequel to its unfinished predecessor. Then, the writer will be hit with another inspiration too good to ignore and abandon that project to start another and then another.
The Forty-Page Block stems from loss of interest in the project. Maybe the writer has a short attention span. Maybe the project isn’t worth the paperless word doc it’s written on. Whatever the reason, when the book ceases to be new and fresh, the writer doesn’t want to work on it anymore.
This is the dividing line between those writers who want to be authors and authors who have published books under their belts. Published authors will stick to a book through thick and thin. Even when he’d rather watch the game with the guys, he’ll go to that laptop and churn out five or six pages.
When he finds himself staring at the same Word doc that he’s been looking at for the last seven weeks and sees that it’s not looking very pretty, the author doesn’t walk away. He’ll work even harder to rekindle that flame of passion. He’ll stick with it, no matter what it takes – even if it means a complete rewrite.
Walking away or running off with another book is no option for the true author. Yes, new book ideas may be more fun, and easier to work on, but those flings will only be distractions in reaching the goal of seeing this relationship to the end — that being publication.
So, if you’re a writer seeking to become the author of that one finished manuscript, I call on you now to take the plunge and make that commitment by putting your right hand on your keyboard and repeating after me:
I, state your name or pen name , take thee book title to be my published book. To compose and obsess, for rewrite and edit, in polishing and proofreading, from this day forward, until publication do we part.
You two make a beautiful couple.
Lauren Carr’s Advance toward Authorship Writers Retreat will take place at Lakewood Resort on Deep Creek Lake, the setting for her hit Mac Faraday Mysteries.
CALLING ALL WRITERS:
Press Release: International Best Selling Author Hosts Writers Retreat in Deep Creek Lake
Are you a writer struggling to complete your masterpiece? Or have you completed a draft but need some quiet time away from the rest of the world to concentrate on getting it ready for publication.
International Best Selling Mystery Writer Lauren Carr has been there and done that.
“It took me six months to write the first draft for A Small Case of Murder,” she recalls. It took more than that for her second mystery. “Then, one weekend,” she says, “a friend dragged me to a writers’ conference that ended up being a total bust. After the first day of not getting anything out of it, I locked myself in the hotel room and wrote for the rest of the weekend. By the time I left three days later, I had written one third of the first draft of It’s Murder, My Son.” This book went on to being her first best-selling mystery novel.
Regularly listed among Amazon’s top-100 authors in mysteries, Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries and the Lovers in Crime Mysteries. This month, the debut novel for her new mystery series, the Thorny Rose Mysteries, was released to top sales and rave reviews. Since its release on September 4, Kill and Run has been listed in the top-ten of three categories on Amazon both domestically and in the international markets.
The author of fifteen books, Lauren Carr is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
It takes more than simply getting away for it all to write books, Lauren warns. “Spending time with other writers, bouncing ideas off each other, having someone to ask advice when you’re stuck—when you have all that—then you have the total package that can inspire and motivate you to complete your book.”
Such is the package that Lauren Carr, in conjunction with Lakewood Resorts on the shores of Deep Creek Lake, is assembling for the Lauren Carr’s Advance toward Authorship Writers’ Retreat! “Not only will writers who attend this writers’ retreat have quiet and beautiful scenery in which to write,” Lauren explains, “but they will be surrounded by other writers in order to share ideas and have someone who has been there available to encourage them and lead the way.”
A variety of packages are available. Writers can sign up for a single unit to write in complete solitude or share a unit with their spouse or writing buddies. Each lakeshore unit at the luxurious Lakewood Resorts can accommodate four or more writers—making this an ideal retreat for writers groups.
Offerings include choice of a variety packages. Many offer focused writing time, weekend workshops, private consultations with Lauren Carr, writers’ gatherings, and meal options. Retreat prices vary with level of participation. Lodging costs are per unit, and units can be shared with family or other writers. In addition to lodging, all participants pay the per person rate for the chosen retreat package.
The dates for the Lauren Carr’s Advanced toward Authorship Writer’s Retreat will be Friday, November 13-20, 2015. Weekend packages (Friday through Sunday) will be available. It will be held at Lakewood Resort, McHenry, Maryland—Deep Creek Lake, the setting for Lauren Carr’s Mac Faraday Mysteries! Visit Lakewood Resort’s website at http://www.lakewoodresortsmd.com/ for more information.
Space at Lauren Carr’s Advance toward Authorship Writers Retreat is limited. Writers are encouraged to visit Lauren Carr’s website at www.mysterylady.net or email her at acornbookservices@gmail.com for further details.
The Internet has made it much easier for anyone yearning to voice their opinion about anything and everything to do so. Among those striving to be heard are readers anxious to release their inner book critics to heap praise or criticism upon the authors of those books they love or hate. Nowadays, any reader with a kindle simply has to hit a button at the end of the book to leave their ratings and thoughts—whatever they may be.
Thus, Grammar Nazis can now easily warn perspective readers of any book that does not meet their lofty standards by posting reviews citing the read as poorly written and badly edited.
This is not necessarily a good thing because nasty reviews from Grammar Nazis can potentially deter unwitting readers from purchasing and reading books that are actually very well written and finely edited.
What is a Grammar Nazi? According to the Internet, a Grammar Nazi is someone who believes it’s their duty to attempt to correct any grammar and/or spelling mistakes they observe—
usually found hanging around book reading chat rooms,
or posting one-star reviews declaring books poorly edited (or not edited at all) on Amazon, Goodreads, and every other book website they can find,
or sending emails with multi-paged lists of spelling and grammatical errors to authors of said books, and declaring their editors and proofreaders incompetent.
I am very familiar with Grammar Nazis. My mother is one. Luckily for authors, she is unplugged and has more important things to do that compose detailed lists of what she considers to be grammatical mistakes in books—unless it’s one of mine.
What type of books have fallen victim to one or more negative reviews from Grammar Nazis? Well, here’s a sampling of reviews that I have found on Amazon, the biggest book seller in the world.
One reader, who identifies him/herself as a literature teacher, begins a long-winded one-star review by stating that he/she only uses To Kill a Mockingbird in his/her class “when forced to” because it is so poorly written. This reader goes on to say, “The descriptive passages were rather crude, and at times the language became practically unintelligible.”
Another reader posted a one-star review for For Whom the Bell Tolls. Not even Ernest Hemingway is immune from Nazi attacks. This reader writes:
I will not presume to say that I am right & that millions who love this book are wrong, but I really do not understand why this book is considered a classic. The dialogue is so choppy & forced-formal that it seems like the characters are all talking past each other.
Another reader had trouble understanding how Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October became a best-seller:
Clancy could have edited 40% of the text out and had a much better story. This novel is bogged down with irrelevant character descriptions, military acronyms, tedious sub-plots, and background stories that have nothing to contribute to the novel’s overall focus. I found myself constantly frustrated with the monotonous length it took to cover simple plot points. Clancy obviously has a huge audience; however, he needs an effective editor. This novel is a very slow read.
As you can see, Grammar Nazis really don’t care who you are or how experienced your publisher or editor is. When they see a mistake, they’re going to let readers know. Like in this Nazi’s review for Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, published by Little, Brown Books for YA:
…the editing—or lack thereof—is appalling …; the grammar and syntax are unforgivably bad; the plot is onion-skin thin; and the characters are uniformly dull and uninspiring.
The purpose of this post is not to rip apart Grammar Nazis. After all, I am closely related to one. My mother even proofreads my books before they are released to catch errors missed by my team of editors and proofreaders. (More about that later.)
Nor is the purpose of this post to convince Grammar Nazis that they’re wrong. Believe me, there is no convincing a Grammar Nazi they are mistaken about errors they have noted. They got “A’s” in English in school. They have worked for a hundred years as an editor for a daily newspaper and never once during that whole century—publishing two editions seven days a week—not once was there so much as one typo in any of those newspapers—not a single one! Therefore, the prospect of them being wrong about whether you should be using a comma or a semi-colon within dialogue is inconceivable.
As an author and a publisher, I would like to put this issue into a proper perspective for both readers and those authors whose books fall victim to a reader or two who has too much time on his or her hands. As a rule, I do not engage or argue with the rare Grammar Nazi who posts a nasty review for any of my books on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other sites.
However, I do believe that the average reader who sees reviews posted by Grammar Nazis and new authors who will (not if) receive such reviews should be aware of a few things before they accept the Grammar Nazi’s claims of bad writing and poor editing as fact.
A couple of years ago, an author friend of mine independently published a book. During the publication process, her book went through two rounds of editing (by two different editors) and was proofread by another editor, plus a friend of hers, who happened to be school teacher who taught English. Thus, her book was looked at by four different pairs of eyes before publication.
Nine months after the book was released and received several glowing reviews, she received one poor review declaring that it was poorly edited and had numerous grammatical errors. So, she hired yet another editor to proofread the book again for grammatical mistakes and misspellings. This editor, who used a different style manual than the other editors, ripped that book apart with changes on every page.
Over a year later, a traditional publisher signed my friend to a multi-book deal. As part of the publication process, this same book was edited yet again! It went through two separate editors—one of whom contacted my friend to tell her that it was very well written and was pretty clean to begin with. Not only that, but after the book was formatted, it was proofread by yet another editor.
First review my friend received from a reader stated:
This is the first novel I’ve read by this author, and while it was a good read, with a good plot, interesting primary and secondary characters, and was very suspenseful, the sheer number of grammatical errors, misused words, and spelling errors certainly detracted from my enjoyment of this book. While I’d like to read the next novels in this series, I can only hope that they are better edited and proofread than this one.
Excuse me! This book was looked at by—count them!—seven different editors plus an English teacher. Not all of them were ill-educated, poorly trained, or incompetent!
The answer to how this happens lies in this one simple question:
Grammatical errors, misused words, and spelling mistakes according to whose rules?
I have assembled a team of editors and proofreaders to work on my own books based on each one’s strengths. It is a given, where one editor has strengths, he or she has weaknesses in another area.
Let me explain. Last year, I sent one of my books to a new editor to be proofread before its release. Because she was unproven to me, I sent the same book to yet another editor as a backup. Neither proofreader knew the book was being worked on by someone else. Therefore, they thought it was completely up to them to catch every mistake.
When the book came back from these two proofreaders, they had both identified completely different errors. Only in one instance did they both identify the same error! They concentrated completely on different areas in proofreading the book. One proofreader was more concerned with the punctuation while the other focused on the spelling.
Also, each one of my editors/proofreaders works under a different set of rules.
One of my editors, who I have used for years, follows the new comma rules—whatever those are. From what I have seen, the comma is rarely used. I have read many books in recent years, whose editors seem to be following these rules. According to the new comma rules, the line from Gone with the Wind: “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn,” has no commas.
Another one of my editors loves the Oxford comma. Thus, the line would be written, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Based on what she learned when she was in school, my mother swears it is, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Who is right? Under interrogation, both of these editors and the Grammar Nazi could cite a source and reasoning to back up their argument of where the commas go and why.
Another area of disagreement is the ellipse. That is the “…”. One of my editors believes there should be no space before or after the ellipse. Another editor firmly believes there should be a space before and after the ellipse.
Even highly regarded style manuals used by editors disagree. Some argue that the ellipse should be treated like a word, which means it should have a space both before and after. Others (mostly journalistic style manuals) say it should be treated like an em-dash (—) so there should be no space. This is because the space before and after can create havoc with formatting.
Therefore, I quite literally split the difference. During formatting I use a half-space before and after the ellipse.
To better illustrate this issue, I love to tell writers, new editors, and readers about a book I edited for another author several years ago.
This book contained a character whose name ended in an “s.” Well, throughout the book, there were many instances in which his name was used in possessive.
Now, every editor has a thing or two or three or dozen, in which they will not trust their knowledge. To be safe, they will look it up in their style manual every single time. For me, the question of a proper name ending in “s” and used in possessive was one of those things. The Chicago Style Manual called for this possessive to be “s’” not “s’s.”
Well, the author said I was wrong and that it is supposed to be “s’s.”
So, I looked it up again, not just in the Chicago Style Manual, but several sites on the Internet. Not only did I discover that the answer varies in the Chicago Style Manual depending on which edition you use, but I also found a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States had gotten involved in this very argument while writing a decision on a case. Even the justices disagreed! Clarence Thomas (who should know since his name ends in an “s”) declared that it is “s.’”
I let the author have the last word. He requested that I change all of the possessive references for this character to “s’s.”
Then, upon proofing the book, the author brought in his daughter, a technical writer who goes by a totally different style manual. She stated that it should be “s’” without the extra “s.”
So I had to change it back.
Many people who are not in the business of writing, editing, or publishing fiction fail to realize that many of the grammar and punctuation rules that we were taught as being carved in stone really are not—especially when it comes to fiction.
Most fiction authors’ literary style and narrative voice don’t follow all of the rules taught in simple fourth grade grammar. Keeping in tune with the casual manner in which people communicate today, writers focus more on creating a conversational tone and flow to the narrative than using the correct pronoun.
When I sent my third book to the editor, I could practically hear her laughing between the lines in her notes when she rewrote a sentence in my narrative. “When was the last time you heard someone use the word ‘whom?’” she asked.
While my sentence was grammatically correct, she noted that it had such a formal stilted sound to it that it broke the easy going pace of my writing. As a result, the reader would be pulled out of the story. Yes, the sentence, rewritten by the editor, was grammatically incorrect. However, the narrative flowed much more naturally.
Grammar Nazis, particularly those who have spent the bulk of their education or professional lives in the world of non-fiction writing and editing (working in journalism or teaching grade school English), fail to realize this when reading fiction. Being a Nazi, they are incapable of becoming immersed in the plot and the story because they have spent their lives searching for mistakes. When they encounter what they perceive to be an error, they are so offended that all enjoyment of the other 99.9% of the book becomes an impossibility—all they can see and think about is that imperfection.
Feeling righteous about what they know is right, they feel compelled to note said error and to warn readers via bad reviews and/or notify the writer of what a sloppy job his editor did.
The first installment in Lauren Carr’s new mystery series, Kill and Run was released September 4. It has been receiving rave reviews from reviewers and readers … except for a couple of Grammar Nazis
Less than two weeks ago, my fifteenth book, Kill and Run was released. Over the years, the publication of my books, which I publish independently, has been fine tuned. I use two different editors, plus I will do a round of editing myself. After the book is formatted, my books are proofread by a professional editor who has never laid eyes on the book beforehand. Plus, a copy will go to my Grammar Nazi mother.
Yet, in spite of the many steps I take to produce high quality books, shortly before Kill and Run’s release (but too late to make corrections before the release date) a total of twenty actual grammatical and spelling errors were discovered. (The corrected version is now available and being sold. Pre-order e-book customers can download from Amazon under “manage my kindle.”)
Two Grammar Nazis (my mother was not one) demanded to know how this could happen. “Your readers deserve better!”
Here’s how and why this happens–not just with my books, but most books published, both independently and traditionally:
Prolific writers (those who write more than one book a year—I release three or four) make mistakes. A prolific writer cares more about writing a thrilling book with fully developed characters and an intriguing plot than determining if every single word (Is it lay or lie?) is right and ensuring that every punctuation mark is correct (To use the comma or not to use the comma?).
Such minute details have the power to tie a Grammar Nazi’s panties in a knot.
One Grammar Nazi was upset because in The Murders at Astaire Castle, David O’Callaghan went into a donut shop to buy a box of donuts.
A few years ago, I received an email from a woman informing me that I was a shoddy writer and how dare I consider myself worthy of editing other authors’ books. (I don’t edit other authors books anymore because I am too busy writing my own books.) Her complaint: In The Murders at Astaire Castle, which has been consistently in the top 100 of Ghost Mysteries on Amazon since its release in July 2013, contained this sentence:
“On the way into the police station, David stopped at the donut shop to buy a box of donuts.”
The Nazi wrote, “No, sh!t.” She used the actual word. My error was using “donut” twice. That is repetition, which is a no-no. This, she declared was sloppy and shoddy writing. She went on to post a one-star review on Amazon and Goodreads.
Think about it. The Murders at Astaire Castle has 66,000 words. This Nazi was having a hissy fit over one sentence, consisting of nineteen words, in the middle of a 286-page book. Frankly, I thought one bad sentence out of the thousands of sentences in that book was doing pretty good.
Since the Grammar Nazi revealed in her email that she was a writer, and obviously much better than I am since she would never have written that sentence, I looked up her profile in the social media sites and found that she has never published a book. To date, she still has yet to have a book published under her name. Based on her reaction to the news that David had stopped at a donut shop to buy donuts, I think she is probably too busy sweating over every page, paragraph, sentence, comma, period, and word to allow her book to be released to the public.
By virtue of being a Grammar Nazi, her book must be perfect. Anything less is unacceptable.
That’s pretty sad in my opinion.
Prolific writers know that there comes a time in every book’s life where we need to just let it go and move on to the next book. We accept the fact that there could very well—No, we know and accept the fact that there will be one, two, three, or twenty grammatical errors in the book that our team has not caught.
From a professional stand-point, it is not good business to hold up the release of a book to invest in yet another editor to scour a whole book in search of those few errors that will cause one or two Grammar Nazis to have hissy fits—even if they do use the power of the Internet to proclaim the book as poorly edited.
At what point can a book—not a five-hundred word article or a student’s ten-page research paper—but a 60,000 to 110,000 word book—be declared error free, especially if editors, proofreaders, and Grammar Nazis can’t agree on what the rules are?
Alas, there is yet another important reason Kill and Run was released with twenty actual mistakes that had been missed by my team of paid professional editors and proofreaders—and yes, I do consider them professional and am proud to have them working for me.
Unfortunately, not only are my editors and proofreaders professionals—but also, every single one is a human being. Therefore, they suffer from the condition that every human suffers—Yes, even the Grammar Nazis suffer from this dreaded incurable condition:
Human beings aren’t perfect. As intolerable as it may be, we all make mistakes.
I have worked with numerous editors in the thirty plus years that I have been writing and I have yet to meet an editor who is perfect, which is why I use more than one on every project.
With this in mind, I look at those twenty mistakes in Kill and Run this way:
Kill and Run has approximately 110,000 words. Twenty mistakes out of 110,000 words amounts to a .018% error rate.
That means my team of editors and proofreaders got 99.982% of the book right—based on the grammar and spelling rules as we know them.
I wouldn’t call that sloppy, shoddy, incompetent, or poor. Would you?
About the Author
Best-Selling Mystery Author Lauren Carr … and Gnarly, too. click on photo to visit Lauren’s website.
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday and Lovers in Crime Mysteries. Kill and Run the first installment of her new series, The Thorny Rose Mysteries was released to rave reviews from reviewers and readers on September 4, 2015. Lauren introduced the key detectives in the Thorny Rose Mysteries in Three Days to Forever, which was released in January 2015.
The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. Visit Acorn Book Services website for more information.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learnt in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Five women with seemingly nothing in common are found brutally murdered in a town home outside Washington, DC. Among the many questions surrounding the massacre is what had brought these apparent strangers together only to be killed.
The first installment of Lauren Carr’s new series, Kill and Run, is now available for pre-order. Click on book cover to order your copy today!
Taking on his first official murder case, Lieutenant Murphy Thornton, USN, believes that if he can uncover the thread connecting the victims, then he can find their murderer.
The case takes an unexpected turn when Murphy discovers that one of the victims has a connection to his stepmother, Homicide Detective Cameron Gates. One wintry night, over a dozen years before, her first husband, a Pennsylvania State trooper, had been run down while working a night shift on the turnpike.
In Kill and Run, best-selling mystery author Lauren Carr delights her fans by merging the son and daughter of the detectives from her two popular series for a new series—the Thorny Rose Mysteries. Fans were introduced to Murphy Thornton, the son of Joshua Thornton from Lovers in Crime Mysteries, and Jessica Faraday, the daughter of Mac Faraday from the Mac Faraday Mysteries, in the widely-acclaimed and best-selling Three Days to Forever, which was released in January 2015.
A Mac Faraday Mystery, Three Days to Forever introduces Lauren Carr’s new series, the Thorny Rose Mysteries. Click on book cover to download from Amazon.
The match-up surprised even the author. “I thought long and hard about bringing Murphy and Jessica together,” Lauren confesses. “I had developed each of the characters separately. Murphy appeared in my very first book, A Small Case of Murder. At that time, he was only sixteen and his mother had recently passed away. Jessica appeared briefly in Old Loves Die Hardand I had no thought while writing that book of pairing her up with Murphy. I was as surprised as anyone when their characters ended up being a perfect match in Three Days to Forever.”
A perfect match they are! Lauren Carr’s newest series is hot and sexy, like her newest detectives. Lauren warns, “Some readers may be surprised to see that I push the envelope just a little bit more in The Thorny Rose Mysteries than I do in my other series. Due to the combination of my detectives’ youth and the environment (the Nation’s Capital), it was virtually impossible to keep things completely pure.” Some readers may notice a few more curse words (no F-bombs allowed!) and sexual references, which Lauren will confine only to the Thorny Rose Mysteries. “What can I say?” Lauren says with a sigh. “Washington, DC, is not Spencer or Chester.”
In this first installment of the Thorny Rose Mysteries, the Lovers in Crime join newlyweds Murphy Thornton and Jessica Faraday to sift through a web of lies and cover-ups. Together, can the detectives of the Thorny Rose uncover the truth without falling victim to a cunning killer?
Mystery fans can keep up on all the news about the Thorny Rose Mysteries, Kill and Run, and Lauren Carr’s upcoming titles for the next couple of months–all without leaving their homes (or getting dressed). Lauren Carr is going on tour–launching August 31 with iRead Book Tours! As always when Lauren goes on tour, she promises that you will have fun! Follow her on tour for interviews, guest blog posts, and reviews of both Three Days to Forever and Kill and Run! Don’t miss out on the fun! Get on the bus now! See you in Cyberspace!
Lauren Carr’s The Thorny rose Mystery Tour launches Aug 31. Click on logo to get her extensive blog tour schedule.
About the Author
An Amazon All-Star author, Lauren Carr is the creator of three popular mystery series: the Mac Faraday Mysteries, The Lovers in Crime Mysteries, and now the Thorny Rose Mysteries. Kill and Run is the first installment of The Thorny Rose Mysteries. Each of Lauren Carr’s mysteries have made Amazon’s best-seller ranking internationally.
Best-Selling Mystery Author Lauren Carr … and Gnarly, too. Click on Gnarly’s nose to visit Lauren Carr’s website.
In addition to her series set on Deep Creek Lake, Lauren Carr has also written the Lovers in Crime Mysteries, which features prosecutor Joshua Thornton with homicide detective Cameron Gates, who were introduced in Shades of Murder, the third book in the Mac Faraday Mysteries. They also make an appearance in The Lady Who Cried Murder.
The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit Acorn Book Services website for more information.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
She lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Visit Lauren Carr’s website at www.mysterylady.net to learn more about Lauren and her upcoming mysteries.
Lauren Carr is the best-selling author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Killer in the Band is the third installment in the Lovers in Crime Mystery series.
Literary Wealth 