By Kim Howard, CAE
Have you wondered how a person decides to write a book? Do avid readers make the best writers? What about someone whose parents ran a small-town newspaper? Meet mystery writers Linda Ensign and Genilee Swope Parente, respectively.
“I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. When I graduated from the children’s library to the adult library, it was one of the highlights of my childhood,” Linda Ensign said. Ensign is the author of the short story “The Storm in the Teacup,” which appeared in the award-winning “Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning.”
“Mom and my dad ran a small-town newspaper for many years. Mom [F. Sharon Swope, her co-author] wrote a column for the paper. She always wanted to write novels, but she put her dreams on hold to raise four children,” said Genilee Swope Parente. “One of those children (my younger sibling Allyn M. Stotz) became a successful children’s book author late in life. Mom, at age 82, decided that ‘if [she]was ever going to write that novel in [her]head’ she had better get started. She’d had an idea for a hero in her mind for about 70 years, and inspired by Allyn’s success in getting published, finally got that hero down on paper in “Twist of Fate,” the first mystery in The Fate Series. Meanwhile, I always wrote creatively, but never pursued getting published. I am a long-time freelance writer and magazine editor.”
The Cast of Characters
Book characters. We’ve loved them. We’ve hated them. We’ve related to them. We’ve not understood them. Characters are key to a good storyline. However, creating characters is not the easiest part of the job for Ensign. “For me the hardest part about creating characters is trying to limit how many I put into a story. I like complex characters. The hardest part of developing the story line is also trying to keep it simple enough to get it finished because I also like complex story lines,” she said.
Parente echoes Ensign’s sentiments. “The hardest part about creating characters, especially when you have multiple characters in an ongoing series, is making sure each book contains fresh faces. However, when you write a series, you fall in love with some of your characters, and you let them move along into other plots. That’s why in The Fate Series, Detective Sam Osborne, the central character, appears more and more as the stories progress. Mom [Sharon] and I fell in love with his soft-spoken manner, sharp mind, average looks, kindness, and ability to make friends easily while sniffing out what’s really going on. Mom [Sharon] calls him a Columbo-type hero without the sloppiness. We’ve also let some of the other characters that we liked move from book to book. For example, the heroine of the first book eventually ends up working for the detective, and she and her husband become a part of later plots in the series,” Parente said.
Ensign and Parente agree that the easiest part of their work is plot development. For Ensign the easiest part about creating characters is “deciding what their motivations are—the why of the character. The easiest part of the story line is the big picture view—how it starts, ends, and how it affects the characters.” Parente and her mom also find this to be an easier part of the book writing effort. “The easiest part about creating characters and plots is that once you sit down at a computer at regular intervals and just make yourself write (whether you end up using what you’ve done that day or not), the creating just happens. It’s a natural phenomenon,” Parente said. “You also find that the more you practice this sitting-down-and-doing-it process, the easier the words come.”
The Introduction
So how did these local writers get started? Parente’s mom wrote her first book based on an idea that she had been kicking around for decades. Once the draft was complete, she handed it to her daughter, who is an editor, and suggested that they work together. The two collaborated on that first book, and based on
the success of the partnership, they went on to write the other four books in the Fate Series plus a book of short stories. They chose mysteries with some romance because that’s the genre they prefer to read. They also began speaking all over Prince William County and Northern Virginia at senior centers and
communities to inspire others to pursue their goals. Because of Parente’s mom’s age, “she is a popular and inspiring speaker. As the series grew, we began talking to other types of groups, such as book clubs and churches, having book signings, and selling our books at arts and crafts fairs in the area. We have also worked on networking with other authors in the area by joining several writer’s groups,” Parente said.
“I write mysteries because they are one of my favorite genres of books to read,” Ensign said. “I started writing mysteries in the late ’90s, but my writing output is not as much as I want it to be for a number of reasons. Writing is not my full-time job, and I have multiple stories all in various stages of progression.” As if writing mysteries wasn’t enough work, Ensign is also working on her Ph.D. in educational psychology and research methods at George Mason University. She is a “self-confessed technophile
and proficient in over 10 programming languages.” So, there’s no old-school typewriter keys clacking when she writes her books. In addition to writing mystery fiction, Ensign also writes in other genres, including long and short fiction, fantasy, science fiction and thrillers. She is president of the Northern Virginia Writers Club and a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime.
The Creative Process
Do writers suffer from writer’s block? Are they agonizing over their prose or drinking themselves into a stupor when the creativity just isn’t there? If you think that all writers are tortured like Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald, these writers are not. Ensign said that how long it takes her to write a book depends upon how often she writes. “I’ve completed NaNoWriMo (an annual, Internet-based creative writing project that takes place during the month of November) four times—producing over 50,000 words in 30 days—all of which were complete first drafts of manuscripts. If I’m not writing to an external deadline, a first draft can take between three to six months,” Ensign said. “The revising and editing is also very dependent on what else I’m doing and the level of revisions or editing needed. Revising for continuity can take three to six months, and line editing can take a week or two.”
Parente and her mother have a different approach to writing their books. “It takes far less time for Mom to draft the initial story than it takes for me to edit and flush out the details. Mom’s first book took only a few months to write. The others took anywhere from two to four months. It takes me up to a year to
fill in the details and do the additional research required when you put together a mystery novel,” Parente said. “However, Mom is retired while I work full-time, which affects how much gets done and when.” The way they work together is that mom (Sharon) submits the plots and characters and daughter
(Genilee) fills in details. “Mom’s ability to spin a yarn and create interesting characters is strong, but she doesn’t much care for the description. I am a wordsmith by trade, so I love everything about the craft of writing,” Parente said.
Their Favorite Mystery Writers
Parente and her mother Swope like a variety of writers. “Since there are two of us, it differs. One writer we both agree that we adore is Mary Higgins Clark, though we don’t like all her books or characters. However, we both think she has a wonderful ability to weave a believable tale and to keep you guessing and wanting to read more. The same could be said of Sandra Brown, but only in her most recent books. She went from writing mushy romance to writing some pretty great mysteries, and we love her later work. Those two authors do what we want to do, keep readers turning pages, anxious for the next tidbit,” Parente said.
Ensign also has a few favorites. “Tana French is my current favorite because her stories features complex, flawed heroines or heroes. Other favorites include Minette Walters, Elizabeth George, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón,” she added.
The Market for Books
Parente and Swope are quick to note that aside from being the creative brains behind a book, authors also have to market their products. “The hardest part about being an author, for almost any writer, is getting the word out about your novels. Because of the way books are sold today, you won’t see many
of the thousands of published authors in a bookstore,” Parente said. “Most sales occur online or in person. But it takes grit and determination to get out there and sell those books. The reason authors develop networks with other authors is that it’s easy to get discouraged—a very, very small percentage of novelists make any money doing it. All writers of books need a support system encouraging them to continue to do what they love.”
Kim Howard, CAE (khoward@princewilliamliving.com) is the editor in chief of Prince William Living.
