Let’s face it, we write about
subjects that interest us. I love
mystery, gold panning and anything to do with Native American heritage. What do I write? Suspense, stories about Montana gold and of
course as many books as I can that share the heritage and ways of the Native
Americans on the plains in the 1800s. I
spend hours scouring through my books and the internet for exciting, new,
quirky details to make my stories as ‘special’ as they can be.
But, don’t get too carried away.
Just because you love reading page after page on how a Native woman
scrapes the hair or fir off a hide, doesn’t mean your readers will.
In my book latest book, Whispering Wind, I described the process
of getting married in the Blackfeet culture of 1864 . . . and allowed the
reader to learn how it had changed from even earlier times. I used dialog and added humor to make the
information feel natural as well as informative.
I wanted the reader to feel the
hardships of the gold rush days in Montana.
Montana Territory 1865 –
Pregnant and alone, Tsopo, Wind,
leaves her Blackfoot people to save her lifelong friend, Kom-zit-api, An Honest Man, from untrue accusations.
Kom-zit-api finds Wind and asks her to be his sits-beside-him wife. Before she can give him an answer, he dies
saving her from Crow warriors. Trapper,
Jake McKinney hears her cries and finds her down on a ledge, birthing a child
that has arrived too soon. Now Wind
finds herself at a crossroads.
Ashamed and confused,
she accepts McKinney’s offer to go with him to the Big Belt Mountains, where
his Confederate war buddies are prospecting for gold.
They meet brothers, Tucker and Alexander
Walsh on the trail. McKinney, with his
valuable bales of furs and buffalo robes, and the Walsh brothers, with their
four wagons of supplies, strike a partnership.
They’ll start up a general store for miners on the east side of the
Missouri River near Diamond City.
Wind reveals possession of a gold nugget
the size of her thumb. Her father gave it to her, and she knows where in
Confederate Gulch it was found. The men
make her an equal partner in their business they are now calling Whispering
Wind.
Nothing like her
peaceful village, Wind finds herself among ramshackle clusters of tents,
lean-tos, and crude log cabins. The main
street is a knee-deep mud trail mixed with horse manure, lined with make-shift
stores, hotels, rowdy saloons, and a single assayer’s office. Wind aspires to find love and happiness where
greed rules actions above common sense.
Dressed like a white woman, hiding her part Blackfeet blood, she faces
being one of a few women in a wild, lawless mining territory. Who can she trust? Can she survive where so
many men have failed?
Last year my publisher asked if I’d be interested in writing a suspense
around the real world of wrestling. Boy,
you never tell your publisher no.
Wrestling is a world I’ve never been a part of. I watched wrestling matches, studied the
environment and the people, and story ideas interrupting my thoughts. I wasn’t as tempted to add tons of wrestling
history, because it was fresh and new to me and I grasped only those basic
concepts that made my story work.
I work hard not to ‘talk down’ to my readers as well as I never
want to give so much detail that it overtakes and distracts from the
story.
Another thing we need to be mindful of and that’s to never ‘show
off’ all you know. You don’t impress anyone with paragraphs of detail and so
many ‘big words’ it’s hard to figure out what your characters are talking
about. Again, it’s smart to remember
less is more . . . in this case simplicity is better than complexity.
Don’t get me wrong, I love learning something new when I read a novel. I just don’t want a history lesson. I’ll bet you feel the same way. That’s why we need to step-back when we write
and tighten the facts just enough to give setting, mood, era, and flavor.
Your job as a writer is to entertain. Don’t let your enthusiasm for the facts turn
your novel into paragraphs of skimming for your readers.
The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is a volatile, exciting, and
action-packed world and even more so behind the scenes. Keme
(Thunder), a Blackfeet fan favorite wrestler at the top of his game, is found
hanging from the rafters of his training facility. Is it murder . . . or suicide?
Thunder’s fiancé and undercover FBI agent,
Chloe Evans has been posing as an employee selling memorabilia at WWE events -
looking for evidence of blood diamonds.
And now Thunder is dead and his daughter is missing. She has no choice but to work with his
prejudiced and stubborn brother, Mingan, to save Nuttah and expose the truth
about Thunder’s death.
Mingan (Gray Wolf) is certain his twin brother
wouldn’t commit suicide. Entering the
world of professional wrestling and fulfilling Thunder’s obligations, Mingan
begins by scrutinizing everything around Thunder’s life, starting with the
beautiful and haunting Chloe. As hard as he tries to keep her at a
distance, he is pulled to her like adrenaline on a choke hold. If they find his niece, will they find his
brother’s killer . . . or will they uncover something more sinister going on?
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