Writing is such a solitary activity, how do you work it as a team?
It ain’t easy. It’s not like we can have four hands on the keyboard at the same time. Generally one of us writes the whole first draft of a chapter or several chapters, and then the other re-writes. It can take a while before things reach their final form. Plots and scenes are relatively easy to agree upon ahead of time, but the characters often prove more difficult. Sometimes we pretend they are sitting around the table with us, engaged in conversation. It helps that we have worked together now for more than fifty-three years, and that we have learned to both tolerate and appreciate one another’s strengths and limitations.
What sorts of mystery stories do you like to read the most?
To us, the three essentials of any good whodunit are an unusual and suspenseful plot, characters with depth, and especially a strong sense of place. The novels we have most enjoyed are those that take the reader deep into landscapes the authors know well, and people them with characters that fit the areas. That has been our goal in both the Arizona Borderland series, and it will be so in the Florida Everglades mysteries. There are many role models to choose from here, but one of the earliest and best was Tony Hillerman. He described the Four Corners region and its cultures with such power and depth that his plots almost became secondary to landscape and character.
Are your mystery stories based on real places, events, and people?
Yes, no, and sort of. We set our novels in real places where we have lived for extended periods, and we have described them as accurately as we can. The stories themselves are entirely fictional. So are the characters as to specifics like profession, name, and appearance, but they likely are hybrid mixtures of real people we have known who lived on the places we write about.
Do you plot out your novels before you start writing?
Since we write as a team, some sort of pre-conceived ideas about a plot are essential, such as identifying the bad guys and how they ultimately get caught. But like others before us, we have found that characters sometimes can take charge of things and move the story in directions we did not always anticipate. It is one of the most interesting and intriguing aspects of the whole fiction-writing enterprise.
When do you write?
As often as possible, unless you choose to count things like fishing, reading mystery stories, and the martini/margarita hour as non-essential activities. We prefer to write in the morning, after coffee and after our Welsh Corgi ‘Jones’ has had his morning constitutional and his breakfast.