by Peg Herring

When people ask where I get the plot for a new book, I generally say, quite honestly, that I don’t know. As far as I can tell, stand-alones like Aunt Marge come out of the air. Series books are different, because as I write an entry, e.g., Raining Cats and Cats, the second of my (Maggie Pill’s) current cozy mystery series, additional stories are suggested by events or character traits. Like a personality, a book is a combination of nature and nurture. The idea appears in my head early on, through a process author Lee Child calls “What if?” Sometimes that idea idles in my brain for months or even years before I am ready to develop it.

In Aunt Marge, the what-if questions went like this: What if a woman had a life crisis, and what if, while she was scared and vulnerable, a relative she didn’t know well showed up and offered her the chance to get away, to recover her mental and physical health, and to work her way back to normalcy?

Once the big what-if question is clear in my head, questions arise about how the story will unfold. I sort through those for some time before every setting my fingers on a keyboard, though I often fill page after page of yellow legal sheets with notes, diagrams, and outlines.

Who would this relative be? From nowhere, her name came into my head: Aunt Marge.
What would cause a woman (the protagonist’s name turned out to be Gwen) to leave home and go to an unfamiliar environment with a stranger?
What would this stranger be like?
Where does Marge live?
How would Gwen cope in her new surroundings?

Then came the mysteries, and there are several. (My editor, bless her, helped me twine them smoothly into one main story.)

Who is the mysterious young man who lives in Marge’s house?
Why is someone trying to wreck Gwen’s marriage?
How did Marge become the odd person she is?
Does a future windfall for Gwen affect why Marge sees her?
And the question that every good story must ask: Who will survive the surprising, mysterious events, and how?

Answering those questions creates scenarios. As I begin to write, the scenarios (at least, the ones that work out) build an intriguing, exciting story with lots of twists. The result is fun and rewarding, as I believe a good book should be.

While the story is told from Gwen’s point of view, Marge is the center of attention. Although I made her up, following the process I’ve outlined here, she’s a character you won’t soon forget.

One of my beta readers told me that while she was reading Aunt Marge, her husband asked, quite innocently, when supper would be ready. “When I finish this book and find out what happens!” she snapped at him. That’s the kind of book I look for when I read, and it’s certainly the type I try to write.

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Peg Herring writes mystery and women’s fiction. She lives in Michigan with her husband of many years. Peg also writes cozy mysteries as Maggie Pill.

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