How Much Scary do You Like in a Story?

Romance novels typically have a heat level rating that may be named differently depending on which author, reader, or blogger you're talking to, but essentially mean the same thing. There's sweet (sweet kisses only, no sex on the page) and steamy (open door sex scenes). And a few others that are in-between and some that go beyond that.(These are the kind I stay away from.)

If we have such a rating for heat levels on books, why haven't we any rating on scary stuff? The only website I know that uses such ratings is My Book Cave, where authors who add their books to their site are required to list by rating how much violence and/or gore is portrayed. (Of course, there may be more, but I'm not aware of them.) As a reader, I appreciate knowing the level of "scary" that I should expect when I settle in to read a novel. For instance, I know that I can't read a Harry Potter or even a Love Inspired Suspense book at night or else I'll dream about them. But I can read a romantic story with a lower level of suspense at night and be just fine.

The other part of this equation is that fictional stories need to have some kind of outer conflict, along with the main character's inner struggle, in order to move the action along. And for romantic stories, the outer conflict needs to involve more than just a misunderstanding between the couple that could be fixed in chapter five if they just talked things out. So, in an effort to present an interesting love story while keeping the content sweet or clean, most romance authors incorporate suspenseful elements. Again, the level of suspense may vary from author to author, or even from book to book.

 

About a year ago, I wrote An Agent for Meg, as part of the Pinkerton Matchmaker series, which I based off of the real-life experience of female investigative reporter Nellie Bly. Reading about the time she spent in an insane asylum on Blackwell's Island just about broke my heart. What a brave woman. Her job was to pretend to be mentally ill so she could be thrown into the asylum. There, she was able to expose the horrendous conditions under which the residents were living. Poorly prepared, moldy food, having to put on wet clothing right after taking a cold bath, and not being allowed to speak to each other--well, you can probably see where these horrible rules led. Of course the residents would be deemed insane after being subjected to such atrocities! I have no doubt that I would, too.

As a fiction writer, it's difficult to describe such demoralizing conditions without bogging down the reader emotionally, so I chose to keep that aspect on the lighter side while adding a sinister matron who wanted another woman's husband for herself, so she connived with him and the director at the asylum to declare this woman insane and lock her inside. She eventually planned this woman's demise, and might have gotten away with it had not Pinkerton agents Carl and Meg Porter found the woman just in time. To make this book even more suspenseful, I also decided to add a subtle yet effective snippet from Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven." He, of course, is known as the king of horror in his day.

I, myself, have never been in an asylum before, but I have a vivid memory from my childhood of going on a school field trip to the county jail. (Why we went there, I have no clue. Why would any teacher choose that particular place as a positive learning experience?) Anyway, I remember walking past a cell and having the prisoner--a female--stick her hand out, and in my 8-year-old mind I imagined that she was calling out for someone to get her out of there. It was a scary experience.

As one reader said in a review, "[An Agent for Meg] has some anxious moments, and some very anxious moments". (Love that!) Another reviewer said, "That tree branch scraping on the window still has me on edge." So suffice it to say that this particular Pinkerton Matchmaker story is a little more intense than some of the others, including most of mine. But there are lighter moments, too, one of which gives a nod to another Meg in literature--from Little Women. And since Meg appeared in an earlier story (An Agent for Hallie) as a spoiled young lady, I had fun humbling her a bit. She and Carl had a few earlier run-ins that made their interactions in this story enjoyable to write. Yet he was very tender to her as he realized all the struggles she had gone through with her family and was going through in the difficult circumstances in which they'd been placed. If you haven't read this story yet, I hope you will give it a try, especially since Halloween is coming up and it's time to put your spook on!

Here is where you can find An Agent for Meg: https://amzn.to/2YKHy2m

Or, click on the cover to go to the product page.

A Fairytale Retelling or Embellishment on Real Life?

Several of the authors who contribute to this blog write in The Pinkerton Matchmaker series. I am one of those authors. It has been a really fun series to write in, but kind of strenuous, too, as my brain doesn’t naturally think in terms of mystery but gravitates more toward romanticism. When I was first invited to participate in this series, I was excited but also a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to come up with viable plotlines for readers to enjoy. For my first Pinkerton story, An Agent for Elizabeth, I decided to build the plot around a fairytale, if you can believe that, partially basing one of the villains, Elizabeth’s stepmother, on Cinderella’s. Who was the other villain? Her daughter, of course, but instead of a stepsister, Callie is Elizabeth’s half-sister, unbeknownst to her. However, this villainous mother and daughter duo was also contrived from another well-known female, this one a real-life stagecoach bandit, commonly known as the "Bandit Queen" from the Wild West: Pearl Hart.

Pearl was born in Canada but eventually made her way down to Arizona Territory where she and her lover, Jim Boot (real name unknown), decided to rob a stagecoach going from Globe to Florence. They were caught a few days later while wandering in the same area (some speculate that they were lost) and sent to prison—Boot in the Florence jail and Hart in Tucson. Following were several episodes of incarceration in which Peart used her feminine wiles and any other theatrics she could employ to gain others’ sympathy. The fact that Pearl and her partner had first attempted to rob men by luring them to a hotel room and then knocking them out cold played into Elizabeth’s story as well. When Callie does this in An Agent for Elizabeth and leaves the man for dead, it sets the stage for a wild chase. Luckily, Elizabeth has a wonderful agent husband in Stephen Randall who is able to help her solve this case and put a stop to her stepmother and stepsister’s crime spree.

Oddly enough, Pearl Hart was inspired by Annie Oakley, whose showmanship and sharpshooting skills were brought to life in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. When it came time for me to write my third Pinkerton Matchmaker story, An Agent for Hallie, I was researching the “dinosaur wars” from the 1870s-1880s and came across a fun tidbit about Buffalo Bill being impressed upon learning that Wyoming and Dakota Territories had once been covered by ocean water. He learned this from a paleontologist named O.C. Marsh. Marsh and his crew were involved in what eventually became an all-out war between himself and another paleontologist, Edward Cope. In an effort to outdo each other and gain more financial backing from institutions back East, bribery and trickery were employed to keep the other from making more discoveries. This bitter feud made lifelong enemies of the two men. However, it also brought about countless scientific discoveries, of which we are the beneficiaries.

This scenario became the background for An Agent for Hallie and An Agent for Meg. My character, Meg, is the daughter of renowned paleontologist Professor Zane Ashwood. He’s brought Meg along with him on a dinosaur excavation project so as to keep her away from men who might only court her for her money. What the professor, and Pinkerton agents Hallie and Jeff Moore, don’t know is that the young man whom he trusts to be in his daughter’s company is a Pinkerton detective from another office back East. While Hallie and Jeff were hired by Professor Ashwood, detective Carl Porter was hired by someone else—but whom?

Meg and Carl also get their own story in An Agent for Meg. It takes place several months later, giving Meg time to “grow up” and come to terms with things that were happening in her family that she didn’t fully understand before. When she’s paired with Carl and they are assigned the task of infiltrating an insane asylum, they must learn to trust each other—even though they are still angry with each other over what happened in An Agent for Hallie. The asylum is a scary place, not only for Meg and Carl, but for the inhabitants as well. I loosely based this tale from investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s experience when she went undercover and spent time in the asylum on Blackwell’s Island in 1887. She found the conditions there to be deplorable. Lack of decent food and cleanliness, ice cold baths, and people being locked up like animals, all contributed to her scathing report. A report that made a huge difference in the lives of many people as conditions in institutions such as this one changed. Also, An Agent for Meg takes place in the fall, so I couldn’t help but add a little more ghoul to it, which makes it an extra fun read if you like a little more suspense in stories. Not to worry, though, if you’re a romantic like me. There’s plenty of romance in these three stories as well.

I recently put these three adventures into a box set. If you haven’t tried any of the Pinkerton Matchmaker stories yet, you’re in for a treat, especially right now because this box set is only .99 cents and will remain at that price until April 18^th. If you have read them before, it's always fun to go back and reread a story once you know more about its background.

Here is the universal link where you can find it on sale: https://amzn.to/3atSVAE