About My Novel

By request, I'm going to talk a little about the novel I'm working on. I'm about 3/4 done, and I have been working on it since, oh, June or something. It's going much slower than I originally intended, but I keep plugging along. After I finish the first draft, I'll have quite a bit of revision to do to really make it readable.

It's partly a murder mystery, but that is a secondary plot. I won't try to explain the whole thing here, but I will say the people at the library must think I have a sad life. I've been doing research for it, and I've checked out probably six books on domestic violence and four or five on alcoholism and children of alcoholics.

I don't know if I would call this a Christian novel, but it is written from my viewpoint as a Christian, and the one of the two main characters is a Christian. Nobody gets "saved" by the end, though.

I'm having a difficult time deciding how many of the details of the murder are really necessary. I find many forensic-type murder mysteries (and even worse, I think, shows like CSI) really have more detail than they need to to get the point across, and I wonder about a culture where that is considered "entertainment". But forensics is a real part of life, and is very valuable for catching and convicting criminals. For my research I've read several nonfiction books written by forensic anthropologists and other forensic scientists, and it is fascinating even as it is really kind of gross. I think just like doctors or morticians, it takes a special kind of personality to stand up to that kind of job.