Kate
Dolan began her writing career as a legal editor and then newspaper columnist
before she decided she was finally ready to tackle fiction. As the author of more than a dozen novels and
novellas, she writes historical fiction and romance under her own name and
contemporary mysteries and children's books under the name K.D. Hays. When not writing, she enjoys volunteering as
a living history interpreter and riding roller coasters with her daughter.
Her
latest book is the cozy mystery, Roped In.
For
More Information
- Visit Kate Dolan’s website.
- Connect with Kate on Facebook and Twitter.
- Find out more about Kate at Goodreads.
- Contact Kate.
Can you tell us what your book, Roped In, is about?
In terms of genre, Roped In is an inspirational cozy
mystery, but like most books, the story goes way beyond that. It's about a
divorced woman trying to forge a new identity for herself, to develop a career,
to survive dating again and figure out how to deal with kids on the brink of
teenager-hood. Roped In is told
through the eyes of Karen Maxwell, who is just starting to take on
investigative work at her brother's private investigation firm. She was fired
from her first two cases, so she's willing to
Why did you write
your book?
Roped In is the
third book in the Karen Maxwell series, which I started nearly ten years ago
for Barbour Publishing. The publisher cancelled the mystery line before I had
written much of this one. The story takes Karen into the world of competitive
jump rope, which I had just discovered at the time I wrote the book proposal.
As the years went by, my daughter grew so involved in the sport of jump rope
that we actually started living some of the life that takes place in the story.
So I decided I really needed to go back and finish the book. I even worked on
some of the first draft while we were at a the USA National Jump Rope
Championship in California one
year.
Can you tell us a
little about your main and supporting characters?
As I mentioned, Karen Maxwell is divorced and still trying
to rebuild a life for herself. Her 12-year-old daughter Alicia is a drama queen
— she studies acting and loves to perform and is anxious to play a part in
Karen's undercover investiations (whether Karen wants her to or not). Her son
Evan is almost 10-years-old and like most younger siblings, strives to show
that he can be as independent as his older sister. Karen recently started
dating Brian, one of the suspects from the first book, George Washington Stepped Here. He's very involved in his church,
so Karen tries to get involved as well so that they can share that aspect of
lifetogether. But it doesn't work out the way she'd planned.
Do you tend to base
your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?
My characters all have personality traits from people I know
(starting with myself) but I never base an entire character on a real person
unless I'm writing historical fiction and the real person is actually inthe
story. In the case of this series, one of Karen's defining traits came from a
friend of mine who lamented that she had become so busy with her children's
lives that she had lost most of her own. To a certain extent, that happens to
all parents, but it can be a real danger. I imagined that for Karen, when her
husband left and her world fell apart, she really clung to her kids. She lost
faith in her ability to relate to men romantically or to friends, since her
best friend had been having an affair with her husband. But she knew she was a
good parent and that went from being the most important thing in her life to
being almost the only thing in her life. Now with her kids growing older, she's
even losing faith in her ability to make the right decisions as a parent. It
sounds pretty negative and it can be. But like other women who've lived through
this type of emotional trauma,Karen approaches life with humor and
determination—and large quantities of caffeine—to keep depression at bay.
Are you consciously
aware of the plot before you begin a novel or do you discover it as you write?
For the Karen Maxwell mysteries, I had a strict word limit
and within that limit had to include a small-town mystery, romantic elements
and a Christian message. So to fit all that in, and to create a marginally
plausible mystery, I had to outline every scene pretty early on in the writing
process. But before I wrote these books, I was much more of a
"seat-of-pants" writer who proferred to let my characters run away
with the story. It can be very exciting to write that way - like watching a
movie unfold in your head. It can also be pretty scary when you have no idea
where you're headed or if you'll ever get there! I think probably using a
process somewhere in between works best for me. But this is my tenth
full-length novel and I still don't have a set pattern with approach to plot. I
now realize that my work is character-driven rather than plot-driven, which
makes sense because that's what I prefer to read. If you give me a character I
like, I'll follow her into a crazy situation, or even no situation at all (like
Seinfeld). But even a story with brilliant plot twists will lose me if I don't
want to follow at least one character through that maze.
Does the setting play a major part in the development of
your story?
I hope so. The town itself is not particularly important. But cozy mysteries are often known for their "small town" quirky characters. Though I use the real town of Ellicott City for my story, I want to create the sense that this could be almost any town, and that everyone is a quirky character once you get to know them. If you look for the unique qualities in every person around you, life becomes a lot more interesting.
Is it hard to promote
a cozy mystery and where do you start?
I don't think it should be because it's a very popular genre
with eager, loyal readers. But I am wretchedly unsuccessful at promoting my own
work. It feels like bragging to attach any positive adjective to my stories, so
I just don't. It also feels like bragging to announce that I have a new book
coming out, so I don't do that much either. I'm sort of a publisher's nightmare
when it comes to promotion. And unfortunately that's what publishers want these
days - they don't want good books, they want authors who promote their books
well.I do post information about my books and upcoming appearances on Facebook,
Twitter and my website, and I try to write a blog with information that is
interesting for its own sake, not because it might have any connection with my
books. And I enjoy participating in interviews and writing guest blog posts,
but I don't enjoy the notion that I need to badger people to read and comment
on them. Am I lazy? Shy? Insecure? Probably all of the above!
What would you do with an extra hour today if you could
do anything you wanted?
Ride roller coasters
with my daughter!
What is the most pivotal point of a writer’s life?
For me, it was
finishing the first draft of a full novel. It took me so many years to get to
the point where I could write more than a chapter or two without getting
thoroughly annoyed with my characters. That was a real landmark for me—I knew
then that I could actually finish a book. Of course, that doesn't mean I was
good at it, but just knowing I could get that far was a huge moment for me. And
that's something that anyone can experience. We may not all write best sellers,
but every writer has the opportunity to experience that thrill of finishing the
first book.
What kind of advice
would you give other fiction authors?
Make an effort to
get honest feedback on your work. It's helpful to have a family member or
friend read it and tell you what they liked, because most of us tend to doubt
our ability and we need encouragement. But we also desperately need criticism.
We know what we mean to convey in our stories, but often the words we put on
the page fail to pull everything out of our heads. Having someone else read
those words shows us where we left gaps. And it also shows us where our stories
don't make sense. Or maybe where we included unnecessary information. I've been
working with a group of critique partners for many years and I know I can trust
them to be honest and tell me when they don't like something. And they can help
me figure out how to make it work. But it's really scary to share something
you've written and open it up to criticism because it's a part of yourself.
Force yourself to do it anyway. For Roped
In, I even hired the same content editor who edited the first two books in
the series (back when the publisher was paying for the editing). It was tough
to pay someone to tell me where I'd failed! But I'm so glad that I did—her
feedback improved the story tremendously.
Thanks so much for
sharing your time with me today!