A Visit from Author M. M. Gornell

Today's visitor is M.M. Gornell, known by her friends (a group I am proud to be in) as Madeline. 

Thank you, Mike, for hosting me on your blog! Since you’ve given me free rein on topic, I thought I’d talk a little about my writing goals. The type of mystery and level of writing I want to someday master. And as a reader, what makes for me, the perfect novel!

I want to write novels where the characters “ring true” and quickly take you into their world. And once there, I want my reader to see, feel, hear, smell, taste—my fictional world through my characters’ senses. While reading An Axe to Grind, a F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith Rocky Bluff novel, I actually—if only for a moment—wanted to offer one of her characters, Gordon Butler, the use of my spare bedroom. That’s the kind of character-ringing-true I want to develop.

Indeed, I want to take the reader inside my characters’ heads—including all the supporting characters. That’s a balancing struggle with plot movement and action (thank goodness for my editors!) I want to write novels where point of view and character identification is strong. I love experiencing England through Adam Dagliesh’s eyes. (P.D. James)

I want to write novels where the reader knows where they are in the world, and are able through my writing to either emotionally like or dislike that location. For me, to be with Hamish McBeth as he tries to live out his life in the Scottish Highlands is wonderful! (M.C. Beaton (Marion Chesney))

I want to write novels where ordinary people (with quirks and interesting professions of course, love The Pot Thief, Hubert “Hubie” Schuze) are presented with extraordinary circumstances or events. For sure, one of those events I’m writing about must be a murder! But besides the murder mystery aspect, how my characters handle what’s happening to them, hopefully pulls the readers in—makes them care—even after the book is closed.

I want to write mystery plots that are tricky, interesting, and plausible. I want the reader to be guessing until the denouement, and then turn out wrong, but saying, “I should have known!” because the clues were there—just a matter of how you fit them together.

That’s what happens when you grow up reading Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters), Colin Dexter, Arthur Conan Doyle—the list goes on…

Finally, and this is a repeat from my visit with Jackie King, my most cherished hoped for goal is that when readers close one of my books, there’s a smile on their faces, and thoughts, questions, ideas beyond who the murderer was remain with them—at least for awhile.

Mike, thanks for letting me “spout off.” (hmmm, should that period be outside or inside the quote mark?) Think I’ll go read a good book…

Madeline (M.M.) Gornell has three published mystery novels—PSWA awarding winning Uncle Si’s Secret (2008), Death of a Perfect Man (2009), and her latest release, Reticence of Ravens (2010)—her first Route 66 mystery. Reticence of Ravens is a 2011 Eric Hoffer Fiction finalist and Honorary Mention winner, the da Vinci Eye finalist, and a Montaigne Medalist finalist.

She continues to be inspired by historic Route 66, and has recently completed Lies of Convenience, which hopefully will have a 2011 winter release date. It is a tale that fictionally connects murder, truths untold, and Chicago’s Lake Michigan with California’s high desert on the opposite end of The Mother Road. Madeline is also a potter with a fondness for stoneware and reduction firing. She lives with her husband and assorted canines in the Mojave in a town on internationally revered Route 66.

Madeline’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Smashwords, in paper and e-book formats. You can visit her online at her website http://www.mmgornell.com, or her BLOG http://www.mmgornell.wordpress.com, or email her directly at mmgornell@earthlink.net

Buy link for Reticence of Ravens:

http://www.amazon.com/Reticence-Ravens-M-Gornell/dp/1608300390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314747098&sr=8-1