Answering AMAM (Ask Me Anything Monday) : On Shipwrecks and Love

Thanks to everyone for some great (and some tough!) questions.  Feel free to ask more. But I thought I'd get started answering.

First off, May asks: "The motive for murder in Why Mermaids Sing still haunts me. And to find out that it actually happened shook me a little bit. So what I'd like to know is if you plotted that story around this real case or if it just fell into the storyline you already planned?"

May, I read several books on shipwrecks as part of the research I was doing for a book I was writing called Beyond Sunrise (which will soon be available as an ebook with an all new cover, by the way!). At the time, I was only kicking the idea for the Sebastian St. Cyr series around in my head. But that story haunted me, too, and in the end it formed the core idea around which I wove Why Mermaids Sing. I actually had the ideas for the first four Sebastian books and their titles (well, my fourth title was Where Dragons Live, but I wasn't allowed to keep it because it sounds too fantasy-ish) before I started writing What Angels Fear.

May also asked, "Sebastian's love life: was it Hero from the beginning or did it change across time as you wrote it? I think I can answer that question along with this one from Veronica:

Veronica says: "I was wondering if you ever bounce ideas off your family or friends when you're stumped or conflicted about what direction to take with your characters. For example, when I first found this series I loved it and promptly set about perusing many of your old blog posts where you talked about the books and/or your writing. I came across an answer you made to someone in the Comments section where you said that you had toyed with the idea of having a pregnant Hero sail away from England and out of Sebastian's life but that you ultimately decided you couldn't do that to him (and thank the book gods for that!!!!). Do you ever run those ideas across your trusted inner circle to see how they might land? And, if so, who do we have to thank for convincing you to let Hero stay?"

Veronica, I do bounce ideas off my family ALL THE TIME (and they still put up with me! Amazing.). I did it with Samantha when she was still quite young (as in, twelve). I still occasionally do it to her and to my younger daughter, Danielle (who has a tremendous grasp of plot arcs and character development, by the way; in her heart of hearts I think she wants to be a writer). But when Steve and I married, he became my main plotting partner. I always hash my stories out with him at the plotting stage; it's so much easier to think things through if I can brainstorm with someone else. And I'll frequently go to him and say, "I have a problem; can we talk this through for a bit?" And he always says, "Sure!" quite happily because he knows my problem is with my manuscript and not with him.

So that answers the first half of the question. As to my plans for Sebastian's love life, from the time I started writing What Angels Fear, I knew where I wanted that part of the story to go. I knew Kat was Hendon's natural daughter and that the truth was going to come out and blow up Sebastian's affair with her. I also knew I wanted Sebastian to end up married to Hero. This was reinforced for me when Hero really leapt off the page the first time I wrote about her. However, I'll admit that when the time came, I had a hard time making that pivot in What Remains of Heaven. Part of it, I suspect, was pushback on social media from readers who desperately wanted the HEA (Happily Ever After) for Kat and Sebastian. The problem was, even though I could understand the yearning, I knew it would be unrealistic (apart from which I knew Sebastian's marriage to Hero was needed for the strength of the series arc). Kat hadn't spent the last seven years saying no to Sebastian for his own sake only to suddenly turn around and say, "Oh, okay; I'll marry you and ruin you." And while it is true that some men did marry actresses and courtesans in the Regency period, they suffered terrible repercussions in terms of social ostracism (as did their children). I did not want to deal with that. Added to which, Kat couldn't have continued on the stage as Sebastian's wife, so what would she have done with her time? She would have been ostracized by society. And unlike Hero, Kat has no interest in social crusades or solving mysteries; she is very serious about her career. But ironically, it was actually Hero who gave me the hardest time; as much as she was (reluctantly) attracted to Sebastian, she really didn't want to marry. She wanted to sail off on adventures, and I had a hard time talking her out of it. I hashed that aspect of the series through with my family a lot. I mean, A LOT. We're talking months of agony. All are very good (and experienced); they don't try to influence me. They simply let me talk and talk until I convince myself of what I need to do. I also talked about it with my Monday night writers' group, the Wordsmiths. (We've been meeting since I first moved to New Orleans; it was through the group that Steve and I got to know each other.)

Also, you might be interested to know that my original ending for Heaven was much more ambiguous. My editor made me add the final scene at dinner where Hero says she'll stay for her mother's sake. My editor said, "You can't make your readers wait a whole year to find out if she stays!"

I'll be answering more questions in future posts, so stay tuned!

Wow! MERMAIDS Won!

I sooo did not expect this! I've just learned that WHY MERMAIDS SING has won the Best Historical Mystery Reviewers Choice Award from Romantic Times.

I've known for several months that MERMAIDS had been nominated. But it was up against such fierce competition from such well-known writers that I was convinced there was no way it would win. I simply counted it as an honor to be nominated, and forgot about it.

When I remember the conditions under which I wrote this book--as a Katrina refugee devoting most of my time to rebuilding my house--it really seems incredible. The most amazing thing to me is that the book ever made it into print.

Entertainment Weekly Reviews WHY MERMAIDS SING!

This week's ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY is running a review of my new Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, WHY MERMAIDS SING. It's my first-ever Entertainment Weekly review, so I'm pretty excited about it. Not sure I'd have described the book this way, but hey, I'm not complaining! Here it is...

Why Mermaids Sing
by C.S. Harris
Reviewed by Tina Jordan

Regency-era London--abuzz with the grotesque murders of several wealthy young men--looks to noblemen/sleuth Sebastian St. Cyr to solve the crimes

MOVIE PITCH: It's Hannibal Lecter--early 1800s style!

LOWDOWN: A serial-killer thriller set 200 years ago? It may sound incongruous, but it works, thanks Harris' pacing and fine eye for detail. A real plus: the murk and stench of the age only heighten the suspense.

MERMAIDS Makes Its YouTube Debut

Well, I did it. The book trailer—or book video—or whatever you want to call it—for WHY MERMAIDS SING is up on YouTube.

Now that I see it on YouTube, I’d probably do it differently if I had it to do over—black writing instead of white, for instance. Do I expect this video to help sell the book? No. So why did I do it?

Um...

Revisiting Hell

The galleys for WHY MERMAIDS SING are due back in New York on Tuesday. Because of the long time lag in publishing, that means I’ve been spending the last few days rereading the book I wrote right after Katrina—the book I thought would never get finished. I had sent the proposal for MERMAIDS off to my agent right before the storm hit. And then I didn’t write another word for more then six months.

At first my days were spent driving back and forth from Baton Rouge, mucking out the house, dragging what couldn’t be salvaged out to the curb, tearing out walls. Even after we moved down to my mother’s house in Metairie, we still had to drive up to Baton Rouge once a week for groceries. While we waited for our stripped studs to dry out, I set about the painful task of attempting to restore my antique furniture. And then it was time to start putting up walls, finish Sheetrock, and do all the million and one other things needed to put a house back together. I spent my days in paint-splattered clothes, joking that with the cost of labor in New Orleans I could make more money installing Sheetrock than I could writing. Actually, it wasn’t a joke. After all, the only reason I’d acquired the skill was because good Sheetrockers were impossible to find in New Orleans. They still are. But I digress.

Sometime around February or March I realized I had to quit working on the house and start working on my book. My deadline was looming. Only, how could I? We were rebuilding the house ourselves simply because we couldn’t find anyone to hire. Even putting in 12-14 hour days, Steve could only do so much on the weekends; I was the one working on it seven days a week. I was desperate to rebuild my nest, rebuild some kind of normal life for my traumatized chicks. I kept saying, how can I just quit and sit down and start writing? How can I write when I live, breathe, sleep, dream Katrina?

In the end, of course, I realized I had no choice. At first I set up my computer in my mother’s backroom. Then Steve and our friend Jon got the paneling up in my office and I started writing in here. The floor was just a concrete slab, there were no baseboards or crown moldings or doorframes or window frame (actually, there’s STILL no window frame!). There was no kitchen in the house, although one of the bathrooms upstairs still functioned. The neighborhood was filled with the sound of air compressors and hammering and sawing. I kept saying, I can’t write like this! I’d write half the day, then give in to the compulsion and go off to do Sheetrock or sand trim, seal tile or paint ceilings. In the end, the only thing that saved me was the miracle that is the lake house.

Yet somehow, the book not only worked, but worked amazingly well. The only problem is that as I go through the galleys, I find that I can only read about thirty pages at a time and then I need to put it aside and do something else for a while. I find myself remembering the time I was assaulted by a raving lunatic at one of the city’s few functioning gas stations (people were seriously losing it in those days). I remember sitting next to my dying aunt and listening to the hospital rep apologize for the fact they were using orange FEMA blankets, but their laundry service had flooded. I remember the miles of flooded cars choking the streets of New Orleans, the boat abandoned just two blocks from my mother’s house (where the water stopped). I remember the huge flies that seemed to mutate after Katrina, and the smell. Who could ever forget that smell? And then I go pick up the galleys again.

And I wonder, is it there? Did the heartache and the trauma and the craziness of it all somehow bleed into these words about an English Viscount chasing a tormented killer through the streets of 1811 London?

I don’t know.