Please welcome author Marilyn Meredith, bringing out #12 in her Rocky Bluff P D series, A Crushing Death. She’ll describe how she’s managed to keep her long-running series fresh. Be certain to read to the bottom and learn how you can enter a contest to be a character in her next book!
KEEPING A SERIES FRESH
In order to keep people wanting to read the Rocky Bluff P.D. series, these are the things that I try to do:
This is a mystery series first, so of course, there must be an intriguing mystery and usually that means someone is murdered, though not always. As with any mystery, there will be several possible suspects and it’s up to my detectives to figure out who is the guilty person.
Because Rocky Bluff is a beach community, there always is something new, as well as reminders, about the setting.
However, what is most important is what happens to the characters. I’ve always said that this series is as much about what happens to the men and women on the Rocky Bluff P.D. and their families as the mystery. Of course, the mystery itself is going to have some affect, but as with all of us, the characters have had life problems, such as: having to care for and make decisions for a parent with Alzheimers’; the birth of a child with Down Syndrome; dealing with a teen’s problems; having had a loved one risk his or her life, disappear, make a decision about the job itself; and so much more.
At times, something unexpected will happen, like when the Milligans moved into a haunted house in Violent Departures.
I’m probably more anxious to know what’s going to happen in the next book than anyone, because I’ve come to know and care about the people who inhabit Rocky Bluff and work for the police department there. Hopefully, my curiosity will keep the series fresh enough that my readers will want to continue on with me.
Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith
A Crushing Death
A pile of rocks is found on a dead body beneath the condemned pier, a teacher is accused of molesting a student, the new police chief is threatened by someone she once arrested for violent attacks on women, and Detective Milligan’s teenage daughter has problem.
F. M. Meredith, who is also known as Marilyn Meredith, is nearing the number of 40 published books. Besides being an author she is a wife, mother, grandma and great-grandmother. Though the Rocky Bluff she writes about is fictional, she lived for over twenty years in a similar small beach town. Besides having many law enforcement officers in her family, she counts many as friends. She teaches writing, loves to give presentations to writing and other groups, and is a member of Mystery Writers of America, three chapters of Sisters in Crime and on the board of Public Safety Writers Association.
Website: http://fictionforyou.com
Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com
Facebook: Marilyn Meredith
Twitter: MarilynMeredith
Contest: Once again, the person who comments on the most blogs during this tour, can have a character named after them in the next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery. Tomorrow you can find me here:
http://www.gumbojustice.blogspot.com/
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 
Thank you so much for hosting me today, Marni!
LikeLike
Like you, I’m always amazed, Marilyn, at what my characters reveal to me as my stories progress. My psychic detective, Skylark, has an incredible revelation at the end of my upcoming novella, “Dead Ringer”, that absolutely floored me. I didn’t see it coming, but it will give her a direction to head when looking for her origins (can’t say more, don’t want to spoil the surprise). These characters become so real to us, the writers… it’s like living in their midst. How wonderful that our readers love them the same way we do. The Rocky Bluff PD has some fantastic people, and I, for one, am thrilled to consider myself their “friend.”
LikeLike
It is amazing, isn’t it Susan?
LikeLike
It is amazing how you can continue to think up new plots for your characters. I’m on book three of my Mrs. Odboddy series, and already having trouble figuring out what happens next. I think I’ll have to move to another series. Oh, wait! You already did that too with your second series! Just amazing!
LikeLike
It is amazing, isn’t it Susan?
LikeLike
I don’t know why what I posted before appeared her, but Elaine,this is my second series. I find them quite different, fortunately, because the characters are so different.
LikeLike
I’m impressed, Marilyn. It was an effort for me to write my third in the series, but you’re like the energizer bunny in Rocky Bluff. Good luck with #12…and counting!
LikeLike
I’m bet at this a long, long time, Rolyn. Yes, I do have to work at it though when it comes to thinking up where I’m going to take the characters each time around.
LikeLike
Your description of the Rocky Bluff community is enough to sell these books. You’re doing great on this blog tour.
LikeLike
Rocky Bluff is a made-up place, though it has pieces of many So. Calif. beach communities, but it is a town that I can see in my head.
LikeLike
The series I’ve started originates out of Baltimore, but my investigator will be traveling to many different locales. That requires more research in order to make the settings believable. I plan to create a few characters that will be around throughout the series, but obviously there will be a number of characters who will be one story characters. Have your characters ever ventured out of the Rocky Bluff area to areas you weren’t that familiar with?
LikeLike
Not so much in the RBPD series, Joe. They travel to Ventura and also Santa Barbara. I did a couple of scenes on the University of Santa Barbara Campus and contacted campus security for the answers to some of my questions. In my other series, Deputy Tempe Crabtree travels to several places on the Central Coast that I’ve never been, I did some Internet research, then contacted people I knew to ask them about the specific places I need to know details about.
LikeLike
Characters are the most important. Readers remember the characters even if they forget the story. Thanks, Marilyn.
LikeLike