The Chicks are thrilled to have Valerie Burns (aka VM Burns aka Kallie E. Benjamin) visiting us today! Valerie writes multiple wonderful series, so she has to come up with many interesting things to write about. If you’ve ever wondered how authors manage to generate plotworthy ideas, here is your answer!
Where do Authors Get their Ideas?
I’m often asked where I get ideas for my murder mysteries. I have two responses. The first is, I get ideas from everywhere. Reading the newspaper, watching television, watching people interact in public, or sometimes, I use my personal experiences. The experiences can be a retelling of a funny event or I might flip the narrative.
In my Baker Street Mystery series, Maddy Montgomery is a social media influencer who inherits a bakery, a house in New Bison, Michigan, and a 250 lb English mastiff named Baby. Maddy also doesn’t bake. Unlike Maddy, I don’t own a bakery or mastiff, but I do know how to bake. However, even an experienced baker can have bloopers. In my upcoming book, A CUP OF FLOUR, A PINCH OF DEATH, Maddy has a mishap while boiling eggs. That event might have been based on a personal event. I’m not admitting to anything. The incident wasn’t the main plotline of the story, but it was a colorful event that added to the narrative.
Once I have the seed of an idea, I have to determine the victim. Here’s where my second response to “where I get ideas,” comes into play and it’s a bit more personal. Basically, when people make me angry, my stress reliever involves murdering them in my books. It’s cheap therapy and keeps me out of jail. Here’s how it works. If someone cuts me off in traffic, I don’t get angry. I simply imagine a plot where a rude driver is bludgeoned to death. When I’m tired of telemarketers interrupting my dinner? Strangling is a great way to dispatch them. The best way to get over a broken heart? A lethal dose of poison is the perfect balm to put a smile back on my face. Within the pages of my books, I can mete out revenge, retribution and justice. In the unlikely event that I run low on potential murder victims, a few close friends and family members have given me a few folks to add to my list. At present, I have enough material to last for many years to come.
READERS: Do you have a unique way that you deal with stress?
Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, and Edgar Award-nominated author. She is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, and Baker Street Mystery series.
As Kallie E. Benjamin, Valerie writes the Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series.
She is an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA.
Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia with her two poodles. Connect with Valerie at vmburns.com.
Chicks on the Case 
I like Valerie’s method better than my usual knife and fork. Fun topic, and now I have many years of stress relief, too!
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LOL – Thanks. It’s been working fairly well for me. Although, I do have a few repeat offenders. 🙂
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Congrats, Valerie. My stress valve is much like yours. And like you, I have many potential victims to keep me writing for many books to come.
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Liz, Thanks. I might have to start doubling up to make it through my list. ROFL
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Valerie is not the first mystery author I have heard say that they murder people in their books that they were angry at in real life. I must admit to sometimes daydreaming about getting revenge on someone who angered me but I haven’t ever written a book about it. My takeaway is to be extremely nice to murder mystery writers if you don’t want to end up a murder victim in one of their books.
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ROFL. Sue, I think we are all potential characters in a book, but it’s best not to be the victim.
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Yes! I don’t want to make it on Valerie’s hit list!
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Jennifer, I think you’re safe. Thanks for letting me hang out with the cool chicks today!
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For stress relief, I have this rain stick that I shake. I also often take walks, and watching the ocean waves on a beach does a lot to soothe me.
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Jenn, you are so kind. I just imagined bludgeoning someone with a rain stick. LOL Death by rain stick.
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I laughed out loud reading this. Great post! I may or may not have sent a character to prison indefinitely in the book I wrote following an ugly incident at a car rental agency.
And it’s entirely possible that I killed off someone with the same name as a woman who made my sister mad. But I will neither confirm nor deny this.
Happy July 4th!
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LOL – Glad I’m not the only one. I still have plans for a nasty insurance adjuster, too. Gotta love mystery writers. Happy July 4th to you, too.
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So happy to “see” you here, Valerie!
Love the stress-relieving writing technique. I have a similar one in which those who realllllllllllly annoy me in real life ending up as villains in my books. I figure fictional comeuppance is better than none!
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Kathleen, It’s great to see you, too. I get a kick out of killing off the bad guys in my books. The meaner the person, the more brutal their end. They may never read my book, but oh the joy it gave me. LOL I love being a mystery writer.
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Hi, Valerie! People that make me mad definitely end up in my books. I usually make them the villain so they end up having to pay for their misdeeds and end up in jail. Justice!
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J.C. I love that. Justice is a wonderful thing, even if we only get to experience it in a book.
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Thanks for the interview! I, too, seek revenge in my plots, but I prefer to have my nemeses be the killer. No one likes the killer. Sometimes the victims in my books are nice people. But I DO appreciate your point of view, too! It’s just good to take care of some people sometimes, in our own ways.
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Kaye, I might try letting the meanies live and get justice in the end, but it is so satisfying to just kill them off. We shall see.
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I tend to go for a bike ride or a walk when I’m stressed, but I like your idea better, Valerie–not only would it help alleviate my stress, but it would also give me plot ideas!
Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, and congrats on the upcoming book!
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Leslie, I think biking would stress me more, but perhaps I can give it a try, too. Now you know why I have so many books. Lots of people to kill. ROFL. Thanks for letting me join you guys today.
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Valerie, Ellen here, fangirling! You know how much I love everything you write.
I’m always murdering people I don’t like in my books! In fact, the first victim in A VERY WOODSY MURDER is a composite of three writers I had issues with – to put it politely – hence he has three names: Michael Adam Baker.
As to how I deal with stress, I do everything I can to avoid it. I developed preeclampsia when I was pregnant, which left me with chronic high blood pressure. I’m on medication but I can literally feel when my blood pressure goes up, so I’m very careful. It gives me a great excuse not to watch the news!
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Ellen, you are so kind. Thank you for letting me hang out with the cool chicks, today. Seriously, I get such a kick out of murdering people who are mean and make me mad. They may never know, but oh the joy. LOL.
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I’ve got to be very, very nice so as to not become the next victim. 🙂
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Mark, you are always nice. No worries about becoming a victim, unless you want to be. I’ve had some special requests. ROFL. Writers are a crazy bunch.
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What fun, Valerie–and thanks so much for visiting us Chicks! Congrats on your new book–love the title. I am instantly intrigued by anything related to kitchen accidents (don’t ask). In my first book, Cardiac Arrest, I killed off my parents’ slimy cardiologist in FL, described right down to his ruby pinky ring. (Neither actually needed a cardiologist, but he made lots of bucks scaring the elderly.)
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Valerie, thank you so much for visiting us! Love this post (never realized that determining the victim could be cheap therapy–very wise) and congratulations on your new book!
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