How to Kill a Character, Let Me Count the Ways by Margo Hoornstra

Right now, I'm deep in the soggy middle of, On The Make, my latest work in progress. Book 3 in my Brothers in Blue series, and going down fast.

In a nutshell, my heroine is pregnant and someone does not want that baby born at any and all costs. In fact, they'll even resort to murder to prevent it.

So far, she's survived being run off a steep embankment in her car.

And I plan to have her shot at soon in a faked robbery attempt.

Other than that, what else can I use to hasten her demise? In the covert, we want this to look like an accident realm.

Any ideas?

On the other hand, out and out murder may not be the answer at all. Maybe a series of less obvious lethal mishaps would suffice. A severe fall here, hit by a car there.

What do you think?

While you're helping me come up with ways to do in my heroine, here's a free download of a murder mystery short story I wrote based on a radio script my father once wrote. (To those of you who have seen this before, I apologize.)

Hearts and Flowers

Manhunt was a radio show broadcast out of Detroit based on police files of actual cases. "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent."

Yeah, that show was the forerunner of another long running television show titled Dragnet.

Hearts and Flowers is one of those stories.

But, if you wouldn't mind, think while you're reading. I'll be waiting for your suggestions.

My days to blog here are the 11th and 23rd. For more about me and the stories I write, please visit my website

Falling Into Like With A Place

by Betsy Ashton

In the beginning of a new series, several different things have to come together. First the story needs a strong main character. Next it needs a plot with conflict. Third it has to have interesting secondary characters. And fourth, but not last, the story must move the reader toward the conclusion.

Those who've read my current book know that I like opinionated, often snarky, women as main characters. This WIP has an alpha male at center stage. He's not a chest pounding, knuckle dragging, hard drinking Federal law enforcement officer. He's a widower with a four-year-old daughter and a sister who lives with him to help take care of the child. Because he works for the government, he's often moved around for different assignments. His new challenge is to lead a law enforcement team requiring coordination among several state, local and Federal agencies. Therein lies part of the plot and the conflict.

This male is also a stranger in a strange land. His current transfer is from his home in Northern California to a mid-Southern city. He knows virtually nothing about his new city. He is also a minority in a place where his ethnicity is unusual. He looks at the people on the streets, in the markets, at public events and finds little that is familiar. (No, he's not from a foreign planet, but he might as well be. Few of his "people" make this city their home.) He has to learn not to gawk at people. Conflict #2: How does he help his daughter and sister fit into school and neighborhood when no one looks like them?

Daughter and sister are part of the supporting cast of characters. Their feelings about being uprooted, about losing a mother and sister-in-law, about looking different and about having different accents work to give them depth. Throw in local law enforcement officers at the state and local level, add a couple of Federal agents from other task forces. Stir.

Put these folks in peril from the bad guys. Stir again.

What do you think? Would you read something like this?

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max Unintended Consequences available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The second book in the series, Uncharted Territory, will be released in June 2015. She lives for words and writing.