My two mystery series have first-person narrators, so I’m writing from their close point of view and the reader gets their thoughts. Writing fiction, I might use pieces of several people to create some characters and completely make up others. I might also use personal experience – a great way to develop characters who feel authentic!
In The Accidental Detective series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. I wrote it as I was facing fifty, and Kate has some of the same concerns, such as perimenopause and aging parents. I drew on my experience with chronic back pain to write about Kate’s recovery after a bombing injury.
Those things bring Kate to life, but she’s not me. I’ve been a freelance writer for nearly 30 years, but I’ve never been, and wouldn’t want to be, a war correspondent. Kate is me if I’d gone into journalism instead of other forms of writing. (And if I were more outgoing and fearless. Why not create an aspirational character, after all?)
My second mystery series, The Reluctantly Psychic Mysteries, star Petra, who is a mere thirty. She has the gift or curse of psychometry, meaning she can touch an object and sense the emotions people have left behind.
In some ways, she’s less me. She’s younger. I have no psychic powers. But I drew on the more introverted, cautious parts of myself in creating her, and I used my imagination to consider what it might be like to grow up with a challenging psychic power. She avoids friendships so she won’t have to explain her psychic abilities or feel like she’s spying on people. Because she’s such a loner, she has many pets for comfort and connection. She went into geology because it typically doesn’t force her to handle objects that have emotional residue from prior handling. (Except in book 1, but who would expect to pick up a rock and get a vision of murder?)
Extrovert Versus Introvert
Because these two characters are so different, they investigate mysteries in very different ways. As a professional journalist, Kate is used to interviewing people and seeking the truth. People who know about her background often ask for her help, making it easy for her to get into investigative situations. Now that she’s back home in Arizona, she craves the adventure she used to have overseas.
On the other hand, Petra has childhood trauma due to neglect, abandonment, and betrayal from family and friends. She tries to understand people’s behavior so she can protect herself. Her caution and fear mean she overanalyzes everything, but that works pretty well for an amateur detective. While Kate will investigate mysteries for the fun of it, Petra considers what she owes other people. She is, as the series title suggests, reluctant, but her ethics force her to take action. Fortunately, she discovers benefits to interacting with others, especially new friendships.
Who Do You Identify with?
Readers seem to like both characters. They think Kate is fun. Whether or not people want to be like Kate, they may identify with her attempts to reinvent herself or with the challenges of midlife. Readers have said:
“A fifty-year-old who is wondering what she wants to do when she grows up? That’s more like it! Bock’s story offers proof positive that no one outgrows the need for more maturity and self-discovery.”
“I loved her smart world traveler, foreign war correspondent heroine. I loved reading a story where the heroine is so fascinating, as fascinating to me as the mystery.”
From Isolation to Friendship
Most people don’t want to be Petra, but they sympathize with her (and often identify with her caution and anxiety). Reviewers have said:
“What wrecked me emotionally was Petra’s struggle with trust. That slow, painful opening-up? The tentative friendships? I felt every second of it.”
“What truly resonated with me was Petra’s emotional journey. Her anxiety about being discovered, her cautious approach to forming friendships, and her affection for her pets (the cats! the ferrets! my heart!) made her character incredibly relatable. I found myself laughing, gasping, and perhaps shedding a tear or two.”
“Petra is such a compelling lead. Her psychometry isn’t just a plot device—it’s a curse that’s shaped her entire life… And her journey from isolation to finally letting people in? Perfection.”
Why do people respond so much to Petra’s isolation? We can feel isolated for so many reasons: age, neurodiversity, gender nonconformity, being artist types in a corporate world, feeling out of tune with our community’s or country’s politics … Who really feels “normal”?
Petra masks her true self most of the time, for her safety, but she craves connections with people who understand and accept her. Don’t we all feel that way sometimes?
Maybe Kate and Petra represent reasons readers turn to books: We want to identify with characters and believe they would like us too, or we want to feel what it would be like to be entirely different – or sometimes a bit of both.
Buried in Betrayal: A Reluctantly Psychic Murder Mystery Book 3 is out now!
A geologist with an unwanted psychic gift, a man on the run, a dead body and a friend accused of…murder?
Geologist Petra Cloch can touch an object and sense the emotions of the people who’ve held it before. Although her paranormal powers are a burden, they’ve helped her solve several crimes and make friends in her new southwestern small town. She’s enjoying settling into her new job when her landlord, Shelley introduces an “old friend.” Wayne seems cagey. He wants to keep his visit a secret and has recently adopted an energetic dog “for protection.”
When Petra stumbles over Wayne’s dead body, suspicions quickly turn to murder, with Shelley the prime suspect. Petra and her friends investigate and quickly uncover a slew of suspects, scams and motives. Petra’s psychic abilities alone aren’t enough to reveal the true killer. To clear Shelley, Petra will need all of her cleverness, the help of her found family, some luck, and the dog that seems to have adopted her.
Fans of cozy mysteries with supernatural twists will fall in love with this humorous and heartwarming psychic sleuth. Learn more or order the Reluctantly Psychic Mysteries.
Kris Bock writes mystery, suspense, and romance, often with smart, snarky heroines finding adventure (sometimes against their will) in the Southwest. She lives in New Mexico where she enjoys hiking with her husband and playing with their ferrets.
In the Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. The Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series stars the employees and customers at a cat café. Watch as they fall in love with each other and shelter cats. In the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series, a Texas ranching family wins a fortune in the lottery and discovers winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves. Kris also writes a series with her brother, scriptwriter Douglas J Eboch, who wrote the original screenplay for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. The Felony Melanie series follows the crazy antics of Melanie, Jake, and their friends a decade before the events of the movie.
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