Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, thinking about how the plots of some of my published novels came about. Since I’m not one for advance planning, the route from idea to book was often roundabout, but throughout my career I have firmly believed that no writing is ever wasted. If something doesn’t work for one book or short story, it may be just right for another project. In other words, I recycle.
Henry VIII’s Greenwich Palace, setting for a 1513 novel
Very early on, well before my first sale, I wrote several very long, very bad historical novels, most set (no surprise here!) in sixteenth-century England. My first version of one of them, way back in 1977, was titled The Princess of Pleasure Palace. Set in 1513 at Greenwich Palace, it featured a real person, Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary, as the protagonist. I wrote one chapter and an outline and sent the proposal to the Harlequin Historicals line that existed at that time. They were, not surprisingly, uninterested. Undaunted, I switched to a fictional protagonist and completed a 72,000 word manuscript retitled The Perils of Pleasure Palace. This opus received two rejections before I did another revision and this time (1978) came up with a 96,000 word version retitled Pleasure Palace. It focused on a girl from the London streets who, through a liaison with a courtier, ended up at the royal court and interacted with a series of real people there. It collected ten rejections.
Skipping ahead to the 1990s, after a detour to write children’s books and contemporary category romance novels that, starting in 1985, were published, I borrowed the 1513 court setting for a new proposal titled My Lady’s Ransom, in which an English gentlewoman falls for a French nobleman who is at Henry’s court pretending to be a commoner in order to foil the schemes of his evil uncle. What little I wrote of this novel contained a scene in the room at Greenwich Palace that was used to store the set pieces and wagons used for court masques. When, once again, my idea for a historical novel set in 1513 failed to appeal to an editor, I abandoned it.
Meanwhile, in an odd twist of fate, another historical novel I had written did sell. In 1991, Harper Paperbacks published Winter Tapestry (recently revised and reissued as Death of an Intelligence Gatherer—you can find the tangled story of that book’s journey from mystery to romance and back to mystery here). Later, Harper offered me a contract for Firebrand, set in seventeenth-century England and New England, for their Monogram line. They bought the book on the basis of a one page synopsis and I ended up having to write it in three months because they decided they really really wanted it that fast. Rather desperately, I appropriated what had been the opening scene in Pleasure Palace to start a story that was, at that point, almost totally unplotted. Talk about having only the concept of an idea! The result was published in 1994 but I was never really happy with it. Last year, I completely rewrote it and reissued it as Treacherous Visions. It still contains that key scene from Pleasure Palace but now it takes place later in the story.
But wait. There’s more. After writing five books for Harper, I sold my first Face Down mystery featuring Susanna, Lady Appleton, sixteenth-century gentlewoman, herbalist, and sleuth, to St. Martin’s Press. In 1998, I was trying to come up with an idea for the third book in the series, about to be the first in my second St. Martin’s contract. I had a pretty good handle on the continuing characters and their conflicts and I had decided before I started the series that there would be a time lapse of roughly two years between each book, so I knew this story would take place in 1563, but I didn’t have a clue about any further details. All I was certain of was that I wanted to increase the tension between Susanna and her philandering husband, Sir Robert, already slated to be the murder victim in the fourth entry in the series.
That’s when I remembered that scene in the storeroom at Greenwich Palace from My Lady’s Ransom. Recycled, it takes place in 1557, not 1513, the storeroom is in Whitehall Palace, not Greenwich, and the cast of characters is different. Face Down Among the Winchester Geese takes place in 1563, but the novel starts with a scene six years earlier, one that shows the events surrounding the murder of the first victim of a serial killer. The rest of the plot flowed easily once that first scene was set. After one of Sir Robert’s many mistresses is murdered, Lady Appleton discovers her husband also had a connection to the woman killed at court in 1557, and that a woman similar in appearance to those two victims has been murdered on the same day in each year in between. Most were “Winchester Geese,” the popular name for prostitutes in the London suburb of Southwark.
By 1999, my 1977 idea for a book set in 1513 had provided starting points for two published novels, but I still had a hankering to write about the early days at Henry VIII’s court. When the agent who sold my Liss MacCrimmon series (written as Kaitlyn Dunnett) to Kensington asked if I had any other ideas, the one that sprang to mind was Pleasure Palace. To my surprise and delight, she was enthusiastic. The new incarnation ended up with a new protagonist and a much more complex plot using a cast of characters almost entirely made up of real historical figures. Much of the book, however, still takes place in 1513. Even better, Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace (2009) became the first of six historical novels I wrote for Pocket Books/Gallery as Kate Emerson—all of them set during the reign of Henry VIII.
The original name of Henry VIII’s Greenwich Palace was Placentia. It means “pleasant place,” but somewhere along the line I translated the word as “pleasure.” When my editor at Pocket loved the title I was delighted. (I really hate it when editors mess around with my titles!) In this case it might have been better if she had. I had no clue until years later that most establishments referred to as “pleasure palaces” were actually bordellos.
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
Kate Flora: I confess that I didn’t read my book. I listened to the audio book while I was doing some of that driving to libraries. The Maine Turnpike is a lot more bearable when someone is reading to me. My choice for one great book is Ann Patchett’s Whistler. For a writer like me, whose books are usually linear, it was interesting to “read” a book that has flashbacks and time shifts, as this one does. But from the moment that the narrator, Daphne, encounters her first stepfather, Eddie, in a museum, I was hooked. Probably in part because from the moment she starts telling the story of their car accident on a winter’s night when she was nine, and how she and Eddie handle it, I was hooked. It was so interesting to find a work of fiction not in the crime genre that made me lean in because I had to know what would happen. So, when you’re not reading one of our books, I urge you to give it a try.
Gabriela Stiteler: I’ve read a number of great books this summer, but the standout for me is SMALL MERCIES by Denis Lehane. Set in Boston in the summer of 1974 against the backdrop of bussing and school integration, the story mostly follows Mary Pat, a tough Southie mother in search of her missing daughter. While plot and setting are important, it’s the characters that drive the story. Mary Pat’s arc, which is at times painful, is rendered with real care and compassion. While gritty and dealing with relevant issues (racism, brokenness, community-sanctioned violence), Lehane somehow manages to communicate a real faith in the capacity of people to learn, grow, and change. I read the book and then immediately listened to the audiobook and would recommend both. Lehane has indicated that this may be his last novel, and if that is true, it’s a heck of a way to go out.
Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Thursday), and John Clark (Friday),with a group post on Monday.
Ernest Hemingway wrote each morning just after dawn and continued until he came to a place where he knew what would happen next. Then he stopped and tried to make it through the rest of the day. His early morning start time makes one wonder about the truth of his allegedly voracious appetite for drink. But then, maybe that’s why he stopped when he knew what was coming next. The buzz was wearing off. Suddenly his writing advice of “write drunk, edit sober” makes perfect sense—for Hemingway.
Fellow Mainer Stephen King claims he begins his writing day with a slice of creamy cheesecake he refers to as ‘brain food’. Why do I think King’s tongue was firmly in his cheek when he told that to an interviewer? Maybe because Bangor, Maine, for all that it’s a lovely place, is not exactly known for its cheesecake. Now, a Whoopie pie, okay, I could believe that. On the other hand, his author son Owen claims he plumps for crème brûlée before he hits the keyboard. I ask you, who are these people?
Victor Hugo wrote in the buff. He famously instructed his servant to hide his clothes so he couldn’t leave the house until his writing work was done. Guess that’s one cure for writer’s block.
I first met Bruce Robert Coffin at Crime Bake a few years back and I’ve been lucky enough to bump into him a number of times since. There are a few things that stand out to me about Bruce. First, he’s a really funny guy. Not only does he have a lot of great stories, he knows how to tell them. In person. To a crowd. On the spot. There’s a gift there. Second, he takes writing seriously. He is deeply reflective about his practice and the business of writing. He reads deeply and widely. He asks questions. He writes in both short and long form. As a result, he’s a great person to go to for advice or with a question. Third, he listens. I think this may be a superpower many writers have but it is a real gift when that listening is turned to you. Whenever I see Bruce, he asks about that last project, pays attention to recent successes, and is genuinely supportive part of this wonderful crime writing community.
DARK HARBOR – book #3 of Detective Justice series, published by Severn River Publishing
Maureen Milliken and Kate Flora will be at the 
The next day I started writing The War Within. One of the first things I was told about writing was to write what you know. I knew about dysfunctional people; I knew about being an angry teen staying one step ahead of jail time; I knew about fighting a war within me; I knew the USMC, and I’d been to war. I finished the book, entered it in the International Literary Awards, and won the $1,500 second prize. I also learned that I had some talent, but needed to learn the craft. Little did I know that the book would be a healing process. It helped me realize that I had been wrong about one thing–Vietnam did affect me one hell of a lot more than I thought. In time, my wife and I reunited and stayed together until cancer took her from me in 2006. A great deal of Vaughn Hardacker is in Connor Quinn. Quinn is possibly the most unlikeable protagonist I’ve ever written, but he’s also the nearest and dearest to my heart. He and I walked the same walk (although his journey was more about what I could have been than what I have been), and we shared the same convoluted thought processes. When people thank me for my service, I would ignore them, thinking: “Yeah … where were you fifty-eight years ago?” Now I can finally say, “You’re welcome,” without getting angry. BTW, that’s another ACOA trait: I can hold a grudge forever. Possibly because that’s easier than apologizing for my idiotic behavior.
