The purpose of this page is for background information, extra stories and other fun reads about JP Weiscarver, Oldport, Jennifer O’Hanlon and other characters from the book series. More recent posts are at top.
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Looking for love — You know JP lost his girlfriend in “Ferret” and we’ve all wondered if there was some chemistry between him and Jennifer. In the upcoming “Marmot,” another woman appears and everyone is reacting. Here’s a preview.
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Keeping things straight — I’ve been asked how I keep information straight in my books. Since all of my characters and most of the places are fictional, I need to remember what was previously written, even the most trivial things.
This is how I do that.
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Sounding realistic — Do you sometimes cuss? Might a word your grandmother would have frowned upon escape your lips if you accidentally catch your finger in a closing door? Or maybe you tend to spice up your language with a steady supply of colorful words?
The question for a writer is whether a cursing character is necessary or beneficial to driving the story.
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Setting the Stories — One really fun thing for me in creating the JP Weiscarver series has been developing the city of Oldport.
As I originally worked through setting up the first novel, “The Reporter and the Ferret,” I took advice from Lilian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” series. The bulk of her stories were set in the town of Pickax in Moose County, located “400 miles north of nowhere.”
By not setting the story in an actual place, not even in a specific state, an author is free to design the town to fit the series. More importantly, it also frees readers to create their own images of the town.
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Getting started — It seems fitting the first entry on this page should be about simply getting started.
Writers write for different reasons. One may cite deep urges to tell a story that is burning a hole in his or her gut. One is trying to right a wrong or make a better world. For another it might be nothing more than a means to a paycheck.
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Steve Martaindale 