Good news, Betsy fans. I will be contributing to Happy Homicides 4. The stories in this anthology will fall anywhere from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, and there are some excellent stories in this one. I can’t tell you any more other than I can’t wait to get my copy! I can’t resist a Halloween story, so I’ve plopped Betsy and family down on Halloween with malevolent ghosts, a cemetery walk and of course, a murder mystery to solve.
While I’ve been working on other projects, I’ve started using storyboarding to work on plots. As I’ve stated before, I’m a visual thinker. A child of the television age, I have found putting each scene into a visual format is extremely helpful. Here is a panel I created for the Halloween novella I’m working on at the moment. It looks like a cartoon, but you can get the idea of it.
If you are familiar with the Pecan Bayou Mystery Series, you will probably recognize many of the characters. We have Betsy up front in the Sixties costume, with cute little Coco by her side. Behind her is Tyler, her stepson, who is in black and Zach her son in the toga. Sitting at the table is Danny, her cousin with Down Syndrome, and Aunt Maggie. I brought back the character of Howard Gunther for this story because of the paranormal element. Howard is the head of the Pecan Bayou Paranormal Society.
And the answer is NO. There will not be a comic book version of the Pecan Bayou Series!
If you can’t wait for this one, pick up a copy of Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crime. Betsy and her crew head for the beach to solve a mystery for dog lovers.