My supernatural buddy dramedy Mother In Law - based on my Fanny Zindel comedic mystery series with St. Martin's Press - is now a semi-finalist with the 3rd annual comedy contest at Stage 32.  Winners announced July 11. Fingers crossed. of course, if anyone is interested ... my agent is Italia Gandolfo - italia@ghliterary.com Mother In Law - feature buddy dramedy -  You’ve heard the stories about mothers-in-law, haven’t you? Are they true or not?  Based on the Fanny Zindel dramedy series (St Martin's Press -by author) Mother-in-Law is a female buddy adventure with a supernatural twist. Fanny, an overbearing mother, never approved of Sarah, her son's workaholic detective wife. When she’s murdered, her son kidnapped, Fanny’s ghost nags Sara to go against rules and find Sol. But as they do, they slam into obstacles, face danger, and discover corruption among those trusted. Butting heads, they rescue Sol and learn the meaning of love and family. Will Fanny's ghost return to heaven once the crime is solved? Maybe…well…maybe not. Who else will make her son's favorite strudel?

A Review of my Cagney and Lacey book that is being reissued now that the series is being redone.

Cagney and Lacey - Serita Deborah Stevens

http://lifeonmagrs.blogspot.com/2018/04/cagney-and-lacey-serita-deborah-stevens.html?m=1

It's been a while since I've talked about my Beach House Books project...

That was my ongoing, endless project to read the novels I've collected over the years and formed into the To Be Read Mountain...

Well, even though I've not talked about it so much, the project has been going on and on... and just lately I've been reading a bunch of TV and Film Tie-in novelisations that have been awaiting my attention. I've been thinking a lot about the whole phenomenon of the tie-in, and it seemed like a good time to write about what i've been reading recently...

In some ways it’s almost the perfect Tie-In novel. It gives us stuff that the TV show never did and never could. It segues perfectly with everything we saw on screen and, as we read it, becomes kind of indispensible: I can’t picture those people without these histories now. Serita Deborah Stevens’ 1985 novel, ‘Cagney and Lacey’ is one of those Tie-Ins that gives us the origin story of its protagonists, beginning two decades before the TV show ever did. It provides us with stories not necessarily too ‘broad and deep’ for TV, but too early and too youthful.

            There’s a special joy in getting to know the principal characters of Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Zmgrocki in their early years. In alternating chapters we meet very recognisable versions of the women we know from TV. Before their lives are twined together they are in very different circumstances: Chris having a high old time in Paris and then London in the Swinging Sixties as a society photographer; poor Mary Beth is struggling along as a secretary living alone with her ailing, abandoned mother.

            In some ways it’s a very simple story, leading us through the life changes that bring both women to enroll in the NYPD’s training program. We get set backs and triumphs, first and second loves, first collars… and we get smashing, snarky dialogue – especially when the two women are first assigned to the beat together and don’t particularly hit it off.

            There’s so much to love in this short, readable volume. I loved the scenes dealing with Mary Beth’s falling in love with Harvey – the much put-upon house-husband familiar from the show. When she first walks the beat with a nightstick and a gun she finds him tailing her in their car, trying to bring her coffee and a corned beef sandwich. It’s a very touching scene.

            I also really enjoyed the early scenes with Cagney in London, living in a kind of racy Danielle Steele novel, before what she decides she really wants is a Ed McBain kind of life. It’s a novel about back stories in which two women decide what kind of story they want to be living their adult lives inside and, what we get, by the end, is a rather gritty crime story involving hookers, pimps, concentration camp survivors, Nazis and diamonds. In fact, though some later chapters are based on early episodes it’s rather grittier in places than the TV show would get.

            By the very end, with the women’s promotion to detective status, and the shifting of their desk to the space beside the coffee pot, we dovetail neatly with the beginning of the TV show. It makes me rather sad that there were no print sequels from Stevens or anyone else. There were TV movies to tell us what became of Mary Beth and Christine in their later careers, but a TV movie isn’t quite the same as a novel. TV movies fly by so quickly and they don’t give you the dull little moments of downtime that novels do so well.

http://lifeonmagrs.blogspot.com/2018/04/cagney-and-lacey-serita-deborah-stevens.html?m=1

Accuracy – The Writer’s Dilemma

As a forensic nurse, I often work with attorneys as an expert witness. I instruct the jury to listen to what the evidence tells you not what the people involved say.  Everything must be accurate, and the smallest of details matter in solving a crime or proving a case.

One of the problems we often have is that because of the fictional depiction of investigations where DNA is always present and can be processed in 45 minutes juries now expect DNA to be presented. Not only is that difficult at times but if not processed properly and kept from contamination it can be useless and confuse the issue.  This issue called “the CSI effect” can destroy a case and cause the jury to vote innocent when they believe DNA should have proved the case. 

An argument I had a few years ago with my friend who wrote the movie Déjà vu.  He had the detective put the evidence in plastic bags but as I pointed out plastic bags usually deteriorate evidence. In forensic investigations, we use paper bags with each item carefully separated to keep it from contamination. His director had chosen to keep it in plastic, so the viewers could see the clues and didn’t care how inaccurate it was.

 Now most viewers and readers, especially those who are untrained in investigations, wouldn't notice this problem nor would they care.  But there are a few for whom these inaccuracies not only destroy the moment but the enjoyment of the whole story (not to mention the influence they have on those few people who take everything they see or read as fact.) In fact, my doctor husband used to forbid me to watch medical based shows because so many of them were wrong.  For those of us who do care, inaccuracies destroy the total enjoyment of the story and many of us dedicated readers vow not to read that author again because their research is so shoddy.

As a nurse, my friends in MWA (Mystery Writers of America) often asked me what this or that meant, how this procedure worked in medicine, and what symptoms they would find if someone did this.  I realized that all the available literature – often difficult for the non-professional to access – was written in medicalese.  There was nothing written for the ordinary, well-educated reader, It was for this reason that I wrote the Book of Poisons (formerly called Deadly Doses) for Writer’s Digest and with that, they started their “How To” series.  

The book has not only been used by numerous writers, producers, and directors but also been featured on shows as Law & Order and Discovery Channel episodes.  In fact, I have consulted with them on several programs.  I am always happy to explain the medical procedures, the symptoms or the forensic facts so that scenes can be correctly written. 

It’s true that at times, for the sake of fiction, we have to fudge some facts.  Often, however, we can explore alternatives to our scenes or if we ask around to the experts we can find the few exceptions where the answers we want can be used.  But as I stated above people are influenced by what they read or see and believe the fiction. This causes problems for law enforcement in proving their cases. 

Check your facts and, if you can, use the correct ones – or at least in your epilogue explain what you did and what the real situation might have been.  And if you are doing research, don’t take another fictional author’s scene as fact be it in medical, historical or even location information.

Verify things with at least two sources or more if you can.  Almost always there is a way to get the scene you want and still make it accurate.  It helps your credibility in the end and once you lose the credibility of your reader or viewer, once they close that book, they will hesitate to pick up anything else you have created.  Trust once lost is not easily regained.  

Besides, most people enjoy learning something new when they are reading. 

For more information, check out my site www.seritastevens.com, my IMDB is Serita D Stevens, my site is www.seritastevens.com, and my email for questions is sswriter400@gmail.com.  (Please indicate in subject line that this is a question for me since my mailbox sometimes gets filled up and things get ignored.)  Looking forward to helping you in the future, to making stories that will not only bring up emotions but educate people on ways to change.