Metamorphosis: How a Novel Became a Thriller Series

By Peggy Webb

I’ve been writing in multiple genres for forty years, and the best writing advice I ever heard is there are no rules. Does that mean I get to throw structure, plot, pacing and character development to the wind? Absolutely not! Can I forget about outlines? Yes…and no. New writers need outlines to keep the story on track. Seasoned writers can take a one paragraph synopsis and turn it into a 400-page novel. 

Over the years, my writing process changed dramatically–from using a chapter-by-chapter outline to trusting my experience to let the story unfold organically. I didn’t plan the metamorphosis. It happened naturally over the course of writing 100 novels during many years of long hours in my office at my computer. 

My latest work, the Logan Sisters thrillers, started in the usual way for me—with characters. Envisioning a simple mystery, perhaps even a cozy, I created two sisters and a feisty grandmother who loved them, and then turned them loose in Colorado near the brooding Pikes Peak to see what would happen.

Hmmm. Suddenly a villain, unlike any I’ve ever written, jumped onto the page. The Collector was dark, brooding, evil, and as twisted as Hannibal Lecter. My story took an unexpected and exciting turn. I was in thriller territory.

The Collector also smashed my simple mystery book into bits and handed me the pieces of what I understood was something much bigger—a series that would allow me to bring every one of my strengths to the page, the lyrical writing I love, the magical realism and complex characters I use in my literary fiction, and the rich sense of place that would put readers in the story. 

One of those complex characters was Delilah Broussard Logan, the mother of the Logan sisters. Not two, as I originally thought, but three. The story demanded it. Delilah was a jazz singer in steamy New Orleans, and she sang the blues lyrics I composed using the name L’il Rosie. 

Many of you know I’m a musician as well as a writer. I play piano, sing in my church choir, and compose blues lyrics for fun. For me, the connection between music and books is so strong I hear the melody of words as I write. Often, I create characters who sing and play piano or play harmonica and guitar (my son does both).   

But Delilah was more than a musician. She was a mystery, her background so murky not even her daughters understood the mother who had died when they were teenagers. 

She was also Creole, with a French Creole father and an African American Creole mother, her heritage so steeped in legend and mysticism she passed along a gift of “seeing” to her three daughters. Rachel, Jen, and Annie. 

Each would become the leading protagonist in a series, with Rachel, an ordinary school teacher, taking the lead in the first book, Black Crow Cabin, pitting herself against the Hannibal-like monster to save the children in her hometown, as well as herself and her own children.

The older sister, Dr. Jen Logan Turner, who turned out to be as bossy as my own two sisters (NOW, you see why I had to have three sisters!), is pitted against an enemy who will stop at nothing to take everything she loves in Taken in the Dark.  The story is set in Gulf Breeze, Florida, a visitor’s paradise that turns deadly. 

Wait, I’m getting ahead of the story…

How did Jen, a Colorado rancher’s daughter. end up in Florida? Organically, of course. My son Trey (guitar, harmonica player) and his family live in Pensacola, a day’s drive from own home in Mississippi.  He loves to fish, too, and take his kayak onto Pensacola Bay. One morning when he said to me, “Mom, wear jeans. I’m taking you on a big adventure,” I never expected I would discover the setting for book two in the ever-growing Logan Sisters thrillers.

Everything in Gulf Breeze was waiting there to inspire me: the Bait and Tackle shop, open 24-7; the iconic leaping marlin on the Pensacola Beach sign; the endless blue expanse of water across Bob Sikes bridge to the beach; the scrub brush and marshy section of beach so creepy I told Trey, “You could hide a body in there and nobody would ever find it.” 

When I got home from Florida, Jen’s story unfolded. I’d like to say lickety split, but complex stories, even those that grow organically, require research, long hours at the computer, flashes of inspiration that destroy a night’s sleep, and an intense love of writing that won’t let me quit. Or retire. 

One of the characters in Taken in the Dark almost ran away with the story. I loved Antonio “Toni” Delgado so much I couldn’t leave her behind in Jen’s book. She had her own metamorphosis, and became a major player in Annie Logan’s thriller, Without A Trace.

I could spend days telling you why I love Annie’s story! But I have only a few paragraphs. Set in historic, romantic New Orleans and the mist-covered bayous surrounding it, Taken in the Dark has the perfect haunting beauty to finally reveal the mystery of Delilah Broussard Logan. 

The meandering, brooding swamp also matches the complexity of the story’s secrets and twists. The setting is beautiful but deadly, peaceful but chilling—absolutely another character in Taken in the Dark.

I hope you’ll love the Logan Sisters thrillers as much as I loved writing them! Buckle your seatbelt for the thrill ride! 

—

Peggy Webb is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 100 novels in multiple genres, including her bestselling crime thrillers. The late, great Pat Conroy called her a “truly gifted writer,” and reviewers call her “one of the Southern literary greats.” Peggy, an accomplished musician, composed the blues lyrics credited to one of her characters in her Logan Sisters thrillers. The former writing instructor at Mississippi State University lives in a Southern cottage among the rose gardens she designed and planted. Discover more on her website at https://peggywebb.com/ and on her Facebook fan page at https://www.facebook.com/peggywebbauthor/

TAKEN IN THE DARK

“Please, we want to go home…” The children are crying, their voices pleading. But the figure they call to only stares at them in silence, and locks the door.

Jen Logan is living her dream life on the water in a small community in Florida. Content with her husband and twins, she feels settled and at peace in nature. But when frightening notes start appearing in her home—signed simply by Invisible—her perfect world shatters.

Then she arrives home to find flowers placed all over her house, and the gift passed down through her family tells her she’s in terrible danger. The delicate white blooms of the oleander plant are an omen of death, and whoever is sending them knows this too. But why are they targeting her, and what do they want?

Before Jen can begin to find the culprit, her children are taken. In a shuddering heartbeat, she realizes that Invisible isn’t out to destroy her, but her family. And with the light fading and a storm brewing over the water, Jen knows there isn’t much time to find her children before darkness falls…

Can she find them before it’s too late? And if she does, will she do what it takes to stop Invisible forever?

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing