black Labrador

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I’m thrilled to be doing my first guest post here on The Write Stuff. Thank you, Marcia, for rolling out the red carpet!!

The second most common question we writers tend to hear is how do we come up with our characters. (The first one being where do we get our story ideas.)

Like the story ideas, our characters come from several different sources. Some are loosely based on people we know. Some are loosely based on ourselves (the protagonist of my Kate Huntington stories is definitely my alter ego; the person I wish I was).

450px-sunset_024591 Sunset at Assos by Nevit Dilmen

How I visualize Kate Huntington (maybe without the flowers) ~ photo is “Sunset at Assos” by Nevit Dilmen ~ Used with his permission ~ I love his photography!

And sometimes a character who was only supposed to have a bit part gets their teeth around that bit and takes off running. One such character is the tough female cop who’s assigned as police protection when someone is trying to kill Kate in Book 1 of that series. This cop wasn’t even supposed to talk much except in the scene where she is first introduced.

Officer Rose Hernandez is short but solidly built (Kate refers to her as “compact”) and she can arch an eyebrow at a forty-five degree angle in the most expressive way. By the end of Book 1, she has rebelled against her incompetent superior – and me – and has gone rogue, helping Kate and her friends find the killer on their own. And by Book 3 she’s a central character in the series.

Still other characters are total figments of our imaginations, perhaps a conglomeration of some interesting-sounding personality traits–someone whom we wish we knew. I have a few of those scattered throughout my books. I’m fond of feisty women, but I don’t meet enough of them in real life. (Note: feisty is tough but with a big mouth and a sense of humor – maybe it’s just as well that there aren’t too many of them *cough* us *cough* running around in real life 😉 )

The main character in my new series is such a woman, although she would probably refer to herself as snarky rather than feisty. She’s a thirty-something divorcee who trains service dogs for combat veterans with PTSD.

ToKillALabrador PROMO FINAL

I had so much fun writing the first book in this new series. Bringing this character to life was a blast. And now that I’ve breathed life into her, I wonder where she will take me. Because I am quite sure she does not plan to do as she’s told!

But now that I have two series going, I’m having a very interesting experience with my characters. While I’ve been focused on my new heroine, Marcia Banks, Kate and her friends have been whispering in my ear, “What about us?” One of them (most often Kate) will nudge me at some odd moment, with a cool idea for some plot twist in the next, as yet unwritten, Kate Huntington mystery.

So this will be my life for the foreseeable future, caught between two worlds…oh wait, it’s three worlds – Kate’s world and Marcia’s world and my real-life world (which I do try to visit now and again).

When I’m writing Kate’s stories, Marcia will be making snarky remarks about my neglect of her, and when I’m telling Marcia’s tales of mishap and mayhem, Kate will be nudging my elbow and Rose will be arching her eyebrow at me.

And then there is the role that our readers play in our characters’ lives. For without readers, our characters’ life force would fade away. Every time a reader picks up one of our books, they breathe new energy into the people who live inside that book.

And if we’ve done our jobs well, the characters will live on in the reader’s mind for a while after the last page of the book is turned. And the reader will be wondering what Kate or Marcia is up to now…

Authors, how do you experience your characters? Do they haunt you if you’re too slow about writing the next chapter in their stories?

As readers, what characters have lived on in your minds for days after finishing a book?

I’m so excited about this new series that I’m inviting everybody to a Facebook party to celebrate! Please click HERE to say you’re coming and put the date on your calendar, Tuesday, April 12, 2-8 pm, EDT.

Here’s the blurb and links for the new book:

To Kill A Labrador, A Marcia Banks and Buddy Mystery

Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha) likes to think of herself as a normal person, even though she has a rather abnormal vocation. She trains service dogs for combat veterans with PTSD. And when the ex-Marine owner of her first trainee is accused of murdering his wife, she gets sucked into an even more abnormal avocation–amateur sleuth.

Called in to dog-sit the Labrador service dog, Buddy, she’s outraged that his veteran owner is being presumed guilty until proven innocent. With Buddy’s help, she tries to uncover the real killer. Even after the hunky local sheriff politely tells her to butt out, Marcia keeps poking around. Until the killer finally pokes back.

Just $1.99 during the Pre-Order period. Available on:

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P.S. To connect with me, check out my website, email me at lambkassandra3@gmail.com, or come “like” me over at Facebook (Or feel free to send me a friend request)

Thank you, Marcia, for letting me join you all here on The Write Stuff. I can’t believe I haven’t stumbled on this wonderful blog before now.

Hi, Everyone. *waving from Florida* My name is Kassandra Lamb and I’m the author of a successful mystery series, the Kate Huntington mysteries. And now I’m launching a new series of cozy mysteries.

I’m so excited to share a little bit of the first book, about a young woman (whose first name is also Marcia) who trains service dogs for veterans with PTSD. Wait, I’ll let her introduce herself:

ToKillALabrador FINAL

I’m a normal person. Granted I have a somewhat abnormal vocation. I train service animals for PTSD sufferers–mostly combat veterans.

But other than that, I’m just a small-town, thirty-something divorcee.

My name is Marcia Banks–pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha. Okay, okay, so I don’t have a totally normal name.

I live in central Florida, on the outskirts of the Ocala National Forest, in a little town called Mayfair, population 258 (and a half. Agnes Baker’s pregnant. Again.)

Mayfair sprang up in the 1960s, in response to the transitory success of the Mayfair Alligator Farm (rumor has it that old Mr. Mayfair poached the gators from the Forest). Billboards plastered along the newly minted I-75 corridor drew in vacationing families to witness the wonders of gator wrestling and to buy fake alligator skin handbags and belts. Sadly, the farm went under in the mid-seventies, when Walt Disney plopped his amusement park down next to another sleepy Florida hamlet–Orlando.

Mayfair was virtually a ghost town when I moved here two years ago, shortly after the demise of my brief but disastrous marriage to a concert violinist in the Baltimore Symphony.

It’s a great place to train service animals because everybody knows everybody. It didn’t take long for the residents to learn the rules. The main one being to never, ever pet the dogs I’m training unless I say it’s okay.

The exception is my Black Lab-Rottie mix, Buddy, if he’s the only dog I’m walking at the time.

He was my first trainee, and how he came back into my possession was the beginning of my not-so-normal avocation–unwilling amateur sleuth.

One sunny day last winter, I received the most shocking phone call of my life. It even beat out the anonymous one three years ago informing me that my husband was having an affair with a cello player.

The caller said she was with the Collinsville Sheriff’s Department and wanted to know if I had trained a service dog named Buddy.

My mind scrambled for a reason why someone from a sheriff’s department would be asking me that. Had Buddy bit someone?

“Where exactly is Collinsville?” I asked, stalling for time.

“Off 33, near Polk City.”

“In Florida?” More stalling.

“Yes, ma’am, not far from Lakeland.” Her tone said she was losing patience with me. “Are you the Marcia Banks who trained Buddy?” She mispronounced my first name, of course.

I couldn’t figure out how to get around admitting it, since I had signed off on his training certificate. “Uh, yes.”

“Could ya come get the dog as soon as possible?”

“Why? What’s happened to his owner?” Jimmy Garrett was an Iraqi veteran who’d had a close encounter with an IED. As a result, he’d come home with a prosthesis where his right leg used to be and some pretty disabling nightmares, among other PTSD symptoms.

“He’s been arrested, ma’am.”

“What about his wife?”

A long pause. “That’s why he’s been arrested. He’s bein’ held on suspicion of murder.”

“Of his wife?” My voice rose, ending on a squeak.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The book is available for pre-order now and will be released on April 10, 2016 (Psst! It’s just $1.99 during the pre-order period; it goes up to $3.99 once it’s released.)

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