Tell Me a Story--Miranda James

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's such a pleasure to bring you today's guest, Miranda James, author of the CAT IN THE STACKS mystery series featuring librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel. As many of you undoubtedly know, Miranda is really Dean, and Dean and I go WAY back, to the days when I was a newbie author doing my first book signings and Dean was working part time at the wonderful Murder by the Book in Houston. One of the biggest treats of Houston events for me was getting to visit with Dean over a lovely dinner, and I missed those very much when he relocated to Mississippi. But now I have Dean's Charlie and Diesel adventures to enjoy, so that is some consolation, and I'm looking forward to WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN, which launches tomorrow! Of course Dean and I talked about our mutual love of books over those dinners, and here he shares how that love of reading translated into a love of writing.

 TELL ME A STORY

Miranda James

            When I choose a book to read, I want most of all a good story. Doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, I expect a good story. At heart, I believe that’s what most readers want. For me, however, it’s essential. Literary flourishes are all well and good, and they can add layers to stories, but if there are flourishes simply for the sake of the writer’s saying, “Look what I can do,” they’re wasted on me. I’ve read many of the great classics, writers whose books are revered for their power, their elegance of style, and their illumination of the human condition. The best of them tell a good story, like Shakespeare’s plays, stories that remain relevant today.

             Wanting to tell a story motivated me to become a writer. I loved books as a child. My parents read to me, and I could read by the time I started first grade. I didn’t go to kindergarten. I was a country child who grew up on a farm. I also grew up in a family that loved stories, especially when the family gathered on the porch at my paternal grandparents’ house. There were also the Bible stories that were the staple of a Baptist church upbringing. When I finally figured out that books didn’t just magically appear, fully formed, on their own, that actual people wrote them, I decided that’s what I wanted to do.

            The more I read as I grew up, the more convinced I was that I wanted to write, but I had to defer that dream while I got an education. I didn’t begin to write fiction seriously until I was in graduate school in Texas. What did I write? An academic murder mystery, of course. I’m not saying that being in graduate school drove me to murder but make of it what you will. I continued to devour mysteries along with all the books I had to read for grad school. I submitted my book to an editor and got a polite, but slightly encouraging rejection.

            More time passed while I continued to think about writing. I couldn’t afford to quit working in order to focus on writing, so I had to work around a full-time job and a part-time one, in order to get anything down on paper (or into the word processor, eventually). I was lucky to break into publishing in non-fiction first. This was the kind of analytical writing I trained to do in graduate school in medieval history. Writing fiction – and fiction that sold – was harder. I eventually had my breakthrough there as well, but it took me twenty-five years and fourteen mysteries before I became anything approaching a success.

            I’m working on the fifteenth novel in my Cat in the Stacks series now, with the fourteenth one out today, and my goal with this one is, as always, tell a good story. I learned how to tell a story by reading thousands of novels, most of them mysteries in the last forty years, and I advise any aspiring writer to read, read, read. Bad books, good books, mediocre books – and learn to tell the difference. Along with a good story, I also want to give readers characters with whom they can identify and whom they can begin to think of as friends. That’s why I write a series, rather than standalones.

            I also choose to write from the point of view of an amateur sleuth. Many critics decry these books as completely unrealistic. I know that my neighbor, who is retired, doesn’t stumble over dead bodies every few months. Neither do I, but my main character can, and I can have the vicarious pleasure of an adventure, the way I have done over the years with everyone from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple to Meg Langslow. I can only hope that my readers are enjoying my stories as much as I enjoy writing them. 

DEBS: We do! And I have to add that the CAT IN THE STACKS covers are absolutely the most  charming!

 Miranda James, a serial killer by night and on weekends, is a mild-mannered medical librarian by day. Miranda has four cats and thousands of books. Home is the Jackson, Mississippi, area.

Here's more about the latest CAT IN THE STACKS:

When Charlie Harris finds out he has unexpectedly inherited his grandfather’s old farmhouse, he has no idea he is about to embark on the search for another killer. His Maine Coon cat Diesel finds a skeleton in the farmhouse attic, and Charlie has to wonder whether his grandfather, or the life tenant who recently died, was responsible. When a fresh corpse turns up on the property, Charlie is even more determined to find out what is going on.

DEBS: I know Dean was looking forward to doing an in person signing at Murder by the Book, but the Covid surge in Texas has sadly made that untenable.  Readers, how much are you missing those in person events?