Verity Bright: There’s More Than One Way to Write a Mystery
Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humor, before embarking on their first historical mystery.
They are the authors of the fabulous Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
Verity Bright
In this post, Verity explains how they write four books per year, what surprises them in the writing process, and more.
Name: Verity Bright
Book title: Murder By Invitation
Publisher: Bookouture
Release date: September 27, 2023
Genre/category: Historical Fiction/Cozy Crime
Previous titles: Lady Swift Series: A Very English Murder; Death at the Dance; A Witness to Murder; Murder in the Snow; Mystery by the Sea; Murder at the Fair; A Lesson in Murder; Death on a Winter’s Day; A Royal Murder; The French for Murder; Death Down the Aisle; Murder in an Irish Castle; Death on Deck; Murder in Manhattan
Elevator pitch for the book: It’s 1924 and the Cotswold village of Little Buckford is preparing for the King’s birthday when the head of the Celebration’s Committee is found murdered. Can Lady Eleanor Swift, the local lady of the manor, bring the killer to justice and save the village’s big day before the party is over for her, too?
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What prompted you to write this book?
After several recent books in the Lady Swift series being set abroad, we wanted this one to be set mostly around the rural English village of Little Buckford, where the first book in the series is set. One of the big events of the 1920s for rural communities was the celebrations for King George V’s 60th birthday, so we used this as a starting point for the plot.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Around three months. We publish four books a year at the moment, so only have three moths per book. About two to four weeks is spent planning and eight to 10 weeks writing the first draft.
The initial idea varies in how much detail it contains. Sometimes we’ll know who the killer is and as the first draft gets written and characters come to life, that along with other details, will change. Sometimes, we don’t know who the killer is when we start writing, but again, a character will leap out of the page as the first draft takes shape.
In Murder By Invitation, we started off with an idea as to who the killer was and why the crime was committed, but by half way through, all of that had changed.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Not really. We have already published 14 books in this series with our publisher, Bookouture. They are very efficient and really know what they are doing, so the whole process usually runs very smoothly and professionally.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
As mentioned above, it was a surprise for us when the killer revealed himself. And one of the wonderful things about writing historical fiction, is you are always learning unexpected details about the way people lived. And, as we write about the 1920s, some of it is quite unexpected.
King George V, for instance, campaigned against racial discrimination in India, while at home, there was a strong movement to abolish the monarchy altogether. Hay fever was considered a disease of the upper and middle classes, while wonderfully medieval organizations like the Worshipful Companies of Mercers, Skinners, Tallow Chandlers, Girdlers, and Cordwainers still existed.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
We hope they will be entertained first. Our readers tell us, the books are full of wit and humor, as well as suspense and romance. We also hope they will enjoy the intellectual challenge of following the murder investigation and finding the identity of the culprit (or culprits) before our sleuth, Lady Swift, does. And we hope they will learn something about past times that will surprise them and that, perhaps, will make them appreciate the blessings of the times they live in.
And finally, we hope it will lift their spirits, because, even though we deal in murder and other crimes, our books are full of characters who follow their hearts and when the chips are down, do the right thing regardless.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Beware of any piece of advice that tells you there is only one way to do anything. At a recent crime festival, the four well-known authors on the panel all had completely different ways they wrote their first draft from starting from a blank page, a handful of notes, right up to a full-blown Excel spreadsheet of all the characters and scenes in the book.