Newsletter: Author Carla Swafford – Almost There

The narrators are finished with Savage Champion and I’ve listened to the whole thing, and approved it. They are great. It gives me chills listening to my characters come to life. I hope you will check it out soon. When I get the date for release of the audio, I’ll notify you.

Red Herrings & Dangling Strings

If you read enough of my books, you will know that I love red herrings . They are, of course, to keep you guessing who the true bad guy is or who will die next. I won’t go into detail here, for most people understand their purpose.

When it comes to the dangling strings, they can show up in another book of the same series or even other series entirely. They’re not really important, just something for fans to note.

One of my favorite dangling strings was in The Circle books. Though the first book a person is mentioned to have been moved out of a cell before the heroine was placed inside another. Then in the second book, they use a name of a known dangerous man no one alive has seen. Then in the final full novel, the man shows up as a secondary character. He was to have his own book, but HarperCollins/Avon didn’t want another Circle book. Even so, he shows up in a novella I self-published, but still as a secondary character.

Not only do people show up in different books or series, but places too. I created fictional Sand County, Alabama, because the law enforcement was known to be crooked in my books (Brothers of Mayhem series). I didn’t want the local authority to become upset with me if I used a real one.