January 7th, 2020 → 5:47 pm @ Robin Donovan
Go to pages 24 & 25 to read my feature in https://mysteryreaders.org
The Danger of Mixing Truth and Fiction by Robin Donovan
Creating Donna Leigh was easy; she’s what I know best — me. At the time of her creation the majority of female sleuths were young, hot and flawless in their brilliance. A few others were old
and doddering, so Donna Leigh was something different. She was menopausal, so not young, and dammit not doddering either. She was not skinny, but she could look damn good in the right outfit. As far as flawless brilliance goes Donna was definitely smart, but far from flawless.
What Donna Leigh does have is a whole lot more common sense than the hot, young, and brilliant female sleuths who clamor to meet with a killer in a remote and abandoned spot without any arranged backup or any other kind of realis- tic plan to stay alive. Donna doesn’t do that. In fact, when she receives a call from a voice-dis- guised gentleman suggesting she meet him late at night and alone, she pretty much blasts his ear- drums out. By the end of the call he has identified himself and apologized for scaring her. You don’t typically see that in murder mysteries, but the mature and sophisticated woman does have some formidable characteristics.
When the Donna Leigh mysteries first took shape I was concerned about characters and their similarities to people I know. I could imagine a ton of lawsuits by folks who thought their deep dark secrets were being revealed through my hu- mor. I had the good fortune to consult a literary attorney who gave me a great piece of advice. He said “any character you create is going to bear some resemblance to people you know because you can’t write about what you don’t know.” He also suggested not to get all cutesy and rhyme my character names with people I know. That advice has served me well throughout the series, and I make sure that my final edit removes any obvious similarities to specific people that may have slipped in inadvertently.
As an extra precaution, none of my scenes are lifted from true life, they are all fiction — except
one. In book one, a colleague and I were force- fully thrown out of a client’s office and that story was lifted almost verbatim from real life. The ac- tual incident turned said client into a screaming howler monkey. It was like something out of a movie, absolutely ludicrous. Afterward, as my colleague and I took stock of ourselves, she burst into tears and I could not stop laughing. Once I started writing the book I was in search of come- dic incidents that were believable. As determined as I was to keep the whole book fiction, this story kept popping into my head. I couldn’t write it any funnier than how it actually happened – so I just told the story. I hadn’t seen that client in seven years so I took a chance. I felt my odds were pretty good.
After the book was released, I was standing in our local hip bookstore arranging for my first guest appearance. The woman who was schedul- ing me was summoned into the back room to take a phone call. As I stood at the counter await- ing her return I heard “Robin? Robin Donovan?” I looked to my left and there stood my screaming howler monkey former client looking as though she’d found a long-lost relative. Trying valiantly to hide my panic, I stammered a clipped and ter- rified greeting which earned a strange look from my former client before she shrugged and headed out the door — talk about dodging a bullet!
Robin Donovan started as a high-school English teacher, then worked in advertising. She lives in Nee- braska with her husband and thtree bulldogs.
Private Eyes II
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