Inventing a Mystery Series that Sells: An Interview with Leslie Caine, Part I
I adore working with my editor, because she is very skilled at working with my voice and her suggestions are virtually always excellent. The process is that I send her the completed manuscript, and she sends it back in a month or two with insightful margin annotations. I make about 99% of those changes, and the manuscript goes off to the copyeditor. I probably average two or three scenes that are completely rewritten upon her suggestion. This is much more input than I've gotten from any of my previous editors while writing as Leslie O'Kane. (I wrote two humorous series for Ballantine prior to writing this one for Bantam.)
DC: If GONE WITH THE WIND had been called TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (and it almost was according to Arthur T. Vanderbilt, author of THE MAKING OF A BESTSELLER) Margaret Mitchell's civil war tale might not have become the timeless blockbuster hit that it remains today. The title of a book is almost as important as its contents. From a sales point of view, it might be more so, as this is the first thing an agent, editor or paying customer reads. The title of your first book, DEATH BY INFERIOR DESIGN, is eye-grabbing. How did you come up with that?
LC: Thank you. It's hard to describe the brainstorming process I use for my titles, which come hand-in-hand with the premise for the book. I don't begin writing my books in earnest until I'm happy with the title I've selected. Choosing a title for me is a matter of considering the basic genre (that it's a murder mystery), combined with the overall milieu (interior design), and finally the theme of this particular book. Here there was the competition taking place between designers Erin Gilbert and Steve Sullivan that really was determining an inferior versus a superior design, and Erin's inner search to believe that she wasn't an unlovable, inferior person despite having painful and deflating secrets from her past taunting her in the present.
DC: I can't help being reminded, after reading your novel, of the popularity of Martha Stewart (despite her fall from grace) and the spate of home decorating shows on television such as "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Is the Domestic Bliss Series modelled on the success of such shows?
LC: The series concept would never have occurred to me if it weren't for Martha Stewart and all the decorating shows.
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