I wrote in a earlier post that Girl’s Night was not intended to be a series after the first short story. It hit me a few years later that it would be perfect for a series. Once decided, I had to get to work and come up with more stories to keep the girls in crime and martinis. The follow up: Disco Night was a total departure from what I thought a follow up should be to the original short story, but it liked the idea and it seemed to work. Then it was time for a third. Ideas are always floating around in my head, but I can never really pinpoint when I decide to go with an idea, but somehow I do.
The great thing about writing a series is the fact that storylines don’t have to conclude. Like real life, stories can linger, at times never get resolved and you can pile on as many complications as possible. Although Girl’s Night isn’t a hard soap opera, where every ending is a cliffhanger, I was able to carry over situations from the previous stories right over into Spoon Fed while also building a new crime for the girls to get wrapped up in.
Disco Night ended with Tamara and Melissa in the ladies room of a late night dive bar; Melissa crying her eyes out over Warren, her boyfriend that she believes is cheating on her with another woman. It felt easy to build a full story around Melissa and her growing desperation to uncover the truth, so desperate that she confesses to Tamara that she’s close to hiring Alvin Bailey, an obscure ex-cop turned PI to help her learn the truth about Warren. As you would expect, Tamara isn’t going for that. She pulls in Lisa and Rita. They’ll instead be the detectives to help Melissa prove her fears. But something else seems to be happening to Warren. He hasn’t been himself lately, not feeling well and getting more tired and weak as the days progress. Melissa is torn between her mistrust of him as her lover and her concern for his health. She stakes out in front of his condo one afternoon and discovers a beautiful young blonde leaving the building with something in her hand that Melissa recognizes. Melissa is immediately devastated, feeling deep inside that she’s found the woman Warren has been cheating with. Reluctantly she confides in Tamara what she believes. Tamara is skeptical, but convinces Melissa to let her and the girls help uncover the truth.
I’m not a locked room, Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, whodunnit type mystery writer, never was, and I’m okay with that. In Spoon Fed I dabble in Lt. Columbo style territory where we learn of the perpetrators early on and watch their actions unfold simultaneously as the girls get closer to the shocking truth about Warren and the mysterious young blonde.
In a juxtaposition effort, Rita is in therapy, trying to get a feel for her new therapist, Ms. Kelly Anne Harper (not Conway). This is where the most references of the other two short stories come in when Rita confides in Kelly Anne, telling her about the time she was shot in the shoulder (Pilot) and when a woman killed herself on top of her, shoved a gun in her mouth at a 70’s bachelorette party (Disco Night). I wanted Rita to become more transparent to readers as to why she is the way she is, especially with men. I touch lightly into Rita’s early life with a mention of her dad Juan, now deceased and his opinion on race which is something worth exploring a bit later.
This Girl’s Night was a big effort for me, pushing past Novella length, collectively, but definitely a labor of love. I consider it a part of my growth as an author and I’m so excited to have you along for the ride.
https://books2read.com/Girls-Night-Spoon-Fed
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