Leanne Kale Sparks: On Turning a Short Story Into a Mystery Series
Author Leanne Kale Sparks discusses her new mystery novel, Every Missing Girl.
After a brief career in criminal law, Leanne Kale Sparks is returning to her first love—writing about murder and mayhem. Currently, she is working on the Kendall Beck Thriller Series featuring an FBI agent hunting down child abductors and murderers with her unofficial sidekick, Detective Adam Taylor. The backdrop is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the playground of her youth, and the place that will always be home.
When not writing, she and her husband spend time reading and spoiling their German Shepherd, Zoe, and Corgi, Winchester. And drinking wine. Find her on Facebook and Instagram.
In this post, Leanne discusses her new mystery novel, Every Missing Girl, the process of turning a short story into a mystery series, and more!
Name: Leanne Kale Sparks
Literary agent: Stephanie Phillips, SBR Media
Book title: Every Missing Girl
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Release date: February 7, 2023
Genre/category: thriller, police procedural
Previous titles: The Wrong Woman
Elevator pitch for the book: A missing girl is found. Another girl goes missing—the niece of a homicide detective. The race to find her is on, but is she a runaway, or is there something more sinister at play?
What prompted you to write this book?
My publishing contract. Just kidding.
Every Missing Girl is the second book in the Kendall Beck Thriller series, and I pitched both books at the same time, so it had been floating around in my head for quite a while. I really felt that, after Kendall had to deal with the disappearance of her best friend and the trauma of it in book one, that it was time to get to know Adam Taylor, Kendall’s unofficial sidekick, better.
And what better way to see what this man is all about than to take something from him that is very dear—his niece.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I wrote The Wrong Woman as a short story when I was first learning the ins and outs of writing mysteries and thrillers. Once I thought I had a gasp on it, I extended it into a full novel. The process has been over many years, but I was fortunate that once I decided to shop it around, it didn’t take long for Kendall to find a home. And as I said, the main concept for book two had been ruminating for some time.
But as is always the case in writing, once I sat down to write Every Missing Girl, the story took a few deviations from my meticulous outline. That has to be the best part of writing—when the characters tell you your uber-plotting is cute, but they’re taking over now.
And what a wild ride it was. A few new characters, some new sub-stories, and one major jaw-dropping twist at the end. I never saw it coming.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Publishing a second book in a series is a little different than the first simply because the process is not such a mystery. I also learned some new questions to ask, which was difficult for me the first time around.
I didn’t want to be a newbie, yet I was a little scared to ask the basic questions. God forbid I be a pain, asking such juvenile things. Now, I ask about anything and everything. And that has created a sense of comfort the second time around.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Many, many, many. But the fact that I know there will be surprises in the story as I’m writing it, makes it less shocking when it happens.
I really look forward to when the story takes on a life of its own. It can be exhausting to not fully understand what you are writing until your characters step in and take over.
Additionally, I’m pretty happy I made a few unflappable people cry when they read it. Made my heart fill with joy.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
The subject matter of the book is dark, so I hope they connect with the characters, who tend to lighten things up a bit. Kendall and Adam are a good fit as colleagues and friends because they are both sarcastic and feed off each other.
Is there dark humor? Yes, no one who deals with child abductions, sex trafficking, and murder on a daily basis doesn’t release the valve on the heavy emotions a bit through somewhat inappropriate humor. It is the characters that make this story come alive, and I truly hope readers can relate to them as if they are people they know and would like to hang out with.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
There are no rules. No writer has the same process as the next, and your process is never wrong (unless you are not accomplishing any writing).
Get advice from other writers, try out new ways of writing, and tweak the process to make it your own. There are many authors who have had a great deal of success who will be happy to tell you what you must do to be successful.
Rule one: Just write. That is really the only thing every author has in common. The mode in which we accomplish that is our own.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
