B. Aline Blanchard is a writer, sculptor, and visual artist based in Sarasota, Florida. We discussed writing for a presentation to the Kanaya Book Club. This is the conclusion of that Q&A.

Detective stories generally follow a formula. How does being an independent publisher allow you to deviate from that formula?

I don’t follow a formula, but there are general principles that apply to both commercial and independent crime fiction. Start with the end in mind and work toward it. Give your characters challenges but don’t make them insurmountable. Provide subplots that are more personal than professional. And if you raise a question, try to answer it.

The process of setting up an independent publishing company and marketing a book is quite complex. You have now published nearly a dozen books under the imprint of Allusion Books. How does the cover design impact sales?

The goal is to make an independently published book indistinguishable from a commercially published one. That means engaging professionals to edit, proofread, and design the interior and the exterior of the book. As long as the cover looks professional, I don’t know that it affects sales as much as reader reviews.

Your newest book, Distant Early Warning, is based on a flood that took place in 1955. Were you living there at that time?

Yes, but I was too young to know what adults did and why. Unfortunately, I never asked my parents about their experience. I was able to talk to neighbors and share experiences through social media. Memoirs from that period provided more hands-on experience.

Did you interview people to see how it changed their lives?

Every few years, the local newspaper published a special section about the flood. I was assigned to interview a woman whose family had survived by climbing into the attic of their house. The water rose quickly and trapped them. There were no windows, no way to escape. The woman read the Bible and prayed. On the trip back to the office, I passed the creek that had taken so many lives and had the unnerving sensation that the flood could happen again, at that very moment. That story has haunted me for decades.

How much research did you do to write this book?

I spent six months reading books about the DEW Line and the 1950s in general. That included government publications about building a fallout shelter and surviving an atomic attack. I watched the movies and television shows young Wil Andersen would have watched to gain more insight into the culture. I watched and read with an eye toward placing myself in the position of the characters who not only coped with the flood but dealt with the challenges of the culture, from clothing and appliances to geography and weather. That even included charting the position of the stars on one fateful night.

Your descriptions of the flood and its devastation brought goose bumps. How did you put yourself into so many characters’ lives?

I interviewed as many people as I could about their lives during and after the flood. I also read personal accounts posted by several Facebook groups. Their stories inspired me to dig deeper into the experience.

The conflict, man against nature, is particularly potent with all the floods we’ve had recently.

Those of us who live in Florida expect major storms. The idea that back-to-back hurricanes could devastate the Northeast is sobering. It’s an object lesson for all of us.

Research for the crime fiction is ongoing. For Distant Early Warning, I spend a good six months reading about the 1950s and watching dozens of movies and television programs from the era. Research into the Flood of ’55 was especially intense, given that my parents had lived through that natural disaster.

Jeff Widmer’s latest book is Distant Early Warning, a novel of the Cold War.

B. Aline Blanchard is a writer, sculptor, and visual artist based in Sarasota, Florida. We discussed writing for a presentation to the Kanaya Book Club. This is part two of that Q&A.

As a reporter/photographer early on in your career, did you come across many female detectives?

I didn’t meet female officers until I got to Florida. As a journalist, I did have several years on the police beat, and the ear of a very helpful state police commander who helped flesh out the character of Walter Bishop in the CW McCoy novels.

What made you choose the case of the scheming investor in Peak Season?

I was reading the saga of Aubrey Lee Price, who boarded a ferry in Key West, stripped, and dove into the water. The disappearance initially was ruled a suicide. He was declared dead, but not before allegedly stealing millions from investors. Reading this I thought, in this day and age of surveillance, how could anyone disappear? And if he knew his actions were wrong—he penned a rambling confession to his family before vanishing—how could he justify his actions? CW discovers the unfortunate answer in the first book.

Why did you change some of the Sarasota landmarks?

When asked the same question about Santa Barbara, Sue Grafton said she wanted the flexibility to move buildings and streets. For people who are not familiar with Sarasota, I wanted to simplify the landscape. I also didn’t want readers to confuse the corrupt officials in the novels with the people who actually occupy those offices, many of whom helped me to research the books.

Besides being a writer, you are also a musician and a photographer. How did these experiences give authenticity to your writing?

Born Under a Bad Sign is the best example of how a profession can bring nuance and authority to a work. Quinn’s knowledge of music and his obsession with playing Woodstock come directly from my work as a guitarist. Elizabeth’s drive to become a photographer arose from my experience and that of the photographers who mentored me.

Did you also live on the farm you depicted in Born Under a Bad Sign?

I grew up next to a farm owned by our bus driver. He used to let the neighborhood kids swim in the cow ponds in summer and ice skate in winter. Much later, when we built our first house, we became friends with the couple who owned it.

Did your work at an advertising agency give you the material to write Mr. Magic?

Yes, a decade in advertising gave me a mixed view of public relations and marketing, just as my years as a journalist provided the material for Mr. Mayhem, the first of the Brinker books.

How much research do you do for each book?

Research for the crime fiction is ongoing. For Distant Early Warning, a novel of the Cold War, I spend a good six months reading about the 1950s and watching dozens of movies and television programs from the era. Research into the Flood of ’55 was especially intense, given that my parents had lived through that natural disaster.

Next: Transforming tragedy

Jeff Widmer’s latest book is Distant Early Warning, a novel of the Cold War.

B. Aline Blanchard is a writer, sculptor, and visual artist based in Sarasota, Florida. We discussed writing for a presentation to the Kanaya Book Club. This is part one of that Q&A.

How did you get started writing detective stories?

I took a class where we had to turn a short story into a news article and an article into a short story. For a journalist, the first part was easy. The second gave me pause. I finally chose an article about Aubrey Lee Price, a Florida Ponzi-schemer hunted by the FBI. He became the inspiration for the character of Bobby Lee Darby in Peak Season, the first novel (of five) in the CW McCoy series of crime novels.

I understand you researched the police work by riding with the police. Which came first , the research or the idea?

The ride-alongs happened about the same time I was writing the first of the McCoy books. As a way of exploring this new place to which we’d just moved, I took a number of classes, including Sarasota County’s Civics 101 to learn about government and a pair of courses to study police procedures—the Sarasota Police Department’s Citizens Academy and the Sarasota Sheriff’s Citizens Law Enforcement Academy (CLEA) program.

How did riding with officers and deputies change your conception of police work?

The ride-along is the final session of the SPD’s Citizens Academy. I saw firsthand the danger and the boredom the officers face. Initially, I wrote a blog post after every class. But after the ride-along, I decided to bundle the posts into a slim volume that tries to encompass some of what lies between those two poles. The result was Riding with the Blues. (Thanks to the SPD for providing the cover art.)

What made you choose a female narrator?

I’d been reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series as well as several other novels with wise-cracking, hard-drinking tough-guys at the center. Unfortunately, that kind of character has become a trope of crime fiction. I was fascinated with how women writers—Grafton, Paretsky, Crusie, and Evanovich—transformed that cliché. I wanted to create a well-round character who was both brazen and domestic, someone who took risks but put family first. After talking to a female chief of police about her difficulties in getting recognized and promoted, I realized that in CW McCoy I had a character who could explore that terrain.

Was your detective based on an actual person?

As with many of my characters, CW is not based a single person but a combination of several from whom I’ve borrowed physical attributes, mannerisms, and patterns of speech.

How did you authenticate the female point of view?

For years, I’ve been friends with a pair of real estate agents in Pennsylvania. They were kind enough to let me hang out in their office and observe the nuances of the job. As luck would have it, in buying our house in Sarasota, my wife and I became friends with another pair of agents. They’ve been invaluable in providing operational and personal detail about life as a female agent. For issues that transcend real estate, several women in my writer’s group provide insight and advice. And my wife reads every manuscript for accuracy and consistency.

Next: The mystique of female detectives

Jeff Widmer’s latest book is Distant Early Warning, a novel of the Cold War.