Doug and Sheryl Riley

Sheryl – I was born in Connecticut, but my parents moved back home to Indiana when I was little. I grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana and then went to high school in Indianapolis. I’m an only child, so I spent a lot of time reading books. I loved Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators series, and Agatha Christie. My parents are both card players, although they didn’t teach me bridge. I spent a LOT of time in high school and college playing Euchre and Spades.

Doug – I was born in South Dakota, but migrated south as fast as my little legs could take me. My dad often said the wind blew so hard in South Dakota that it made his hair hurt. I spent my formative years in a little town in Indiana, with summers on the family farm in Iowa, playing cards and games whenever possible. We always lived outside of town, and as the youngest with siblings much older I spent a lot of time entertaining myself – Legos and books and things.

Sheryl - I’ve been playing for about 28 years, so I’d say hopefully 29 years... Seriously, since I grew up playing other trump card games, it wasn’t difficult to master the basics. I was a decent party bridge player in a couple of years, but I really got a lot better when we started playing duplicate bridge at our local Birmingham bridge club. Competitive bridge players don’t show any mercy to newbies! I went through the mentor/mentee program and learned a lot from my mentor. Mostly though, I needed regular play and practice. I still struggle with declarer play, but my defense is pretty good. And of course, I make an excellent dummy!

Doug – Well that does beg the question - am I a decent bridge player? Growing up playing card games, my grandparents played pinocle weekly, I came to the table with a pretty good card sense. Counting trump was natural, as was keeping track of what card was high in each suit. I played a respectable game pretty quickly – it helps to have a good partner with a simple system. And as with everything it takes practice. A good six months of work can get someone with a decent card sense playing a good game

Sitting down at a table and playing! You need someone who knows the rules, a deck of cards, and some patience. There are some teaching materials available through the ACBL (American Contract Bridge League). Most materials assume you bring a little knowledge to the table, but not much. Bridge is a game best learned by doing.

For practicing play, Bridge Base Online (aka BBO), is pretty good. You can play against robots, allowing you to take back bad plays and try different lines. You can also see how other players approached the same hand.

It took about 3 years. After it was finished, Sheryl spent quite a bit of time compiling a list of publishers who specialized in cozy mysteries. We sent the book in to one at a time until Cozy Cat Press accepted it. We did some rewriting based on feedback from the first 2 publishers. While it was disappointing each time we were rejected, it was also encouraging because it took most publishers 4-6 months to reject it, meaning that we likely had made it through at least the first cut and maybe a second. That gave us the optimism to keep on trying.

We discussed plot points frequently, and then Doug would write late at night. Sheryl would read through the next day, make edits, and wonder why the plot points didn’t match the discussion. Rinse and repeat. Sheryl’s main job was spelling, grammar, and consistency of plot, descriptions, and characters throughout the two books. We ended up having to rewrite one character (twice), which caused a number of edits throughout multiple chapters.

Once the first draft was finished, Sheryl read it out loud and Doug took notes on things that needed to be checked or changed. Then we made those revisions, read it one more time out loud, and sent it to Cozy Cat Press.

We typically end a chapter at a point where we need a time skip. That makes a natural break in the story and it is easy to start the next chapter in a different setting and/or time. We used flashbacks to pick up a few plot points that were out of time order or just were not long enough to make a chapter. Part of our style of writing and plot development is avoiding too many awkward time skips. Cozy mysteries as a genre also help with time skips, as the whole story typically takes place within a few days to a week.

Since Killer Lead and Dead Dummy are cozy mysteries, there is no blood or gore. For us, the most interesting part was discussing how different characters would realistically react to certain circumstances. Writing the books was a psychology study and also logic puzzle of how to drop enough clues without being obvious. Honestly, it’s fun to plan theoretical murders and discuss how to not get caught.

We hope not. One of our goals in writing this series was to make it fun for bridge players, but also not have non-bridge players lose interest. There are bridge playing scenes in both books, but we were very intentional to use vocabulary and explanations that should help readers who are not familiar with the game. We had a group of Beta readers for the first book made up of bridge players and non-bridge players and got some good feedback from both. Additionally, the first 2 publishers we sent the book to, as well as our publisher, were helpful in rewriting the first chapter of the first book to help with that issue.

Keep trying. We thought it would be fun to be published but didn’t really expect it to happen. We knew the book was good but weren’t sure if anyone would take it because of the duplicate bridge theme which is unique.

We have 3 kids, although one is in college, so only 2 are still at home. We split the household chores – Doug does dishes and Sheryl does laundry. We all pitch in and help with cleaning and cooking. Doug takes the kids to school in the mornings and usually Sheryl picks them up. Sheryl takes the middle child to soccer practice 3 days a week (and away games), and Doug is in charge of choir and Ultimate frisbee practice for the youngest.

It was really exciting. We had been encouraged to try the NAP tournament by our bridge club director and also by our mentors. Sheryl didn’t expect to with the regional, let alone go to the finals of the national game. Doug was more optimistic, but also pleasantly surprised at how good we were compared to many of the other non-life masters there. Like we said earlier, the players at our club show no mercy to newbies, so we had learned from some of the best. Since we routinely played against people with 2,000 or more points, playing only people with less than 500 was a pleasant surprise.

Reflect about what you like to do that most folks do not. The next trick is to align that talent or skill with a career so that you can get paid to do it. For Doug, that was solving logic puzzles, which led to a career as a mathematician. For Sheryl, reading was a skill which led to a support role in the legal field.

We are currently working on the third book in the Duplicate Bridge Club Mystery series, Fatal Finesse. We hope for at least 5 books in this series. After that, we’ll see where we go.

It’s been good. We have done well in the Cover of the Month contest for both of our books (although we haven’t made the final cut yet!) The book tweets are very well done, and we appreciate you taking the time to do this interview with us.