Lynn Franklin Interview Published on: 05, Feb 2024

I’ve always been an avid reader and quickly moved from Dick and Jane to Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon and the Hardy Boys. As a child, I told stories around campfires. The yarns always involved a mystery and the real people with me. No one slept well after listening to my tales.
My first-grade teacher liked the stories that I wrote in class and, apparently, saw a budding author. At a parent/teacher conference she excitedly told my parents that I would become a writer.
When they came home from the meeting, my mom told me what the teacher had said, then launched a campaign entitled “but how will you earn a living?”
Fortunately, my beloved grandfather pooh-poohed the onslaught, telling me that I should pursue what I loved.
Grandpa himself had followed his own dreams. He’d learned watchmaking as a boy in Switzerland, then came to the U.S., obtained a college degree and began working at a local jewelry store.
When the store closed, instead of searching for a new place to work, he launched a watch repair and jewelry shop from his home office. Once a week Grandpa traveled to downtown Pittsburgh to visit the jewelers-only shops.
I’ll never forget the first time I was allowed to accompany him. I was ten years old and had just finished reading a Hardy Boys mystery. When we left the car, I kept searching the dirty alleys and street for thugs, thieves and spies.
We entered a gray building (in those days, everything in Pittsburgh was gray) and rode a dingy elevator to the fifth floor. The hallway was lined with closed doors. The one we approached had a camera mounted over the doorway and a button beside the door.
Grandpa pressed the button. A disembodied voice said “Hi, Max” and a buzzer sounded. The door opened and we stepped into a fairy land.
The walls were lined with diamonds.
Closer inspection revealed rows of jewelry – necklaces, earrings and bracelets – displayed in open boxes standing on narrow shelves. The glittering rows extended far above my head.
I stepped closer and saw that diamonds weren’t the only jewels. Sapphires in all colors – blue, pink, yellow and white – occupied one shelf. Rubies and emeralds glistened from other shelves.
As I walked around, I discovered turquoise, topaz, garnets, citrines, amethysts, pearls, opals, lapus lazuli, zircons, aquamarines, peridots, and moonstones.
The names intrigued me. Where did all of these gemstones originate? Why were some cut into facets while others had smooth surfaces that my grandfather called cabochons? Were there other gemstones out there, waiting to be discovered?
My grandfather lifted a necklace from the shelf and held it out. A heart-shaped setting encircled a round blue stone. Grandpa held the stone to the light and told me that if I looked closely, I would see the image of a star. I squealed with delight and he moved the pendant back and forth, making the star slide around.
He said the stone was called a star sapphire. But he couldn’t tell me why this stone had a star and the other sapphires didn’t.
When I returned home, I begged for a ride to the library. The librarian helped me find books on gemstones. I read that the star on a sapphire is caused by an optical phenomenon known as asterism. Small, needle-like inclusions in the sapphire reflect light, creating the four prongs of the star.
As you can imagine, I enjoyed sharing my discovery with my grandfather. He, in turn, encouraged me to learn more about the gems he sold.
I couldn’t afford to buy much jewelry, even with Grandpa’s jeweler’s discount. But I could study the gems themselves.
In the process, I became interested in people’s response to gems. Why did my mother and aunts go crazy over diamonds while ignoring the rich purple of amethyst? Why did my friends save lunch money so they could buy some shiny trinket? For that matter, why did people wear jewelry at all?
Life, of course, goes on. I continued to write and my stories became more fluid. Writing true stories for newspapers and magazines put food on the table. But the questions from my childhood remained.
When at long last I turned my attention to books, it seemed only natural to incorporate my fascination with gemstone history and lore into my mysteries.

Writing novels has always been my goal. But, as my parents pointed out, I needed to find a way to make a living.
My husband, Jon Franklin, is a two-time Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and one of the founders of the movement to incorporate story-telling techniques into nonfiction. Think The Right Stuff, Black Hawk Down or The Perfect Storm.
When I met Jon, I was already writing nonfiction stories for magazines. Jon shared his expertise, enabling me to hone my craft. We traveled to writers’ conferences, teaching others how to incorporate fiction techniques into their articles while maintaining the absolute truth required in nonfiction.
While I enjoyed the life we’d created, I longed to return to my fiction-writing roots.
Then, in 2003, my world turned upside down. An electrical fire burned down our house. The fire ignited so fast and hot that it melted the smoke alarms before they sounded. If Sam, our standard poodle, hadn’t pulled me from bed, we never would have survived. I’ll never forget running outside, Jon on one side, Sam on the other, while windows exploded behind us.
It took years to rebuild both the house and our lives. In the process, I realized that it was time to finally pursue my dream of writing novels.
I knew I wanted to write mysteries featuring an amateur sleuth. But I also wanted readers to learn something new from my books. Everything I know about horses and racing, for example, came from mystery author Dick Frances.
Weaving gemstone legend and lore into my stories seemed logical. I studied to become an accredited jewelry professional so that I could better give readers insight into the jewelry business.

When I was in third grade, a friend and I co-wrote our first mystery “book.” It followed a police detective trying to solve a series of murders. Or, at least, what appeared to be murders. Because, as we wrote, at the crime scenes “all that was left was a puddle of blood.”
Children can be so entertaining.
We wrote the story on a lined yellow pad. I can still remember our giggles as our teacher punched holes through the manuscript and the joy of tying those pages together with a piece of black yarn. The jaunty bow added to the festive occasion.
The title of our manifesto was “Bloody Murder.”

There are so many good writers that it’s hard to pick just one. In college, I studied both literature and writing, so I read most of the classic authors.
As a writer, I often study other authors’ techniques. Toni Morrison, for example, used dialogue to not only reflect her characters’ personalities, but to also reveal relationships and drive the story forward. Cormac McCarthy’s descriptions evoked emotion, showing the reader as much about the character as the scene around him. Agatha Christie was a master of red herrings.
I love Mark Twain’s dry humor and was thrilled when several readers compared my humor to his.

I read a lot of mysteries and, when I began writing my own, realized that no one had written a series featuring a gemologist or jewelry store owner. Here was my chance to pull readers into a really fascinating world.
But I also wanted to highlight Kim’s relationship to her grandfather. There’s something special about the connection between grandparents and grandchildren. The grandfather/granddaughter bond hadn’t been much explored since the 1880 publication of Heidi – one of my favorite childhood stories.
In my books, I wanted to combine three elements: the grandfather/adult granddaughter bond, gemstones and mystery.
The challenges came from the characters themselves. I always start with a general idea of the plot – as Toni Morrison advised, I write the ending first. But great stories allow the characters to develop as individuals. And sometimes those individuals veer away from the imagined plot.
The difficulty lies in allowing the characters to behave normally while moving the plot toward a satisfying ending.

The best way to answer this is to relate how I researched The Carolina Emerald.
I read all the time – books, magazines, newspapers, online, blogs, anything I can get my hands on. As I was casting about for an idea for the third book in the series, I came across an article about a famous 1964 jewel heist from New York’s American Museum of Natural History. The article mostly focused on how police tracked and captured the thief, Murph the Surf.
In the middle of the article, however, a single sentence referenced a previous jewel theft from that very same museum. There were two differences from the later theft:
1. The thief or thieves were never caught.
2. One of the stolen gems was a 6-inch-long rough emerald that had been mined in North Carolina.
Emeralds in North Carolina? Most emeralds come from Colombia. I didn’t know emeralds could be found in the U.S.
After a lengthy internet search, I found a 1907 photo of the stolen emerald. The gem was magnificent, three emerald crystals fused together at the bottom. It resembled the green towers of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz movie.
At that point, I wasn’t sure how I would incorporate the stolen emerald into the new mystery. But I knew that the mystery would take place at a North Carolina emerald mine.
To make the story realistic and give readers a real feel for the place, I needed to travel to North Carolina to learn more about the state’s emeralds.
My sister and I loaded our dogs into the car and headed south.
First stop was Emerald Hollow Mine in Hiddenite, a place where visitors can prospect for emeralds. We spent several hours poking around it, learning to sluice dirt and trying to identify the stones revealed – not an easy task. Rough garnets, for example, don’t look red. They look like round, black pebbles.
Next we toured a commercial emerald mine, one that is not open to the public. The mine was nothing like what I’d envisioned. After the tour, the owner showed us photos of previous finds and explained how he followed veins of a yellow substance called limonite to find the pockets of emeralds.
As we traveled around North Carolina, I pictured Kimberley West, the main character in the series, and how she would react to what I was seeing.
And slowly, the story began to form.
You can find a photo of the stolen emerald, the emerald mines and other interesting details on my web site: https://lynnfranklin.com/scenes-from-the-carolina-emerald/

Readers have described Kim as someone they want to have dinner with. She’s intelligent (you won’t find Kim walking stupidly into danger), loyal to family and friends and possesses a good sense of humor.
In addition to being an accredited gemologist, Kim teaches psychology at the University of Maryland. She uses her knowledge of both gems and psychology in solving the mysteries. Readers say they like that Kim doesn’t judge people, but also isn’t a pushover.
Kim is also relatable because she faces the same challenges as all of us. How do we interact with family without losing our individuality? How do we see through the surface to the real person beneath? How do we unmask our hidden prejudices?
In every book, Kim grows as a person. And we grow with her.
Then, of course, there’s Rorschach, Kim’s black standard poodle. Rory provides comic relief in the stories. But, like Kim, he’s also no pushover. Their relationship is sure to appeal to animal lovers.
One reader called Kim the ultimate amateur sleuth.

I try to write every day, starting first thing in the morning. Writing can be scary, so I start before the self-doubt sinks in. I’ve found that if I skip a day, it’s really hard to pick up all of the story threads.
When I begin a new book, I usually have a general idea of the overall theme. The Blue Diamond, for example, shows the dangers of accepting surface appearances as reality while The Pirate’s Ruby explores the long-lasting effects of childhood bullying.
I always create psychological profiles of all of the important characters, including the villains. Even though I write mysteries – a genre that requires good plots – it’s the characters’ desires and behaviors that drive the plot. This is what makes the characters realistic.
I also develop a story timeline. This includes events that happen long before the story even opens. My timeline for The Turquoise Treasure, for example, includes historical events that play a role in the modern story. Here’s an example:

200 BC Anasazi began mining turquoise in Cerillos, CO and in Chaco Canyon NM

1000 AD Anasazi turquoise trading at its height; trading with people in Mexico.

1519 Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico, Montezuma gave him gold

1520 Aztecs rebelled against Cortes, Montezuma died, Aztecs carried body and treasure northward, possibly into Arizona

1541 Coronado travels into Superstition Mountains in search of Seven Cities of Cibola

As the timeline nears the beginning of the story, I divide it into actions that happen off-stage and ones that occur on-stage. So on any particular day in the story, I will note what the various characters are doing and whether or not the reader gets to see those acts. This helps me keep track of what the villains are doing behind the scenes. I alternate between the character bios and the story timeline until the plot comes into focus. At this point, I also work on an outline.
This is not your English-teacher-revenge outline. This outline divides the book into the key moments: complication, development, mid-point character change, point of insight and resolution.
I’m not going to go into detail of these key story moments here. There are a number of books that explain these. Jon Franklin’s Writing for Story and James Scott Bell’s Write Your Novel from the Middle are good places to start.
The outline serves as a guiding point, not a rigid structure. Before writing the first word, I need to know where the story will probably end and how my main character will change as a result of the story events.
But I also allow the characters’ natural behaviors to tweak the outline. I will never, ever, make Kim do something stupid and out of character just to fit into a pre-conceived outline.
As for weaving in the gemstone lore, my favorite way is to have Kim discover it as part of her investigation or while helping her grandfather in his jewelry store. In The Pirate’s Ruby, for example, Kim discovers a collection of red gemstones in the store safe. They clearly are not rubies. She asks Grandpa about them and he shares the story anthill garnets.

While there are many sub-categories within the mystery genre, far too many mysteries fall into one of two trends.
On the one hand, you find writers trying so hard to be realistic that they describe every gory detail at a murder scene. On the other are light-hearted books that veer so far away from reality that the sleuth stumbles blindly into one dangerous situation after another.
My books attract readers who want realism without the blood and gore, to escape into a gripping story while learning something new, and to laugh and feel like they’re part of a loving family.
Readers say they want to stay in Kim’s world and are reluctant to leave it at the end of the book.

Any mystery series that centers around gemstones should naturally begin with diamonds. Like my main character, however, I’m not particularly fond of diamonds. I like the sparkle, but much prefer colored gemstones.
When I first saw a pair of blue diamonds, however, I fell in love. These particular diamonds were the same light blue shade as my favorite blue topaz. But they sparkled much more than topaz.
The rarity of blue diamonds also suited what would ultimately become the plot of The Blue Diamond.
For books later in the series, I selected gems that have particularly interesting histories. Turquoise, for example, figures prominently in the legends of the American Southwest. European warriors once believed that rubies worn over the heart would protect them in battles. Cleopatra’s obsession with emeralds led to the depletion of Egypt’s emerald mines.
My readers send in requests for their favorite gemstones and, whenever possible, I try to include their recommendations in the books.
As for relevance, the mysteries all revolve around the gemstones.

Reading enables us to expand our worlds. We can escape into another place, imagine walking the streets with the characters. We want to ride the broom with Harry Potter.
My job as a writer is to create a seamless story so that readers can immerse themselves into the world I’ve created.
So rather than dump information onto readers, I weave the gemstone legend and lore throughout the story.
When I give drafts to first readers, I tell them to mark any place in the story where they stumbled or felt jerked out of the story. In my next rewrite, I’ll focus on those places.
I measure my success by readers’ reactions. I always smile when readers tell me that they wished the books were longer because they don’t want to leave them.
My books are actually long – 100,000 words compared to the typical 70,000- to 80,000-word mysteries. But my books seem shorter because they read so quickly.

Even as a child, my dream was to entertain readers, to write so well that readers entered my fictional world, believed it was real and wanted to remain.
To achieve this, I’ve always grounded my books on a reality that readers will recognize. For example, I knew I wanted to set the gemstone books along Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. Two towns – North Beach and Chesapeake Beach – provided the perfect backdrop.
But I love those towns and didn’t want to kill off residents, even in fiction. So I created Osprey Beach, a third beach that lies south of Chesapeake Beach. My characters move between the three towns, but the crime remains in the fictional one. The known landmarks help make the created town come alive.
I must have done a good job because readers from all over the world email me, saying they want to visit Osprey Beach but can’t find it on the map.
In many ways, my childhood dream has come true. But even in my wildest imagination, I’d never envisioned hearing from readers in Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, the U.K.
Readers’ responses to my books has expanded my original vision. They’ve shown me that the best books change the readers, help them see themselves and the world differently.
So I strive to continue creating stories where readers can learn and grow while still having fun.

The best piece of advice I can give aspiring authors is this: Do not set out to write The Great American Novel. That goal will muddy your story and force you to second guess every word you write. Writing a novel is scary; you don’t need the additional strain of creating The Great American Novel.
Instead, make your goal to write as clearly as possible. The completed story should read so smoothly that the readers don’t stumble anywhere along the way. When they come to the end of the story, they should be disappointed that it’s over, but satisfied that they’ve spent their precious time reading this particular tale.
Every time you complete a story that is clear and satisfying, you take a step toward that Great American Novel.
As for unique themes and niches, readers love those. They enjoy entering worlds that they’ve never experienced.
The difficulty for the writer is in gently weaving the unusual world into your story. Never, ever, spend paragraphs or pages waxing poetic about your main character’s special interest. The age-old advice to “show, not tell” is especially critical here. You can give readers a sense of your character’s interest by showing her doing something interesting. Just make sure that when she does this, you are moving the story forward.

The next Kim book features a very unusual gemstone with a fascinating history. I will reveal this gem to readers of The Diamond Digest, my occasional newsletter. Digest readers receive members-only specials, insider insights into the books, plus a free eBook edition of The Antique Diamond, the prequel novella to the gemstone series. (This book is not for sale anywhere; it is exclusive to Diamond Digest members only.)
Joining The Diamond Digest is an excellent, free way for readers to learn if they will enjoy my writing. Readers can find more information on my website: https:LynnFranklin.com
In addition to the next Kim book, I’m working on a new mystery series. I’ve always wanted to write about a husband and wife amateur sleuth team. Think of the Nick and Nora movies, the Hart to Hart television series or Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence books.
What sets my characters apart from previous husband/wife detectives is their age. Nick is 70 and a retired computer expert who loves to sing. Lexie is a 65-year-old investigative reporter who, in the first chapter, is forced into retirement.
Nick convinces Lexie to join The Golden Stars, a group of senior citizens who perform variety shows. While Nick possesses a beautiful baritone voice, Lexie has no performing talents whatsoever. But when a body is found at a show, Lexie puts her investigative skills to work.
Like the Kimberley West series, the Nick and Lexie series will feature realistic, likeable characters
This past summer, I released a cozy mystery written specifically to make people laugh. The Poodle Who Sang Undercover is a total deviation from my previous books because the main characters are a teenaged girl and a pair of wise-cracking dog detectives. The trio team up to save the Top Dog Detective Agency from bankruptcy. Seeing the world through these amateur sleuth’s eyes is great fun.
Readers reported that the book made them laugh out loud. Their enthusiasm keeps pushing the book onto Amazon’s American Humor bestseller list.
Readers asked for more, so I’m currently working on a sequel.
So I have a lot of writing to do!

Fantastic, starting with this interview. The insightful questions that you asked pushed me to dig deep for answers. That is so, so rare these days. Thanks to you, readers and writers can enjoy interviews that reveal useful information.
I’m so grateful for AllAuthor. Even though I write with my readers in mind, writing is a solitary profession. The support from AllAuthor has been invaluable. Every member is friendly and so giving of her or his time. AllAuthor is truly a special place.