Welcome to our mini-series on A Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology, which celebrates the writers whose stories are featured in our inaugural volume.
Today, Caitlin McColl is telling us what inspired her story “Trinity Falls.”
What inspired my story? A few things:
I wrote some mystery stories in the past but they were more straight up detective stories. I’d never written a cozy mystery and thought it would be interesting to try to write a story using the ‘rules’ of the cozy – especially the idea of it taking place in a small town.
Lately I’ve been on a crime/thriller binge after discovering a few new mystery/crime writers, so that helped with some inspiration. There’s also a few cozy mystery TV series that I love: Agatha Raisin, Murdoch Mysteries, Queens of Mystery…. and maybe even Nancy Drew (yes, I admit, I watched a few seasons of the teen mystery drama!).
But I love the main character in my story because…well, she’s actually a main character in some of my Steampunk fiction! But of course, my anthology story isn’t steampunk, so she’s not exactly the same character – but what she does as a job in my Steampunk stories was a perfect fit for a cozy mystery!
So, it was mostly my main character that inspired my story. That, and for some reason, despite having been there only once many years ago, I pictured the town my story takes place in being something like a small town on the East Coast of North America – which is strange, seeing how I live on the West Coast! But the west coast didn’t seem to have the same vibe as the east coast for a mystery.
Caitlin McColl has written many short stories since childhood, mainly fantasy—with dragons, wizards, and other fantastical monsters. Her areas of interest are fantasy and steampunk fiction, but once in a while she also delves into genres like crime. Which makes sense because she watches a lot of crime dramas and reads lots of crime thrillers. She lives in Vancouver, Canada with her husband and dog. She currently writes stories and articles on Medium.com.
Website: https://caitlinmccoll.wixsite.com/author
Thank you for sending us your story, Caitlin! We know people will love reading it as much as we have.
Today’s instalment concludes this year’s series. We hope that you enjoyed learning more from the contributors to our anthology. 🙂
In the meantime, don’t forget to order your copy of A Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology: Volume 1.
Cendrine & David
