Author Lynn Slaughter is best known for her four award-winning young adult romantic mysteries: DEADLY SETUP, LEISHA’S SONG, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, AND WHILE I DANCED. It’s my pleasure to welcome her today while she discusses “changing writing lanes” — making the transition from YA to Adult mystery. Take it away, Lynn:

Thanks, Judy. My adult mystery, MISSED CUE, comes out on August 8. As a young adult novelist who specializes in coming-of-age romantic mysteries, there’s no question I’ve veered out of my usual writing lane. Not surprisingly, one of the most common questions I get asked is: What have you found to be the differences between writing for teens versus writing for adults?

I feel as though I should have something profound to say about the difference, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I just didn’t experience an enormous distinction! For both, my approach has been remarkably similar. I immerse myself in the world of my characters and spend lots of time thinking and writing about their backstories and what has shaped their personalities before I begin drafting my novels. And yes, I write mysteries, so of course, by the end, I want my protagonists to have encountered numerous obstacles on route to solving the crime. But for both, beyond solving the mystery, I’m interested in character growth and change.

That’s not to say that the developmental challenges at various stages of our lives aren’t distinctively different. Our forty-year-old character, for example, may be wondering about “the road not taken” in personal or career relationships and contemplating some sort of course correction. Our seventy-year-old amateur sleuth may be searching for purpose and meaning in her post-retirement life.

Adolescents obviously have different issues. They’re dealing with changes on every front—physical, cognitive, and emotional, while trying to figure out basic issues of identity. Who am I and who do I want to be and become? Where do I fit? Who is my tribe?

And when difficult experiences happen to teens, they can be especially painful and traumatic because they lack the real-life experience of having survived tough times. Reading about other teenagers who are also struggling and watching them resolve their own conflicts and survive heartbreaks can be enormously comforting. And immersing themselves in the world of protagonists their own age (or slightly older) and watching them grow and change offers hope for a more positive future. In fact, a hallmark of young adult literature is that protagonists end up with some type of hope that things are getting better, or they will.

But isn’t that also what we find satisfying in our adult novels? If we’ve done our job right as mystery writers, we’ve created characters whose emotional journey matters. We don’t just read for the pleasure of the crime solved and justice restored. We’re also invested in our characters’ personal lives, and it’s satisfying to see them continue to grow and change.

In MISSED CUE, for example, my protagonist, Caitlin O’Connor, is a homicide detective confronted with the most complicated case of her career. A revered and apparently healthy ballerina has died onstage, and the autopsy reveals no clear cause of death. Caitlin not only has to figure out who killed the dancer but how they did it.

But like all interesting characters, Caitlin is more than her job. She’s also dealing with a longstanding pattern in her life of getting involved with married men, most recently the medical examiner she works with. She feels guilty and finally goes into therapy to figure out why she keeps doing this to herself. Her journey toward better self-understanding and the beginnings of a relationship with a man who’s actually available is a big part of her story that I hope readers will connect with.

So, maybe I haven’t so much veered out of my writing lane as I have broadened it. Whether writing for adults or teens, I think it comes down to creating characters we care about and root for.

Lynn Slaughter is addicted to the arts, chocolate, and her husband’s cooking. After a long career as a professional dancer and dance educator, Lynn earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Her first mystery for adults, MISSED CUE, comes out from Melange Books in August of 2023. She is also the author of four award-winning young adult romantic mysteries. Lynn lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where she’s at work on her next novel and is an active member and former president of Derby Rotten Scoundrels, the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. Find her at lynnslaughter.com.

FIND MISSED CUE on Amazon