Karen E. Olson - Pretty in Ink!

Posted by Kate

I’m delighted to introduce you to Karen E. Olson, who writes the fabulously fun new Tattoo Shop mystery series for NAL. I'm completely hooked on this series that feature tattoo artist Brett Kavanaugh and a cast of characters that include her hunky police detective brother Tim and a suave, enigmatic Englishman named Simon Chase. Hmm. No wonder I love these books!

Here's Karen!

As a longtime newspaper copy editor, part of my job was to write headlines. When you think about it, a book title isn’t that different from a headline: It should be short and snappy and catch people’s eye. However, I was never a great headline writer, which did not bode well for me when I had to come up with titles for my books.

I was almost done with the first in my tattoo shop mystery series before I had a title. At least one that my editor loved. I’d sent her 50 title suggestions, but each one got shot down. Kristen kept telling me that they just weren’t what they were looking for. Finally, my husband suggested THE MISSING INK, which I thought was too silly, but Kristen said it was perfect (NAL loves puns, just look at their other titles).

Because I have a little bit of OCD (most women do, especially those of us who are moms), I decided that I would keep INK in all my titles. I went on the Internet and looked up words that rhyme with ink and found phrases to play off in the books’ titles.

PRETTY IN INK was easy. It would be the second in the series. It was also the first book I started writing with a title in mind. But what would the book be about?

I hadn’t thought that far ahead; all I could think of was the Molly Ringwald movie from the ‘80s. So using that as a starting point, I thought maybe I could write about some sort of young girl, a pretty young girl, and ingénue perhaps. I thought about a plot that could involve a Britney Spears or a Miley Cyrus or a Lindsay Lohan type of character.

But everyone would expect that.

So I came up with drag queens.

What’s prettier than a roomful of drag queens? All that glitter and glitz and makeup and sparkly shoes and feathery boas. Not to mention that the book takes place in Las Vegas, the glitz capital of the world. No, it absolutely had to be drag queens.

Drag queens with tattoos. Even better.

Now, I did not know any drag queens personally, and I figured I had to find at least one to interview before I could start writing. I don’t live in Vegas, in fact, I’m a plane ride and a connection away in New England. But Serendipity waved her magic wand, and during an interview, I was telling a reporter about how I needed to find a drag queen and amazingly, she produced a phone number. Apparently there’s a huge drag queen contingent in New Haven. Go figure.

I met Brett (remarkably he had the same name as my tattoo artist protagonist!) at the clothing boutique where he worked (and spent time trying on the dresses when there was no one in the store). He told me all his secrets (rice in his bra for a more natural look; two pairs of very tight Speedos to keep his, um, jewels in place). His drag name is Levitra Champagne.

I had a blast coming up with names for my drag queens: Britney Brassieres, Miranda Rites, MissTique, Shanda Leer. It was so much easier to name them than to come up with titles! I gave them a roomful of beautiful, buff boys to perform with at Chez Tango, just off the Strip somewhere near Fremont Street (have to keep it vague or someone might actually go looking for it). And then they start dying. It’s a murder mystery. What else could happen?

Do titles entice you to pick up a book? Do you like titles with puns in them? And if you could come up with a name for a drag queen, what would it be?

Be sure to visit http://www.kareneolson.com/ to find out more about Karen and read excerpts from her books.

And Karen is giving away a copy of her first Tattoo Shop mystery, THE MISSING INK, to one lucky random commenter today! Good luck!