Behind the story of Death on the Set by Rose Kerr

Rose Kerr grew up in a small community in Nova Scotia. She’s a strong believer in lifelong learning and took a number of creative writing courses to prepare her for the task of crafting a mystery. Death on the Set is her first Brenna Flynn Mystery.

A long writing journey to Death on the Set

Rose Kerr started her writing journey in 2014. It took her eight years to be traditionally published. She said, “I came from a business writing background. Writing mysteries is very different! I took creative writing classes, how to craft a mystery classes, and countless workshops to learn the skills needed to write mysteries. I read a lot of cozy mysteries and deconstructed them to see the different ways authors incorporated plot, character, red herrings, and setting.
“Once I started querying, it took over fifty rejections to find my agent. The phone call with her telling me she loved my characters sent me over the moon with joy. She helped me get the book in great shape and ready for querying publishers.”
Fortunately for Rose, she never gave up.

Lessons from life

We’ve all faced adversity in our lives. Author Rose Kerr believes it’s how you handle the adversity that determines how well you will do in life. “Losing a job, a death in the family are all pretty high on the stress scale. Learning to manage stress in life is important. Like me, my character has to deal with those two issues in the book. And again, like me, she has help from her family and friends and she’s smart enough to know to accept help. But she’s also determined to make her own way in life. She doesn’t give up on herself. Like most people, she has moments of self-doubt, but she perseveres. I believe there are always people you can count on when you need help and you become stronger than you were before. And I know you can do things you’ve never done before. You just have to keep learning.”

Cozies, food, and the Mexico connection

“I knew I wanted to write a cozy mystery but wasn’t sure what my sleuth would be doing as her work. I was watching a cooking reality show, and the head chef was being particularly nasty in one episode. I said to my son, who was watching the episode with me, ‘That chef is going to get himself killed one day.’ My son responded with, ’There’s your story!’ I knew reality shows could be fraught with tension because of personalities involved, but I wasn’t familiar with how the shows worked.
“We were on vacation in Mexico when I met a woman who was a production assistant for a cooking show. As we chatted about her job, I knew what my sleuth’s job would be, at least for this book. Brenna, my main character, will work in different temp jobs throughout the series.”

Life’s little funnies

Rose said that when she gets stuck in a story, she goes for a walk with her dog. “I let my mind run wild with ideas for whatever I’m stuck with. When I come up with a solution, I’ll pull my phone out and dictate notes. I was dictating a note about how the killer was going to introduce poison when I encountered someone walking by me on the trail. The look they gave me made me laugh out loud. I called out to them that I was a writer, but that just made them walk away faster.

Less public is the act of watching reality TV. Rose admits to watching ‘countless episodes’ of Chopped, MasterChef, Hell’s Kitchen, and Top Chef. In fact, she not only watched, she studied them and took notes.

“I even started trying some of the techniques I watched on the shows in my kitchen. I paid attention to the knife skills of the chefs and even slowed the frames down so I could see where hands were placed on the knife and on the food that was being chopped. Note to self: pay attention to where the knife blade is.

Those chef knives are sharp!

“As for trying recipes, there were countless disasters! One fondly called participation bread because we had to chew so much to eat it! And peanut butter and chocolate brownies that didn’t quite set properly that needed a spoon to be eaten! Messy but tasty, especially over ice cream! That would be why there are no recipes in my books.”

Learn more about Rose Kerr or Death on the Set at rosekerr.com. Did you like this interview? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.