Ian Ferguson
Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson are the authors of the new novel I Only Read Murder. Their other books include How to Be a Canadian. Ian Ferguson lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and his brother Will Ferguson lives in Calgary, Alberta.
Q: What inspired you to write I Only Read Murder, and how did you create your character Miranda Abbott?
A: The book, and subsequent series, really began as a COVID lock-down project. We were both stuck at home and a little bored so we decided to come up with a project we could work on together.
Ian had an idea about an actor who used to play a crime-solving amateur detective who ends up solving a real-life murder.
Originally the character was going to be a man, and the show he’d starred in was called “Pastor Fred Investigates,” but quite early on, while we were still sorting out the plot, we decided it would be more interesting to make the character an actress who doesn’t realize she’s no longer famous.
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| Will Ferguson |
So, we changed to Miranda Abbott and “Pastor Fran Investigates,” and she became a more complicated and enjoyable character to write about.
Q: Without giving anything away, did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: We had the final twist and the identity of the murderer figured out before we started writing, but many, if not most, of the twists and turns and suspects and red herrings were discovered along the way as we wrote the first book.
Q: As award-winning writers of humor, what do you see as the role of humor in a mystery novel?
A: We felt people would enjoy a mystery that made them laugh. We wanted I Only Read Murder to be really funny, but we also wanted it to be a well-constructed mystery.
Hopefully the humor helps readers enjoy the story and become invested in the different characters and suspects. Humor in any genre seems to make the subject matter more accessible.
Q: How did you collaborate on this novel? What was your writing process like?
A: We got asked once if we’d used a “shared Google Doc” to work on the book. Neither of us had any idea what those words meant.
We spent a lot of time on the telephone, making each other laugh and challenging each other with plot twists and reveals, and we emailed the manuscript back and forth adding and changing it as we went along.
As an example of our process, Will once added a bit about an unlocked window at the Opera House, Ian asked “Great, what does that mean?” Will replied “Figure it out!” And that unlocked window ended up becoming a significant clue.
So, there was a real advantage to collaborating; we kept each other on our toes.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The second Miranda Abbott book, Mystery in the Title, is now being edited and we just completed the first draft of the outline for the third Miranda Abbott mystery, Killer on the First Page. We’re both also onto solo projects and stand-alone novels.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The Miranda Abbott books are a lot of fun to write. We believe that if we’re enjoying writing them, readers will enjoy reading them. And as long as readers are enjoying them, we’ll keep writing them.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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