GUEST POST: Creating a Cohesive Collection

My friend Judy Penz Sheluk has twice been a guest columnist here at SleuthSayers--once in 2021 and once in 2023. Today, at our regular two-year interval, I'm pleased to have her here for another guest post, this one to celebrate the latest book in her Superior Shores Anthology series. Please join me in welcoming her once again.

--John Floyd

Creating a Cohesive Collection

by Judy Penz Sheluk

I've acquired a few skills during my corporate life as a credit manager (among other finance-related jobs) and as a magazine editor for multiple publications, but one of the most important was a good working knowledge of Excel, spreadsheets being a good way to number crunch and manage budgets. Even so, I never thought I'd use it as a tool to help me determine the order of the stories in my Superior Shores Anthologies. But that's exactly what I've done, each and every time.

Let's take my most recent multi-author anthology, Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense, released on June 18th. Admittedly, much of the heavy lifting lies in culling down the 80 submissions to a manageable number, but turning the selected stories into a cohesive collection isn't quite as simple as it might seem on the surface. That's where my handy-dandy spreadsheet comes in. Here's a step-by-step look at how it works:

1. Set up five columns: Order (1-22), author name, title, word count, and comments.

2. Select which story will be first and mark that as number 1 under the column titled 'Order.' I spend a lot of time deciding what story will be first, because that sets the stage for the rest of the collection. In the case of Midnight Schemers, I chose Charlie Kondek's 'Secretly Keith,' the tale of a cover band guitarist who decides the time is right to rob barroom bookie Big John Warmer. At just under 3,500 words, it's middle of the pack in length, and as you've probably guessed, things don't go according to plan for our scheming, daydreaming, and very misguided musician.

3. Mark 'A Foolproof Plan,' my story of a woman desperate for a new life, as number 22, the last entry--it just doesn't feel right to put my own story ahead of any of the other authors. At just over 1,800 words, it's the shortest in the collection, which brings me to...

4. Select #21: the lead-in to the final story. Preferably long, and completely different in every way. In this case, I selected C. W. Blackwell's 'Making Up for Lost Time,' which clocks in at about 5,000 words, a poignant tale of a down-on-his-luck divorced dad and his daughter.

5. Sort the remainder of the stories by word count. In this way, I can begin to vary the order by story length, i.e., long, medium, short, long, medium, short, and so on.

6. Of course, just sorting by length isn't enough. That's where my Comments column, a one-sentence reminder about the content, comes in. It wouldn't do, for example, to have Pam Barnsley's homeless man in 'The Underground,' compete with C.W. Blackwell's down-on-his-luck dad. That said, at roughly 2,500 words, it's not long enough to follow Charlie Kondek's mid-length opener. The balance? Inserting Susan Daly's 5,000 word 'A Talent for Fame' between the two.

7. The heavy lifting done, I tinker with the order until it's right. Sort, re-sort. Re-read the intro of each story until I'm finally satisfied it's as good as it's going to get. After all, even the most devoted tinkerers have to let go sometime.

READERS: Do you pay attention to the order of stories? Or do you read them based on author name recognition, story title, and/or length?

About Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense:

Desire or desperation, revenge or retribution--how far would you go to realize a dream? The twenty-two authors in this collection explore the possibilities, with predictably unpredictable results. 

Featuring stories by Pam Barnsley, Linda Bennett, Clark Boyd, C. W. Blackwell, Amanda Capper, Susan Daly, James Patrick Focarile, Rand Gaynor, Gina X. Grant, Julie Hastrup, Beth Irish, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Jim McDonald, donalee Moulton, Michael Penncavage, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Peggy Rothschild, Debra Bliss Saenger, and Joseph S. Walker.

Find it at www.books2read.com/midnight-schemers

About Judy: The Past Chair of Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) and a former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk (author/editor) is the multiple award-winning author of seven bestselling mystery novels, two books on publishing, and several short stories. She is also the editor/publisher of five Superior Shores Anthologies. In addition to CWC, Judy is a member of International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Find her at www.judypenzsheluk.com