Katherine Burnette has some tried-and-true advice for aspiring novelists: Treat it like another job and set aside some time to write every day, to help you stay in practice. That advice has served her well as she recently published her first book while keeping her “day job.”
Burnette lives in Oxford and is a district court judge in Raleigh. She serves the 9th District, which includes Granville, Vance, Franklin, Warren and Person counties. And she spoke with Bill Harris on Wednesday’s Town Talk about her debut novel, Judge’s Waltz.
The novel takes place in Oxford and in Raleigh, and Burnette said setting is important to her and her writing. “Living in Oxford and working in Raleigh – those places are very dear to me,” she said.
Her second novel, tentatively titled Killing Her Sharply, is set in Oxford and Henderson. It’s another crime story about detectives solving murders. She hasn’t had much time since March or so to work on the second book, but she is using this time to get feedback from some writers’ groups she is involved with, especially from the non-lawyers in the group.
It’s important for Burnette to strike that balance that creates compelling reading without getting too bogged down with legal terminology and processes that can make a book boring.
“It’s easy because I have been an attorney and know about some parts of the court system,” she explained, “but I don’t want it to be so technical that people say ‘No, I’m not going to read that.’”
Except for maybe a traffic violation or probate court when settling estates, the average person doesn’t have much experience with how a court operates. Burnette said she wants to give her readers a real sense of what’s involved inside a courtroom or courthouse, and said she draws on her own experiences to paint that picture.
But, she said, “I would say that 99 percent is created out of my head.”
In Judge’s Waltz, for example, a federal judge is found dead and local officials are called in because the FBI is busy. One investigator and her sergeant are in charge of the investigation, and what turns up about the unscrupulous judge’s demise creates a real whodunit.
The second novel has a few of the same characters that Burnette created in Judge’s Waltz.
“I wanted my characters to feel alive and have emotions and not be two-dimensional,” she said. That is part of the craft of writing – and Burnette stepped up her game to make sure she knew exactly how to do that.
“Studying the craft is an important thing to do,” she said. She obtained a master’s in creative writing “to make sure that when I got back into the novel, I could make it enjoyable.”
Elementary-school students are taught that good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. And Burnette would agree with that part of the craft of writing.
“The middle part is the hardest,” she said. “You get excited about the beginning and know where (you) want it to end.” But developing the story line to get to the end – to keep the momentum going, is where it can get a little challenging.
In Judge’s Waltz, she said she tried to develop the story line threads so hopefully readers don’t guess who “did it” until the end of the book.
She hopes the second book will be out early next year. “I know where I’m going, but I need to get there,” she said of her writing process.
Purchase Judge’s Waltz in Oxford at This ‘n’ That in downtown Oxford, at the Regulator Bookstore in Durham and online where books are sold.