Good Hair Is the Best Revenge

When I heard that the theme this week at Pens Fatales was “revenge,” I immediately ducked my head, hunched my shoulders, and let out a low roll of evil laughter. Finally, a topic I could sink my teeth into! One of the things I love about writing – and in particular, about writing mysteries – is that I can let my characters do all the crazy things that I would never dare to do in real life. Oh no. In real life, I’m all tight smiles when someone does me wrong.

But in fiction, oh boy. No holds barred!

There’s a fabulous scene in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes that captures perfectly what I mean. Some young bimbo steals Kathy Bates’s parking spot. In real life, we’d continue circling the parking lot, muttering under our breath. But in the movie, Kathy did what we all want to do – she deliberately crashed her car into that bimbo’s car. And then she did it again. What a moment!

Writers get to live that joy every day, by having our characters behave in ways that make us gasp and giggle and cheer. So I started thinking, who in my real life deserves revenge? Not my husband. He’s a doll. (An anatomically correct doll, too, thank goodness!) Not my editor. She’s fabulous. She helped me shape If Books Could Kill into a book that I’m proud to present to the world. It’s been pure pleasure working with her.

No, if I were to seek revenge against anyone in my life, it would have to be my hairdresser. Actually, every hairdresser who ever promised me she could turn my mop into something presentable but instead forced me to face the public looking like… well, like this, for example.

Okay, so revenge against Bitsy, a composite of every hairdresser who has failed me. And believe me, there have been major fails!

So who is Bitsy? She’s in her early 20s, and she chews gum so much that her jaw muscles rival Clint Eastwood’s. She asks me questions and then talks loudly to her colleague at the next mirror while I answer. Her fingernails are approaching Guinness Book of World Records length, and when she runs them through my hair, strands get caught and yank painfully at my scalp. Worst of all, when she’s done, she tells me I look fabulous and convinces me that it’s true. When I step outside the salon, people point and laugh. A four-year-old shrieks and hides behind her mother.

Do you recognize Bitsy?

Do you want to help me kill her?

How does Bitsy die? What does her in? Not a gun. That’s too mundane. Revenge is personal, especially in good fiction. Maybe her own shears buried between her shoulder blades? But no. She wouldn’t have seen what was coming, and Bitsy needs to admit her sins before her big death scene. Help me out here. Let’s brainstorm together. How should Bitsy die? What should her last words be? And while we’re at it, share your own hair horror stories!

Bestselling author Kate Carlisle spent over twenty years working in television production as an Associate Director for game and variety shows, including The Midnight Special, Solid Gold and The Gong Show. She traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show. She also studied acting and singing, toiled in vineyards, collected books, joined a commune, sold fried chicken, modeled spring fashions and worked for a cruise ship line, but it was the year she spent in law school that finally drove her to begin writing fiction. It seemed the safest way to kill off her professors. Those professors are breathing easier now that Kate spends most of her time writing near the beach in Southern California where she lives with her perfect husband.

Visit Kate online at http://www.katecarlisle.com/ or www.Facebook.com/KateCarlisleBooks