Mystery Writing Tips

Delivering Scares in Cozies and Other Genres

November 2, 2018October 26, 2018Mystery Writing Tips, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Hope everyone had a good Halloween. Apparently I still have scary stuff on the brain. :)

The subjective nature of fear:

I’m not usually a fan of being terrified when I read or watch something. And I think I have a very low-threshold in terms of what’s scary. I recommended the first “Halloween” movie to my father last month (he’d never seen it). He was glad he watched it because he now understands a lot of pop-culture references. But he didn’t think it was scary . . . and the film scared me to death. I think the scariest moment was at the very beginning of the movie when two girls were walking home from school in broad daylight and one of them, and the viewer, sees a creepy man wearing a mask by a row of bushes. It bothered me because it came out of nowhere: it wasn’t even nighttime. And it took place in a public (which I equate to safe) location.

My high school senior daughter had to watch “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” last week at a school film club for extra credit for a sociology class (I know, I was baffled, too, ha). Before she left, I warned her that it was very scary. She came back to tell me that it wasn’t scary . . . it was disturbing.

So I struck out twice on what was scary. To two different generations.

Knowing reader expectations for what’s scary in your genre:

I don’t think it matters too much that I’m such a chicken when it comes to scary books and movies. That’s because I understand that I’m on the same wavelength with my readers. Once when I was writing a book for the Memphis Barbeque series and scared myself in the process (the only time I’ve done this except when writing my zombie book). I immediately realized the scene was too dark and needed to be toned down.

For cozies, I think the expectation is more for tension than fear. Cozies are generally an escape. Tense moments are fine. But too much darkness and drawn-out scares are probably more fitting for other genres. Of course writers can write however they want…but to be more of a commercial match for the audience, it’s a good idea to keep reader expectations in mind.

The premise of cozies is “the killer among us.” That, to me, is scary enough. Unlike some genres, the cozy mystery presents the murderer as someone in our neighborhood, our family, our quilt guild, our church.

Maybe you write for a genre that has some latitude with its scares. For further reading on delivering fright, read:

“How to Tell Scary Stories, from the Co-Creator of ‘American Horror Story‘ : 8 tips from Brad Falchuk via Joe Berkowitz

“Writing Scary Scenes”: tips from writer Rayne Hall

“How to Write a Scary Scene“: by Susan Dennard

How tolerant are you of being scared? How scary are your books?

Delivering Genre-Appropriate Scares to Your Readers: Click To Tweet

Photo credit: Pensiero on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-ND

Writing the Cozy Mystery: Series Tropes and Rituals

October 8, 2018September 6, 2018Mystery Writing Tips, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve touched on this topic before, although before I was sort of working it through in my mind. What I’m calling ‘series tropes,’ which is what writer Camille LaGuire termed ‘rituals,’ are those little recurring bits that turn up book after book in a series (this post is specific to cozies, but I know other genres use these elements, too).

Examples:

In M.C. Beaton’s Hamish MacBeth series, it’s Hamish’s hapless love affairs, laziness, and crazy pets. For Hercule Poirot, it’s his vanity and OCD behavior. With Miss Marple, we expect her to compare everything and everyone to situations and people in St. Mary Mead, her village.

In my books, the tropes include Myrtle’s insomnia and post-midnight treks, Miles’s hypochondria, Puddin’s ‘thrown’ back, silly book club books, the way Myrtle’s soap opera helps her figure out the killer, and Myrtle’s horrible cooking.

How to Use Them:

Humor: You can use them straight out for humorous effect that resonates with regular readers. You can also twist the tropes and provide variations on the themes to make them even funnier (while putting the characters in situations that make them uncomfortable).

Sense of continuity: I think it provides a certain full-circle feeling for regular series readers. They expect certain things are going to happen. It fulfills reader expectations. It’s almost like seeing a familiar landmark.

As a method to check in with recurring characters: This is important for those of us who have regulars in our series. Readers like to ‘catch up’ with characters who are like old friends and our tropes can provide opportunities for them to do so.

Tracking them:

This is the easy part. List all of your recurring storylines into a master list by series. I have a staggering 18 in the Myrtle series alone. I keep them in a Word doc that I review before each book.

Why should we include these rituals? Mostly because readers enjoy them. I struggled with it as a writer, thinking that maybe I was relying on these tropes as crutches. But when I left them out, readers wrote me. Now I go off my list, think of fun, new ways to use or twist them, and don’t worry about including them. They’re clearly beneficial to my books.

For my other articles on writing cozy mysteries, see this link.

Do you have any recurring tropes in your series? Do you keep track of them?

Series Tropes and Rituals in the Cozy Mystery: Click To Tweet

Photo on Visualhunt

Writing the Cozy Mystery: The Right Motive

September 28, 2018September 27, 2018Mystery Writing Tips

by Elizabeth Spann Craig, @elizabethscraig

I can only imagine the number of murder motives that I’ve come across in the last 35 years that I’ve read and watched mysteries.

While writing cozy mysteries, I think finding a motive can be a bit tricky. Although there’s some breadth out there in terms of how writers approach cozies, a large number of cozy readers seem to appreciate a very traditional approach…nothing too gritty. They want an escape in which the reader helps the sleuth find the killer.

This means that a recent mystery I watched where the motive involved revenge for past child abuse wouldn’t really be a great pick for the audience. Drug addiction can be tough too, although doable if treated carefully.

In my books, I tend to play it very safe. The motives are still what I consider real life motives, but they’re more toned down.Continue reading

Developing Your Cozy Mystery Story Concept

April 23, 2018April 12, 2018Mystery Writing Tips, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

One of the questions I’m most asked when I speak is how I come up with my ideas. This, of course, is probably the number one question that all writers are asked when they’re public speaking. At least I usually am asked a variant of the question because they want to know how I come up with mysteries.

I usually say that I start with the victim. And that’s true … about 75% of the time. It’s an easy way to start out a cozy mystery. You can develop someone who’s either really hateful and has plenty of enemies or create a character who seems too good to be true…and is.

Once I have a good idea who my victim is, it’s easy enough to come up with my suspects. Who would most want this person dead? An ex-wife? A neighbor he’s had disputes with? The husband of the woman he’s having an affair with? The suspects come together naturally when you really know your victim.Continue reading

Recaps in Mysteries

April 20, 2018April 19, 2018Mystery Writing Tips, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Recently, I was looking over my customer reviews on Goodreads (I know…I rarely read my reviews there, although I always read them on Amazon) and one of them stood out to me. A reader said that he especially appreciated the way that I handled recaps because he was able to catch back up when his Kindle malfunctioned and skipped ahead.

The Best Way to Recap:

I think the best way to handle recaps (especially in a cozy mystery) is to have them between the sidekick and the sleuth. Otherwise, you end up in a situation where you have a lot of interior dialogue. That makes your sleuth engage in too much thinking and not enough doing. Even for the slower pace of a cozy mystery, that can slow the story’s pace down a little too much.

Although:

I find it’s also helpful for the sleuth to think private editorial comments while interviewing suspects. Especially if something a suspect says directly contradicts something that another suspect said. I keep it very brief and keep things moving in the interview. It’s the sleuth registering contradictions (which helps the reader notice them, too). Continue reading