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You wouldn’t think those three inches of snow we got Friday would make such a mess of the roads. The brine and the melting, muddy snow was tossed up on my car from cars and trucks and sent me off to the car wash Sunday.

As I do any time I’m waiting for longer than 5 minutes, I pulled out my notebook and started writing, right there in the car wash waiting room. I even had a handy dandy note to myself at the top of the page, to remind me where I needed to pick up the story.

A couple of minutes later, someone plopped down in the seat next to me. This was a little annoying to me, since the car wash waiting room had plenty of extra seats. But I’ve gotten really disciplined, so I kept writing without even looking up.

“Hi babe,” said this really odd voice. Oh great. I leaned way over to the right, away from the weird man and continued writing (although I was pretty sure I was writing complete crap by now.)

“Come here often?” asked the strange voice. “Whatcha writin’?”

I drew in a deep breath and looked up, scowling in a most discouraging, icy, and—I hoped—unattractive way.

And saw my husband grinning at me.

I could have wrung his neck. He’d done a great job disguising his voice and wasn’t supposed to be there—but he was getting his car inspected next door (North Carolina has annual emissions and equipment testing) and had seen me drive in, so he’d walked over.

We had a nice little conversation…although, technically, he was keeping me from my goal. My plan was to get some work done in the 15-20 minutes that it took to wash and vacuum my car. It was a very small hiccup in my plan to fit writing in on a chaotic Sunday, but I had been thwarted. In the nicest possible way, of course.

I realized, later, that I’ve written a lot of little hiccups in my plots, too. It doesn’t always have to be Lex Luthor armed with Kryptonite to temporarily keep a protagonist from their goal and create a little stress. Yes, I have a killer on the rampage, throwing up all kinds of roadblocks and determined to keep my sleuth from finding out his identity. But there are other small obstacles for discovering the truth.

It can be an ordinary or trivial thing that takes the day on a new path:

An unexpected visit by a well-meaning friend.

A long phone call.

Car trouble.

Power outage.

Computers that aren’t working.

Characters who discourage or doubt our protagonist’s abilities.

A broken alarm clock.

Poor health.

Lies our protagonist believes are truths (my suspects lie to my sleuth all the time.)

These are small things…but they make believable conflicts that can put our protagonist at the wrong place at the wrong time, send them off in an unproductive direction, or temporarily keep them from their goal.

You still have the main conflict going on in the background. We still need the Lex Luthors in the story. But it’s great to work in extra bits of conflict, delays, and distractions, too.

And the nice thing is that readers won’t even think our storyline hiccups farfetched.

Because our days are full of distractions.

I have a hard time keeping my seventh grade son in books. It’s a nice problem to have.

After scouring some book blogs, I came up with four books that had been highly recommended by (admittedly) adults.

I put the books up in his room. After a few hours, he came out.

“Mom? I don’t mean anything by this…but I hate all those books you got me.”

I sat back in the chair and stared at him. “But they’re supposed to be good!”

“They’re depressing. I read the first four or five chapters of all of them. I feel like I know the characters and they’re in these hopeless situations and depressing things keep happening.”

“Well, but honey, I’m positive the books will end happily. They’re YA.”

He gave a short laugh. “No. They don’t end well. Because when I realized I’d never in a million years read these books all the way through, I read the endings. They all had these awful endings. And now I can’t get the stories out of my head!”

I’d spent a good hour researching books for him. I thought that at least one of the books would make the cut.

This made me realize that many books and movies that are critically acclaimed aren’t the happiest stories in the world. And they might not be right for everybody. I seemed to have wandered into the literary fiction area of YA.

My son seems to like stories of people in difficult circumstances that rise above them. He likes steps toward conflict resolution fairly early—with setbacks and challenges continuing. I see him as a fantasy/sci fi reader mainly.

The books he wasn’t interested in seemed to have this sort of a pattern:

Opening crisis.
Deepening crisis.
More characters are introduced and they are sucked into the crisis, exacerbating the tension.
The characters encounter setbacks as they struggle for conflict resolution.
There is some hope offered in a couple of plotlines at the end of the book. But not for the main character at the end.

In fact, these books follow a Lord of the Flies pattern almost exactly.

My own stories seem to follow this pattern:

*Initial sunny, happy, quiet scene. (Apart from a foreshadowing prologue.)
*Major conflict. (In my books, this is a violent death.)
*The protagonist takes action to resolve the problem (whodunit).
*A major setback.
*More action by the protagonist. Some progress.
*A confrontation.
*A resolution.

Are your books heavy? Do they end with a happy resolution? Do you see patterns in your plots at all?

If you were following the discussion Friday on genre blending, pop over to the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen today where guest poster, Dead Air author, and clinical psychologist Mary Kennedy shares insights into developing her character’s personal life at www.MysteryLoversKitchen.com

First of all, I wanted to mention that Cleo’s interesting discussion on genre blending continued far into the comments section yesterday. She made some fascinating points about transitioning into a mainstream author if you’re starting out as a genre writer. And why is some genre fiction published as mainstream fiction (for example, Janet Evanovich)? Find out in the comments: Genre Blending and Your Character’s Love Life.

I have a feeling I’m not going to inspire pity in many of you when I say that it’s snowing here in Matthews, North Carolina. And we might even get five inches, y’all!

Snow here means an obligatory run to the store for bread and milk. My father says Southerners act like we’re preparing for the Siege of Leningrad when we get snow. I did make the pilgrimage to the store…but mainly because I was actually out of bread and milk and knew the shelves would be bare by 10 a.m. once news of the approaching snow leaked out.

Weather has just never been a focal point of my stories before. It’s always been a complement to the plot—I’m fond of hot, sticky, graveside funeral services in my books. Lots of people dressed up and sweating profusely, full of discomfort from the heat and humidity (and possibly because they murdered the dear deceased.)

This may have to change. Lately, I’ve felt assaulted by the weather. It hasn’t stayed in the background like it usually does. It’s been sassily sticking its tongue out at me. It’s making me pay attention.

So I’m mulling over my possibilities.

Weather could…

Cut people off from other people. Leave them stranded. This might be a good way to create some conflict. If you are stranded with people? They might get on your nerves.

Cause accidents and health issues (heat stroke and heat exhaustion occur here in the South.)

Change plans. The weather could provide an avenue for changing the course of a story—a canceled flight. An impassable roadway.

Affect pace. Wonder why people in the American South move and talk so slowly? It’s the heat and humidity. It’s honestly even hard to think down here when things really get heated up. Life moves at a slower pace.

Create power outages. Which can be a real bummer. I can think of all kinds of problems power outages could trigger. For my fellow crime writers, blackouts could create the right opportunity for a murder or other crime.

Affect characters’ moods. Too much rain can make you down. Heat spells can result in fights breaking out and tempers flaring.

Be symbolic. Well, we’ve all seen the huge storm that symbolizes a character’s inner turmoil. But there are ways to turn trite symbols on their heads. Maybe the weather is determinedly sunny—like the character determined to plaster a smile on his face during his personal tragedy.

Does weather play a major role in your books, or is it relegated to the background as it normally is in mine?

A former journalist, Alice Alfonsi is a multi-published author in several genres and a New York Times best-selling media tie-in writer. Under the pen name Cleo Coyle, she pens two nationally bestselling mystery series for Penguin in collaboration with her husband, Marc Cerasini, the first of which, On What Grounds: A Coffeehouse Mystery, is now in its fourteenth printing. Her most current project under her own name is an adaptation of the screenplay for the upcoming feature film Tron: Legacy into a junior novel.

Genre Blending and Your Character’s Love Life

Differences in genres are sometimes easy to recognize and sometimes not so easy. A small percentage of bookstore customers may puzzle over why the trade markets something as a fantasy versus a mystery, especially when the fantasy has a mystery in it and the mystery has a fantasy element. Most of the reading public probably doesn’t care. They simply want to be told a good story.

To an author seeking to publish, however, the question of what defines a genre is not a casual one. Understanding why a publisher puts a book in one genre as opposed to another may mean the difference between an acceptance call and a rejection notice.

A short time ago, mystery author Mary Jane Maffini posed a question to a group of published mystery authors. She then conveyed our answers in a workshop for a group of aspiring writers. To paraphrase MJ’s question:

“What is the difference between a romance with a mystery and a mystery with a romance?”

As I typed out my answer for MJ, I realized it would make an informative opening for a blog post on genre blending. Given Sunday’s date, let’s start with romance…

What defines a romance?

In the most basic terms, the main plot of a novel in the romance genre focuses on the protagonist’s love life. Countless permutations are possible in such a novel: small casts, epic tales, historical or contemporary settings. The style of the telling can be poetic, colloquial, melodramatic, stream of consciousness, epistolary. The couples involved may be straight or gay.

The protagonist in a romance may have other ongoing concerns. The book may feature additional subplots—a mystery or thriller element, a family drama, terminal illness, struggle for societal standing—but the love affair is the driving force. The engine of the plot is driven by encounters between the protagonist and his or her love.

Ultimately, what defines a romance is this primary plot question: Will the main character win or lose love? These days, romance novels almost always deliver a happily ever after ending for the reader.

What defines a mystery?

Again, in the most basic terms, the plot of a novel in the mystery genre focuses on the main character’s quest to uncover the guilty party after a crime has taken place, usually a murder but not always. The engine of this plot is driven by the protagonist following clues toward the solution of the crime.

Many writers describe the ultimate goal of a mystery protagonist as finding justice, but I don’t think that’s the best way to define the genre for writers who are new to it. I’m not entirely sure that all mystery protagonists are out for justice, which can be a complex and subjective idea.

In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, for example, Poirot reveals the murderers and allows them to walk away. Were the murderers executing justice upon the victim? Certainly that can be argued, especially given the lack of a defining jurisdiction on the train. From an objective viewpoint, however, one can also argue that killing a man in his sleep is closer to vengeance or vigilantism.

Antiheroes in the mystery genre may not seek justice in the traditional sense, either. What they will always seek in the course of the story is the truth. The mystery protagonist may be involved in other subplots and have other concerns, including a love affair, but the main desire line for the protagonist should be discovering the guilty party (or parties), uncovering the lies, untangling the schemes, and excavating the answers to any questions surrounding the crime.

Sex and the Human Condition

Every day when I sit down to work, I do so with the understanding that I am writing a novel in the mystery genre, but ultimately (regardless of the apparent rules and strictures of genre) I am writing a novel.

A work of parody or avant-garde surrealism may intentionally use caricatures and stereotypes with little depth. For the most part, however, today’s readers expect multidimensional characters in their novels. This is where genre blending has served me well.

As experienced writers know, in order to portray a character as dimensional (characters that feel real, if you will), we must create traits that humanize him or her. A character’s sexuality is a powerful way to convey your character’s humanity—certainly not the only way, but a compelling one for many readers.

Exploring your character’s sexuality does not mean your character is “sexy” or even that your character will engage in sex during the course of the story. For many authors, exploring a character’s sexuality (and the basis or “back story” for it) is simply a way to build dimension.

The protagonist of my first series (Clare Cosi) is a divorced single mother in her forties. Clare didn’t have much of a love life in the decade before the series began. For years, her main concern was raising her daughter, and she subverted her own needs to that end. As Clare’s newly adult daughter moves along with her own life, however, Clare begins to explore her post-forty sexuality, which is complicated to say the least. BTW…Age need not be a factor in the romantic arena: The Coffeehouse Mysteries also feature a lively but fickle octogenarian (Clare’s former mother-in-law) who is presently on her third beau.

Exploring Character, Building Depth

Even asexual characters can yield fascinating back stories when you explore the reasons for their human condition, for instance: aversion to being touched because of past abuse; a failed marriage with residual hostility toward the opposite sex; contented virginity; unbearable virginity; impotence; frigidity; an expression of religious belief.

In my second mystery series, my protagonist is a widow in her late thirties (Penelope Thornton-McClure). Pen has a young son and no sex life. My widow has sexuality. For various reasons, including her lousy marriage and husband’s suicide, it’s repressed.

What Pen does have is a fantasy life in the form of a ghost. At times she wonders whether the ghost is real. PI Jack Shepard seems to have stepped right out of the pages of the Black Mask-era hardboiled mysteries that she sells in her book store. Has Jack appeared in her life as an alter ego, a kind of imaginary friend who will express her deeply repressed thoughts and feelings and fulfill her acute psychological needs? Or is Jack a true manifestation of a paranormal phenomenon? With every new title in The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, Pen and the reader must decide for themselves.

The Best of Both Genres

Finally, if you do decide to blend genres and unfurl a romantic subplot for the main character in your mystery, this storyline should not dampen your character’s burning desire to solve his or her crime. Nor should it take away from your painstaking plotting of the mystery. If you blend the genres correctly, your protagonist’s love life should simply be part of the creation of a dimensional character in a well written novel.

Do you blend genres in your writing? Do you enjoy it or find it problematic? Comments welcome or come join the discussion this Sunday when Dead Air author and clinical psychologist Mary Kennedy shares insights into developing her character’s personal life at www.MysteryLoversKitchen.com

Text copyright © 2010 by Alice Alfonsi

Cleo, thanks so much for this terrific and helpful post. It makes me want to do some genre bending, too! So how about it—do y’all blend genres? How is it working for you?

Be sure to check out Cleo’s awesome website (I haven’t seen an author site to rival it). She blogs with me at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen and her posts always POP with fun.

Today I have the pleasure of having Margot Kinberg guest post on the blog. Margot is a mystery writer (her newest, B-Very Flat has just been released.) But Margot is also a mystery novel expert—and I don’t use that word lightly. If you check out her blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, you’ll see what I mean.

One of the first steps in writing, at least for me, is figuring out the major events in the plot. Since I write murder mysteries, that means deciding who is going to be the victim, who is going to be the murderer, and how and why the crime will be committed. Once I have those basics settled, I start adding detail and then I begin drafting what I write. One of the big advantages of planning this way is that it helps me figure out where I can use knowledge that I already have, and where I need expertise that I don’t have. Then, it’s time for me to do my preliminary research. That’s one thing I really enjoy about writing, because I always learn.

I call it “preliminary research” because I’ve found that I do research throughout the writing process. Probably the easiest way to explain how I do research and what I learn from it is to give you a look “behind the scenes” at the research I did for B-Very Flat, my newest novel. As soon as I’d decided who my victim was going to be and had thought about the kind of person she is, I decided she would die of anaphylactic shock caused by a violent allergic reaction to peanut dust. That meant I had to learn about anaphylaxis and peanut allergies. I was lucky in my research, because I have a close friend whose son is dangerously allergic to peanuts and peanut products. She was kind enough to give me lots of helpful information and some extremely useful web sites (e.g. http://www.peanutallergy.com). Lesson learned here? Ask around. You probably know someone who has answers you need.

Then I realized that someone with such a severe allergy would probably not knowingly eat anything with peanuts in it, so I was going to have to figure out how the murderer would expose the victim. That led me to do some research on peanut flour. I found out some fascinating information, too. For instance, you may not realize it, but many, many products use peanut flour; ready-to-serve spaghetti sauce is just one example. There are some helpful online sources for this, too, as well as some online places where you can buy peanut flour. It’s more popular than I thought, too; many people like peanut flour because it’s high in protein.

I also realized that someone who’s seriously allergic would probably carry what’s often called an Epi-pen. It’s a dose of epinephrine, which counteracts the effects of a severe allergic attack. I didn’t know much about Epi-pens or other auto-injectors, so I visited several online websites that sell auto-injectors. Not only did I get the information I needed about how they work, but I also found some high-quality photos of them that allowed me to get a helpful mental picture. Lesson learned here? The better you know your characters, the better you’ll know the kind of research you need to do. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do any research on peanut flour or auto-injectors until I learned more about my victim.

Now I had the background I needed to start drafting my book, so I got busy with my writing. As the book progressed, though, I realized that my research wasn’t done. Not at all. So I also learned along the way that it’s important to be willing to stop at any point in a book and get your facts straight before going any further.

Here’s an example. Part of the evidence that points to the murderer in B-Very Flat comes from video surveillance film – the kind that stores use to prevent shoplifting. Well, my husband used to be a retail manager, but that was many years ago, and I knew that surveillance procedures have changed a great deal since then. So I visited a few local businesses and got some updated information about how they protect their premises and employees.

I faced a similar challenge when I was planning the part of my book where the murderer is brought in for questioning. I wanted to get my facts straight about exactly how that happens. So I visited our local police precinct. My visit there taught me a lot, and it was helpful to see how a station is laid out. Again, I got a mental picture that made writing that part of the novel easier.

My local research was a very positive experience. Several helpful people took the time to answer my questions, tell me a little about their work, and set me straight where I was wrong. For that, I’m grateful. Lesson learned here? Don’t be afraid to tap local businesses and other community resources. Go. Visit. Ask. Most people are flattered at your interest in their expertise, and are only too happy to give you answers. Especially if you tell them you’re a writer who’s doing some research.

So how did I benefit from doing the research for B-Very Flat? The plot got stronger. For instance, once I learned about peanut flour and how and where to buy it, I was able to develop a whole set of scenes and action sequences that I hadn’t thought of adding. I was also able to include a few characters that I think add to the flavor of the book.

I also got unexpected opportunities to tell people about my writing. That’s sometimes quite a challenge for a writer, especially a writer who’s not a “household name.” But I found that when I told people why I wanted the information I asked for, they got interested in what I do. “Oh, you’re a writer? What do you write? Is it on Amazon?” Lesson learned here? It is really worth the time and effort to do some research when you write. The plot gets stronger and more believable, and you get the chance to spread the word. On, and carry some business cards or a flyer about your book(s) when you go out to “get the facts.” People pass those things around.

Doing research for a book can be time-consuming. It can also feel as though one’s not really making any progress. After all, making progress on a book means writing, right? Not driving around, interviewing people, looking up things on the Internet or going to the local police station. But the fact is, research helps make a book richer and more real. It teaches one a lot, and helps one make lots of important connections.

Thanks so much for guest blogging today, Margot! And for the excellent reminders on researching—and the promotional opportunities it can afford, too.

Tomorrow, the talented Cleo Coyle will be guest blogging a special Valentine’s Day-related post: Genre Blending and Your Character’s Love Life. What defines a mystery? A romance? What should you consider when blending genres? Please pop by and join us.