by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
This is the fourth part in my series on writing cozy mysteries. Today, I’m covering two important elements of our story: the setting and our sidekick.
Most cozy mysteries shoot for a very closed environment and a closed group of suspects from which to choose from.
You can still maintain a closed environment in a large city or bigger town (I did in my Memphis series), but it’s a little harder, I think. Although I’ve got a city as a backdrop for the story, I center much of the story action around a barbeque restaurant. This doesn’t mean we can’t stray from these central locations, but they serve to make the setting seem more intimate (yes, cozy) and create a home base for the sleuths. Sleuths can interview suspects from there, use it as a place to discuss the case with their sidekicks, and generally interact with the other characters.Continue reading