Writing the Cozy Mystery

Developing a New Cozy Series: Nuts and Bolts

December 10, 2018December 9, 2018Mystery Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Today I thought I’d cover my process for starting a new cozy series. This post isn’t intended to replace the more in-depth posts I created for developing a sleuth, sidekick, setting, et al. For tips on the nitty gritty part of developing those specific elements, see those particular posts and this series.

My thought on creating a new series this time was to look at all the specific elements and put them on a Word document. I brainstormed ideas for each element and wrote down pros and cons of every choice.

I started out with the sleuth. Considerations were: age of the sleuth, gender of the sleuth (there are cozies with male sleuths…I’ve been asked about this regularly by male mystery writers), sleuth’s occupation (the theme/hook is incredibly important in a cozy mystery), and his or her personality type.Continue reading

Developing a Cozy Series: Hook

November 26, 2018November 27, 2018Mystery Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

It’s been a long time since I developed a new cozy mystery series. Long enough so that I tried to remember exactly how I’d gone about it the last couple of times. I ended up not being able to reconstruct my process from the other times, so I started out with a blank slate. For posterity’s sake, in case I need to reference this in the future, myself, I thought I’d share what I’ve done (so far) this time. Today I’m covering the series hook (also known as a theme) and then on next Friday (after a short blog break) I’ll talk about my considerations setting up sleuth, sidekick, and other basics.

For the cozy mystery, the hook is pretty important. It’s actually important enough for me to have considered it the very first thing. Did I want animal themed books? Craft themed? Occupation themed? The first thing I did was to visit a fantastic cozy mystery resource: https://www.cozy-mystery.com . There is a page on the site that lists cozies by theme. There I reviewed all of the different options that others had used. It may be different for you, but I felt very little need to be ultra-different from everyone else. I wasn’t looking for a really unusual hook, mostly because I wanted something that I could feel very comfortable writing.

If you are interested in something fun and different, there are a slew of different examples on the page to get your brain thinking. There are cruise ship mysteries, sleuths as dancers, golfing cozies, and candle-making cozies. By far, the most popular hook categories (to the extent that they have their own BISAC categories at retailers) are craft and hobby cozies, culinary-themed cozies, and cozies featuring cats and dogs.

First, I made a list of all the possibilities that I found the most appealing to me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from writing cozy series is that they can continue on for years and years. Readers are incredibly loyal to cozy characters. It’s important to choose a hook that appeals not just to the reader but to you, too. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in that story world.

Next, I jotted down pros and cons of all of the potential hooks. For instance, I thought a bed and breakfast series would be fun from the aspect of having different characters coming through and from the aspect that the setting could be very appealing. The cons though? Wouldn’t the police be shutting down the B&B if it ended up being a hotspot for murder? And shouldn’t the owner be spending most of her time at the location? How would I make it work?

The next considerations were tied together. How much research would this concept take and how much time did I have? This may be part of the appeal of writing culinary or pet-themed cozies…it really doesn’t take much research. I knew if I picked something like genealogy or flower shops that I would be doing more research than if I’d picked something I knew more about. I’ve put in likely 100 hours or more of research on quilting for the Southern Quilting Mysteries since I’m not crafty: those are hours going to quilt shows and shops, talking with quilters, reading websites, learning more about quilt guild activities, and watching quilters work on YouTube. The time I spent was very rewarding to me and it was important that I got it right. But I know that writing three series simultaneously means that I don’t really have the time to spend in a lot of research.

Keeping all of this in mind, I chose to go with a library theme and have my sleuth work as a librarian. I grew up in a library and my family was always either on the board or involved with Friends of the Library, or both. I still did a lot of set-up research, but not nearly as much as was needed for my quilting series (or, actually, for my Memphis Barbeque series, either). And…readers like books and libraries. :)

This post is intended mainly for cozy writers because of the special emphasis the genre puts on hook, but many of these considerations are important for writers of other genres, as well.

For further reading, see writer Janice Hardy’s post “5 Things to Consider When Choosing a Character’s Career.”

If you’re a cozy writer, how have you picked your hook? For other genres, how important is your protagonist’s occupation or hobby?

And quick note that I’m taking a long weekend this weekend and another short blog break since I’ll have limited access to Wifi. Twitterific will run this Sunday (but no posts this Friday or Monday). I’ll be back with a post on cozy series development on Friday, December 7th. Thanks!

Developing a Cozy Series: The Series Hook: Click To Tweet

Photo credit: Onasill ~ Bill Badzo on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

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