Elaine Viets
TSTL – Too Stupid To Live.
Characters who deliberately put themselves in danger.
In movies, TSTL is usually a big-boobed, small-brained blonde who hears a funny noise in the basement. A serial killer is on the loose, but she runs downstairs without a weapon, without fear, and without many clothes – and is hacked to bits.
Cozy mysteries are brutally bashed for TSTL females, but both genders are equally guilty.
TSTL is alive and thriving in dicklit: The cop who goes after the desperate killer without calling the dispatcher – or his partner. The private eye who goes alone into the building to get the murderer because a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Besides, he has his trusty Glock.
These writers aren’t taken to task for TSTL quite as often. But it’s safe to say that TSTL thrives in all forms of the mystery genre.
Readers want to kill authors who rely on TSTL stunts.
In A Dog Gone Murder, my new Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mystery, I worked hard to avoid TSTL syndrome. Josie mystery-shops dog daycare centers. She investigates Uncle Bob’s Doggy Day Camp, known for its commercials featuring Uncle Bob. She discovers that Bob was more of a dog than anyone knew — he’d been kicked out of the house for having an affair, and he runs with a dubious crowd. When he winds up dead, there’s a long list of suspects. The police arrest Frank, her mother’s tenant. Josie believes he’s innocent, and she has to find the proof that someone else killed Bob.
She can’t take her friend Alyce with her, either. This time her best friend has morning sickness.
Josie says she’ll let Frank’s lawyer go after the killer. She just wants information from some people who knew the murdered man – his employee, Heidi. A customer named Sharon, and Bob’s estranged wife, Candice. Here’s a scene from A Dog Gone Murder:
“I got information about all three on the Internet,” Josie said. “I even have Google Earth photos of their streets. Candice lives on a rich street in Summerdale. Heidi’s street is nicely in the middle and Sharon’s is on the skids.
“But they all have one thing in common.”
“What?” Alyce said.
“Every neighborhood has its own Mrs. Mueller. The neighborhood busybody who watches everyone and every thing.”
“And how will you find her?” Alyce asked.
“Easy. She’ll be watching her neighbors. I’ll look for the twitching curtain or the miniblind slat raised by one careful finger – the telltale signs of a snoop at work. Then I’ll get her started by saying the women are applying for a new job and I need background information. They’ll see it as their duty to tell me everything they know. Then I’ll knock on my suspects’ doors for a quick chat.”
“But the local gossip will see you do that,” Alyce said.
“Both Sharon and Heidi live in apartment buildings. I can say I’m interviewing more neighbors in their buildings. As for Candice, we’re clients of Uncle Bob’s. I’ll pay my respects for her recent loss.”
“Still TSTL, Josie.”
“What’s that?”
“Too Stupid To Live,” Alyce said. “I hate those movies where the woman says, ‘Gee, I think I hear a serial killer in the barn. I’m going out to take a look.’ Then she goes outside and he hacks her to death with a hatchet. You are not confronting a killer by yourself. You need back-up, but I can’t leave home at this stage.”
“Oh, lord, I was so wrapped up in this investigation,” Josie said, “I forgot to ask about you. How are you feeling?”
“Still living on ginger ale and soda crackers,” Alyce said. “I’m not doing much cooking. Even the smell of food makes me queasy. This stage won’t last, Josie. It will be over soon. But if you insist on this harebrained scheme, you’ll make me sick with worry. I can’t risk that in my condition.”
“Alyce Bohannon! Are you hitting me with the pregnancy card?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to if it slaps some sense into you,” Alyce said. “You’re a mother with a tween daughter. You have a husband. You’re not going off on this crazy mission.”
“But –”
“The only way I’ll allow it is if you take me with you,” Alyce said.
“How can I do that?” Josie said.
“Use your cell phone. Call me when you get to the first house and keep your cell phone on in your pocket. That way I can hear what’s happening. If there’s a problem – if you scream or I hear that you’re being threatened, I’ll call the police on my land line.”
“If I see the local busybody first, she’ll be watching me, too. That will make me doubly safe. It could work,” Josie said.
“It will have to work,” Alyce said. “Otherwise, I’ll call Ted and your mother and you’ll have to deal with both of them.”
Does it work? Read A Dog Gone Murder and find out.
A Dog Gone Murder, my 10th Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mystery, will be published Nov. 4 as an e-book and a $7.99 paperback. Preorder your copy here http://tinyurl.com/q5dlhlj
My editor always catches me on TSTL scenes. I make sure to try to justify any such actions on my heroine’s part. It’s tough, especially when the final confrontation between sleuth and villain approaches.
TSTL is particularly hard for cozy writers, since those characters don’t have guns or partners for backup.
What’s a book without danger? I guess it depends on the motivation. A private eye, whose only interest is getting paid for a job, wouldn’t go into a situation without backup, but the father searching for his abducted daughter might.
Interesting post, I’ll keep this in mind when I get to those scenes.
A father definitely would risk his life — and so would a mother, Amanda. But you want them to successfully save their children, not blindly run into danger.
Either TSTL characters are becoming more common or I’m just noticing them more often. There’s a commercial out now (for a car maybe?) that plays this up. A group of kids are stranded and instead of getting in a running car they hide behind the chainsaws in the old barn. Makes me giggle every time. 🙂
Just saw that commercial last night, Tom. I was having trouble figuring it out. I think I have a touch of TSL after 10 PM
It’s currently the best commercial on TV. Hilarious, because it plays on all those “Scream” tropes. Which is the point of the commercial.
Yes! And Friday the 13th. Those movies are collectively called “Spam in a Cabin.”
Hey, what’s that noise? *grabs butter knife* I’ll be right back after I go check it out.
Terri
LOL!
I’m curious about one thing: Do you think, Elaine and others, that the cozy audience is more forgiving of TSTL? I am thinking that amateur sleuths get a little slack when it comes to hunting down the bad guys, that readers allow for the reality to be stretched SOME (ie, how many murders can one small town town generate?). So do readers maybe allow hero(ine)s to gets into pickles more easily? Dunno…just asking.
But you are right in that this is not limited to cozies. I was reading a sample on my Kindle this week of a “guy” spy book and right in the first chapter the writer puts him in a TSTL situation. I was so put off I didn’t buy the book.
I think readers are expecting higher standards for cozies these days, Kris. There was a big discussion of TSTL on DorothyL about two months ago and readers were very impatient. The slack-cutting days are over.
TSTL is usually a sign that the writer lacks the imagination to come up with a really good idea. It’s so much easier for the sidekick to shout “Wait for backup” and the hero (?) to answer, “No, I’m going in there!” when no one in his right mind would, than to come up with believable, plausible reasons for the character to knowingly put himself in jeopardy. And the key word is “knowingly.” When the character misreads the situation, is fooled into believing it’s safe, or doesn’t have the right piece of information (especially when the reader doesn’t either) that the peril becomes a surprise, and the character is in a sudden, unexpected fight-or-flight situation, that it really works, such as when the source of peril is someone the character trusts, didn’t suspect, or hadn’t even considered.
Spot on, John.
Unfortunately (or fortunao?), I find myself working and dealing with a number of folks in real life who seem to qualify as TSTL~ or, as Trekkies call ’em, the Crew Member in the Red Tunic…
Unlike novels, G. Smith, you can’t kill real TSTL. Just hope nature takes its course.
My hero and heroine do go into danger without calling their handler because they suspect he might be a leak. But, I had to ax an otherwise great scene because it would have required a TSTL move.
I just finished a mega-thriller by a mega-writer pubbed by a mega-house that was nothing but a series of TSTL.
The two female protags are suspicious of what a clinic is doing, so they decide to get jobs there and break into the server room, download files and drive out the gate with all the evidence.
They actually manage to get through the locked gates, get hired, steal a keycard, get past all the computer security and get a file all with no one detecting any of this because all the men are dazzled by one of the character’s mini-skirt.
Then they decide to go back after hours and steal some more!
Oh no! Mayhem ensues.
I wanted both of the characters caught and killed, slowly and painfully.
Characters do have to ignore risk and rush into danger. Reckless and brash is different than dumb and dumber.
But if the only way the plot advances is for characters to make a series of increasingly stupid decisions that are so naive and, well, stupid, then I put the book down. And then I publicly mock it.
Terri
That TSTL book sounds familiar, Terri. I read it and then hated myself for doing it.
Great post, Elaine! I’ve encountered a lot of TSTL characters in the novels I’ve edited, especially several years ago, when I was accepting books from aspiring authors who still had a lot to learn. The response, when I mentioned it, was often something like “but she had to leave her bed and husband at 2 a.m. to go to the abandoned warehouse and search for the killer for the plot to work.” But the plot’s not working if the readers are exasperated at the stupidity and basic lack of common sense of the heroine! (or hero)!
Amen, Jodie. I hope they listened to your excellent advice.
Note to self: Invert tropes. Make all shrieking ninnies small-breasted; make all smart, sensible, sarcastic, streetwise females of zaftig proportions.
This is why I’ll never get a literary agent.
LOL. Glad you got that off your chest, Jim.