Category Archives: Mysteries

Clues

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Clue – noun — anything that serves to guide or direct in the solution of a problem, mystery, etc.

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According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary

‘The word clue was originally a variant spelling of clew, meaning “ball of thread or yarn.” Our modern sense of clue, “guide to the solution of a mystery,” grows out of a motif in myth and folklore, the ball of thread that helps in finding one’s way out of a maze. ‘

 

The “ball of thread” mentioned in the M-W etymology refers to one of my favorite stories in Greek mythology.

The Clue of Ariadne

It all started when there was a war between Crete and Athens. Crete won the war, and the rather sadistic King Minos of Crete exacted a horrible punishment on the Athenians. He required that the king of Athens periodically send seven young men and seven young women to the Isle of Crete to become dinner for the horrible monster, the Minotaur.

The Big M was housed inside a labyrinth constructed by none other than the ingenious Daedalus.  The labyrinth was so large and complex that it served as a prison for the Minotaur. When the poor Athenian sacrifices arrived, they would be forced into the maze. At some point in their wanderings, they’d encounter the Minotaur, and things wouldn’t go well for them.

After this horrific nonsense went on for a few years, a young man named Theseus, the son of the Athenian king, decided enough was enough. He vowed to put a stop to the awful goings-on by sailing to Crete, entering the labyrinth, and killing the Minotaur. That was a noble plan, but it had one problem: the labyrinth was so complicated, he probably wouldn’t find his way out.

That’s when our heroine, Ariadne, entered the picture. Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos, and she fell in love with the dashing Theseus. He promised to marry her if she could figure out a way to get him back out of the labyrinth after he offed Mr. M. (At this point, I feel compelled to say that without Ariadne, Theseus was clueless.)

I truly love simple solutions to complicated problems, and I especially admire people who come up with them. That Ariadne was a problem-solver for the ages. She handed her true love a ball of thread, known as a clew, and told him to unwind it as he wandered around in the labyrinth. Then after he killed the Minotaur, he could just rewind it as he followed it out. Brilliant. And it worked!

Sounds like a Happy Ever After kind of ending, eh? Unfortunately, that scumbag Theseus broke his promise and didn’t marry the beautiful Ariadne, but I think she won out in the end. She got to go down in history as the very first mystery solver, and that’s endeared her to millions of readers through the years, whether they knew her name or not.

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Clues in a modern mystery are a little more sophisticated than a simple ball of thread, and detectives do more (at least we hope they do) than just wander around until they find the culprit.

However, there is one major similarity in our mysteries to the story of Theseus: the detective and the readers are led into a labyrinth. Only this one is constructed by the author. The answer to the mystery is within the maze, but the detective needs to know which clues to follow and which are red herrings.

I liked some of the clue categories listed on zaraaltair.com:

Physical clues: A gun or knife left at the scene of the murder. Maybe a button torn off. Of course, the villain can plant a clue at the scene to misdirect the detective.

Biological clues: Strands of hair, DNA, fingerprints.

Psychological clues: Profilers try to identify the type of person likely to commit a murder, but the detective uses his/her own knowledge of human nature to decide on suspects.

Timing clues: This is one of my favorites. Alibis are established based on the time of death, but clever villains might be able to manipulate that piece of evidence. A smashed watch is always a good clue that might be a red herring.

Clues of Omission: Another favorite. Something should be evident, but it isn’t. There’s a famous example from the Sherlock Holmes mystery “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes (naturally) notices something everyone else has missed.

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Holmes: That was the curious incident.

 

 

I don’t know about you, but if I can include clues in such a way the reader finishes the story and slaps him/herself on the side of the head, thinking, “I should have seen it,” then I’ll be happy.

* * *

So TKZers: How do you decide what clues to have in your mystery novels? What clues have inspired you?

 

In Lacey’s Star, there’s only one  clue to the murder, but it’s just a child’s note. It couldn’t be important. Could it?

Lacey’s Star is a Silver Falchion Award Top Pick (Cozy Mystery) at Killer Nashville.

On sale now at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Novel Writing Words of Wisdom

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Writing a novel is a big undertaking, especially at first. It took me years before I discovery-drafted my first novel. Three more novels followed, all written by the seat-of-my-pants.

However, it wasn’t until I began studying the craft of novel writing and getting feedback on my novels, as I had done earlier for short fiction, that I began to make actual progress. Learning how to write a novel took time, as did learning how to write a fantasy novel which worked, and later still, how to write a mystery novel that spun a convincing mystery.

Today’s Words of Wisdom looks at three diverse aspects of writing novels. First, James Scott Bell gives us the three rules of writing a novel. Then, Elaine Viets shares succinct advice on how-to-write a mystery, given by a fictional detective. Finally, Robert Gregory Browne looks at the idea of knowing how to write a best-selling novel.

RULE # 1 – DON’T BORE THE READER

Can anyone disagree with that?  Doesn’t it make sense that this should be emblazoned across the writer’s creative consciousness as the most foundational of all rules?

If you bore the reader, you don’t sell the book. Or, at least, if the reader does manage to make it to the end, you don’t sell your next book.

It’s a rule. In fact, it’s a law, just like gravity.

Which leads to:

RULE #2 – PUT CHARACTERS IN CRISIS

Novels that sell are about people in some kind of trouble. Conflict is the engine of story. You can create “interesting” or “quirky” characters all day long, but unless they are tested by trial they wear out quickly (here I will issue a confession: I’ve never been able to get past the first 50 or 60 pages of A Confederacy of Dunces, and I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried).

Now, trouble can be generated in many ways. The narrator of Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine is simply trying to get from the lobby of his office building to the next level via an escalator. That’s the whole story, and the trouble is inside his head.

At the other end of the spectrum are the commandos in The Guns of Navarone. 

The point is, every novel must have some fire, not just a layout of kindling and logs. That’s a rule.

RULE #3 – WRITE WITH HEART

I admit this rule is somewhat difficult to define. It’s a bit like what a Supreme Court justice once said about obscenity: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

The novels that not only sell, but endure, have something of the author’s beating heart in them. We could run off a list of such novels, from To Kill A Mockingbirdby Harper Lee to the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly.

In my seminars, when we work on voice and style, I mention two novels that were publishing in 1957. They were as different from each other as Arbuckle and Keaton, and challenges for the publishers. Yet they both became bestsellers and, more to the point, continue to sell thousands and thousands of copies today.

They are Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. No matter how you ultimately come out on the merits of either book, what can’t be denied is that every page pulsates with the author’s voice and vision.

So put your heart in every scene of your novel. It’s a good rule.

Now, when a writer says, “There are no rules,” I suspect what he’s really saying is there is no one way to do the things we’ve been talking about here. And that is mostly correct.

I say mostly because, over time, it has been demonstrated that there are fiction techniques that generally work better than others. A good teacher (or editor) is able to help students learn the things that tend to work and avoid the things that tend not to.

And then it’s up to the writer to make choices. If a writer decides not to follow a tried and true method, at least she should know why.

For example, we talk a lot about starting a novel off with a hook (or, as I like to put it, a “disturbance.”) But what if you want to start your historical with ten pages of setting and description? Well, you’re certainly allowed to. And maybe you’ll manage to make those ten pages so interesting that readers will wish they’d go on and on.

But the odds are you’ll bore them, as they keep on asking Who is this story supposed to be about? Why should I care about any of this?

You might then decide it’s better to use the technique of starting with a disturbance and dropping in details within the action. A technique you can learn and practice.

James Scott Bell—September 23, 2012

How do you write a mystery?

    There are whole books on this subject.

    But the best short advice is in Grafton’s new Kinsey Millhone novel, “W Is for Wasted.”

    Private eye Kinsey Millhone talks about how she started investigating two mysterious deaths. One victim was a sleazy PI and the other was a homeless man.

     Kinsey was drawn into the mystery by a call from the coroner’s office. The coroner was “asking if I could ID a John Doe who had my name and phone number on a slip of paper in his pocket,” Grafton wrote. “How could I resist?”

    That had me hooked. But then Kinsey explained how to write a mystery:

    “Every good mystery takes place on three planes – what really happened; what appears to have happened; and how the sleuth, amateur or professional (yours truly in this case) figures out which is which.”

    There it is. The art of mystery writing in one succinct sentence. We writers are supposed to set up the story for the readers, help them find out what really happened, and tell it, giving enough clues to play fair but not give away the ending.

    Grafton gives us another dollop of advice in Kinsey’s next sentence:

    “I suppose I could put everything in perspective if I explained how it all turned out and then doubled back to that phone call,” she wrote, “but it’s better if you experience it just as I did, one strange step at a time.”

    New writers and experienced ones need to remember Kinsey’s advice: Tell the story, one strange step at a time.

    Many newbies try to be too clever. They don’t have the skills to deliver a twisted tale. They get lost in the maze they created.

    Experienced writers get bored with the format after writing book after book. We try to start in the middle, or start at the end, or switch narrators, often to amuse ourselves. Too often, it simply confuses our readers.

    Following the straight path, in Grafton’s footsteps, can be far more difficult.  But she kept me interested for 496 pages.  She also made me care about two people society considers worthless: a crooked PI and a homeless man who doesn’t even have a name.

Elaine Viets—January 16, 2014

But here’s the thing…

EVERYONE WANTS TO WRITE A BESTSELLER,

BUT MOST AUTHORS NEVER WILL

Because it’s completely out of your control.

If you sit down to write a “bestseller,” you are taking a wrong-headed approach to writing. Writing great fiction has nothing to do with writing bestsellers. Bestsellers are, by and large, flukes. Right place, right time. And not all bestsellers are created equal.

I can name a dozen of my friends who do everything right and should be on the bestseller lists, and authors who are and don’t belong there.

When I wrote Trial Junkies, I just wanted to write a great book. I had no idea it would go on to be an indie bestseller. Sure, it was something I hoped for, but I certainly wasn’t rubbing my hands together in anticipation of mega-sales. I just wrote the book I wanted to read and decided to let fate take care of the rest.

So don’t put all your energy into trying to write a bestseller. You should simply write the best book you can possibly write. A book you’re so excited about that you don’t care if you ever make a dime off of it.

I spent many years writing stuff that I knew would never sell. In fact, I didn’t even try to sell it, because I knew it wasn’t good enough. But I kept at it for several years. I wrote story fragments and screenplays and teleplays and partial novels and while I knew what I was producing was not quite there yet, I also knew, with great certainty, that it would be one day.

Sure, I had dreams of being Stephen King or Dean Koontz. We all do. But the reality is that most writers never make it to the lists, yet they still manage to have wonderful careers.

Should you forget about your dreams?

No. Sometimes they’re all you have.

But any thoughts of bestsellerdom should be relegated to the back part of the brain. You have a story to write. And that’s all you should be thinking about.

If you publish it and it manages to reach one of the bestseller lists, that’s just gravy.

So there is no How to write a bestseller.

Robert Gregory Browne—May 4, 2016

***

There you have it, three pieces of advice on different aspects writing novels. Now we’d like to hear from you.

  1. Do you have any “rules” to share for writing a novel?
  2. What do you think about Kinsey Mallone’s advice for writing a mystery? What advice would you add?
  3. Do you have dreams of bestsellerdom? What keeps you writing your novel?
  4. What is the most challenging part of writing a novel, for you? What is the most enjoyable?

Suspicious Minds

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In lieu of my usual Words of Wisdom post today I have a theory to share about mystery fiction.

Namely, that mystery fiction can also be considered suspicion fiction.

Mystery is often considered a highly intellectual genre, given that it focuses on solving the puzzle of a baffling murder. Any discussion of mystery plotting will hone in on clues, red herrings, misdirecting the reader, and laying out the pieces of the puzzle for the sleuth and reader to put together. Mystery writers are like stage magicians, practicing misdirection while setting up the reveal. The puzzle can be deep, intricate and twisty.

The goal is for the solution to be surprising, and if we readers figure it out beforehand, we do it in a way that makes us feel satisfied for having figured out the identity of the killer. The satisfaction we feel can be part of the emotional payoff at the end of a mystery.

But mystery is also about another emotion.

Suspicion.

Suspicion defined: 1. The act of suspecting, especially something wrong or evil. 2. The state of mind of someone who suspects; doubts; misgiving.

The Emotion Thesaurus defines suspicion as “intuitively suspecting that something is wrong,” and goes on to list external and internal manifestations of this emotion. Your body language, such as darting glances or furtive looks or movements, might indicate your suspicion. Or, perhaps your stomach is roiled, your heart is beating faster, your palms are sweating, or your chest feels tight.

In a mystery novel, who does the sleuth suspect? Who do the police suspect? Most of all, who does the reader suspect?

How do you behave when you are feeling suspicious?

Doubt is a key part of suspicion. The sleuth begins to wonder who they can trust, and who they can’t. The reader begins wondering about the truthfulness and trustworthiness of a character, often suspecting more than one character at the same time. Doubt in the main character, or supporting characters, can lead to distrust, secrecy, and furtive behavior.

Suspicion can easily become obsession.

The sleuth can come to suspect even friends or family, and others can do the same with the sleuth. Adding to this is the often furtive nature of characters in a mystery. Suspects often have something to hide, such as a secret, or a different crime.

Suspicion can also be focused on an event or absence of something. For instance, the curious case of the dog that didn’t bark in the night.

If you suspect someone, you don’t entirely trust them, and that mistrust can deepen your suspicion as you draw conclusions about what they’ve been up to, and what you may have learned. The obsession deepens, both for the sleuth, and the reader, as they are drawn further into a web of deception, suspecting someone, only to discover they have an alibi, while learning that another character did something unusual or mysterious.

Thus suspicion has an arc. Moreover, there is synergy going on here—someone acts or acted “suspicious” which causes the sleuth to suspect them, creating a kind of feedback loop.

  1. It begins with noticing something is off about someone’s behavior, or a set of circumstances.
  2. Doubt ensues.
  3. Then, discovering “evidence” which increases suspicion. This can be an overheard conversation, reading a note or email, seeing a meeting without hearing what is being said, looking at a pattern of behavior, perhaps behavior out of character for the suspect, etc.
  4. Discovering a lie, or a false alibi can heighten suspicion.
  5. There can be a deepening fixation on a suspect’s behavior, words, deeds, and trying to figure out what they were thinking, why they did what they did, etc.
  6. Acting on that suspicion to the point of taking risks and putting yourself in potential jeopardy. This often precedes the confrontation/reveal in the final act of a mystery.
  7. Given that mysteries usually have multiple suspects, there will be a point where the sleuth (and the reader) rule out a person because of evidence, alibi, or learning what the secret was that made a particular individual act suspicious to the main character.
  8. Of course, heroes and readers often suspect more than one character at the same time, so the arcs can overlap. Sometimes the behavior or evidence is one thing, which leads to doubt about a particular person. Doubt which might deepen to suspicion, or might simmer in the background. Or, even forgotten for the moment, until the end, when new evidence makes the sleuth suddenly suspect that person with a cold-in-the-bones feeling.
  9. Finally, the sleuth’s suspicions lead to the actual killer and/or can lead the killer to them.

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, A Shadow of a Doubt, does this superbly. It’s really a suspense movie with strong mystery elements, but it shows the progression in our heroine Charlie’s suspicions, and her behavior as her suspicion deepens about a beloved uncle. Our own James Scott Bell recommended this movie to me, and not only is it gripping entertainment (and fun, with a pair of supporting characters who love murder mysteries) it’s also a perfect example of a suspicion arc.

I’d love to see Jim do a JSB Goes to the Movies featuring it, so have refrained from saying too much here. Thanks, Jim for recommending the movie. It delivered on every level.

Suspicion goes hand in hand with another emotion, suspense, especially suspense for the reader. As our suspicion of someone or something deepens, we feel increasing suspense over what could happen, especially since we usually lack proof / evidence of guilt until the end. We feel suspense and tension over wondering if we’re right, and also if we overlooked something, which heightens our involvement in the story.

What does this mean for writing mysteries?

It means being aware of the reader’s own building suspicion and keeping that in mind as your hero investigates the mystery at the heart of your novel.

I’m outliner, both before, during and after drafting, so in my case, I include the suspicion arc in my outline(s). For a discovery writer, I think being aware of how suspicion can build and play out is still important, and something you can internalize by thinking about this aspect of a mystery before writing your story. It can also be added in revision, just like clues and red herrings.

I find possessing a kind of multi-level awareness about your characters and how they are perceiving what is going on is important in writing fiction in general of course, but also with this issue of who suspects what when. Especially for the sleuth, the police, and the murderer.

As JSB discussed in this 2015 post there is a shadow story taking place off screen from your hero with the other characters.

Suspicion is a part of that shadow story. Being aware of who the killer suspects is investigating the murder can set up the confrontation with the hero. This confrontation is a crucial part of many modern mysteries.

Also, how will others react when they realize the hero suspects them? Do they become more forthcoming? Or do they clam up? Even become angry?

In a mystery featuring an amateur sleuth or a P.I. if the police begin to suspect that the hero is investigating, they’ll likely have words with the investigator, so knowing when they might suspect that and how much is important.

There you have it, my possibly crackpot theory on mysteries also being suspicion fiction.

I’ll give the King the last word on suspicious minds

What do you think of this “mystery is also suspicion fiction” theory of mine? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Investigating Agatha Christie

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I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest. –Agatha Christie

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Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her sales are exceeded only by the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.  According to her website at agathachristie.com, “She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play – The Mousetrap. “

Agatha Christie’s books have sold over two billion copies worldwide!

Given Ms. Christie’s extraordinary success, it might be a good idea to see if we can discover some of her secrets.

* * *

A few years ago, I watched a documentary entitled “The Agatha Christie Code” (available on Youtube)  in which researchers examined various aspects of Christie’s writing. These researchers included

Dr. Richard Forsyth, Research Fellow in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick

Dr. Pernilla Danielsson, Academic Champion of Communications at the University of Birmingham

Dr. Marcus Dahl, Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study – London University

They used computer technology to analyze Christie’s work, and they found interesting patterns in her stories that may give us a clue as to why she’s so popular.

Word Choices

Christie used simple language in her books, so readers were free to focus on the plot rather than the language. For example, the researchers found she used “said” often in an attribution rather than other words like “responded” or “answered.”

Christie also often repeated words within a short section of prose – something I’ve been warned against. Here’s an example from the novel Sad Cypress that was used in the video. (My notations in red.)

The researchers thought the repetition cemented the information in the reader’s mind. My editor would probably faint if I sent something like that to her, but maybe we should rethink the multiple uses of a word in a short section of prose.

Verbal Structure

The most interesting part of the video for me was when one of the researchers evaluated Christie’s works on the three criteria of

  •             Word length
  •             Word frequency
  •             Sentence structure

Dr. Danielsson plotted information about these aspects on a three-dimensional graph and plotted the same criteria from Arthur Conan Doyle’s works on the same graph. Christie’s books exhibited a consistency shown visually by her plotted points being clustered together while the points of Doyle’s stories were spread farther apart indicating his works were more dissimilar when compared to each other. This indicated that Doyle’s style had changed through the years while Christie’s had remained remarkably consistent.

Plot

Christie’s mysteries almost always create a world where

  •             There is a dead body
  •             A closed group of suspects are introduced
  •             A detective (either professional or amateur) is a character
  •             Red herrings are spread throughout
  •             There is a denouement scene where the detective identifies the murderer and brings closure to the story.

Some critics claim Christie wrote the same story over and over, but that’s not fair. For example, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None introduced novel twists to the standard murder mystery although they used a typical Christie template.

However, this general structure reassures the reader that there will be a logical puzzle that will be solved in the end, and that contributes to the sense of satisfaction.

Characters

While some famous characters appear in multiple books and are popular with the reading public (e.g., Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Captain Hastings), the number of characters in each novel may be just as important. This prompted an interesting theory by David Shephard, Master trainer in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Mr. Shephard pointed out that people have a limited focus and a conscious mind can only concentrate on five to nine things at a time. When presented with more information than that, a person will enter a sort of hypnotic trance.

Since Christie’s stories often have more than nine characters and several plot lines, Shephard thinks the reader’s mind can’t handle the overload of information, so he/she begins to “feel” the book rather than just think about it. This emotional connection makes readers want to return to Agatha Christie’s books again and again.

I’m not sure I can buy that explanation, but it’s very interesting and makes me think I should count the characters in my future books to see if I can put my readers into a trance.

Content & Style

As we all know, Agatha Christie’s mysteries contain no explicit sexual scenes and no explicit violence. So why do so many readers still buy her novels? Readers of Christie’s books know there will be a logical solution to the murder, the killer will be caught, and the clues are all available to solve the mystery.

David Suchet, who played the part of Hercule Poirot in the television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot, compared Christie’s books to sudoku puzzles. He believes readers enjoy the books because they’re completely absorbed in figuring out the solution to the puzzle.

Length

Although I found a site with the number of pages in each of Agatha Christie’s novels, I only found a reference to the word count on https://thewritepractice.com/word-count/. That site had an article that states Agatha Christie’s mystery novels average between 40,000 and 60,000 words. That’s a little short for most novels today, but it could explain why people found them easy to read.

 

Pacing

Agatha Christie controlled the speed at which her books were read by laying out more descriptive passages at the beginning, but picking up the pace of the story as it progressed. Hypnotist Paul McKenna had an interesting take on this. He felt her particular pattern of writing caused certain brain chemicals to be released, resulting in a sort of addiction in the readers. This theory goes a little beyond my pay grade, but I do think picking up the pace is a technique that works well in mystery writing.

* * *

So there you have it. While I’m sure there are other reasons for her success, these aspects of Agatha Christie’s writing are worth considering.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you read many of Agatha Christie’s books? Why do you think they’re so popular? Have you viewed “The Agatha Christie Code” video?  Is there anything you think we can glean from the data in this post that will help with our own writing?

* * *

 

“Very few of us are what we seem.” –Agatha Christie

Private pilot Cassie Deakin lands in the middle of a mystery and discovers things are not always what they seem.

Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Surprise in Fiction: Trent’s Last Case

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Surprise – noun — a completely unexpected occurrence, appearance, or statement.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, there’s been some research done on the science of surprise. I read this summary on Melissa Hughes’s blog.

There is science in surprise. Neuroscientists have discovered that surprise is one of the most powerful human emotions. As it turns out, the brain’s pleasure center (or the nucleus accumbens) lights up like a Christmas tree when you experience something that you didn’t expect. Not only do you get a nice boost of dopamine, the brain releases noradrenaline – the neurotransmitter responsible for focus and concentration. Think of it as the reset button for the brain. It actually stops all of the other brain activity to let you find meaning in the surprise.

An article on sciencedaily.com highlights the work of neuroscientists Dr. Gregory Berns and Dr. Read Montague who ran experiments that used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure changes in human brain activity in response to a sequence of pleasurable stimuli, in this case, fruit juice and water.

“Until recently, scientists assumed that the neural reward pathways, which act as high-speed Internet connections to the pleasure centers of the brain, responded to what people like,” said Montague.

“However, when we tested this idea in brain scanning experiments, we found the reward pathways responded much more strongly to the unexpectedness of stimuli instead of their pleasurable effects.”

 

Given this data, maybe we authors should look closely at the element of surprise in our works. If we can cause the reader’s brain to suddenly experience a pleasurable shot of dopamine, we will have captured their attention and their loyalty.

* * *

“Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.” — Julia Cameron

* * *

When we read a mystery novel, we expect to be surprised. All those twists and turns are designed to keep our attention. When the shy, gentle woman suddenly pulls a gun out of her purse, or the disconnected nerd leaps into the line of fire to save a stranger, we love it.

According to an essay on thenetwriters.com,

The importance of surprising your readers should never be forgotten by any aspiring writer. In fact, it should always be considered a vital part of a storyteller’s toolkit. By seeking to confound your audience with plot twists, subverting the reader’s expectations with ‘the element of surprise’ can often allow you to heighten dramatic tension in your story, add suspense, or introduce humour.

Mystery readers, though, are a fairly sophisticated bunch. Most dedicated mystery readers have a sense of the story. We’re accustomed to surprises in the form of strange clues and red herrings to distract us from figuring out who the real culprit is. Complex twists and turns are part of a good mystery, but readers know that no matter what surprises or unusual events are thrown at the amateur sleuth, she will eventually solve the mystery and save the day.

However, I read a book recently that took a couple of turns I didn’t expect. (Note: spoilers in the paragraphs below.)

* * *

Trent’s Last Case by E.C. Bentley was published in 1913 and is widely respected as one of the first, if not the first, modern detective novel. Agatha Christie called it, “One of the best detective stories ever written.” It was dedicated to Bentley’s friend G.K. Chesterton who encouraged him to write it and, maybe unsurprisingly, called it, “The finest detective story of modern times.”

The story begins when the body of a very unlikeable financial magnate, Sigsbee Manderson, is found by one of his servants, and there is concern that his death might shake up the financial markets  When the editor of an influential newspaper hears of the probable murder, he calls on the charismatic Philip Trent, an artist who is also a freelance reporter and amateur sleuth, to help solve the case. Highly respected by the police authorities, Trent seems to have the intellectual acuity of Sherlock Holmes since we’re told nothing can escape his astute powers of observation. (It turns out this is an intended comparison.)

There are the usual suspects in the case: the beautiful widow, the unhappy uncle, and various others who had reasons to do away with the unpleasant Mr. Manderson. And there is an abundance of strange clues to keep the reader busy trying to put the puzzle together. Not to worry, though. Trent puts his considerable analytical skills to work and comes up with a brilliant theory that satisfies all the clues. The only problem is that he has fallen in love with Manderson’s widow, and he believes she was having an affair with one of her husband’s employees who subsequently murdered Manderson.

Trent writes his dispatch to the newspaper editor but doesn’t send it. Unwilling to implicate the woman he loves, he gives the dispatch to the widow, leaves the site of the crime, and accepts a freelance reporting assignment in another country..

Surprise #1: Trent’s solution to the mystery comes just a little after the midpoint in the book. That threw me since I’m accustomed to the reveal coming in the last chapter. I read on, curious to see how the author would continue the story. Will the widow turn out to be a scheming murderer who hunts down Trent and kills him? Will she and her lover taunt Trent with his unwillingness to accuse them?

Several chapters later, we discover:

Surprise #2: The widow wasn’t involved. Trent was wrong.

Very clever, Mr. Bentley. You led me down the garden path, convinced that Trent could not make a mistake because he was modeled on the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes.

It turns out E.C. Bentley was not a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and he intended Trent’s Last Case to show the amateur sleuth as a fallible human, not a flawless reasoning superhero. But I didn’t know that when I began reading the book, and my expectations set me up for a few surprising plot twists.

There are a couple of other surprises in the book, but I won’t reveal them here in case anyone wants to read the story. Even though Bentley employs an early 20th-century style of writing that is no longer popular, the story is enjoyable and stands the test of time.

* * *

“I love surprises! That’s what is great about reading. When you open a book, you never know what you’ll find.” –Jerry Spinelli

* * *

An interesting postscript: I uploaded this post to the TKZ site last week. Over the weekend, my husband and I had lunch with a fellow author who was telling us about a book he recently read: Fade Away by Harlan Coben. Although I hadn’t said anything about my TKZ post, our well-read friend said the thing he loved about the book was that it held many surprises. So there you have it. The proof is in the pudding.

So TKZers: Have you read Trent’s Last Case? What books have you read that took you by surprise? How do you include elements of surprise in your books?

* * *

Private pilot Cassie Deakin is in for a string of surprises when she lands in the middle of a murder mystery. Even Fiddlesticks the cat takes on a new persona that’s shocking.

Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

 

The Black Sheep of the Short Form—the Novelette

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The two previous Words of Wisdom dealt with story lengths shorter than the novel: the short story and the novella. Today’s post, though not a Words of Wisdom one, will continue with a look at the “black sheep” of the short form, the novelette. While the novelette is recognized in various science fiction awards as a discrete length, this is not true for mystery and thriller, hence the “black sheep” in this post’s title.

Length-wise, short stories are usually defined as running from 2000-7500 words, while the novella is often defined as running from 20,000-40,000 words in length. Short stories are the typical length in many online magazines, and in story anthologies. Story anthologies can include longer lengths, of course, ranging into the novella length. But, in general, there’s a divide between the two forms.

The novelette lives in that divide, running between 7500 words and 20,000.

Masterclass discusses what distinguishes a novelette from a novella:

In terms of storytelling ambition, novelettes tend to split the difference between novellas and shorter forms like short stories. Novelettes tend to have a greater focus on character development, worldbuilding, and plotting than short stories. However, the stories are generally more concise and focused than a novella-length work, as the word count is often too restrictive to tell a long story. [The full post can be found here.]

Our very own James Scott Bell has written a number of novelettes, including the Force of Habit series and Trouble is My Business, each six novelettes long. In his March 3, 2013 KZB post, Jim touches on the novelette and its value in helping you train as a writer:

Training: A novelette is short form (about 15k words) and I’ve been studying that form as the e-book revolution has taken off. All writers now should be producing short form work in addition to full length novels. He goes on to discuss other aspects of his novelette—the post is well worth reading in it’s entirety.

In the Science Fiction field a novelette is defined as running from 7500 to 17,500 words.

The late science fiction grand master James Gunn felt that the novelette was the perfect length for science fiction: long enough to allow the writer to fully explore an idea but not so long as to become caught up in a plot that might be so complex and lengthy as to overshadow the exploration of that idea:

“Although there are some great SF novels, there are far more great SF novelettes, which embody the substance of a novel without taking on its burden to solve the problem it lays out.”

I had the opportunity to talk with Jim Gunn about this when I was at the University of Kansas for a two-week novel writing workshop in 2013. As a long time anthologist, editor and writer he was passionate that this was the case.

I feel the same might be true for mystery, especially the locked room variety. The novelette length is long enough to delve into a clever mystery and explore it without having to go to even the extent of plotting and number of characters a novella does. At the same time, there’s more room for characterization and world building then in a true short story.

In mystery or thriller, neither the novelette or the novella are mentioned in awards categories. The Edgar Awards short story category covers stories that run from 1,000 to 22,000 words. The International Thriller Writer Awards simply says that to be considered a short story it must be less than 35,000 words.

***

Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense film, The Birds, is based on Daphne Du Maurier’s 1952 novelette of the same name. In the novelette, the story is centered on Nat Hocken, a disabled WW2 veteran who works for a local farmer. Set on the windswept Cornish coast during a bleak autumn, Nat soon finds evidence of birds acting strangely, pecking at his bedroom window, and when he opens it, attacking him. At the same time, the autumn has turned a bitter, dry cold. Soon Nat notices gargantuan flocks of gulls riding the waves at sea, seemingly biding their time. What follows is a building horror as Nat realizes his family, and his community is under threat, and he takes steps to warn others and protect his family.

The POV is kept on Nat, and the focus on coordinated actions of the birds. The novelette takes place over three days. Radio broadcasts let Nat and the reader both know that the bird attacks are widespread, throughout the U.K., and perhaps the world, but we stay with Nat the whole time. The arc of the novelette is in Nat and his family’s evolving situation, as he becomes aware of the threat, and attempts to save his family and warn others.

I’ve published three novelettes, “Siloed,” which appeared in the Street Spells urban fantasy anthology, “Running Tangent,” co-written with K.C. Ball, which was published in the July 2015 issue of Perihelion Science Fiction, and the cozy mystery novelette, “Farewell, My Cookie,” which I published on BookFunnel last August. All three were in the range of 10-11,000 words. Both “Siloed” and “Farewell, My Cookie,” take place over the course of a single evening, while “Running Tangent” occurs over a longer span of time.  I find novelette length ideal for briskly paced stories that took place over just a few hours.

For me, the novelette’s allowing more space for characterization, exploring an idea or a world and more room for plot than a short story while being more concise than a novella makes it a form worth considering.

How about you?

  1. Have you read novelettes? If so, do you have any favorites?
  2. Have you written novelettes?
  3. Do you think the novelette length worth writing for mystery, especially locked room or puzzle stories?

Unpacking Suspense with Agent Zach Honey

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By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Writing conferences are a mix of exhilarating and exhausting, inspiring and overwhelming, work and play.

Terry Odell and I recently attended the Flathead River Writers Conference. In today’s and tomorrow’s posts, you’ll hear about the experience from each of us. Terry also tried out her new Olympus camera and will hopefully share scenic shots tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the conference taken by other guests:

Susan Purvis and Debbie Burke at the book table

 

No, this isn’t a stick up. Dr. Erika Putnam leads the audience in exercises to alleviate “writer’s slump” from hours bent over the computer.

 

 

 

Author/storyteller Chris La Tray is Montana’s Poet Laureate who starts each morning by reading the tattoo on his arm—a challenge from Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

It reads: “Men Wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.”

Does that sound a little like writing? 

A young writer shares her story with a friend. Isn’t this what conferences are all about? 

A couple of days before the conference, Terry arrived from Colorado to check out this corner of Montana. On Thursday, we drove around Flathead Lake, while showers and sunshine played tag.

On Friday, the sun won out over showers. In Glacier National Park, snow closed the higher elevations of Going-to-the-Sun Road so we didn’t make it up to Logan Pass (6000+ feet) to see mountain goats and bighorn sheep. But we visited Lake McDonald, waterfalls, and the historic lodge. Any day at Glacier is a good day.

As a Montanan, I performed my sworn, sacred duty to introduce Terry to huckleberry-peach pie and huckleberry chocolate.

Literary agent Zach Honey

Now to the conference highlights from one of the guest agents, Zach Honey of FinePrint Literary Management.

Zach was born in Greensboro, NC and raised in Montana, leading to an affinity for both sweet tea and waist-deep snow. He specializes in thrillers in rural settings because of the potential for dark, scary adventures in remote, isolated locations.

Zach gave a talk about the elements of suspense that’s tailor-made for the crime dogs of TKZ. He kindly agreed to allow me to unpack his presentation. Thanks, Zach!

Suspense and mystery apply to all stories in all genres.

Why does the reader keep turning pages?

Why does the listener lean toward the person telling the story?

Why does the viewer keep watching the movie?

To find out what happens next. 

Suspense contains three elements:

  1. Hope – where the reader experiences pleasure about the prospect of desirable events.
  2. Fear – where the reader experiences worry about undesirable events.
  3. Uncertainty – the cognitive imbalanced state of not knowing the outcome of events.

When readers feel a close connection to a character, esp. the POV character, they hope for a good outcome for that character and fear the danger that threatens the character.

Villainous characters also need to connect with readers, although it’s a different type of connection. Readers are intrigued and fascinated by evildoers. That interest can be deepened and made more complex by incorporating backstory. Why is the villain willing to or driven to step over the line? Will s/he get away with it?

Suspense can be short term for the duration of a scene or long term sustained over the entire book or film.

Types of suspense:

 Mysterious suspense – Info is withheld from the reader.

Horrific suspense – Something bad will happen. Often a tragic ending. Examples: Stephen King, Dean Koontz.

Romantic or comedic suspense – Something bad will happen that may also be funny/entertaining and usually leads to a happy ending.

Paradox of suspense: Suspense contains an inherent paradox because readers or film viewers often know the end beforehand. Knowledge of the end should preclude suspense, yet it doesn’t.

Readers continue to read despite knowing who the murderer/villain is.

Photo credit: Laura Loveday, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED

People who’ve watched Psycho multiple times still jump at the shower scene.

That leads to the question: Why does someone who already knows the outcome still feel suspense?

Zach offered these theories:

Moment by moment forgetting – the reader/viewer is so caught up in the present tense moment that they temporarily forget the outcome.

Desire/frustration theory of suspense – The reader/viewer feels frustrated because they want to change the outcome of an imminent event, but they can’t. That’s why the movie audience shouts, “Don’t go down in the basement!” Of course, the character inevitably does and meets their doom.

Zach cited Alfred Hitchcock as the renowned master of suspense. Hitch defined differences between mystery and suspense:

Mystery is an intellectual process.

Suspense is an emotional process.

Mystery requires withholding information from the reader/viewer.

Suspense requires giving information to the reader/viewer.

A classic example is the bomb under the table.

In mystery, only the character who placed the bomb knows it’s there. None of the other characters nor the reader is aware of it. When it explodes, it causes immediate surprise and shock.

In suspense, the reader knows the bomb is about to go off, but the characters don’t know. The reader’s knowledge leads to excited, horrified anticipation of the disaster that’s about to happen. Five minutes of suspense delivers five seconds of surprise/shock.

When the reader or audience has more information than the character does, that also causes dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony has great impact on the reader. The combination of the intellectual process (knowledge of what happens next) together with the emotional process (the fear, hope, uncertainty of what happens next) delivers an effective power punch for authors to exploit.

Additional tools:

Raise the stakes – what will be lost if the hero fails?

Lower the hope – what if the hero can’t succeed b/c their abilities or resources are reduced?

Foreshadowing – creating dread for something that may happen in the future.

A big thank you to Zach Honey for explaining the mystery of suspense.

~~~

Stop by tomorrow to read Terry Odell’s impressions of the Flathead River Writers Conference.

~~~

TKZers – what is your favorite technique for building suspense in your stories? Are any of the tools that Zach mentioned new to you? If so, do you want to experiment with them?

~~~

 

 

Suspense is high but the price is low for Debbie Burke’s latest thriller Deep Fake Double Down. Only $.99 at this link.

Getting Cozy

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“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.” – Neil Armstrong

* * *

What is a cozy mystery? And how has this popular sub-genre evolved over time? Since fellow TKZ contributor Dale Ivan Smith and I both write cozies, we thought it would be fun to co-write a post on the subject.

WHAT MAKES A MYSTERY “COZY?”

These are the basic “rules” as I understand them:

  1. No explicit violence.
  2. No explicit sexual content.
  3. Usually, no profanity. But if there is any, it’s mild.

Although there are many variations, a cozy mystery often involves a murder that has taken place “off stage” before the story begins. The mystery is usually presented as a puzzle where the reader tries to figure out the solution along with the protagonist.

This quote from an article on novelsuspects.com sums it up nicely:

“Overall, cozy mysteries are the perfect mix of smart, thoughtful stories that challenge you to think as you read while also being a relaxing escape from everyday life.“

HISTORY

Mysteries have been around for a long time. The first mystery novel is usually identified as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, published in 1859. But Agatha Christie changed the landscape in 20th century.

According to an article on the website of the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library in Mansfield, Ohio:

“Agatha Christie is usually credited with being the (unintentional) mother of the cozy mystery genre with her Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series. The term “cozy” was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.”

* * *

Since its inception, the cozy mystery genre has evolved, and a few new trends have grown up around it. For example, many of today’s cozies have paranormal elements you wouldn’t have found in the mid-20th century. It also isn’t unusual for stories to center around food or pets.

Book covers have also morphed to reflect a more playful approach, and many titles have become something of a pun contest. To the best of my knowledge, the images shown below were the first edition covers. Consider how things have changed from the 20th century …

… to the 21st century:

* * *

Over to Dale to give us background on the cozy narrative:

We’re so often advised to begin with action. However, cozies tend to call for the grounding of the reader in the character’s background and setting right at the start, to help give that cozy feel and connect the reader with our heroine. The heroine is often introduced in a summary of who-the-character is fashion, rather than an in-media-res opening that other mysteries might.

Often we also learn how she arrived at this point in her life—perhaps she just went through a divorce, or lost a job, and moved to the small community, possibly inheriting a business and meeting a character who will be significant in their life. If they are already established, like in Jenn McKinlay’s Books Can Be Deceiving, the first of her Library Lovers series which opens with the Thursday “Crafternoon” group meeting at the library.

The murder can occur in the opening, but often occurs later, and serves as the gateway to Act II. While the opening of a cozy often establishes the world before the murder, the discovery of a body puts the sleuth on a quest to restore order to her little world. The heroine will follow an “arc of suspicion” where she uncovers secrets that may lead to the actual crime, or may be a red herring, and she will be looking for the motive.

The police are on the wrong trail when it comes to finding the murderer, so it is up to the amateur sleuth to find the true culprit. Often a friend, relative or other innocent is arrested. A police arrest of an innocent may occur at the midpoint, and/or the person the sleuth believed was the murderer themselves is killed, or something else that sends our heroine’s investigation on a new course.

She sifts through competing ideas (theories) about what was behind the murder, until she finds a crucial clue or insight which leads her to the revelation and confrontation with the killer. Just before this climax of the book, circumstances and/or choices she makes isolate her from her friends and allies.

As the investigation continues, it is counterbalanced with a cozy subplot, such a baking competition, parade, event at the library etc. which the main character is involved with, until the isolating nature of the investigation pushes her away from that cozy storyline.

There is often also a slow-burn romance. In H.Y. Hanna’s English Cottage Garden series Poppy has a slow-burn mutual attraction, alternating with frustration, for her neighbor, a crime writer, who also helps her at times in solving the mystery. Each book features a moment where the two draw together in attraction other, but another moment or moments were they are pushed apart by a disagreement or other conflict.

Humor in a cozy mystery serves to lighten the mood and up the fun quotient of the story, often surprising the reader right after a plot turn or a revelation, though things get serious as we head into Act III and the confrontation with the murderer. But often comedy returns at the end, when we have a scene or even a short sequence of scenes validating the restoration of order to the community.

So, TKZers: Do you read cozy mysteries? Tell us about your favorite books and authors.

 

 

It’s a Mystery!

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When I was writing my first novel, a friend asked what kind of book it was. I said it was a cozy mystery, but she didn’t know what that was, so I explained, “It’s a mystery with no explicit violence, no explicit sexual content, and usually no profanity. After her cheerful, “I guess you realize there’ll be no audience” response, I pretended to smile. (I get that remark a lot.)

But then I got to thinking. Many, if not all, of Agatha Christie’s works fall into the category I had explained to my friend, as do Dorothy Sayers’ books. Why aren’t they considered cozies? So here I am, several novels down the road, and I wonder if I should revisit this whole genre thing.

* * *

Dictionary.com defines a mystery as “a novel, short story, play, or film whose plot involves a crime or other event that remains puzzlingly unsettled until the very end.”

The search for a definitive list of mystery subgenres was more complicated than I thought it would be. Mysteries can be subdivided in many different ways depending on the point of view of the person defining them. I found an article I liked on the website of the Handley Regional Library System, and I’ve used that as a basis for this list. (Please note this is not intended to be an exhaustive description of the genre. I’ve combined some of my own opinions with those I’ve found in articles on the subject.)

* * *

Classic Mysteries can be exemplified by Agatha Christie’s works. There is a crime, usually a murder, and the story is concerned with identifying the killer(s). Classic mysteries, like cozies, generally don’t include any explicit violence or sexual content, and there’s usually no profanity. Some of the notable entries in this category are Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.

Cozy Mysteries can be seen as a subset of classics. As noted above, cozies also don’t contain explicit violence or sexual content and rarely use profanity. The action usually takes place in a small village or on a university campus. Cozies almost always have an amateur sleuth who becomes involved in the case and may solve it. (But then, wasn’t Miss Marple an amateur sleuth?) Over the years, cozies have evolved, and current examples may include paranormal elements, animals helping solve crimes, or other unusual aspects. (This is why I wondered if my books are in the wrong category.) M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series and the Murder, She Wrote series are examples of this subgenre.

 

Hardboiled or Noir Mysteries – These two subgenres that were very popular in the 30’s and 40’s seem to be interchangeable. They’re often characterized by a no-nonsense detective who battles the creeps and criminals in an urban environment. According to the Handley Regional Library blog, “Noir protagonists are complex characters who are flawed, risk takers and often self-destructive.” Makes one immediately think of Raymond Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe: “I’m an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.” Or Dashiell Hammett’s detective, Sam Spade. Michael Connelly is quoted as saying, “Chandler credited Hammett with taking the mystery out of the drawing-room and putting it out on the street where it belongs.”

 

Police Procedural Mysteries focus on the investigation process of a police officer or officers. There are several in this subgenre that I like: The Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French, the Bosch series by Michael Connelly, and The Dry by Jane Harper.

 

Capers are a kind of mystery where the reader is in on the crime. I don’t know a lot about this subgenre, but the description sounds like some likeable criminals who pull off a crime and fool the inept authorities. One example in this category is William Goldman’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

 

There are other subgenres that I discovered, including True Crime, Legal Thrillers, Howcatchem (the opposite of Whodunit), Historical, and Locked Room. But there’s so much crossover between subgenres that it’s hard to pigeonhole a book into just one area.

So I’m still not sure how to refer to my books. For now, I’ll just stick with Mystery.

* * *

So TKZers: What subgenre of mystery do you prefer? Who’s your favorite author or authors? If you write mystery, what subgenre are you in?

 

The Watch Mysteries: Books 1-3

Fun Hunting A Killer

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Fun Hunting A Killer
Terry Odell

Hunt a Killer

(No, I haven’t forgotten that it’s St. Patrick’s Day. More about that at the end of this post).

Thanks to stumbling across a friend’s post on Facebook, the Hubster and I discovered a new project. We’d gone the jigsaw puzzle route, but this was something different.

What are we doing? Solving a murder. It’s called Hunt A Killer. What is it? A detective game. You can play alone or with others.

Here’s the setup:

Private investigator Michelle Gray needs your help with yet another perplexing mystery. A woman named Julia Adler has recently found a mummified corpse in the attic of her family-owned theater. The remains belong to the famed actress Viola Vane, who notoriously disappeared in 1934. Now that Vane’s body has been unearthed after decades, you can finally investigate the million-dollar question: Who orchestrated the vanishing of Viola Vane?

Here’s how it works:

Each episode ends with your action to piece together another aspect of the overall mystery. In Curtain Call, this isn’t just about finding evidence and eliminating suspects. You’ll be called upon to uncover all aspects of the case – including the suspects’ secrets and their relationships to Viola, as well as to one another. Follow your contact’s assignments to advance the investigation, but examine every document closely to reveal the full story of the Cadence Theatre.

Hunt A KillerOnce a month, for six months, we get a box of evidence and clues. Of course, some will be red herrings. Each box comes with an objective. For box one, it was to determine the murder weapon. We sifted through forensics reports, newspaper clippings, theater programs, stage notes. There are more clues on the website dedicated to each crime. Of course, finding the monthly objective isn’t enough, because each month’s evidence will build on the previous months’.

Hunt A KillerWe’ve set up a murder board (honestly, I think this is what convinced the Hubster this could be fun), solved different kinds of ciphers, started a timeline, come up with potential suspects, worked on the relationships between everyone…and there’s more.

Since this is an 80-year-old case (created for the game), there are no survivors who can answer questions. We have to rely on what’s in our evidence boxes, or on the website where some more transcripts and pictures might be hiding more clues. Oh, and there are Facebook groups for each episode where people can ask questions if they’re stumped. It’s moderated to avoid spoilers.

Did the forensic anthropologist leave out relevant information? Who wrote the rehearsal notes? Is the shopping list jotted in the middle of those notes a clue? Do the dog roses refer to an incident in the play as an inside joke for the cast and crew, or will they be important? What about the letters to “Dear Dorothy” in the newspaper clipping? Why did the understudy take over Viola’s role? There’s a ton of information to sift through, and this is only box 1!

In addition to the game itself, they give you drink recipes and a Spotify playlist to get you in the mood. And gifts. We got a cocktail recipe book and two copper mugs.

Hunt A KillerWe’ve been having as much fun testing the libations as we have trying to interpret evidence.

We’ve only completed the first box so I can’t go into much more detail. If you want to move faster, there’s the option to expedite the next box once you’ve met the objective, but we’re letting things play out on the monthly schedule because there’s so much more to ferret out. I’m not going to go into specifics about what we’ve discovered in case anyone here at TKZ wants to give this a try. If you’re writing mysteries, you should already have the mindset for crime solving, and it’s a great way to keep those deductive processes honed.

Disclaimer: I’m sharing this because the Hubster and I have been having so much fun, and I thought some TKZers might like to know about it. (Of course, there are probably a bunch of you out there who wonder why I’m so late to the party.) I get nothing from the company for talking about their program.

St. Patrick's Day

As promised: Since it’s St. Patrick’s Day, I thought you might be interested in how it’s celebrated in Northern Ireland, where my daughter lives. Hint: There’s no green beer.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.” Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Deadly Options

Are Gordon’s Days in Mapleton Numbered?

Deadly Options, a Mapleton Mystery/Pine Hills Police crossover.