Writing a Cozy Mystery by Joyce Ann Brown
What, no detailed violence or bloodshed in my
mystery—in this day of Mission Impossible
XIV (or whatever number they’re up to) and CSI morgues in living color? And
what about including a hint of romance rather than steamy, explicit sex scenes?
Would anyone read it? Shades of Gray
was made into a movie, for heaven’s sake.
I started writing my first mystery at a workshop. It
was love at first write. Mysteries have always been one of my favorite genres.
Agatha Christie, Lilian Jackson Braun, Nancy Pickard, Nora Roberts, John
Grisham, Diane Mott Davidson, Carl Hiaasen, Tony Hillerman, and on and on. That
there are sub-genres within the mystery genre didn’t give me pause.
Until—people started telling me I needed to include sex scenes and gory details
of the murders in my stories to appeal to today’s readers.
I struggled to include some gratuitous sex and
violence in my otherwise strategy and clue-driven first mystery. It sounded
unnecessary and even distracting. It was then I dug deeper into the varieties
of mysteries. A revelation—I could write a cozy
mystery, or a cozy. I looked back
at my bookshelf. Sure enough, the definition of a cozy fit my most beloved
mysteries.
Besides being G or PG rated, cozies often have an
amateur sleuth, like Beth Stockwell, the protagonist in my Psycho Cat and the
Landlady Mystery series. Details about the sleuth’s profession or hobby become
part of the story (newspaper reporter, baker, librarian, house builder,
knitter, bookstore owner, etc.) Beth is a landlady with rental properties that
become crime scenes. A cozy mystery takes place in an intimate village, town,
or neighborhood that is visited throughout each story in a series. Readers learn
to know the town as well as the characters. My stories take place in Brookside,
a quaint neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.
The converted Trolley Track Trail meanders through
Brookside. The hiking/biking trail serves as a symbolic path Beth takes between
her everyday home life and her dangerous investigating. Beth argues with
herself internally while taking her daily walk, and she encounters different
folks on the trail, both good and evil.
Pets. I can’t imagine Clive Cussler’s hero, Dirk
Pitt, spending time with a cat. By no means all, but many cozy mysteries
include a cat or a dog as a character. The pets provide humorous interludes,
willing listeners, and avenues for foreshadowing clues or danger to come.
Sylvester, the Psycho Cat in my series, makes brief, but important, appearances
in each book. Although he’s typical cat at all times, he is the catalyst for
discovering the mysteries and some of the clues.
The structure of a cozy is essentially the same as
any mystery—three acts with plot points, climax, and wrap-up. The challenge
faced by the cozy writer, in my opinion, consists of creating characters, plot,
and climax that are intriguing and exciting for today’s readers without
depicting grisly murders and titillating sexual encounters in detail. That’s
okay by me. I love my mysteries to be mysterious and suspenseful, not clinical.
Joyce Ann
Brown (http://www.joyceannbrown.com/) owns rental properties
in Kansas City with her husband, but none of their tenants have so far been
involved in theft, kidnapping, or murder. Her two cats, Moose and Chloe, are
cuddly, not psycho. Besides being a landlady, Joyce has worked as a story teller,
a library media specialist, a Realtor, and a freelance writer. Her writing has
appeared in local and national publications.
FURtive
Investigation: Psycho
Cat discovers a trunk containing a human skeleton in a duplex attic. Beth, the
landlady, detects on her own when, on orders from higher-ups, the cold case
investigation is curtailed by law enforcement. She must discover the identities
of victim and perpetrator without becoming a casualty herself. The story moves
back and forth between the present and the past as the reader learns the truth.
CAtastrophic
Connections: Beth, a klutzy Kansas City landlady,
with the help of a psycho cat, searches for her missing tenant, who is also her
niece. Adrianna has been framed for embezzlement and murder. To vindicate her
niece, she must bring the true evildoer to justice.
Joyce
Ann Brown
Website: http://joyceannbrown.com
Link to CATastrophic Connections or FURtive Investigation on Amazon.com
Website: http://joyceannbrown.com
Link to CATastrophic Connections or FURtive Investigation on Amazon.com
Comments
Catastrophic Connections sounds like a super book. Great title. Thank you.
Marja McGraw