Mystery Week!

[varkat]

Top 5 things to remember about mystery (and yes, of course, some rules are made to be broken, but…):

1) Bodies in your belfry

There are all kids of mysteries - thrillers, capers, international intrigue, etc. - but if you’re writing a murder mystery, your body should appear, off or preferably on stage, within the first thirty to forty pages.

Comments

[joliehale]

2) Don’t kill the cat

Seriously, are you sadistic? People are fine, but cats? Do the words lynch mob mean anything to you?

LOL! This is so true. It's a rule that can be broken, but my goodness, it does hurt when the innocent pet dies. You'd better have a damn good reason. What did the kitty ever do to deserve authorial wrath?!

[jryson]

It's okay for a good cat to kill a bad one, though, right?

[varkat]

Hmm, does it have to be death or can an ear be shredded or an eye be lost so that when the bad cat is redemed, it can wear a dashing eye-patch?

[jryson]

Shiny black armor and a loud respirator.

dogs count, too

[anonymous]

Don't kill the dog, either. I don't know what it is about me, but I can't watch or read anything in which the dog dies. I'm a teacher, and one school made me teach Where the Red Fern Grows. I will never teach it again. I taught it in a rural farming community where everyone seemed to own hunting dogs. We read the book AND watched the film. The whole class, including big, burly guys, were in tears by the end. They kept sneaking up in the dark, during the film, to snatch tissues off my desk.

Lisa Iriarte

[connerybeagle]

I've had to wrest the keyboard away from ConneryBeagle in order to chime in...well, to confess...

I've killed the cat.

In fact, I guess I've broken all the cat/dog rules. It seems to me that when you involve animals in mysteries and suspense (even in fantasy and romance, if it comes to that), then...things happen. Not with appalling regularity, but...they do happen! (Especially, for instance, if you write mysteries with a veterinarian protagonist and his Beagle sidekick.)

I do hear from readers--shoot, if it doesn't affect them, then I'm not doing it right--but no one's ever gone lynch mob on me. (Er. Yet.) I think it's a matter of making sure that readers care, but that they don't utterly lose their hearts to the critter--I don't do away with primary characters like those in RED FERN. Talk about bawling your eyes out! No, I have messed with Dale's beloved Sully Beagle, but by golly that dog will live forever if I have anything to say about it!

--Doranna
temporarily in command of the keyboard

[varkat]

Long live Sully Beagle!

And yes, all bets are off when you're talking about veterinary mysteries, where at least part of the crime and clues will involve the furred or feathered folk...or scaled or....

[spiziks]

Why do I have the feeling someone read a bunch of "and then they found Fluffy's body" mysteries in her slush pile recently . . . ?

[varkat]

Nope, it's just such a true-ism, generally, in mystery that I was poking a bit of fun with my reaction. It's certainly not limited to mystery (look at Independence Day and numerous other sf films too where the dog had to be saved!). I'm not saying that saving animals is a bad thing by any means. In fact, I'm one of those people who has way more trouble with films when the horse goes down than the human, which makes me sound like a total misanthrope.