Writing a Cozy? Follow the Rules … And Mind Your Language / Author Penny Clover Petersen

Nancy Drew never cursed. She was always under duress in one manner or another, but she never let, even the occasional expletive, spill from her titian-colored head. In this week’s guest blog, author Penny Clover Petersen discusses what makes a cozy mystery, and the ongoing debate about the use of bad words.

Read like they are burning books!

Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine

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Writing a Cozy? Follow the Rules … And Mind Your Language

By Penny Clover Petersen

I began my first novel when I was fifty-nine. Being an avid mystery lover, I had spent most of those fifty-nine years inventing puzzling scenarios for the most trivial occurrences and envisioning dark motives behind the most benign actions. Cookies for a teacher? They are no doubt laced with something in order to avoid the afternoon’s math test. A package delivered late? You know the mailman is up to something, but what?

Poison pen letters, tripping over bodies lying by the side of the road, murder, mayhem, blackmail, all of these fascinating ideas rolling around in my head had me wondering if I were to write a mystery, what would I write?

When the mood finally moved me to get to work I took to heart the adage “write what you know” and figured that I know family, cats and dogs, suburban living, and cozy mysteries. So I determined that a cozy mystery involving two sisters, a goofy mother, and a hormonally challenged dog was something I could achieve.

Now, writing cozies is a bit tricky. The rules are pretty well defined. The first two are actually almost carved in stone and I think that we must adhere to them if we want to call a mystery a cozy.

Number one is all violence will be off-stage. Cozy writers do not depict grizzly murders. Autopsies are avoided. We don’t have psychotic killers torturing hapless victims in gruesome detail. As with many cozy writers, my victims tend to be obnoxious people that no one much likes who are conked on the head and found by the side of the road.

Number two is, of course, sex. That, too, must be off-stage. There are no steamy love scenes, no kinky aberrations. If sex enters into the plot, it generally is glossed over with only the incidental reference to “incredibly tall, slim men with well-cut graying hair and eyes the color of smoky quartz under wire-rimmed glasses.” Perhaps adding “kind of bookish and sexy — quite the studly muffin.” If the studly muffin and the leading lady ever do get together, it is definitely behind closed doors!

Number three concerns foul language. Agatha Christie, the mother of the cozy, did not use any off-color language in her books. But neither did anyone else writing at that time. It wasn’t a part of the culture.

Today, I think this is one rule that can be tinkered with. I have spoken with a number of cozy writers and this is a stumbling block for many of us. We want our characters to be somewhat real and the use of “language” in society has certainly become looser. For instance, my own everyday speech is not chockfull of colorful invective, but I do occasionally throw out a word or two my mother would not approve.

So what is acceptable in a cozy written in 2015? Of the writers to whom I have spoken, many have main characters that use the S-word. Many feel a leading lady is allowed to say, “Oh Christ!” or the like. Damn, hell, and variations seem to be acceptable these days.

But what of, as they say, the F-bomb? Now I don’t advocate throwing it around like confetti, but I do feel there are appropriate times that it might be used. As my children could tell you, if they heard me scream f….., they would most certainly know that I am really, really mad or have gone completely around the bend. And I feel the same holds true in a cozy. A crazed killer saying, “Oh gosh, I think I have to kill you now,” does not have the dramatic effect as something much more strongly worded.

A friend and fellow author, Austin Camacho, suggests leaving the cursing to the peripheral characters — the crazies, the villains — and keeping the leading ladies ‘cozy’. I tend to agree with this point of view. But I think purists probably wouldn’t. And so the question is, just how much is too much — and is it still a cozy?

If you would like to read more about Penny Clover Petersen’s books please click here.

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Penny Clover Petersen’s first Daisy&Rose mystery, Roses and Daisies and Death, Oh My was released in December 2013 by Intrigue Publishing. In addition to writing, Penny enjoys spending time with her family, refurbishing old furniture, collecting stories and recipes for the ‘family cookbook’, and savoring new cocktail recipes. She loves historic homes and is a docent at Riversdale Mansion in Riverdale, MD. Her second novel, Roses Are Dead, My Love, will be released April 2015. Penny is currently at work on her third Daisy&Rose mystery. Visit her website at http://pennypetersen.com/

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(Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)

Variety is the Spice of Writing – But So Is Plausibility / Author Stephen L. Brayton

The beauty of the written word is that real life can be just a jumping off point. Plus, there’s no reason to get bogged down in the same details over and over. In this week’s blog, author Stephen L. Brayton shares how he incorporates variety into his stories and why it’s so important. After all, Brayton’s heroine Mallory Petersen, a taekwondo instructor and private investigator, packs a sidekick worth getting right.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine

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Variety is the Spice of Writing – But So Is Plausibility
By Stephen L. Brayton

Since I’m involved in martial arts, I write a series about a character that is a taekwondo school owner as well as a private investigator. Yes, she carries a gun, but she relies on her martial arts skills more often.

I have two challenges in writing this series. First, is to create scenes where my main character, Mallory Petersen, can use her skills, and secondly, is for her to use a variety of those skills.

After all, what fun would it be for the reader if all she ever threw were a couple of punches and a front kick?

So, I’ve adapted my own training into scenes. Yes, punches and front kicks are used, but also round kicks, sweeps, sidekicks, and a variety of weapons such as the long staff and bahng mahng ee, or single stick.

I’ve been able to take some of my favorite exercises and techniques, allowing Mallory to use them in practical situations.

In an upcoming story, she has to execute with skill certain techniques to avoid being killed by an assailant wielding a knife. The situation is dire. She doesn’t have a weapon. She is also in danger of freezing, suffering from withdrawal symptoms, and can’t waste time or else somebody else dies. It’s one of those scenes designed to keep the reader on edge.

But when I create one of these scenes, I have to choreograph the movements. Many times, I’ve mentally written the order of technique-reaction-counter techniques while doing laps around the local high school track. Running, for me, is a great way to free up my mind to think about writing. When I concentrate on a problem within a story, I focus less on how my muscles hurt or that I want to quit after only a few laps.

Back home, I’ll write down the steps in order, then physically work through them, either alone or with a partner. Of course, I’m not actually going to incapacitate my partner, but I am able to get a feel for how the techniques will work. I also get a sense of time, whether the scene runs too quickly or drags and I need to add more material to spice it up a bit.

One area I need to keep in mind is that Mallory is human and feels pain. My writers group has commented on this several times after I’ve read portions of Mallory’s action scenes. This is not like the movies where no one gets hurt, and the heroine fights through any injury with no consequence. Mallory experiences both pain and injury. Sure, she can grit her teeth and still fight on, but she is not Superwoman.

I know I’ve done my job well when I hear comments from readers who say they can follow the movements and know that what I’ve written, and what Mallory has accomplished, actually works.

Creating new scenarios and using the variety of martial arts techniques I know is part of the fun of writing. With that foundation, my imagination can run free to do whatever is necessary to make the scene worth reading.

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If you would like to read more about Stephen L. Brayton’s books please click here.

Stephen L. Brayton owns and operates Brayton’s Black Belt Academy in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He is a Fifth Degree Black Belt and certified instructor in The American Taekwondo Association. He began writing as a child; his first short story concerned a true incident about his reactions to discipline. In college, he began a personal journal for a writing class; said journal is ongoing. He was also a reporter for the college newspaper. During his early twenties, while working for a Kewanee, Illinois, radio station, he wrote a fantasy-based story and a trilogy for a comic book. He has written numerous short stories both horror and mystery. His first novel, Night Shadows (Feb. 2011), concerns a Des Moines homicide investigator teaming up with a federal agent to battle creatures from another dimension. His second book, Beta (Oct. 2011) was the debut of Mallory Petersen and her search for a kidnapped girl. In August 2012, the second Mallory Petersen book, Alpha, was published. This time she investigates the murder of her boyfriend. Visit Brayton’s website at http://stephenbrayton.wordpress.com

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com