How To Write Creative Nonfiction

Today I talk about how to apply some of the tried and true principles fiction writers routinely use. Why? Because I want see to what extent we can apply them to non-fiction. But, first, let’s look at ...

The Power of Words

All writers are readers first so we all have our favorite authors. One reason I wanted to write was because I wanted to enthrall readers the way my favorite authors had enthralled me. One thing I was fascinated by is how words—just words!—could make me laugh or cry or shudder with dread.

For instance, after I finished Stephen King’s IT I was scared to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (I was a child)—and became convinced that if I allowed my toes to inch their way over the edge of my mattress something black and scaly that lived in the perpetual blackness under my bed would bite them off, snickedy-snack.

How did Stephen King do that? How did his words produce such (delicious) fear in me? Writing is the blackest of magic because it allows one person to make little ink-marks on paper and at the other end produce a terrified child sitting in the middle of her bed desperately trying not to pee herself!

I’ve written about this before in regards to Stephen King (see: The Magic Of Stephen King: How To Write Compelling Characters & Great Openings), but today I’d like to take a look at another writer whose prose I admire: Chuck Wendig.

Wendig has certain flourishes that make me wish I could do that too. I know, different writers are, well, DIFFERENT. And difference is great. We should each of us try and develop our own voice rather than covet that of another. True. But I still find myself reading Chuck Wendig’s posts with a wee bit of envy creeping around the edges of my dark writer's soul.

(I’ll get the warning out of the way now: Chuck Wendig’s blog is NSFW because of adult language and a fertile, extremely creative, imagination! Visit and read at your own risk: Terribleminds.com.)

Fiction and nonfiction writing are more similar than they are different.

I’ve always felt that good writing is good writing whether we’re talking about a short story that makes you want to crawl into your bed and cry for three days or a darn good recipe for lemon meringues (I’m looking at you Nigella Lawson).

I feel that whatever principles are at work when (slightly shaken and knowing I’ve condemned myself to a month of nightmares) Stephen King captivates me with his prose, or I am kept spellbound by an article in The New Yorker (for example, Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast, by Patrick Radden Keefe) or I empathically bond with Nigella Lawson over the necessity of fluffy pancakes in the morning, calories be damned! When ANY kind of writing pulls me in, leaves me spellbound, whether that writing be fiction or nonfiction, recipe focused or a murder mystery, that the same essential core elements are at work.

So let’s test this theory, shall we? :-)

5 Elements of Character

For years I’ve directed folks to Jim Butcher’s posts on writing over on his Livejournal account and, IMHO, one of his best is Characters where he lays out what it is that makes a character interesting.

Now while I totally and completely agree that the following, as JB puts it, “consistently make a team contribution” to a terrific character, I think they may also apply more broadly. But more on that later. He’s the team:

A. Exaggeration
B. Exotic Position
C. Introduction
D. Verisimilitude
E. Empathy

(By the way, I’ve written about these in my article: How To Write Characters Your Readers Will Love: Character Checklist)

Now let’s test this theory using Chuck Wendig’s writing.

Terribleminds.com

I love Chuck Wendig’s writing. It’s got attitude. It bites and snarls and breathes fire. It’s different. Snarky.

He knows how to grab readers, how to draw them in. And I would like to examine—or  attempt to examine—HOW he does it. What qualities does his writing have that make me love it? How does it work?

So I’m going to present you with (brief!) passages of Chuck Wendig’s work that I particularly loved and see if it falls into one of Jim Butcher’s categories. I can’t emphasize enough that this is an experiment!

Now, I’d like to be clear about something, these are passages of CW’s writing that I loved. You might not, and that’s oaky! Also, you might disagree with how I analyze them, what categories I put them under. That’s okay too! If you’d like to share, tell me how you’d categorize them. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t take this too seriously, it’s just my own musings. In this area truth really is in the eye of the beholder. If it works for you then it works, and it it doesn’t then it doesn’t and that’s okay too.

A. Exaggeration

Here’s a passage I think nicely demonstrates how exaggeration can help spice up a passage.

“You look at it [a tiny house], and you think: I can do that. I can get healthy. I will juice cleanse and then eat asparagus and chia seeds for the rest of my life, [...] I’ll be healthy as a horse. A robot horse. A robot horse who will live forever and be the handsomest robot horse ever. I’ll lose this weight. People will admire my lean frame and my culinary judiciousness. I’ll eat like a rabbit. I will defy gluten and cast sugar into the sea and JUST SAY NO to pizzas and ice creams and tacos and all I will eat are these rods of asparagus and these spoonfuls of chia seeds and once a week for dessert I will treat myself with these delicious crackers made from ancient grains [...]. For sweetness, I will mist them with agave syrup the way the lady at the fragrance counter mists you with perfume as you walk past.”[1]

There’s a lot going on in there besides exaggeration. Chuck Wendig loves lists, and he especially loves lists that grow increasingly exotic/grotesque (but grotesque in a good way!) toward the end. For example ...

B. Exotic Position

Exaggeration and Exotic Position are by no means mutually exclusive. You noticed in the above quotation that there was exotic position as well:

“I’ll be healthy as a horse. A robot horse. A robot horse who will live forever and be the handsomest robot horse ever.”

Also:

“My family loves it. And they’re not just saying that because of the trap doors underneath their chairs that trigger whenever they say anything negative about me or my food.”[2]

Also:

“Enter you people. Hunters of tiny houses. Cave-humans once stalked lions on the veldt, but you intrepid hunters track itty-bitty homes — houses compressed down like coal until they become the shining diamonds of Spartan living.” [1]

Also:

“Now, the nice way to put it would be: writing means taking risks. Risks are — *bites lip, narrows eyes, smolders generally* — sexy. Nngh. Yeah. Take a risk with me, baby. Drive fast. Live loose. Eat raw cookie dough naked in the saddle of a galloping velociraptor. Boom. Risks. Yes.”[4]

That’s. Just. Awesome!!! It’s like a mini story. Which reminds me of something Stephen King said in On Writing[http://amzn.to/2movcNh] about paragraphs being the atoms of storytelling, but I’ll save that for another post.

As you can see, these examples involve Exaggeration as well as Exotic Position. As Jim Butcher writes, “While this [exotic position] is in actuality just another facet of exaggeration, there are enough differences to make it worth its own heading.”

What are these differences? JB says it hinges on: “Locating your character in an unusual location or situation.”[3]

In one of the quotations I just gave CW has his family perched atop trap doors that spring open at the slightest hint of negativity, I think that qualifies as an unusual situation!

But JB doesn’t stop there. He mentions several lenses we can view this through: social, geographic, intellectual and moral.

I’d say the trap door quotation is both social and moral. If CW had perched his family on the edge of a volcano we could add in geographic (though I don’t think there’s any pressure to hit more than one category at the same time!).

Intellectual ... the movie Limitless[http://amzn.to/2liBEA5] (2011) comes to mind. You know, that movie about the guy who takes a pill and becomes inhumanly smart? That’s exotic position for you! He’s not just smart, he’s the smartest guy in the world, and it’s killing him!

According to JB here’s the key to grabbing reader interest: Choose something “unusual enough to be memorable and interesting.”[3]

C. Introduction

Jim Butcher writes:

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression. When your reader meets any given character for the first time, it is critical to make sure you get the bare bones of your character into his head immediately. By establishing your character firmly, you'll make the whole process of virtual-story-world-creation move more quickly and easily. There are multiple techniques for planning a strong introduction, but I'm only going to hit on the strongest one: CHARACTERISTIC ENTRY ACTION.”[3]

This applies to introducing characters, but I think it also might to non-fiction as well. For instance, the first time a person picks up a particular story you’ve written you—by way of your prose—are making a first impression.

For example, in the above quotation try substituting “voice” for “character,” that works too!

So, what general principles can character introductions tell us about how to write prose that sparkles regardless of whether we’re writing fiction or non-fiction? I’m going to answer that question but, first, let’s look at the role conflict plays in developing a unique character.

Conflict and contrast.

A great character is a unique character. Which means we need to make sure they are different from each and every other character in our story. How do we do this? By creating conflicts that are UNIQUE TO THEM. One could argue that a character JUST IS her conflicts. Her essence is laid bare by how that character handles the obstacles that are placed in her way. These are the obstacles that keep her from obtaining what she wants most, from achieving her heart’s desire. (And, of course, this is true in real life! How one acts when one’s deepest desires are thwarted shows who one really is, it bares one’s soul.)

What I’m going to take away from this for non-fiction writing is: be yourself. If you let you be you then, since you’re unique, your writing will be too. This is all about finding your voice and I know that sounds nebulous and frustrating, but one thing that CW has done, and for me it’s the appeal of his writing, is he’s definitely found his voice! And, which is just as important, having found it he’s not afraid to use it! He lets it out to play. It’s big and bold and he doesn’t shrink back from that.

In the following I’d like you to read the quotations but, more than anything, look at the WAY CW writes. Look at the things he leaves out, listen to the words, the flow, the rhythm. The big flamboyance of it. The following quotations were drawn from CW’s (excellent!) essay: “An Open Letter to Tiny House Hunters.”[1] Notice how he (a writer of horror) uses words and phrases suggestive of death and confined spaces:

“adorable little tomb” (my favorite!)

“Because sure, kids and animals like nothing more than being crammed together in a piano crate, forced to share their limited oxygen while Mommy and Daddy make clumsy, grunting love in the casket-sized open-air loft above everybody’s heads...”

“the ashes of your parents”

“...your bed is going to be a claustrophobic morgue-drawer nightmare.”

“...yes, that is a tiny closet, and it will hold no more than the suit or dress in which they will bury you.”

“Your dogs want to run and jump and — I mean, they’re not hamsters, you understand that, right? They’re not hamsters, and you’re not diminutive little fairy creatures, and tiny houses are not houses, they’re GI Joe playsets, they’re hipster sepulchers, they’re absurdist shoebox dioramas.”

Look at the last quotation. You feel that, right? The rhythm. You feel how it sweeps you up and carries you along with it.

D. Verisimilitude

I’m going to adopt JB’s convention when talking about verisimilitude and just call it “V-factor,” which is infinitely more pleasurable to type. If your character has V-factor it means they act believably. JB says one needs to “convey to the reader the sense that your character is a whole, full person with his own life outside the purview of this particular story.”

How do you do this? Through sequels[http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/04/parts-of-story-sequels-their-structure.html]:

“The single most important technique for doing that [creating believability] is through showing your character's: 1. EMOTIONS 2. REACTIONS and 3. DECISIONS. When something happens in your story, a character with a decent V-factor will react to it. The reader will see his emotional reaction played out, will gain a sense of the logic of a question or problem, and will recognize that the character took a believable, appropriate course of action in response.”[3]

Also, one increases V-factor through the use of tags and traits. (Which I’ve written about here: Tags & Traits: Characterization And Building Empathy[http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/06/tags-traits-characterization-and-building-empathy.html].)

The point is: be consistent with how the character makes decisions. And IF your character’s behavior varies, if he makes an unusual decision that’s okay, you just need to show why this is, you need to show what he’s reacting to. Also, be CONSISTENT with tags and traits. Don’t change the color of your character’s eyes halfway through the story, that’s an obvious no-no, but also have the character’s reactions be consistent. If he always leers at the pretty women he passes but he doesn’t leer this one time, why? Was he in deep thought, had the last girl he leered at beaten him up previously, is there something wrong with his eyes? Is he under the influence of a spell?

You might be thinking that’s all well and good but how could we apply this to non-fiction? Great question!

Every essay is, essentially, an argument. Take CW’s essay about Tiny Homes.[1] He’s saying look, live your life—you do you—but I think it’s a crazy idea and here’s why. In THIS essay I’m saying, Look, these techniques are great for fiction but non-fiction writers can get something out of them too!

Beyond that, for ANY argument, consistency is key. Be clear about what the facts are (this is what a tiny home is, this is how many square feet you’ll have, this is the kind of toilet you’ll have, this is the size of your closet, and so on), be clear about the inferences you draw from those facts (you’ll never be able to eat beans again and your dogs will hate you) and be clear about how these are linked to your eventual conclusion (if you want your family to be happy then don’t buy a tiny home).

E. Empathy

Jim Butcher writes:

“If you can manage to create a vivid character in a reader's mind, then establish him as someone believable, you have a real shot at the Holy Grail of character design. If you do your job, you will create a sense of empathy in your reader for your characters. This is what makes people burst out laughing while reading. It's what makes readers cry, or cheer, or run off to take a cold shower.”[3]

There’s an essay Stephen King wrote, and I wish I could tell you the name of it but I don’t remember. It was shoved into the back of one of his novels. In it he talked about his early days, about finding the books his dad liked to read and how that influenced him as a child. He talked about his mom and how she was (in the best possible way) a little bit crazy, but in a way that made her unique and very special. And he talked about how that specialness leeched away when she moved back home to care for her ailing mother. At the end of the essay he talks about his mother’s death—and, sure, I remembered my own mother’s death and cried with him here—but the real gut wrenching part comes at the end of the piece. I won’t spoil it for you, I think it is some of King’s best writing, the way he wove the theme through the piece and brought everything home at the end.

My point is that I know from personal experience—as I’m sure you do—that non-fiction writing can evoke strong emotional reactions. I think this is a hallmark of all good writing. Which, of course, isn’t to say that if no one cried while reading “An Open Letter to Tiny House Hunters” that it was a flop. But, that said, CW’s piece did succeed in evoking emotion in me. At the end of the post I saw Tiny Houses a bit more like painted tombs than viable places to live which is to say that, by the end, the phrase “tiny home” evoked a cold shudder of dread.

Okay, so, that was the first part. We just looked at how five parts of character—exaggeration, exotic position, introduction, verisimilitude (V-factor) and empathy—can not only help develop characters readers will care about, but that they can also be useful points to keep in mind when writing non-fiction.

In the second part I want to go over what I’m calling “Interesting Flourishes” but only because it’s past my bedtime and I can’t think of a more creative title!

Interesting Flourishes

1. Lists of the increasingly absurd. Repetition. Meter. Rhythm.

For example:

“You know the things that give you solace. Friends. Loved ones. Ice cream. A Netflix binge. An oil drum full of schnapps.”

No commentary required!

2. Be fearless and live on the edge.

I think part of this could be a personality thing. Even when I write I’m kinda shy and tend to run various possibilities, various sentence constructions, through my head before I pick the one that I think PROBABLY won’t get my book either put down with a bored sigh or thrown across the room in a fit of aggrieved rage.

Which is probably why the following passage hit me like a bullet between the eyes:

Tempt failure.

March right up to it. Always write as if you’re about to fall on your face. Add fire. Bring the char. Toss in a weird ingredient. I wrote several _meh_ books before I finally hit with Blackbirds — and when I hit with Blackbirds, it was because I had lost the capacity to care about fucking up. I felt I had already tried everything safe, everything expected. I’d already walked all the paths and followed every map and I still wasn’t writing anything of substance, so I chugged some whiskey, bit a belt, and went hard into that story because I felt like I had nothing to lose. I no longer cared if I failed. That allowed me to no longer be hesitant, to dismiss the fear of failure because I certainly wasn’t succeeding — hard-charging into that unseen fog was liberating, and it produced not only a successful book, but one whose series continues today. Using present tense inside Star Wars was controversial, in part because tie-in-fiction tends to not go that way. Some hated that choice, some loved it, and that’s where I’d rather be. I’d rather be in a place where some people love the book and some people despise it instead of everyone saying, “It was fine, sure, it was a book, and I read it, and now I forget it.”[4]

One thing that stands out to me here is the honesty with which it was written. I think this ties back into what I said before about V-factor and empathy.

3. Putting it together: Building to a punch.

I touched on this, above, but I think it’s important enough to revisit the point.

“Some [tiny houses] look like little cabins! Others like chic trailers! Others still are shipping containers, or hobbit houses, or weird Transformers that expand and contract like a breathing lung.”

The above has a shape all it’s own. It has rhythm. We start out with a perfectly good, perfectly ordinary sentence and end up with transformers and breathing lungs!

“You then say, ‘This is cute,’ but you say it in the way someone says it when they’re looking at someone wearing a homemade sweater. You don’t mean it. You look terrified, like an otter trapped in a cardboard tube.”

I love the comment about the homemade sweater because ... yeah. It’s true. Again, we’ve gone from somewhere ordinary and placid to a place where terrified baby otters are trapped in cardboard tubes.

4. Alliteration

“I admire your desire to lean into austerity and trim the fat from your life, but unless you have a huge property, shoving a family of 6 into one of these turtle terrariums is something some people have to do, but they wouldn’t choose to do it, y’know? [emphasis mine]”

5. Comparison. A is like B.

“Right now, for me — and maybe for you — making art is like oral surgery on a rabid bear.”

That’s it! I hope I’ve made some sense. This is an epic post—at least, it’s epically long! I want to come back and revisit some of these themes later. I hope you found something in it helpful. :-)

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Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents into my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

Today I'd like to recommend any of Chuck Wendig's books! He's a fabulous writer but be warned: He writes horror. Psychological horror, sure, but also horror of the more gut twisting varieties. Be warned. :-) Though, that said, he has written three Star Wars books!

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Notes:

1. An Open Letter To Tiny House Hunters, by Chuck Wendig.

2. You Want To Marry This Breakfast Fried Rice And Have Its Babies, by Chuck Wendig.

3. Character, by Jim Butcher.

4. Write Unafraid, Without Fear Of Failure, by Chuck Wendig.

English vs American Murder Mysteries

Sorry this post is late! I’ve been working on my next book. This post is sort-of, kind-of a rough draft of a chapter for that book. So—as always!—your feedback is most welcome. :-)

I’ve been mulling over the question of what distinguishes an English murder mystery from an American one.[3] So, while I have a few ideas of my own (I’ve been a voracious reader of murder mysteries since the 9th grade), I did research.[5]

I LOVE Margaret Atwood’s writing, it’s so fluid, so alive. So I’ll let her take center stage and sum up some of the differences between an English and an American murder mystery:

“Their [American] world was fast-paced, sharp-edged, and filled with zippy dialogue and words I'd never heard pronounced—slang words like "gunsel", fancy words like "punctilious." This was not the Agatha Christie sort of story—there were fewer clues, and these were more likely to be lies people told rather than cuff buttons they'd left strewn around. There were more corpses, with less importance bestowed on each: a new character would appear, only to be gunned down by a fire-spitting revolver.”[4]

Yes!!! I love Atwood’s writing, it has bite. You feel it, it’s rhythm.

Another person who has weighed in on the basic difference between English and American murder mysteries is W.H. Auden. In his wonderful essay “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict,”[2] Auden defined the whodunit as:

“The basic formula is this: a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies.”

I’ll come back to this in a moment. Right now let’s look at what, according to Auden, is the progress of the major events in a murder mystery:

Peaceful state before murder

Murder

False clues, secondary murder, etc.

Solution

Arrest of murderer

Peaceful state after arrest

Let’s Talk Character

And, while we’re at it, here (see below) is how Auden thinks of the progress of events that pertain to characters who are NOT the murderer. They may be guilty of something, but it’s not the murder under investigation.

False innocence

Revelation of presence of guilt

False location of guilt

Location of real guilt

Catharsis

True innocence

In other words, at the beginning of a murder mystery the innocent seem guilty (and the guilty seem innocent).

In addition, there is what Auden calls a “double reversal.” Have you ever read a murder mystery where you’re sure someone—call them Dan—committed the murder then something happens, the detective discovers some clue, one that makes it SEEM as though Dan couldn’t have done it? Then, at the end of the book, in the big reveal, it turns out Dan is the murderer? That’s a double reversal and, when done right, can be very satisfying for the reader.

I’ll come back to this progression later, perhaps in another post, but I wanted to include it here because I think it could provide someone with a valuable framework.

Now let’s continue our discussion of what an English murder mystery is and what it isn’t.

What an English Murder Mystery Is Not

As Auden points out, his definition excludes the following kinds of stories:

A. Readers Know Who the Murderer Is

In some murder mysteries readers know the identity of the murderer from the outset. For example, one of my all-time favorite murder mystery TV shows was Columbo. (It seems the writers of Columbo called it a “howcatchem” rather than a “whodunit” or “howdunit.”)

Not that no English mystery can be a howcatchem, but I believe it would be odd for a certain kind of English murder mystery—the cozy—to be a howcatchem, and I'm focusing on cozies. I’ll also, in a later post, discuss what I see as a subgenre of the murder mystery, the locked room mystery.

B. The Identity of the Murderer Isn’t the Focus of the Story

This point often applies to thrillers and caper stories. Recall that in a thriller the identity of the murderer often isn’t the focus of the story. Yes, there is an investigation, yes the detective gathers clues and decodes them, but catching rather than unmasking the killer is the ultimate goal.

In a caper story the question is: Will the group of theives be able to do it? Will they be able to pull off the perfect crime? That’s not to suggest that an element of mystery isn’t involved. For instance, there’s often a mole, a double-agent, in the group. The identity of this person is a mystery, but one that is usually solved before the climax.

How an English Murder Mystery Differs From Other Kinds of Mysteries

The Essential Function of the Detective

English Murder Mystery

Auden influenced my thinking about this. He held that the essential function of the detective was to restore justice—restore balance—to a community after the peace, the norms of the community, was violated. This is one reason many cozy mysteries take place in small close knit communities: a monastery, a rectory or the country estate of landed gentry.

The ultimate purpose of the sleuth was to mend the community's structure of social and moral values.

P.D. James, in her book Talking About Detective Fiction, argues that:

"The differences between the hard-boiled school and such Golden Age writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Michael Innes, are so profound that it seems stretching a definition to describe both groups under the same category. If the British detective story is concerned with bringing order out of disorder, a genre of reconciliation and social healing, restoring the mythical village of Mayhem Parva to prelapsarian tranquillity, in the United States Hammett and Chandler were depicting and exploring the great social upheavals of the 1920s—lawlessness, prohibition, corruption, the power and violence of notorious gangsters who were close to becoming folk heroes, the cycle of boom and depression—and creating detectives who were inured to this world and could confront it on their own terms."

American Murder Mystery

American murder mysteries tend to be darker, much darker. The detective has given up on bringing balance to society. Given this, why does the detective bother to do what he does? Is it all about the money?

Not at all. In the American murder mysteries (though the motivation does vary) the detective solves the mystery and brings the murderer to justice (because either of his own personal internal will of ethics or because he has formed an emotional attachment to a person involved in the case. In short, the case has become personal for him. Just as no one needs anything as high sounding as a code of ethics to defend a loved one, so these detectives may have no code. They may, in fact, be what most of those in society think of as bad guys. But, still, they protect their own.

The Significance of Society

English Murder Mystery

Auden writes, “Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand restitution or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.”[2]

As P.D. James says, the location of a typical British mystery is much like the world she was born into. She writes:

As I was born in 1920 it was an England I knew, a cohesive world... It was an ordered society in which virtue was regarded as normal, crime an aberration, and in which there was small sympathy for the criminal; it was generally accepted that murderers, when convicted, would hang...”

Accordingly, cozies (also known as ‘Country House mysteries’) were generally set in small interwoven communities and typically took the many interrelationships of such a community as a key theme.

American Murder Mystery

The American murder mystery is much darker. There is no sense of the detective striving to bring balance—justice and fairness—back to the community. In fact, sometimes the detective labors knowing that either this WON’T happen or that it will make the society MORE chaotic.

Closed versus Open Society

English Murder Mystery

In the English murder mysteries all the suspects come from a—to use Auden’s phrase—closed society.

This means that, in an English murder mystery, right from the get go we know who could have, and who could not have, committed the murder. In an American mystery we have our suspicions—perhaps we know certain characters are involved—but we don’t have the certain knowledge that one of a list of characters is the murderer.

This is one of the conventions of a cozy mystery. I would go so far to say if this isn’t the case, if the reader doesn't know who could have committed the crime, then the story in question cannot be a cozy mystery.

American Murder Mystery

In an American Murder Mystery the society usually isn’t closed although the reader does often feel the culprit is either one of the named characters OR one of the named characters is involved with the crime, although not the killer and one feels perhaps they were coerced. In this sense, the American murder mystery is a bit like the thriller.

The Detective and the Police

American Mysteries

It’s also telling, I think, that in American Mysteries the detective is often a loner, a private investigator who does not enjoy good relationships with most of the people on the police force. Perhaps one of them is kinda-sorta his friend, but even that is tenuous. Most police would just as soon lock him up and throw away the key.

And that’s another thing. American detectives, especially of Noir fiction, are usually male.

Perhaps this has changed in the last couple of decades, what with Eve Dallas (a fictional detective created by J.D. Robb, pen name of prolific writer Nora Roberts), Kinsey Millhone (a fictional character created by Sue Grafton for her alphabet murder mysteries) and last but surely not least Dr. Kay Scarpetta (a fictional medical examiner created by Patricia Cornwell).

English Mysteries

There isn’t as much to say about the relationship between the British detective and the police. Probably because the relationship is generally placid! And why wouldn’t it be? The detective is well heeled, knowledgeable, affable (if a little quirky) and generally quite happy to let the police take credit for solving the crime!

One of Agatha Christie’s less famous sleuths, Miss Marple, often had a more antagonistic relationship with the police, at least at first. They saw her as a meddlesome little old lady who couldn’t do anything for the investigation other than muck it up. As Miss Marple helped them prise apart the many delicate threads of the case, their attitude changed.

But, at least in Miss Marple’s case, the police were always fair in the sense they gave Miss Marple a fair shake. When she proved herself they, sometimes grudgingly, accepted her help and, often, thanked her at the end. This is perhaps the most significant difference between English mysteries and their American counterparts: in the hardboiled variety the world isn’t fair and this is reflected in the detective’s relationship with the police.

Often the local police despised the detective and even if the police believed he could help them solve the crime the police would have rejected his help. In fact, sometimes the police are corrupt and do not wish the crime solved!

The Private Life of the Detective

American Mysteries

Another difference between British and American mysteries is that in American mysteries—and in contemporary stories generally—the private life and loves of the detective are an important part of the story.

English Murder Mystery

I’m not saying that this disregard of the private life of the detective is true for ALL cozy’s, though I have found it to be true for most.

That said, in many contemporary cozy’s, those where the protagonist often owns her own business (a bakery perhaps) and has an on-again off-again relationship with the unbelievably gorgeous deputy, that this relationship isn’t an important B story. But it’s not the visceral, gut wrenching, demon-exploring scrutiny that can occur in the more American variants of the murder mystery.

The Temperament of the Detective

English Murder Mystery

And this brings us to what might be the single most important difference between American murder mysteries and English cozies: cozies are light and bright. As a general rule, nothing irredeemably bad happens to anyone in them except for the murder victim(s). Even then, the victims are often horrible people the townspeople had oodles of reasons to want dead.

Cozies are read as a diversion, as an escape, as a mental exercise.

That said, there are notable exceptions to this. I’m reminded of P.D. James’ wonderful character Adam Dalgliesh. He is tortured. Truly bad things happened to him and James’ other characters. And James wrote books that were classic English cozies.

To sum up, I think the generalization that British sleuths are emotionally muted in the sense that they are rarely frightened, that they are rarely themselves victims of crime, that they outwit the criminal rather than the reverse and that, taken collectively, they are a rather courageous lot, is more or less accurate.

American Murder Mystery

As Margaret Atwood mentioned, American detectives are at home on the mean streets, perhaps because they are more violent and know how to punch and jab and kick. Myself, I can’t imagine either Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple doing anything like that!

Commonalities Between English and American Mysteries

What is common between the genres? Both rely on suspense to drive the story forward.

Categories of Crime Fiction

The way I’ve been using the word, a whodunit is any crime story where a crucial element of the suspense, the mystery, is who committed the crime. In this sense, all of the following categories are whodunits.

The Categories:

Cozy mystery

Locked room mystery

Historical murder mystery

Hardboiled murder mystery

Police procedural murder mystery

Forensic murder mystery

Legal thriller

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Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

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That’s it for now! I’ll have another post for you tomorrow and to catch up, another one either Saturday or Sunday. Until I talk to you again, good writing!

Notes:

1. The Roots of American & British Crime Fiction, by Seonaidh Ceannéidigh.

2. “The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict,” By W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden.

3. Here I talk about British and American mysteries but could just as easily have talked about softboiled versus hardboiled mysteries.

4. “Mystery writer,” by Margaret Atwood.

5. A note on terminology. The way I’m using the words, “whodunit” is ambiguous between English and American murder mysteries. To my mind the essential characteristic of a whodunit is just what the name suggests: The focus of the story—the story question—has to do with who committed the murder. As opposed to, say, how the murderer committed the crime or whether and how the murderer was caught.

Writers: Discovering What You Love

We’ve all heard the saying, popular at graduations, “If you love what you do, you’ll always do what you love.”

But what if you’re not sure what you love? How does one discover passion? Or perhaps you have the opposite problem, you love many things. How can you pick just one?

Discovering What You Love

Ask yourself, if you weren’t reading this, what would you be doing? Or, more to the point, what would you want to do? If—like me right now!—you’re dreaming of sitting in your favorite coffee shop contentedly sipping your favorite beverage, that’s okay!

Often when we’re chronically busy, every moment of our lives filled not only with things to do but with the awareness of all the things we haven’t yet done but urgently need to, sometimes when this happens all we can think of, dream of, is a moment of quiet, of silence, of relaxing into nothing, into a lull, into a glorious absence of activity. You could think of this as something like meditation.

So take a moment, sate yourself. Enter the calm. Breathe.

Now what? If you’re anything like me you can’t take more than 10 minutes of this! What are you thinking about now? What are you doing?

Are you doodling? Are you thinking about a vacation, perhaps somewhere hot? Are you thinking about family? Children? A pet? Gardening?

Now that a few thoughts are percolating ask yourself: What would I like to be doing in 5 years? 10 years? What would make me happy?

Look back. Picture yourself 5 years ago. Perhaps on your birthday. Did you go out with friends or did you celebrate with a quiet day at home? Fix that moment in your mind. Now ask yourself: Is whatever it is you’re currently up to what you wanted to be doing?

If, five years ago, you knew what lay in store for you, how would your younger self have reacted? Would she have been happy? Scared? Depressed? Thrilled? If she knew what the future held in store for her, what changes would she, would you, make?

I Know What I Love, but So What? Only a Lucky Few Can Do What They Love and I Don't Have That Kind of Luck!

But perhaps you’re ahead of the game and know perfectly well what you love, you just don’t know if you can make money—or enough money—at it.

Chuck Wendig in his wonderful article “Write What You Love, Or Write What Sells?”[1] suggests we find out what we love and do that but reminds us that if you love something—if you’re passionate about it—then one thing is guaranteed: You’re not the only one.

The real question is: How can you connect with these wonderful people who have the same passions as you? Also, how many of them can you connect with? The answers to these two questions can give you some idea whether writing what you love can be your full time job or whether you should keep working at it on the side.

That said, As Chuck Wendig reminds us, all things being equal, we have a better chance of succeeding at doing what we love than do folks who aren’t as passionate. He writes:

“When you write the thing that truly speaks to you ... you’re likelier to plant a more fertile garden, narratively-speaking. Write what you want, and you’ve a greater chance, I suspect, of putting passion and power into the characters and into the story. If you like what you’re writing, and you’re affected by it, you stand a greater chance to affect the audience in the same way. Surprise yourself. Make yourself feel something. Tell the story you want to tell.” [1]

Here’s a question: Right now you’re doing something that pays the rent. Why do you do this? Is it purely for the money? I’m guessing not. Every single job I’ve had ... sure I’ve taken it for the obvious reason—I received money in exchange for work—but there was always something I liked about it, something that fulfilled me, something that made me feel good about the work.

So, sure, whatever you’re doing you’re doing for the money, but what is the one thing (or two things, or three things, or ...) you like about it?

You Don’t Always Know What You Love

In an interview for the blog “This is Horror” Chuck Wendig said:

“[W]riting horror began for me as a way of cheating and defeating fear. As a little kid I was terrified of horror movies like _The Exorcist[link] and _Nightmare on Elm Street[link], and yet I was compelled and fascinated by them. So, learning to embrace that kind of storytelling was a way of getting power over fear. After a while, though, I just found it really cool.” [3]

From Chuck Wendig’s comment, above, it looks like he didn’t always know he loved to write horror.

In order to know what we love we must try new things. This can be tough, going out of your way to do something requires effort and it might cost money. You also know that in the end you might be disappointed!

In fact, if finding a new thing to love is anything like finding a new favorite dish then you can expect that for every five new experiences you’ll only really like one.

Like anything worthwhile, discovering new things that fulfill you takes work. It requires honesty and (at times) more than a little bravery. That sounds counter-intuitive, I know! It seems as if we should know instinctively what we love—and sometimes we do!—but that isn’t always the case. Discovering new things to love can be hard work.

You might wonder, “Well, if discovering new things to love is such hard work, why bother?” That’s a good question, one I think everyone has to answer for themselves. Here’s my answer: Discovering what I love teaches me about myself. Sure, it’s not easy but, in the end, it’s what keeps me keeping on.

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Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

I’ve been on a diet and so, of course, the only thing I can think about is food! Especially cupcakes. So! I’m recommending American Girl Baking: Recipes for Cookies, Cupcakes & More from Williams-Sonoma.

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That's it! Have a fantastic weekend. I'll talk to you again on Monday. Till then, good writing!

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Notes:

1. Write What You Love, or Write What Sells?, Chuck Wendig

2. Why You Should Write What You Love, Chuck Wendig

3. This quotation is taken from an interview Chuck Wendig did for a blog called, “This is Horror.”