Writing Mistakes

by Jean Henry Mead

It’s often difficult for novices to break the writing habits they've learned in school. Perfect grammar, especially when writing dialogue, is one of the worst mistakes a writer can make. I was in an online critique group a dozen years ago, comprised mainly of unpublished writers. I’ll never forget a critique that said, “You need to clean up your characters’ grammar.” The characters were uneducated farmers.

Author William Noble once said, “The grammar rules we learned in eighth grade should never be followed absolutely. At best they are one choice among several, and at worst, they will dampen our creative instincts.”

The use of clichés is another fledgling blunder. The rule of thumb is: if it sounds familiar, don’t use it. If you can’t come up with something original and your muse is tugging you on, type in a row of Xs and write it later during the second draft. But if you must use a cliché, add the word proverbial as in "as profitable as the proverbial golden goose."

Of course there are rules that must be followed, such as adding commas for clarity and periods at the end of sentences. Some writers have felt that innovative sentence structure signals creativity, but the practice is only acceptable now in poetry. In Ulysses, for example, James Joyce’s last chapter begins with:

Yes, because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs. Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for the masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever. . .

Joyce’s stream of conscience continues for forty pages without a single period. I wonder how many people actually read it to the end. Creative and innovative? In my opinion, anything that slows the reader for even a few words may cause him to abandon the book.

On the opposite end of the sentence spectrum, Hemingway taught novices to write declarative sentences: “The day had been hot.” “The rifle was long and cold and strange.” “She wore black shoes, a red cape and a white tunic. . .” However, short, choppy sentences must be interspersed with longer ones to make them read well. A good practice for beginning writers is to read one’s work aloud to avoid clumsy phrasing. If words don’t flow well together and your reader stumbles over them, you’ve lost her.

Reading the classics doesn't prepare anyone well to write for today’s market. I’ve judged writing contest entries that contain the most formal language I’ve seen since reading War and Peace. Some fledglings avoid contractions entirely, even when writing dialogue. The result is stilted language.

Studying the bestsellers for style, content, description and characterization helps the beginner gain a handhold in the current market. Some writing teachers advise copying your favorite author’s work, as artists have done with the masters—as long as it’s only practice and doesn't result in plagiarism.
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The Writing Process Blog Hop

By Mark W. Danielson 

 

  I was flattered when Shamus Award winner Paul Marks tagged me to join the Writing Process Blog Hop. I encourage you to check out Paul’s books and writing methods at www.PaulDMarks.com.  At the end of this post I will tag mystery romance author Terry Odell who will post about her writing process on her blog on June 9th.  Every author's responses are unique, so please take a moment to read and enjoy them.

What am I working on?

Spectral Gallows, the second in the Maxx Watts detective series, was released in October, 2013.  Since then, several personal drawn-out medical issues gave me a taste of what our wounded warriors experience on a daily basis.  Although my back surgery wasn’t so bad, hand surgery made me appreciate having all my limbs.  But physical challenges of are only part of what our returning soldiers experience.  The cost of their emotional and psychological pain is staggering, and the damage unknown.  I explored this element with a Vietnam veteran in Spectral Gallows where he is ignored when speaking of a decades-old murder in Fort Worth’s haunted Scott Theater because he is a society drop-out.  Based on a true incident, it was fun exploring the paranormal in this twisted cold-case novel.    

Although I was well into a sequel, I have put it on hold so I can focus on my colorful grandfather, Maynard Owen Williams.  While working as a foreign correspondent to the Christian Science Herald and the National Geographic’s first foreign correspondent National Geographic, Williams was a true Indiana Jones having dined with T.E. Lawrence of Arabia, witnessed the first shots of World War I in the Ottoman Empire, served as a military attaché in China, and was among the first Anglos to enter King Tut’s tomb.  He claimed that those who entered the tomb were all cursed with death, and true to his word, he passed away – decades later.   He passed when I was eleven, but I’ve gotten to know him through his writing and photographs, which are still available on line.  Whether I can do him justice in a biography remains to be seen.  Regardless, it will be nice getting to know the man behind the lens and typewriter.    

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Every one of my fictional stories uses real situations and settings because it helps people relate.  In Day Stalker, a map of Redwood Regional Park helped readers follow where things were happening.  Oddly, numerous coincidences have occurred over the years.  A tree I wrote about in Day Stalker actually fell as I had described years later.  In Danger Within, I needed to ditch an airliner near southern California’s Channel Islands because salvage divers had to find out why the plane went down.  Years later, a real airliner crashed within two miles of where I wrote about.  Considering how large the ocean is, the odds of that happening seem quite small.  In the early 90s, I wrote about an Air Force general who was murdered, but left to appear a suicide. Two weeks later, the actual Chief of Naval Operations took his own life.  (For a variety of reasons, I never sought publication on this book.)  While these and other coincidences have led some to believe I am psychic, I assure you that isn’t the case.  However, each occurrence is uniquely interesting.

To better answer the question, though, everyone’s life experiences are different so our writing styles reflect that.  Over the past twenty-five years I have written over twenty novels, but only chosen to submit five.  Two of my unpublished stories concern actual wildfires and earthquakes, and while fascinating to research and write, the publishing world generally frowns on Mother Nature as the antagonist.  I’ve also found it more interesting writing new novels rather than invest time in numerous re-writes.  As with so many things in life, it is better to move forward than look back.    

Why do I write what I do? 

Whether made up or real, everything I write has been churning inside for a long time.  When I do sit down to write, the words flow naturally.  As for topics, I never search for them.  Whether they come from media bombardment or my dreams, my stories allow me to vent and resolve problems that could never happen in real life.  I will add that my stories are often very personal and the result of frustration.  As an active airline pilot, I am offended at how the media reports aircraft mishaps.  When passengers are involved, their coverage is non-stop coverage, even if the information is unverified or erroneous, but when a cargo jet goes down and pilots are lost, it barely rates a mention.  Danger Within was the result of a poorly handled investigation, as was The Innocent Never Knew, which boldly tells the story of the cover-up of President Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown’s crash in the Balkans.  Day Stalker was the hardest to write because it involves a missing child, and yet this story of hope came to life through a very real search and rescue.  In Writer’s Block, I killed off a publisher, which is something many authors would love to do.  As mentioned earlier, Spectral Gallows discusses war-torn veterans and the paranormal in Maxx Watts’ attempt to solve a cold-case death.  On occasion I will put a story on hold if another piques my interest, but I never forget where I was.  Normally, one sentence or idea is all I need to write a story.  

    

How does my writing process work?

Two words – subliminal thoughts.  I say this because when I sit down to write a first draft there is a direct connection between my subliminal thoughts and my keyboard.  I prefer writing in a quiet room to avoid distractions.  A ringing phone scares the hell out of me because it brings me back to reality.  Most of the time I get back into the zone, but there are times when I must walk away. 

   

I am much more prolific on the road than at home.  I once wrote 148 pages in four days in Almaty, Kazakhstan, because there were few distractions.  Of course, airline layovers are normally a day or less, but in this case, writing was a great way to pass the time.  

While some authors outline their stories, I let my characters tell their side with no restrictions.  The first draft is always fun because is I have no idea who lives, dies or gets lucky.  This approach keeps my stories fresh, and since I never know who committed the crime until the end, I doubt anyone else will.

I switched to series writing because it is fun expanding characters and sub-plots.  I have no idea how long the vicious Skinheads in Writer’s Block and Spectral Gallows will torment Maxx Watts, but it is always good having unresolved elements in a story.  The best thing about protagonist detectives is their plots and locations are endless.     

Thank you, Paul Marks for including me.  Now I’ll turn it over to romance mystery author Terry Odell.  

From childhood, Terry Odell wanted to "fix" stories so the characters would behave properly.  Once she began writing, she found this wasn't always possible, as evidenced when the mystery she intended to write turned into a romance, despite the fact that she'd never read one.  Odell prefers to think of her books as "Mysteries With Relationships."  She writes the Blackthorne, Inc. series, the Pine Hills Police series, and the Mapleton Mystery series.  Her latest work is Deadly Puzzles.  You can find her high in the Colorado Rockies—or at terryodell.com.

 

Brewing a Controversy

One paragraph in Bill Kirton's post the other day really resonated with me. It went like this:

"I’m wary of creative writing courses. I’m sure there are some brilliant ones, but there are also plenty which indoctrinate their graduates into parroting stuff about shifting points of view, not starting paragraphs with ‘And…’ and all sorts of other things that have little to do with creativity."

I've never taken a course in creative writing, so that part didn't concern me. What did was the part about parroting stuff about shifting points of view, etc. I admit I'm not much of an editor. I read from the viewpoint of a reader. I was a copyreader on a newspaper at one time, so I notice grammar and spelling. But if the story is well told and interesting, so that I can easily understand what's happening, that's a good enough brew for me.

Switching points of view is only a problem to me if it's unclear whose head I'm in. If I'm getting the thoughts of one guy now and another a couple of paragraphs later, I'm getting more into the characters and have no problem following the story.

Reading over some early manuscripts from my fiction writing career, ones that were accepted by agents and got favorable comments from editors (though no sale for one reason or another), I noticed I had yet to be indoctrinated on the blasphemy of point-of-view switching. Yet is was obvious who was speaking and thinking.

Bill's mention of starting a paragraph with "And" is one of many other such non-no's that I disregard. I think where we notice such things is in a story that has a lot of other faults, including protagonists we don't care for, wordiness, lack of a cohesive plot, etc. Some authors user words in a way that makes the writing sing like a ballad. Those are a treat to read. But if the story is competently written and intriguing, I'm just as happy with it.

Okay, let the purists throw me in the witch's cauldron. It wouldn't be the first brew I've ever spoiled (or should I say spoilt?).

Visit me at Mystery Mania

Fiction Action

by Jean Henry Mead

I read a magazine article titled, “Action, the Heartbeat of Fiction” by Jordan E. Rosenfeld that I thought was worth noting. Rosenfeld said, “Action is a dynamic word that calls to mind a director hooting into a megaphone at his actors. It's also the heartbeat of good fiction that keeps readers riveted to the page. Action is comprised of all the elements a reader can 'witness' taking place. From physical movement to spoken dialogue, action transports your readers into your writing and brings your writing to life. Despite all this, many writers have a tendency to shuffle important action ‘offstage,’ relying on pace-dragging narrative summaries and recaps instead.”

The solution to preventing pace-dragging scenes is to write them within a framework. By presenting scenes as though they were happening on a theater stage, all the drama takes place as it happens, not offstage and something for the characters to discuss. Readers remember what happens on stage and can make their own deductions. They needn’t wait for the characters to endlessly discuss what has just taken place.

The scene’s momentum keeps the reader reading and her heart pounding as the action accelerates if the plot situation seems real, particularly when the character is in danger. Instead of characters talking about a past experience, replay the scene in flashback action. By reliving it in living color, the reader can experience it for himself.

Another good way to involve your reader in a scene is to reveal information in dialogue. A good plot reveals new information in each chapter and one of the best ways to deliver the news is to have the characters act it out. Give the narrator a rest. It’s much more powerful to have events happen now than to hear about it later, secondhand.

Character movement is essential in a good scene, whether the protagonist throws a chair through a window in anger, or flicks ashes from a cigarette into his cup. Don’t leave your characters standing around without something to do. Body language is a giveaway when a character’s motives are in question. If a man drops his head when asked if he killed someone, it usually means he’s guilty or knows who committed the crime. If a woman lifts a palm to her chest while denying something, changes are she’s telling the truth.

If your character comes to an important decision or suddenly realizes that he has the answer to a problem, avoid internal monologue as much as possible. The realization will have more impact if it happens in someone else’s presence because it raises the emotional stakes for all concerned, as well as your storyline.

And finally, turn your backstory into frontstory whenever possible or delete it from the plot. Backstory is your character’s past, which you feel needs to be included. It’s usually spooned in as narrative summary instead of dialogue and lacks the elements of scene writing. Because it doesn’t take place in the present, there’s no dialogue or scene setting or action taking place. When that happens, the best part of backstory is casually written off without the slightest hint of emotion. And as I've said before, emotion drives the plot.

Merging Fiction and Fact

By Chester Campbell

True crime writers take a murder case and explore it from beginning to end, going into great detail about the partipants, their actions, and their motivations. It takes a mountain of research to make sure all the facts are correct. Otherwise, they would likely face a lawsuit. Some do anyway.

Mystery fiction writers take an actual case and change enough of the facts that they can say whatever they wish without getting into trouble. That's what I did in my first Greg McKenzie novel.

I wanted to saddle Greg with a recent troubled past. I had him quickly tire of retirement and take a job as an investigator for the district attorney in Nashville. I needed something that would get him fired from his job, plus anger many in the police department. I picked a case that remained unsolved but was in and out of the news on a regular basis.

A young lawyer had reported his wife, a talented artist, missing two weeks after she supposedly left home for a "12-day vacation" following an argument. Her friends said she would never leave her young son and daughter like that. The police quickly targeted the husband but were unable to find a body.

I changed the husband to a CPA and the wife to an interior designer. They had only a young son. But I kept most of the circumstances of the police search and their concentration on the husband as the murderer.

In the real case, the wife was the daughter of a prominent local attorney, who sided with the police in believing his son-in-law guilty. I made the missing wife the daughter of a prominent banker, who was the chief backer of the district attorney. When my protag, Greg McKenzie, makes some off-the-cuff remarks quite critical of the lead investigator, they turn up on the front page of the newspaper. The wife's father is infuriated and Greg gets fired.

Long after my book was published, the actual case reached a conclusion when the husband's father turned on him and testified he had helped dispose of the wife's body. The story was told in a true crime book titled An Unfinished Canvas, by Nashville author Phyllis Gobbell and Michael Glasgow.

Fictionalizing fact is a much simpler operation. Of course, Nashvillians who read my book recognized the similarity to the Janet and Perry March case. After his conviction in August of 2006, March was sentenced to 56 years in prison. I can't tell you what happened to the young CPA in Secret of the Scroll. That would be a spoiler.

ChesterDCampbell.com
Read my blog Murder Mania

An Interview with A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

by Jean Henry Mead

The Pulitzer winner was 86 when I interviewed him at his A-frame home near the foot of northern Montana’s Sawtooth Mountain Range. We were sitting at the kitchen table when I asked him about his family background.

He said, “I was born in Bedford, Indiana, Janaury 23, 1901. When I was six months old, my father, a graduate of Indiana University, and my mother, who graduated from a Quaker college at Richmond, Indiana, came to Montana. My father came west to become the first principal of the first free high school in this considerable territory.”

When I asked if his mother also taught school, he smiled and said, “No, she was too busy having kids. Nine in all, but most of them died in babyhood. The mortality rate in our family was terrific. I was the third child and am now the family patriarch.”

Were you a precocious child? I asked. “I was an onery little bastard. I was always impatient about something. And I was a sickly one, too. They didn’t think I would live for long. In fact, we moved to Ontario, California, when I was ten for my health and that of my baby brother. There, my sister, who was three years older than I, contracted spinal meningitis from a tick bite and died. We’d hardly gotten back to Montana, within a matter of three months, when my baby brother died.” Only three of nine Guthrie children survived to adulthood.

When asked if he read incessantly as a child, he said, “Dad used to read aloud to us from Dickens and Kipling. My tastes were omnivorous. I read anything I could lay my hands on, but the memory that stays with me is that of my father reading the Jungle Books to us when we were young. Beautiful stories!”

Guthrie began writing in high school, fiction and some essays although he knew little about the craft of fiction. He majored in journalism in college and may have been influenced by his father who worked as a news reporter for four years in a small Kentucky town. He said, “I guess he thought it was the way to become a writer—a point that I will dispute because the crafts are so different. Newspaper writing, aside from a little investigative work, is so much on the surface, while fiction goes a lot deeper.

“An example of that: a well known man in Lexington died and afterward, his widow had a full-size portrait of him in the house, and when people came to visit, she would refer to the picture as if he were still alive, saying, ‘Isn’t that so, Enoch?’ So you see, you can’t put that in a newspaper, but it’s great for fiction.”

How then did he make the transition from journalism to fiction? I asked. “With luck. I won the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard, while working as an executive editor of the Lexington Leader in Kentucky, and there I became friendly with a professor of English, Theodore Morrison, who knew so much about writing, probably more than I’ll ever know. And somehow, he took me under his wing. My writing to begin with was wretched. I see that now. But with patience and gentleness and always deliberation he taught me the language of fiction.”

Excerpted from a much longer interview in my book, Maverick Writers .

The Querulous Query

By Beth Terrell

I've been writing query letters. I have no idea if they're good queries or bad queries. The only thing I can say with any confidence is that I've learned a lot by writing them.

Query. It sounds innocuous and very civilized. Like something Winnie the Pooh might say to Christopher Robin. A one-page query. How difficult could it be?

First up is the brief paragraph explaining why you chose the particular agent you're querying. This paragraph is designed to show the agent that you are a Serious Writer who has done his or her homework and should therefore be considered more closely than all those other hacks who are sending in queries. You get brownie points if this paragraph mentions one or two of the agent's clients whose work is similar to your own.

Some agents make this easy by putting their full client lists on their websites and keeping the lists updated (God bless them). Some expect you to figure this out on your own. I recently read a comment from an agent saying that if she hasn't sold anything by a given author in the past two years, she probably isn't representing that author anymore and doesn't appreciate having him or her referenced. So even if you did your homework, you lose brownie points if it's outdated. Sometimes you find lists, but they don't match other lists about the same agent. I don't know how to advise you on this. Choose the one that's the most reputable and recent. If they're not the same, I'd go for the most reputable. Or do more research. But when you've exhausted your resources (Publishers Marketplace, Preditors and Editors, Agent Query, the agent's website--and blog, if applicable, the acknowledgements page in books that are similar to yours, etc.), you may just have to guess. Your dream agent will understand.

Oh yes. Some agents want this paragraph at the beginning of the query. Some want it at the end. Some want you to jump right into the "plot summary" paragraph (discussed below) and give all the niceties later. But others feel insulted if you don't do the personal stuff first. Try to find out what you can about the agent you're querying and then hope for the best.

Now you're ready for your "plot summary" paragraph, the one where you take those 400 to 500 pages of your masterpiece and distill them into one paragraph. Not just any paragraph, but a tightly-written, scintillating paragraph the sheer beauty of which could stun the very gods (or at least an overworked literary agency intern, which is pretty much the same thing, right?).

Put in lots of specific details, but not too many, because that would be boring and might also result in a lack of clarity. Clarity is important. You have to choose exactly the right details to show that your book has depth and complexity and suspense enough to enthrall readers, keeping them on the edge of their seats. You have to convince an agent that you're not just a competent writer, but the one who is going to knock their socks off. Use short sentences.

But not too short.

And not too long. If your sentences are too long, the agent will assume your manuscript is bloated. Too short, and they'll think it's too simplistic. Think of this paragraph as a postcard by which you will tantalize the agent into booking a trip to your literary world. If your postcard/paragraph isn't perfect, the agent will send you a beautiful rejection. Don''t think of that as pressure. No, really, just don't think. Cover your eyes and write.

Two paragraphs down, one to go. This is the one where you put your credentials, why you are the one and only person who can write this book of staggering genius. (But don't SAY it's a work of staggering genius. You lose more brownie points for that.) This is a very important paragraph. You have to create the perfect balance between humility and confidence. You have to seem personable but not too chatty, professional but not a stick-in-the-mud, easy to work with but never, ever desperate. This is not the place to talk about how many pets you have, or how you have the world's largest collection of Mickey Mouse stamps (unless your book is about a Mickey Mouse stamp collector). It's not the place to talk about how you always wanted to be a writer, even as a tiny tyke. Should you mention writers' organizations to which you belong? I have no idea. Some agents say yes, it lets them know you take your writing seriously, and others say no, that's the sign of an amateur. I'd take a middle ground here and only include them if you hold an office or have a title of some kind. But that's just me. Your best bet, as always, is to research the particular agent you're sending the query to.

Because the most important thing I've learned about queries is that different agents want different things. Some of them are generous enough to tell us on their blogs or websites. Others...well, I'd like to think the ones who don't put preferences out there are the ones who don't sweat the small stuff. After all, writers aren't mind readers. But I may be being overly optimistic. Agents get hundreds of queries a week. They can afford to be capricious.

Where, then, can we get guidance? Nathan Bransford has a wonderful blog in which he graciously offers specific advice about the kind of queries he likes (and he has a lot of great information about publishing in general--how to write a synopsis, how to write a query, and so on). On Query Shark, authors send in their queries to be critiqued, and an agent explains why they do or don't work. Jessica Faust has a good blog, and there are a number of other very good agent blogs out there.

So do your homework. Do your best. And then stop worrying.

After all, it's just a one-page query. How hard can it be?

The TRUTH

More than once, I’ve considered writing a book on The Truth. Of course, it would have to be non-fiction—or would it? After all, does anyone know really what “the truth” is? (For that matter, “Does anybody really know what time it is?”) So, does “truth” exist, or is it a perception of whatever one believes the truth to be? Hold that thought.

In nature, there are few absolutes. Physics and math come to mind as two that may qualify, but even “death” leaves room for interpretation. While death in our dimension is permanent, death in other dimensions leaves many unanswered questions. This is an interesting concept that I may explore in a later blog, but for now, let’s get back to the original topic.

During my last visit to Venice Beach, California, I saw a young man with “TRUTH” tattooed the full length of his lower legs. I have no idea why he did that, or what “truth” he was referring to, but I do know that his tattoos are permanent fixtures—at least until he has them removed. You see, even with tattoos, there are no absolutes.

The great thing about writing fiction is I can deny everything by claiming, “I made it all up.” So, even when I write about real events using real settings, my disclaimer frees me of liability. Whether writing about the actions of a past president, or a real in-flight fire on a cargo plane, any and all similarities can be denied—and “that’s the truth.”

When I write non-fiction, it is critical that my facts are accurate. If they weren’t, my writing career would quickly end. But I also recognize that when I write something the least bit controversial, each reader can have a different perception about what I wrote and challenge my version of “the truth.” In such cases, the magazine’s editor usually allows me to respond, and if it’s warranted, I do. However, I usually accept the other person’s view, realizing there is more than one way to view it.

Even the Beijing Olympics had controversy over “the truth”, as was the case of the Chinese gymnasts’ ages. Were these young women really sixteen, or fourteen, as some claimed? Some of the gymnasts’ documents submitted to the IOC showed these teens were legally sixteen, but there were other papers that suggested otherwise. And then there’s the question about their physical development, so what is “the truth?” This controversy will continue for years with no probable resolution.

More than once, I’ve thought about writing documentaries, but I’ve found it far more fascinating incorporating real events and settings into my novels. Fiction lets me tell stories within stories, and whether the reader picks up on the truth behind my fiction is irrelevant.

Why Is It Always Murder?

By Beth Terrell

I've been wracking my brain for a topic this week, so I asked Mary Beth, our Project Monitor at work, if there was a mystery-related topic she'd like to read about.

"Yes," she said. "Why does it always have to be about murder?"

"It's because human life is so high-stakes," I said, (or wish I'd said; I'm much more eloquent after the fact than I am in real life, which is probably why I'm a writer and not an orator). "It's easy to care about who killed Colonel Mustard and if our hero/heroine can stop them before they garrote poor Miss Scarlett. It's harder to be invested in who stole Grandma's china tea set."

There are no stakes higher than human life.

Still, because I am by no means an expert in these things, I went in search of a better, less simplistic answer. My quest began, as so many modern searches do, with a bit of creative Googling. After several false starts, I stumbled across Murder Most Fair: The Appeal of Mystery Fiction, Michael Cohen's treatise on why we enjoy mysteries. While the book is not exactly about why mysteries almost always involve murder, he does touch on the subject of why so many of us enjoy reading about murders (rather than about, say, tea sets).

Please note that these are my interpretations of one small part of Mr. Cohen's much more comprehensive work, which I'm sure he'd love you to explore in more detail by buying his book. Here are a few possibilities he offers for the pleasure we derive from reading about murder.

Premise #1: Reading about murder appeals to some lingering emotions passed down from our primitive ancestors. Cohen suggests that we all know how it feels to want to hurt someone, even if only for an instant, and that when we read mysteries, we not only identify with the protagonist, but also, on some uncomfortable level, with the villain . But we quickly distance ourselves from the villain, who is portrayed as being so bestial that the protagonist is justified in defeating (or even killing) him. Thus, we can indulge our primitive thirst for violence while feeling good about our identification with the hero. There may be something to this. How many of us derive a feeling of satisfaction from the mind-numbing violence of a Schwartenegger movie, once we've been convinced of the absolute badness of the bad guys, who are so bad they deserve whatever is coming to them?

Premise #2: We read murder mysteries for catharsis, to evoke and then banish our fear of death. Cohen says, "Such stories acknowledge that death exists by showing us a murder, but they also find its immediate cause in the murderer, and by eliminating that one deadly agent, they seem to eliminate the threat of death itself." Cohen goes on to suggest that the popularity of the modern mystery may reflect a need for a larger, cultural catharsis, where we fear not only for ourselves but for society as a whole. I wrote about this very thing a few weeks ago, and both of these ideas seem true to me--or at least for me. Reading mysteries banishes the bogey man, who always gets caught in the end.

Premise #3: We're all a bunch of sadomasochists who enjoy the suffering of others. On this point, I have to disagree. I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people who read and write mysteries, and by and large, they are the kind of people who scoop up spiders and gently put them outside, who will get out of a warm bed at 3:00 AM to pick up a friend whose car has stalled in thirty-degree weather, who not only do not take pleasure in the suffering others but are utterly horrified by it. In all fairness to Mr. Cohen, he didn't seem all that convinced by this idea either.

So why does it have to be murder? Maybe because nothing else evokes the depth of emotion of this one despicable act. Maybe because it is the one thing that threatens that which is most precious to us all: life itself.