Monday, May 2, 2016

Picking the Sub-genre of My Mystery and Do I Have a Watson?

Last time I wrote about the importance of working out the solution to a mystery before beginning to write the story. This time, I'm going to write about the following two things:

  • picking the sub-genre of the mystery I am about to write .
  • deciding if my sleuth has a Watson, and how to make their relationship interesting.

Mystery and detective stories come in many sub-genres--cozy, hard-boiled, police procedural, amateur sleuth, woman sleuth, private detective, to name a few.

Well, I've never been a cop and have no law enforcement officers among my friends or close acquaintances, so I didn't want to write a police procedural. It would have required more research than I was ready for. The same for private detective and hard-boiled. I didn't know the PI business and I really didn't know life on the streets.

I also didn't want to write a "cozy" mystery. These stories are very light on grit and sexuality and swearing, often set among the rich and beautiful. Think Agatha Christie or Diane Mott Davidson. I knew I wanted harsh realism in my story involving the struggles the protagonist has with her schizophrenia. As can often be the case with hallucinated voices, there would be foul language. Cozy this story was not.

Besides, I had already picked my protagonist, Evelyn Malsage, a reluctant detective who hears voices. So that narrowed it to amateur sleuth and woman sleuth.

I know I will have to handle some things regarding police procedure and probably forensics, but by going with an amateur sleuth, I could minimize that.

Now I had to decide whether my amateur sleuth has a sidekick, as many do. Did Evelyn have a John Watson as her foil?

A sidekick, yes, I decided, but not a John Watson. I kept thinking of the Oracle at Delphi, and how people came to her. I wanted that mythic element. Nero Wolfe crossed my mind, but I didn't want Evelyn to figure it all out in the agoraphobic comfort of her home. I wanted to explore Evelyn's personality and insecurities as she struggled with life. I couldn't see why Evelyn would get involved in a murder. She needed a sidekick that would draw her into a crime.

Enter Michael Lawson, her brother-in-law and crime reporter for the Denver Post. Michael could feed her information. He could sometimes ask Evelyn about her take on human nature since she has met many struggling people in support groups she attends.

I want to make use of Michael as a reporter but it is Evelyn that I want in the forefront. I've made a note for myself that Michael is not the detective.

Was that enough for the character of Michael to be? I didn't think so. The relationship between Evelyn and Michael had to be interesting. It had to be messy. That's when I decided that Michael's wife, Evelyn's sister, Nan, was dead.

Always remember to escalate, take things further, is advice I've read from more than one knowledgeable source on writing fiction. Michael needed a reason to be uncomfortable around Evelyn, something beyond mundane reasons. What if Evelyn looked so much like Nan that it pained Michael? What if Evelyn was the only living link Michael had to Nan? What if he needed to see Evelyn because it made him feel close to his wife, but he hated it because Evelyn wasn't her? What if Evelyn picked up on Michael's uneasiness but misconstrued it?

Now Evelyn and Michael could be cohorts in mystery solving but with tension between them. It offers reasons for each not to share important information with the other. And the story can focus not just on the mystery but on how Evelyn's struggles with life and grows in order to solve it. Sounds good to me.

Now I know the sub-genre I am writing in, and I have my Watson. I hope this helps you in writing your mystery.