I hope you’ll join me and the Sisters in Crime–Central Virginia to celebrate the publication of Virginia is for Mysteries: Volume II on February 27, 2:00-3:30 p.m. We’ll begin with an author panel, “Paths to Getting Published–Mystery Authors Tell Their Tales.” A book signing and celebration will follow.
Click here to learn more about Virginia is for Mysteries or check out our blog.
Pre-order Virginia is for Mysteries: Volume II.
Or join us on February 27th!
Yes, there are offbeat animal detectives. In Three Bags Full: a sheep detective story by Leonie Swann, the shepherd is murdered and the sheep, led by the ewe Miss Marple, set out to discover the murderer. In Anonymous Rex, by Eric Garcia, dinosaurs continue to live among us, disguised in latex masks and tail girdles. Otherwise, Rubio is the classic hard-boiled detective. Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks features a pig detective. Bernd Heinrich writes ravens, by far the smartest of birds. And Elmore Leonard, in his first children’s novel, created Antwan, a hip-talking coyote living in the Hollywood Hills, for A Coyote’s in the House.
Dogs are poorly represented in the mystery genre. In Hank the Cowdog, Hank is the inept “Head of Security” for a ranch, and setting out to find who’s stealing the corn, he sets clever traps that consistently trap him. Play Dead by Leslie O’Kane features a dog behaviorist/therapist and an “ugly collie” rescue dog.
Cats, on the other hand, are everywhere. There are whole series featuring cats. Think the Mrs. Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown, or The Cat Who… series by Lilian Jackson Braun. Perhaps less well known is the Joe Grey Cat Mystery series by Shirley Rousseau Murphy, in which Joe is a cat from the Catswold that can speak and understand English, among other talents. And then there is the series in which the point of view shifts between a big black cat named Midnight Louie and his person, Temple Barr.
Why cats? Well, for one thing, they are notoriously independent and sneaky. They were domesticated tens of thousands of years after dogs—or maybe not yet, even. Cats are confounding creatures, for centuries associated with death cults, witches, Satan, black magic, and so forth. So creating fictional cats with paranormal abilities—talking, shape shifting, psychic reasoning or implausible acts of physical derring-do, invisibility, tele-transportation—is much less jarring than similar traits in a dog—or sheep, goat, pig. A monkey, now . . .
So, if you want to sample some cat detective fiction, apart from what’s mentioned above, consider the following: A Cat Tells Two Tales and/or The Cat, The Vagabond, and The Victim by Lydia Adamson; The Cat, The Mill, and The Murder by Leann Sweeney; All Dressed Up and No Place to Haunt by Rose Pressey; Cat In a White Tie and Tails by Carole Nelson Douglas; Tailing a Tabby by Laurie Cass; Cat Nap and/or Last Licks by Claire Donally; No Cooperation From The Cat by Marian Babson; Literally Murder by Ali Brandon;The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape by Shirley R. & Pat J. J Murphy. And I’m sure there are others out there.
By the way, as far as I know, cat detective stories are all written by women and feature women partners for the cats. Surely there are deep historical associations between women and cats.
If you are thinking about adding an animal detective to your mystery, consider the competition—and riding the wave of popularity!
Like so many other people affected by the recent extreme weather, I had plenty of time to consider snow. And as with so many other things that I consider, I started reading about it. Yes, Elmore Leonard is adamant that you never start a book with the weather—but that is not to say weather is taboo in your story. Your task as a writer is to make weather interesting. As an exercise, consider the following snow-related facts, and how you might fit them into a story in a way that seems natural, preferably relevant to the plot!
Learn more about Virginia is for Mysteries, Volume II here.
The fact that it really happened doesn’t mean it’s good story material.
Writers often use details and specifics to weave in richness and a sense of reality. So you might be tempted to mention Richmond, Virginia’s recent weather–Japanese cherry trees and hyacinths blooming in December–
–a temperature in the upper 70s on Christmas Eve, a rosebud or daffodil sprouts in January.
But unless unseasonably warm weather is part of your plot line, DON’T DO IT.
Details that are atypical but irrelevant are likely to take readers out of the story while they stop to think it over. Even worse, they might conclude that you don’t know what you are talking about–thus accomplishing the opposite of your intent!
I’m honored to have my essay “Hindsight” in the Winter edition of Mary: A Journal of New Writing.
I was a graduate student in psychology when my therapist said, “It sounds as though you spend about ninety percent of your time trying not to be like your mother.” True. What right-minded person would want to be like my mother? She was weak, sickly, hospitalized for suicidal depression at one point, and an alcoholic. Striving—consciously and non-consciously—not to be like my mother shaped my life for decades.
Feelings rather than logic drove Mom’s thinking. She was a kitchen-sink fighter—throwing everything into every argument. For her, no argument was ever lost because no argument was ever over. As a child, even in my bedroom with a pillow over my head, I could hear her screech about things that happened months or years ago with no apparent connection to whatever triggered this particular bout. I absolutely sided with Dad when he’d finally say, “I’m not gonna listen to any more of this crap.” He would then head to the basement or garden, the door banging behind him.
My earliest memories of Mom aren’t so negative. She worked hard, laughed a lot, enjoyed playing euchre, and taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. An excellent seamstress, she made a wedding gown for one of her younger sisters. She and Dad belonged to a square-dancing club, and she sewed their matching outfits. She was inconsistent—sometimes sending me out to cut a switch and then not disciplining me with it—but she also made wonderful birthday cakes. She taught me to sew, cook, clean house, and iron.
Read more at Mary: A Journal of New Writing. Thank you to Mary‘s editors for publishing “Hindsight.”
Gregory Feist did a meta-analysis of data on creative people and found the strongest related traits were openness to new experience, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, hostility and impulsivity. Besides these traits, other research has identified additional traits associated with creativity: self-confident, ambitious, impulsive, driven, dominant, and hostile.