Relationships in mystery series: perennial suspense or happily ever after?

Elizabeth Zelvin

Do you believe in “happily ever after”? If you read romance novels, you insist on it. While the classic fairy tales of Andersen and Grimm were often depressing and, well, grim, 20th-century American culture offered its children only tales that turned out well. In literary fiction too, the happy ending has been with us since Jane Austen. Many readers seek the satisfaction of conflict resolved in the personal lives of the characters they read about. Others protest that in reality, that moment of resolution is just the beginning of relationships that are true to life.

Mystery series offer writers, and thus readers, the opportunity to explore the arc of characters and their relationships over what in a prolonged series may amount to thousands of pages. The series format allows writers to give us a variety of relationship scenarios.

Some popular series authors suspend indefinitely their character’s choice of a permanent mate. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum forever hesitates between the reliable if somewhat high-handed Moretti and the mysterious, intensely sexy Ranger. Charlaine Harris has taken Sookie Stackhouse to what at first looked like true love with vampire Bill to a complicated series of relationships with vampire Eric and at least a couple of attractive shapeshifters.

Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone is perennially single with only a few ventures into romance. Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone had a series of failed relationships, none as important as her friendships with both men and women, before she found her soulmate in the unfortunately named Hy Ripinsky. Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski gets periodically involved with a man, but it’s certainly not the focus of her life and sometimes proves a pesky complication.

At least two bestselling authors, Elizabeth George and Dana Stabenow, have taken the radical step of killing off the soulmate: Thomas Lynley’s wife Helen and Kate Shugak’s true love Jack Morgan respectively, to the indignation of many readers. Going by past performance, I think George is going to torture Lynley before she lets him find love again. I found the mating dance between Stabenow’s Kate and her new partner Jim Chopin annoying—with Jim portrayed over the course of several books as a womanizer suddenly struck faithful by the sturdy, practical Kate’s irresistible sexual allure, and both concealing that they have any feelings whatever except for lust—until the most recent book, when they seem finally to be settling down to what I would call a relationship.

Even when authors let their character find a perfect partner, they may choose to postpone the happily ever after indefinitely by throwing one curve ball after another into the couple’s lives. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s ratcheting up of tension and heartache over the series has been masterful as Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne struggle with their feelings for each other. Readers may grind their teeth when Russ’s wife dies, and Clare, instead of falling into his arms, re-ups in the Army to go fly a helicopter in Iraq—but they couldn’t wait for the next book, when Clare came home. (If you haven’t read it, I won’t tell you what cliffhanger that one ends with.) Cynthia Harrod-Eagles put Inspector Bill Slider and the love of his life, Joanna—not to mention the reader—through agonies of frustration involving his awful marriage, her career as a violinist, his procrastination and guilt feelings, and of course the demands of The Job, ending each book with a whammy of a cliffhanger that had this reader groaning—and yes, eager for the next book.

And then there are the couples who, having achieved happily ever after, continue to evolve, whether dealing with further crises in the life cycle (pregnancy and child rearing; parents’ aging, illness, and death; the conflicting demands of career), not unlike what happens in real life. They may also continue to solve mysteries as partners. Deborah Crombie’s British detectives, Lloyd (first name nobody’s business) and Gemma James are doing a good job, as are Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. So are Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Jill Paton Walsh’s recent additions to Dorothy L. Sayers’s classic series. The latest one is a dilly, posing the couple a challenge you don’t often see in mysteries. On the other hand, something similar just happened to another of my favorite couples (not straight mystery, but a cross-genre series with plenty of mystery plotting), Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan and his wife Ekaterin. My prediction is that Walsh will let us see Peter and Harriet coping with their new condition, but the Vorkosigans, alas, may live happily ever after.

Color me blue... or red or yellow or...

Sandra Parshall


What’s your favorite color? What do you think that says about you?

Is your opinion of a fictional character affected by the colors the author dresses the character in?

Color fills our world, and the colors we wear or live with can define us to onlookers. Yet for the average person, an affinity for a color is instinctive. Most of us don’t give it a lot of thought – we know what we like when we see it. If our favorite colors change over the years, we’re not likely to analyze what that means about the way we have changed. Some writers dress their characters haphazardly, perhaps not even mentioning color of clothing because it doesn’t seem important. When we do that, we’re overlooking a powerful characterization tool.

Many writers, though, recognize the importance of color to the image a reader forms of a character. When Janet Evanovich dresses Ranger all in black, she knows what she’s doing. This guy is dangerous. There’s something dark and unknowable about him. Yet he is wildly alluring, even before we hear him speak or see him in action. Yes, a lot more goes into the image – his handsome face and buff body can’t be discounted – but the black outfit speaks reams all by itself. Would you feel the same way about Ranger if he showed up in brown and green plaid?

Jacqueline Winspear uses color to define Maisie Dobbs’s moods and self-image. On occasion Maisie flirts with bright colors, especially when her friend Priscilla is around to prod her or to whip a stunning dress from her own closet and insist that Maisie wear it. But Maisie always returns to her plain suits in drab colors. Prim and businesslike. The clothes of a woman who does little but work.

An entire field of research is devoted to understanding why individuals love certain colors and shun others. To professionals who concoct dyes for house and car paint, fabric and carpet, color is big business, and it’s not surprising that journals like Color, Research and Application exist. (“Color Harmony Revisited” is a recent article topic.) Our choices are endless. Think of the thousands of little paint cards on display in stores, showing variations that are sometimes barely discernable. Human beings spent years of their lives formulating those thousands of hues. Why? Because people are individuals, and what one person loves, another may hate.

Psychologists have studied the meaning of color preferences for decades, and we’ve reached the point where some employers test job applicants to find out what colors they like.

According to psychologists, blue represents calm and balance. People who love blue are often creative, with a highly developed aesthetic sense. They crave peace and don’t like discord.

Red is exciting and has been proven by brain scans to arouse emotional areas of the human brain. A “red personality” is enthusiastic, intense, competitive, and talkative.

People who like green are said to be persistent, decisive, assertive, and... well, stubborn. They like work that involves detail.

Those who favor gold are described as good organizers, loyal and responsible.

If you like orange, you may be energetic, a fierce competitor who loves to win.

My question is... what does it mean if I like different colors at different times? Do I have a split personality?

Back to the original questions, though: What does your favorite color say about you? And is your opinion of a fictional character affected by the colors he or she wears?

Time flies...or crawls...in a series

Sandra Parshall

How old is your favorite series character? What year does she/he live in?

I won’t be surprised if those questions have you stumped.

Sometimes I think even the authors are a little vague about these details. The question of how to – or whether to – age a protagonist over the course of a series is one that a lot of writers wrestle with. That problem goes hand in hand with the dilemma of passing time.

A year or more usually goes by between publication of books in a series. A year has passed in the lives of writer and readers. But has a year passed in the characters’ lives? Or have they cruised out of one dangerous mess and right into the next? Sue Grafton took the latter route, with the result that her Kinsey Milhone is still living in the 1980s, when the first books in the series were published.

If we want our characters to move ahead in real time, that means we have to address their ages. Or do we? Janet Evanovich thinks not. She has declared that Stephanie Plum will be 31 forever. Ed McBain published his first 87th Precinct novel in 1956 and the last one in 2005, but although the times changed in the stories, Carella, Hawes, Meyer, Kling and the rest of the gang stayed on the job at pretty much the same ages. If sales are the best indication, I’d say readers didn’t mind at all.

It’s easy enough to pin down the year if the books are historical and make use of actual events, but those of us who set our stories in “the present” often avoid naming a specific year because we’re afraid future readers will feel they’re reading old news. So the actual year may be kept vague, and we walk a fine line between sounding current and sounding dated. Slang and technology are our banes. In this fickle society, what’s in today may be out and forgotten by the time the book is published.

We also have to be careful about dropping real national and international events into our stories. Many series characters live in a little bubble, as if the outside world doesn’t exist. Sometimes, though, an event changes the world so profoundly that we can’t entirely ignore it in fiction. The multiple-front terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, doesn’t have to be mentioned by name, but we must acknowledge the hassle our characters now face when they travel – no last-minute dashes to airline counters for tickets, followed by quick boardings – and the security cameras and metal detectors in many public buildings.

If the development of a romantic relationship is a major part of a series, the writer has no choice but to slow things down. Readers want the details, they want to share the experience. They don’t want to suddenly jump ahead a year and discover the hero and heroine are now an old married couple with a baby. Deborah Crombie has handled her characters especially well, letting Duncan and Gemma fall in love and create a life together in more or less real time. Their constant involvement in crime is believable because they're police detectives. With amateur detectives, slowing down the personal life leads to a variation of Cabot Cove Syndrome on the crime front: why is this woman falling over a dead body every three weeks?

I’ve faced all these problems (except the marriage and baby) in my Rachel Goddard books.

I didn’t write The Heat of the Moon with the thought that it would be first in a series. The story took possession of my heart and imagination, and all I thought about was following Rachel through her journey of discovery. Selling it took several years. Then I discovered that, whether I had intended to or not, I was writing a series. The Heat of the Moon has one reference in it that firmly sets the story in a particular year, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I’d killed that darling. I’ve had to be vague about years and ages in the subsequent books, although when people ask how much fictional time passed between the first and second, I always say about three years. Then they ask why I didn’t write a book (or two) about those years in Rachel’s life. You can see the kind of trouble writers create for themselves when they’re too specific.

Do you think about the passage of time when you read a series? Does it bother you if you don’t know a character’s exact age? Which writers do you think have handled these issues especially well?

And all of you writers out there -- How are you handling your characters' ages and the passage of time in your books? Why did you decide to do it that way?

Procrastination: A Writer's Nightmare

(Award-winning author, Charlotte Hughes, began her writing career publishing newspaper and magazine articles before becoming a New York Times best-selling author. Charlotte makes her home in Beaufort, S.C. Best known for her Full series with Janet Evanovich, she has written over 40 books, ranging from the 3 mysteries she wrote for Avon to Mira's Hot Shot. Her newest release, Nutcase, centers on Atlanta psychologist, Kate Holly, and the humourous antics of her friends, family and patients. In the process she's learned that the life of a psychologist is enough to drive anyone nuts. Readers are invited to visit Charlotte online at www.readcharlottehughes.com where she also blogs regularly. To celebrate the publication of Nutcase, Charlotte is doing a blog tour, Virtually Nuts, and we're happy to welcome her today.)

Someone recently asked me, “What is the thing you most hate about writing a book?”
My answer was, “Um, writing the book.”
That gave me pause. Gee, what a thing to say!
I thought of my friend, a successful author, who once said she loved being a writer but hated writing. I remembered another writer friend who seldom found time to go to her computer because she was forever volunteering, holding dinner parties, creating new gourmet recipes which she hoped to put in a book one day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the book she had been commissioned to write. She never got around to writing the book and had to pay back her advance.
Pretty scary.
So I got to thinking. . . I knew I loved writing – it’s what I’ve done for more than twenty years – so why was it still so difficult to write the damn book? Even more disconcerting is my present unfinished manuscript that was due two weeks ago. Another missed deadline!
It sort of feels like I missed my mortgage payment, only worse. I wouldn’t miss a mortgage payment so why would I not make a book deadline?
It’s a clear case of procrastination, and it has been a part of my life since forever. I remember putting off book reports in grade school, cramming for exams in college. I even procrastinated when it came to bearing my two sons. On both occasions, my contractions stopped the minute I reached the hospital, and my labor had to be induced.
One problem, I think, is how I look at my deadlines. They feel kind of vague and so far off in the future that I don’t actually see them until their staring me in the face. Like Christmas. You know it’s coming – I mean they put up the decorations right after Halloween – but somehow it always slips up on you, and you almost kill yourself trying to buy and wrap the gifts in time.
I think for me I lack focus and direction. I am so easily distracted that I found it tortuous to sit through the movies “Australia” and “Benjamin Button.” Give me a ninety minute movie, and I’m good to go, but I don’t want to sit through some two and a half hour epic. I don’t like having to go to the concession stand twice for popcorn.
I always tell people I don’t believe in writer’s block because if I believe in it I’ll get it. But I’ve been blocked, and it is sheer misery. It’s like the creative well has run dry, and you are using a divining rod to find water in the middle of a desert. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, and there’s not an idea to be found. Only a sense of dread and despair. (This might be the reason so many writers drink!) I’ve had two husbands – at different times, of course – tell me I always go through an agonizing process before the story takes root or clicks in my brain. Even then, I have to force myself to go to the computer and face that blank page. Wouldn’t it be easier to face a firing squad?
Why do I/we have to go through this torture? Finally, we start the book and fill up that first page, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy going from that point on. There are dry spells, stops and starts, days when you want to toss your computer out the window and get a job flipping burgers. When the words won’t come, the most difficult thing is slogging to that computer day in and day out. I find as many reasons as I can to avoid it. Sometimes I pretend I’m attending to something more important than my writing, but I know I’m just putting it off.
It’s also during this time that I find myself caught up in little dramas. I don’t know if these situations come about as a result of the stress I’m under or if I’m subconsciously seeking out distractions or both. During this time I find I absolutely must have something repaired in my house, usually to the tune of a lot of money, and suddenly I’ve got contractors coming in and out. One of my sons will do something dumb, and I’ll go off the deep end, or my mom will have a health issue, and I’ll spend sleepless nights pacing the floor because I just know it’s up to me to solve all these problems.
By this time my life is in chaos, I’m a total wreck, as are most of the people close to me. Only my case is worse because I’ve got a book to write. I have to earn a living. But how can I possibly write my book in the midst of all of these problems, I cry to the heavens. And, OMG, what if I never write again!
Panic sets in. I start ordering all these books that promise to cure procrastination. I listen to my paraliminal tape, “Get Around to It,” from Learning Strategies. I tell myself I’m going to GET CONTROL of the situation. I get out my egg timer, set it on sixty minutes, during which time I WILL NOT leave my desk no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT. But not even ten minutes passes before I have to pee so I decide while I’m up I can grab a cup of coffee, and I run like hell because I know I’m sort of cheating. And as long as I’m at it I’ll go ahead and let my dogs out. I arrive back at my computer, out of breath and find more time has passed than I thought.
Before I can gather my thoughts, the dogs are barking to get back in, big eye roll, I jump up and run to the door to let them in, only to have one of them hurl something green at my foot.
Well, hell, now I’ll have to bring out the mop, and that reminds me I haven’t mopped, MUCH LESS vacuumed my floors IN DAYS, so with a huge sigh I clean up the hurl with a paper towel and run for the laundry room and my vacuum cleaner. If I’m fast, I can get back to my desk and still beat the egg timer. But hellfire and damnation, I can barely get to the vacuum cleaner for the pile of laundry so I pause to put on a load of clothes.
Back at my computer I see a large chunk of time has passed, and I decide I’m going to make up for the lost time by not answering the phone or checking my e-mail, but, I have to check it because I’m expecting to hear back from my agent on a particular question I asked so I’d better check before I get back to work. Nope, nothing from the agent, but OMG, Pottery Barn is having their 75% clearance, and that is my favorite store in the entire world!
The egg timer goes off. Crap! I decide not to restart it until AFTER I’ve looked at the online sale at PB. My shopping trip steals more time than I’d planned, and I’m so tired because I got up at an ungodly hour so I could get started on my book early, which explains why I’m still in my pajamas. My mother would find that appalling because she believes in having her face and hair done by 6 AM. She’s also the only woman I know who starches and creases her jeans.
Okay, I’ve got a plan now. I’ll grab lunch, lie down for thirty minutes and devote the rest of the day to writing. But back at my computer, I need to see if my agent has responded to my e-mail.
The best and the worst thing that happened to writers is the Internet. It’s too easy to touch base with friends and other writers. (Of course before that we stayed on the phone with each other!) It is too easy to lose yourself on the Internet. It’s like trying to eat ‘just a little bit’ of butter pecan ice cream out of a half gallon carton. It can’t be done. Before you know it, half the ice cream is gone. You can blow half a day online. Then you have to feel guilty and even more stressed about not getting much done on the book.
It would be so much easier if I just wrote the damn book.
In “The Procrastinator’s Handbook,” (yes, I bought the book), author Rita Emmett writes: “Because much of procrastination is a game—a mind game—you can use your mind to change the game. Instead of focusing on how you’ll feel doing the work, focus on how you’ll feel when it’s finished. Think about the payoff. Visualize the relief and sense of accomplishment you will feel once it is done.” In the very next paragraph she advises us to, “Harness your mind and imagination to change the procrastination game.”
Well, okay, I tell myself, but harnessing my mind sounds pretty hard because it’s traveling in a million different directions.
Something Rita Emmett said in her book, about making excuses, really bothered me. “Every time you voice excuses, you are trying to convince someone (most often yourself) that it’s OK that you did or didn’t do something. You may have noticed that excuses undermine other people’s confidence in you, but are you aware that excuses harm your self-esteem.”
Reading that was an ‘ah-ha’ moment. I don’t know about other writers, but I have days when my self-esteem is lower than a gopher hole. I don’t want or need a another reason to feel bad about myself.
Then there’s the part about others losing their confidence in me. I am, for the most part, a good person who obeys the laws and tries to follow the Golden Rule. I send money to several charities. If somebody needs me, I try to be there for them. I check my FICO scores once a month. I would simply die if I did not have a high FICO score or wasn’t a good friend to someone who needed me! That would make me feel as though I couldn’t be counted on.
So how is it that I’m able to change the rules where my book is concerned? The very sobering answer to that is I have no right.
All the little rituals and negative self-talk and the drama that I put myself through have no place in the professional world. We’ve all heard stories about the famous authors who came before us and lived hellish lives in the name of creative genius – Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Cheever, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath – the list is far too long and their stories way too sad. Suffice it to say that many authors have fought demons; as a result, drank and drugged their way through life.
I’m not so sure all that drama works in today’s publishing world. My editor might feel like my best friend, but I don’t think she’s going to be around for long if I drag her through every minor tragedy that befalls me because, let’s face it, writers seem to have a lot of tragedies that just might be called “life.”
So here I am with an unfinished manuscript that’s late, and a book tour that starts in one week, and I don’t even know if I can fit into half the clothes in my closet. And here’s the really bad part: I knew this was going to happen. For weeks I’ve been dreading it, DREADING IT! Why? Because, as much as I hate to admit it, this has happened before.
I’ve spent so much time dreading it that it’s all I could think about. I read somewhere recently that the more we think about something the bigger it gets. That makes perfect sense, and when something gets really big it just sucks the life right out of you. It OWNS you. Think of all the time and creative energy it takes to give life to all those fears and insecurities and God only knows what else we put ourselves through!
And then there are all the interruptions.
My smoke detectors have been beeping for a week, and I am JUST ABOUT TO LOSE MY MIND because it sounds like I’m surrounded by newborn chicks, cheep, cheep, cheep! Holy hell, of all times for this to happen! Now I have to go find the damn ladder. But first I have to find the new key to my outside storage room because I lost the old key and had to get someone to replace the entire doorknob, and Lord only knows how long that is going to take.
When I get back I’m going to set that egg timer, and I am NOT getting up, NOT ONCE, not even to pee, until I get some work done on my book.
Oh, hell, my dog just hurled again. I’ll have to call the vet. This has been the worst day! Maybe I’ll have time to work on my book tomorrow.
(So what's your favorite excuse--I mean valid and important reason--for putting things off?)

You Couldn't Make This Up

Sandra Parshall

True crime story #1: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note that politely informed her this was a robbery and asked her to please put all the money into his bag. The note was signed with the full name of the bank robber, who was apprehended soon afterward.

True crime story #2: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note ordering her to give him all the cash. She pointed out that he didn’t bring a bag with him and asked with some irritation if he really expected her to go looking for a bag to put the money in. Flustered and embarrassed, the would-be robber fled, only to be apprehended within minutes.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

And even though it really happened, you’d have a hard time using such an incident in fiction because nobody would find it believable. Writers with names like Hiaasen, Evanovich and Leonard can get away with these scenarios because readers don’t expect to find their stories believable. They’re praised for their vivid, over-the-top imaginations, although many of the wild and crazy things they write have actually happened out there in the real world.

I find all this very puzzling.

Why do we apply tougher standards of believability to fiction than we do to real life? I often watch a horrifying event on the evening news and declare, “I just don’t believe this.” But the press has the tape or pictures to prove it really happened. If I read about something similar in fiction, I might have a harder time taking it seriously.

True crime story #3: A couple broke into the home of a sheriff’s deputy, stole $10,000 worth of his possessions, among them his badge and several guns, threw the loot into the deputy’s truck and absconded. Before long the fleeing burglars felt an overwhelming urge to express their affection for one another. They pulled to the curb on a nice residential street, quiet and deserted in the very early morning, and left the engine idling while they expressed their affection. By coincidence, the newspaper carrier was making his rounds at the same time. He took one look at the crammed-full truck bed (but apparently didn’t glance into the cab), assumed a burglary was in progress, and called the cops.

This is not something you could use in fiction, unless you’re writing farce. Coincidences happen in real life all the time, but they’re anathema in fiction, especially crime fiction, because they make things too easy. We want characters to struggle all the way to the end and triumph or fail due to their own efforts, not because a coincidence brings matters to a conclusion. I can understand this. The writer has to tell a good story, and using coincidence is simple laziness. That isn’t what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the kind of thing that makes every writer say, “Oh, that would be great in a story... but nobody would believe it.” We have to tone down reality to avoid accusations of melodrama.

True crime story #4: A burglar was found dead in a Miami store, dangling from the blades of a large ventilation fan. Police speculated that the man had been trying to crawl through the fan, which was shut off for the night, and accidentally flipped the switch.

Hiaasen, maybe Leonard, could write a scene like that. I don’t think Evanovich would touch it.

True crime story #5: According to the FBI, a person (gender unknown) has been sending threatening letters, some containing powdered insecticide, to TV networks and college athletic departments since 2004. Failure to comply with his/her demands, this person warns, “will cause 88 people to be assaulted and shot at.” Any writer has to love the specificity of “88 people.” A detail, if you’ll pardon the expression, to die for.

This would appear to have the makings of a thriller plot. Unfortunately, the story is rendered ridiculous and unusable in fiction because of the would-be killer’s motive: she/he doesn’t like the “disrespectful” way women’s sports are covered.

Some outrageous real events teeter on the brink and need only minor tweaking to push them all the way into the “Yeah, I’d believe that in a novel” category. Here’s one:

True crime story #6: A man badgered his reluctant wife into joining a sex club with him. She liked it more than she expected and, in fact, fell in love with one of her new fun-and-games partners. The husband was not happy with this turn of events.

What makes this story unsuitable for fiction is the husband’s method of dealing with the situation: he sued the other guy for alienation of affection (and won, by the way). Absurd. Put a gun in his hand, though, and red-hot revenge in his heart -- voila, you’ve got a mystery that anybody would find believable.

Crazy things happen around us -- or to us -- every day. Next time you give up on a mystery or thriller because you think it’s unrealistic, go turn on CNN and watch for a few minutes. Then ask yourself what the definition of “believable” is.