Merry Jones's Blog - Posts Tagged "merry-jones"
Mysteries--What's the Point?
The other day, a friend asked me, “Why do you write mysteries? Why don’t you write something useful that could help people? A memoir, for example. Or a ‘how-to’?”
A how-to? A memoir? Immediately, I became defensive. People like mysteries, I explained. They get entertained by them. Mysteries are fun. But, deep down, the question rattled me. Made me wonder about the value of my work. What’s the point of writing yet another whodunit? How do tales of dastardly deeds and human dark sides contribute anything to the world?
I slipped into a spiral of self-doubt. See, it takes me months to write a suspense novel. During that time, I live with the characters as much, if not more than with the three-dimensional, breathing people in my family and neighborhood. In fact, I often lose touch with the breathers, becoming lost in the pages of a pretend world, known to no one but myself, for long periods of time. It’s lonely. It’s difficult. So, my friend’s question jolted me: Why do I do this? What does it accomplish? And, even though I brushed off the question at the time, I grappled with it for days.
The world, after all, has lots of problems. Maybe people should write books that can help fix them. Books about managing time, relationships or money. About lowering carbon footprints. Or ending war, making the world safe for future generations. Or aging gracefully, losing weight, saving species, overcoming depression or making perfect soufflés. Books should enlighten readers, enhance their knowledge, address vital issues. I began to wonder if my efforts, my books were a waste not just of my time, but that of everyone who bothered to read them.
I thought back over my writing career. Before I began to write mysteries, I’d been writing non-fiction and humor for years. But I’d stopped and turned to suspense and mystery. Coincidentally, the change occurred just as my husband suddenly got sick. In fact, gravely ill.
Esophageal cancer is usually deadly. The doctor told us, don’t go on-line, don’t read about it; you’ll only get scared. My husband was stoic, but I was not. I sat in his hospital room post-surgery, frantically watching monitors measure his heartbeat and respiration, staring at tubes that took fluids into and out of him, and hearing him tell me in a morphine haze, “Go home.”
What? I was insulted. Didn’t he need me by his side?
“You’re doing no good sitting here,” he went on. “Go do something besides worry. Go write a book.”
He insisted. Repeatedly. He even told me he couldn’t sleep while I was staring at him. So, finally, I went home. And, as he’d told me to, I wrote a book. It was, in a way, a memoir, in that it was about the threat of impending death and violence that struck innocent people without warning. About unexpected, unanticipated upheaval that erupted suddenly while unsuspecting victims were walking babies in the park or fixing dinner or going to work. Living their lives. The villain in that first mystery was personified as a serial killer, but I realize now, he might as well have been esophageal cancer.
When my husband was sick, I retreated into the world of the NANNY MURDERS, finding solace in a world where a psychotic sadistic serial killer was less threatening than my actual reality. I lost myself in a fictional world I could control because I had no control over the real one. And, suddenly, remembering when and how I started the series, I realized why I wrote mysteries. And maybe why people read them.
The sorry and inescapable truth is that life throws its unanticipated twists. We are hit, unexpectedly, with diseases or car accidents or natural disasters or job loss or death. In life, we are all waiting for a shoe to drop or a lightning bolt to strike, and we never know when it will come, or how or if we’ll survive.
But a mystery—A mystery provides readers with a safe paradigm for actual life. Readers know that the unexpected, unavoidable catastrophe will strike. We know that the characters’ lives will turn upside down. But, unlike in real life, we know that, by the end of the book, order will be restored. Good will trump evil. And--if it’s a series--we know that, no matter what, the hero/heroine will survive.
Mysteries provide a way for us to experience vicarious tension, danger and violence without really being in peril. And they provide something else, as well: Between the onset of the upheaval and the final resolution, the characters have to survive, managing their relationships, handling their finances, raising their children, aging gracefully, minimizing their carbon footprints, overcoming depression, even making the occasionally perfect soufflé. And so, in a sense, the mystery is a how-to book. It shows how to survive, even in the face of events that are uncontrollable, unpredictable and life-threatening.
Fortunately, my husband survived his cancer. It’s been several years, and so far, he’s okay. Me? Not so much. For me, the fear that accompanied his illness remains, hovering just overhead. So I continue to write mysteries, battling primal, fundamental, life-threatening fear in a realm where, ultimately, my choices, my will and my pen prevail.
For the friend who asked why I write mysteries, I still don’t have an easy answer. But I do have a question: Why would I write anything else?
(Merry Jones is the author of SUMMER SESSION, coming out in May in the UK, August in the US, as well as the Zoe Hayes mystery series: THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS, THE DEADLY NEIGHBORS, THE RIVER KILLINGS, and THE NANNY MURDERS, and humor books, including I LOVE HIM, BUT..., and non-fiction including BIRTHMOTHERS. Visit at MerryJones.com)
A how-to? A memoir? Immediately, I became defensive. People like mysteries, I explained. They get entertained by them. Mysteries are fun. But, deep down, the question rattled me. Made me wonder about the value of my work. What’s the point of writing yet another whodunit? How do tales of dastardly deeds and human dark sides contribute anything to the world?
I slipped into a spiral of self-doubt. See, it takes me months to write a suspense novel. During that time, I live with the characters as much, if not more than with the three-dimensional, breathing people in my family and neighborhood. In fact, I often lose touch with the breathers, becoming lost in the pages of a pretend world, known to no one but myself, for long periods of time. It’s lonely. It’s difficult. So, my friend’s question jolted me: Why do I do this? What does it accomplish? And, even though I brushed off the question at the time, I grappled with it for days.
The world, after all, has lots of problems. Maybe people should write books that can help fix them. Books about managing time, relationships or money. About lowering carbon footprints. Or ending war, making the world safe for future generations. Or aging gracefully, losing weight, saving species, overcoming depression or making perfect soufflés. Books should enlighten readers, enhance their knowledge, address vital issues. I began to wonder if my efforts, my books were a waste not just of my time, but that of everyone who bothered to read them.
I thought back over my writing career. Before I began to write mysteries, I’d been writing non-fiction and humor for years. But I’d stopped and turned to suspense and mystery. Coincidentally, the change occurred just as my husband suddenly got sick. In fact, gravely ill.
Esophageal cancer is usually deadly. The doctor told us, don’t go on-line, don’t read about it; you’ll only get scared. My husband was stoic, but I was not. I sat in his hospital room post-surgery, frantically watching monitors measure his heartbeat and respiration, staring at tubes that took fluids into and out of him, and hearing him tell me in a morphine haze, “Go home.”
What? I was insulted. Didn’t he need me by his side?
“You’re doing no good sitting here,” he went on. “Go do something besides worry. Go write a book.”
He insisted. Repeatedly. He even told me he couldn’t sleep while I was staring at him. So, finally, I went home. And, as he’d told me to, I wrote a book. It was, in a way, a memoir, in that it was about the threat of impending death and violence that struck innocent people without warning. About unexpected, unanticipated upheaval that erupted suddenly while unsuspecting victims were walking babies in the park or fixing dinner or going to work. Living their lives. The villain in that first mystery was personified as a serial killer, but I realize now, he might as well have been esophageal cancer.
When my husband was sick, I retreated into the world of the NANNY MURDERS, finding solace in a world where a psychotic sadistic serial killer was less threatening than my actual reality. I lost myself in a fictional world I could control because I had no control over the real one. And, suddenly, remembering when and how I started the series, I realized why I wrote mysteries. And maybe why people read them.
The sorry and inescapable truth is that life throws its unanticipated twists. We are hit, unexpectedly, with diseases or car accidents or natural disasters or job loss or death. In life, we are all waiting for a shoe to drop or a lightning bolt to strike, and we never know when it will come, or how or if we’ll survive.
But a mystery—A mystery provides readers with a safe paradigm for actual life. Readers know that the unexpected, unavoidable catastrophe will strike. We know that the characters’ lives will turn upside down. But, unlike in real life, we know that, by the end of the book, order will be restored. Good will trump evil. And--if it’s a series--we know that, no matter what, the hero/heroine will survive.
Mysteries provide a way for us to experience vicarious tension, danger and violence without really being in peril. And they provide something else, as well: Between the onset of the upheaval and the final resolution, the characters have to survive, managing their relationships, handling their finances, raising their children, aging gracefully, minimizing their carbon footprints, overcoming depression, even making the occasionally perfect soufflé. And so, in a sense, the mystery is a how-to book. It shows how to survive, even in the face of events that are uncontrollable, unpredictable and life-threatening.
Fortunately, my husband survived his cancer. It’s been several years, and so far, he’s okay. Me? Not so much. For me, the fear that accompanied his illness remains, hovering just overhead. So I continue to write mysteries, battling primal, fundamental, life-threatening fear in a realm where, ultimately, my choices, my will and my pen prevail.
For the friend who asked why I write mysteries, I still don’t have an easy answer. But I do have a question: Why would I write anything else?
(Merry Jones is the author of SUMMER SESSION, coming out in May in the UK, August in the US, as well as the Zoe Hayes mystery series: THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS, THE DEADLY NEIGHBORS, THE RIVER KILLINGS, and THE NANNY MURDERS, and humor books, including I LOVE HIM, BUT..., and non-fiction including BIRTHMOTHERS. Visit at MerryJones.com)
Plan? Who me?
Readers often ask me about planning. Do I know the ending before I begin? How much of the story evolves during the writing; how much is decided in advance?
In a way, these are the same questions we humans have about free will. Do we really make our own decisions? Is there spontaneity? Or is our fate subject to some divine design, our actions predetermined?
I don't know about life, but when it comes to my writing, the answers aren’t all that clear. I plan a pretty clear path before I write, so I won’t get lost in some maze. The story needs to move forward in a definite direction, toward resolution.
But planning doesn’t begin with the plot. Before I write a single word, all the story’s elements have to be ready to go. Which means: research. I need to know everything necessary to tell the story. For example, before I could write RIVER KILLINGS, I needed to know about sculling and sculls and boathouses. For DEADLY NEIGHBORS, I had to learn about dog fighting and its grisly culture. For SUMMER SESSION, new in summer, 2011, I had to collect facts about brain injuries, aphasia, PTSD, narcolepsy, and what it’s like to be a soldier in Iraq.
Once I have that information, I'm able to begin, following the basic path, presenting events and characters as planned, introducing obstacles and predicaments according to the arc and rhythm of the tale.
At times, though, all my planning goes out the window. Characters sometimes rebel, refusing to take blame for crimes they insist they haven’t committed, or the reverse--committing crimes for which I’d never suspected them. In the River Killings, for example, the villain wasn’t the guy I’d thought he was. I was shocked, nearing the end of the book, to learn that it was someone else completely.
Plots often twist because the characters move in unanticipated spurts or reveal motives I haven’t deliberately assigned. At some point during the writing, they come alive, possessing their own wills and relationships, dictating what keys I should type.
I have learned that these expressions of characters, while fascinating, are NOT always helpful to the plot or the completion of the book. A secondary character sometimes wants to outshine the hero. Or a main character wants his back story incident to get more attention. Egos aside, once in a while, characters suggest a new route to the plot’s resolution, one far more interesting than the path I’d pre-planned.
And so, back to the question, how much planning do I do before I write? A lot. I have a map, complete with mountains and valleys. But do I know the whole story in advance? Despite all my research, outlines and detailed maps, no. Not ever. Never. All I really start out with is a direction, a compass, an initial crime. Oh, and characters capable of surprise.
--
Proud member of The Liars Club (Liarsclubphilly.com), Mystery Writers of America and The Authors Guild.
Author of SUMMER SESSION, the Zoe Hayes mysteries and other works. Visit me at MerryJones.com
In a way, these are the same questions we humans have about free will. Do we really make our own decisions? Is there spontaneity? Or is our fate subject to some divine design, our actions predetermined?
I don't know about life, but when it comes to my writing, the answers aren’t all that clear. I plan a pretty clear path before I write, so I won’t get lost in some maze. The story needs to move forward in a definite direction, toward resolution.
But planning doesn’t begin with the plot. Before I write a single word, all the story’s elements have to be ready to go. Which means: research. I need to know everything necessary to tell the story. For example, before I could write RIVER KILLINGS, I needed to know about sculling and sculls and boathouses. For DEADLY NEIGHBORS, I had to learn about dog fighting and its grisly culture. For SUMMER SESSION, new in summer, 2011, I had to collect facts about brain injuries, aphasia, PTSD, narcolepsy, and what it’s like to be a soldier in Iraq.
Once I have that information, I'm able to begin, following the basic path, presenting events and characters as planned, introducing obstacles and predicaments according to the arc and rhythm of the tale.
At times, though, all my planning goes out the window. Characters sometimes rebel, refusing to take blame for crimes they insist they haven’t committed, or the reverse--committing crimes for which I’d never suspected them. In the River Killings, for example, the villain wasn’t the guy I’d thought he was. I was shocked, nearing the end of the book, to learn that it was someone else completely.
Plots often twist because the characters move in unanticipated spurts or reveal motives I haven’t deliberately assigned. At some point during the writing, they come alive, possessing their own wills and relationships, dictating what keys I should type.
I have learned that these expressions of characters, while fascinating, are NOT always helpful to the plot or the completion of the book. A secondary character sometimes wants to outshine the hero. Or a main character wants his back story incident to get more attention. Egos aside, once in a while, characters suggest a new route to the plot’s resolution, one far more interesting than the path I’d pre-planned.
And so, back to the question, how much planning do I do before I write? A lot. I have a map, complete with mountains and valleys. But do I know the whole story in advance? Despite all my research, outlines and detailed maps, no. Not ever. Never. All I really start out with is a direction, a compass, an initial crime. Oh, and characters capable of surprise.
--
Proud member of The Liars Club (Liarsclubphilly.com), Mystery Writers of America and The Authors Guild.
Author of SUMMER SESSION, the Zoe Hayes mysteries and other works. Visit me at MerryJones.com
