Monday, December 19, 2016

How Much Grit Do I Want in My Mysteries?

My guest today is my dear friend and fellow mystery writer, Maggie King. Murder at the Moonshine Inn, the second book in her Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, has recently been published. Today Maggie discusses how much grit she wants in her mysteries.

Gritty mysteries. Violent content, bloody images, sexuality, language. The movie versions are rated R. One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of gritty is “harsh and unpleasant.” Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell, Robert Crais, Henning Mankell, and Ruth Rendell are just a few of our renowned authors who write the “dark stuff”—noir. And they’re really good at it.

I watch many TV shows where violence runs rampant. The British and Swedish do it best—Luther is breathtakingly violent; the characters in the riveting Swedish drama, Beck, don’t flinch at a little blood; the American Animal Kingdom had a mild, if menacing, start but by the end of the season the violence had reached a nearly unbearable level. Sexuality and language are a natural part of these stories— the characters aren’t likely to say, “Oh, fudge!”
I love these depictions of a grim reality, whether in print or on screen. But do I want to write tales
with a “darkness of the spirit?”

No, no, a thousand times, no! Maybe spending so much time with my characters and story makes me fear all that darkness. I write cozies, edgy cozies, but cozies all the same. My violence happens off-page and is minimally described. In one story, I have the killer picking up a weapon and using it. But I left the aftermath to the reader’s vivid imagination. In another story, a character gets killed in a pretty horrific way, but all I mention is the murder weapon. Again, I let my readers fill in the blanks. No grisly details. Sometimes a well-chosen word here or there will paint a complete picture.
My characters love sex and love to talk about sex but when they “get right down to the real nitty-gritty” (see how well the song title fits the subject?) they go off-page. I may sprinkle a mild expletive—or two—into the dialogue. My readers object to profanity and I must respect their wishes. There are ways to suggest swearing and mystery author Naomi Hirahara is so skilled at this that you know the exact word she’s not using. Another mystery author, F.M. Meredith, has this to say about the lack of salty language in her Rocky Bluff P.D. series: “Oh, the characters do cuss, I just don’t quote them.”
But Merriam-Webster has another definition of gritty: having or showing a lot of courage and determination.

My main character, Hazel Rose, doesn’t consider herself to be brave and accepts her crime-solving missions with great reluctance. But, once committed, she will run a killer to earth. Mystery writers, regardless of how noir-ish or cozy their story is, want a determined detective, one with an abundance of “true grit.” It’s true grit that unites crime writers as we restore justice to our fictional worlds.
And it’s true grit that I want in my mysteries.


Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including the recently-released Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She contributed the stories “A Not So Genteel Murder” and “Reunion at Shockoe Slip” to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies.
Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the American Association of University Women. She has worked as a software developer, retail sales manager, and customer service supervisor. Maggie graduated from Elizabeth Seton College and earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has called New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California home. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, Glen, and cats, Morris and Olive. She enjoys reading, walking, movies, traveling, theatre, and museums.
Website: http://www.maggieking.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaggieKingAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieKingAuthr
Buy link: http://amzn.to/2dtozWa

Blurb for Murder at the Moonshine Inn:
WHEN HIGH-POWERED EXECUTIVE Roxanne Howard dies in a pool of blood outside the Moonshine Inn, Richmond, Virginia’s premiere redneck bar, the victim’s sister enlists Hazel Rose to ferret out the killer. At first Hazel balks—she’s a romance writer, not a detective. But Brad Jones, Rox’s husband, is the prime suspect. He’s also Hazel’s cousin, and Hazel believes in doing anything to help family. Never mind that Brad won’t give her the time of day—he’s still family.

Hazel recruits her book group members to help with the investigation. It’s not long before they discover any number of people who feel that a world without Rox Howard is just fine with them: Brad’s son believes that Rox and Brad were behind his mother’s death; Rox’s former young lover holds Rox responsible for a tragedy in his family; and one of Rox’s employees filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against her. The killer could be an angry regular from the Moonshine Inn—or just about anyone who ever crossed paths with the willful and manipulative Rox.

When a second murder ups the ante Hazel must find out who is behind the killings. And fast. Or she may be victim #3.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Yep, you are right about this reader, there is enough vulgarity in the real world! I like escaping into fiction to avoid it! And I love a good mystery! Great post Maggie, have a great week!

Sharon

cj petterson said...

cj Sez: Aha, you think like I do. I was once criticized for not having any swearing. Pieces of the violence in my stories come to the page, but not the gory details...my love scenes are always off page. I want my grandchildren to be able to read my stories without flinching. I very much appreciate your post. Best wishes for great sales and wonderful reviews. Marilyn (aka cj)

Marilyn Levinson said...

Thank you, CJ!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Sharon and CJ. I like gritty, as in courageous, heroes or heroines.

Anonymous said...

Marilyn, thanks for hosting me today.

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

Thanks for the mention. A lot of my church friends and young kids read my books, and so I'm careful about both the sex and language--it's there, just not on the page.

Marilyn Levinson said...

Maggie,
I'm glad to have you as my guest. And I might add I enjoyed reading Murder at the Moonshine Inn.

Morgan Mandel said...

I'm not into sex scene descriptions, and don't care to watch any of that i movies either. At my age, I already know what goes on. I'm more interested in the game than in what happens afterward. What attracts me in a book or a movie is the main character and how well that character is developed. When I can get into someone else's deep point of view, whether in a mystery or romance, I'm happy.

Anonymous said...

Morgan, I agree, we already know what goes on! And great characters will stay with me long after the plot fizzles away.

Amy M. Reade said...

I've enjoyed your blog tour very much, in part because I get to learn at least one more new thing about your books and your points of view on writing in each post. This one was great--I agree with the other commenters that we all know what's going on in the bedroom. We don't need the play-by-play. And as for vulgarity, there's so much of it in the real world. It's nice to escape that even if it's only for a short time. Nicely done!!

Grace Topping said...

Excellent points, Maggie. Sometimes what readers conjure up can be more gruesome than anything we can write.

Anonymous said...

Amy and Grace, thanks for commenting. I think blog tours are great for slowly learning about authors and our work. Thanks to both of you for being a part of my blog tour---also Marilyn and Marilyn!