Mystery and Modern Technology

by Janis Patterson

Modern technology is taking a lot of the fun out of mystery writing. I mean, with caller ID, DNA, tracking devices, the ability to ping cell towers, virtual reality crime scene re-creation, instant background checks through multiple databases, ubiquitous surveillance cameras, facial recognition, computer access.... well, you know what I mean. What is there left to detect? A computer geek with access to the proper modern toys can often solve the mystery without leaving the comfort of his ergonomic chair in his mother's basement.

The more widely spread such electronic goodies become, the harder it becomes for mystery writers to find ways for their electronically-challenged sleuths to create a believable scenario. Some have frankly given up and fled into the past, where real, human-based detecting is the norm. Others twist probability into pretzels by locating their stories on remote islands, during power outages, and the like. A few - a very few - writers have mastered the balance of solving crimes with electronically available data and human detecting in a palatable form. I salute them. Many, many more have not.

Let's face it - while many if not most people use electronic toys such as cell phones and computers, how many are really conversant with how they work? We hit one button dialing or click a screen to make phone calls, we surf the net with a few clicks, but that's about the extent of a lot of people's knowledge. I'm one of them, and to me it's boring where in a mystery the detective (either by himself or with his super-techy partner) look at a computer screen, spout a couple of incomprehensible tech words (which to the average reader might as well be Urdu or Dogon) and poof! - there is a clue if not the entire solution to the mystery. Somehow some TV shows do this well and believably, but in books.... boorrring! And I suspect somehow the palatability of super-tech in TV shows has a lot to do with how hot the actor is spouting all the computer jargon!

So what is a tech-challenged writer to do? We can't all put our mysteries on desert islands or during power outages or someplace else where instant information is not the norm. We can't all have our sleuth continually forgetting to charge his/her cell phone or leaving it behind. Most people in real life seem to have their cell phones surgically attached! Now we not only have to craft a believable mystery but also create logical reasons why our sleuth can't jump on the 'net, do a few clicks and find out at least half a book's information, including, of course, the one pertinent clue that solves the mystery. All of which, sadly, would in real logically take place on page 25 or so. Sigh.

I don't have any answers. I've taken heat from readers because my sleuths are tech-challenged, then declaring that my stories aren't believable because my sleuths aren't in constant contact with the 'net. One of my solutions is to have a sleuth (Flora Melkiot, EXERCISE IS MURDER, MURDER IN DEATH'S WAITING ROOM) who is elderly - but don't let her hear you say that - and finds modern technology both unmannerly and common. Plus, she is wildly nosy and loves winkling information out of other people. She is also quite rich, and I think I would like to grow up and be her!

Anyway, this problem is not going away. For those of you who can believably construct a mystery using modern technology in a way that is palatable with the majority of readers - I salute you! For the rest of us... I don't know. I just might follow my betters and escape to the past, where rotary dials are cutting edge, cars have manual transmissions (my favorite!), and privacy was not only the norm, but valued. I know I'll see some of you there!

On another note, I would like to say that my YouTube channel is up and running - and I would be most appreciative if you would drop by. It's called Janis' Tips and Tales, and a new episode is released on the fourth Thursday of every month. Thank you!

What Happens When Your Villain is Smarter than You?

by Janis Patterson

I’m having a problem. I’m 60,000 words into A KILLING AT EL KAB (and loving it!), just at the point where my sleuth should start to pin down who the villain is. Only thing is, my villain has so far proved himself much smarter than I. There are clues (breadcrumbs, if you will) pointing to him, but there are more pointing to just about everyone else. At this particular point, I could probably make any one of half a dozen people the killer with equal ease.

I know who the killer is. I know why, and where, and how he killed. He is a very smart man – so smart that he hasn’t made a mistake yet. I know I have to find some flaw in his behavior, some crack where his villainy becomes obvious, but as of yet I haven’t. He has covered his tracks brilliantly, made no mistakes, and my semi-psychic but denying it sleuth is totally clueless as to how to handle a crime.

Okay, during a totally unrelated meeting this morning a thought of how to expose him hit me (good thing) but it means there is a lot of tweaking to be done in the stuff I've already written. I'll do it, though, if only to ensure my triumph over him. He's an arrogant, condescending so and so, and besting him will make me feel very good.

So I can hear y'all asking, why did I create him like that? Believe me, I didn't!

Every so often one local writing group or another will offer a workshop on creating characters, and for many years I attended every one. Some were pretty basic – physical description, work/hobby/whatever, dark secret in their past (and they all had to have a dark secret in their past) etc. Others were detailed to a ridiculous degree – all the above plus things like their favorite flavor of Jello, favorite movie star, who were they closest to in their family, their favorite teacher in elementary school, who would they be if they were a figure in history, what would they be if they were a food... Things I'm not even sure of even in myself! I remember one character interview that went on for seven single-spaced pages

All these workshops did was instill in me a great sense of envy for those who could follow whatever recipe was being taught. Oh, I followed every step with alacrity, made everything just as it should be... and bored myself to tears. After making up so much stuff about a character I found they had all the life and reality of a cheap paper doll. I feel the same way about detailed outlines. Ho-hum. No surprises for the writer, no surprises for the reader.

In case you haven't twigged to it yet, I'm a pantser. When I start a book I have a shadowy idea of the storyline and a couple of stick-figure characters that are more archetypal placeholders than anything else. The rest is done on the fly, and it often surprises even me. My characters walk in almost fully fledged (though they do change and expand and sometimes surprise the heck out of me as I write) and tell me what I'm to do, and if I dare to change what they have decided, they often get huffy and refuse to talk to me sometimes for days.

I tried to explain this to The Husband (a science rather than a word person) without much success. He listened politely, then asked a question or two, then shook his head, murmuring that writing sounded more like possession than it did creation.

He might be right. But I did figure out how to defeat my villain... and please don't tell anyone. Word does get around, and I do want to surprise him!

What's Your Sort of Sleuth?

I've recently been reading a cozy, or cosy, as the English would say. The main character is quite engaging, but does some odd things. She jumps to wild conclusions, and goes around asking bold questions of suspects who could be the actual killer. However, the author's humorous voice shines through, making me want to read more, despite the character's silliness.

At the other side of the spectrum are the super clever sleuth characters who make a habit of analyzing everything to the last detail, and the author takes pains to share that knowledge as well. I find those characters boring. I read for pleasure, and don't want to go through brain gyrations. However, I realize many readers enjoy actually enjoy brain workouts, and more power to them.

My ideal sleuth is a person of loyalty, humor, and common sense, thrown into a strange or deadly situation. That person may not even consider herself or himself a sleuth, but just wants answers to a problem, or a way to solve a crisis. That's why I enjoy reading books by Mary Higgins Clark and the late Dick Francis.

What sort of sleuth do you like?

Find Morgan Mandel's mysteries
and romances at her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/author/MorganMandel

Book excerpts at:
http://www.morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/morgan.mandel

Twitter: @MorganMandel

Me & My Sleuths

I love my sleuths and have lots of fun watching them solve murders and navigate relationships. As the protagonist in a series, each of my sleuths is complex, with both endearing and irritating characteristics. They’re all clever enough to solve mysteries, spunky enough to take risks they have no business taking, and all have blind spots that occasionally lead them to wrong conclusions and into danger. As their creator, I have something in common with each and every one of them. I thought I’d say a few words about my sleuths Lydia, Gabbie, and Lexie—what they’re like and the traits and similarities I share with each.

Lydia Krause stars in A Murderer Among Us and Murder in the Air of the Twin Lakes Mysteries series. She is an attractive widow aged 58, who once ran her own company and now resides in the upscale retirement community of Twin Lakes on Long Island with her red tom Reggie. She has two daughters who give her joy and grief, a slew of new friends, and a budding relationship with Detective Sol Molina. While I live in a gated community on Long Island, it’s nowhere as posh as Twin Lakes, nor is it a retirement community, and, alas, we don’t have an indoor pool. Ironically, Lydia became a widow before I did. I have two sons, not two daughters, and one granddaughter so far, not two as Lydia has. Both Lydia and I have red toms.

In Giving Up the Ghost Gabbie Meyerson comes to the village of Chrissom Harbor on Long Island in the middle of a cold January to teach English at the local high school.
Gabbie is in her midthirties and like Lydia, starting a new life. She has recently divorced her husband, after helping to send him to prison for white collar crimes. She rents a cottage on a bluff and discovers she has a housemate—the ghost of wheeler dealer Cameron Leeds, who plagues Gabbie until she agrees to find out who murdered him. Gabbie’s students play a part in the mystery. While I never had a ghost for a housemate, I was a high school teacher for several years though my subject was Spanish. I never divorced my husband, nor did he ever commit any crimes. We writers must take liberties. <g>

Lexie Driscoll is my sleuth in the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club series. Lexie is a 48-year-old English professor at a Long Island university. Though she is very bright, she has poor judgment when it comes to choosing husbands. Her first husband left her when she was pregnant with her son, Jesse. Now father and son enjoy a close relationship. Years later, she married a fellow academic, only to learn he was extremely unstable. When Lexie told him she was ending the marriage, he burned down her house and died in the fire. In Murder a la Christie, Lexie’s best friend, now married to Lexie’s former college boyfriend, asks her to facilitate a Golden Age of Mystery book club in her wealthy town of Old Cadfield, Long Island. While discussing Agatha Christie and her novels, one of the members becomes ill and dies. Lexie is c

ertain that Sylvia’s been poisoned. More members are murdered, and Lexie fears their lives are on a parallel course of Christie’s novel, And Then There Were None. Lexie’s barrage of questions often upsets the Old Cadfield residents. She exposes old secrets and resentments, until someone tries to kill her. While I’m nowhere as intrusive as Lexie, probably because I haven’t had to, I find it ironic that just before the book was published, my local library asked me to lead the mystery book club. (I am no longer the leader, and we have not suffered any murders. ) A case of life following art.  <g>

What do you and your sleuths have in common?

How old is your sleuth?

Recently a question was posed on DorothyL about the age of series sleuths. The question inevitably arises because a series might last years or decades. Readers have aged over that time, should the sleuth age at the same rate?

One of the arguments for having a sleuth age is that readers like to see their favorite characters change or evolve. A series sleuth might change very little in the course of a single story, but will evolve over the length of the series. Consequently readers can expect their favorite sleuths to show evidence of change over time.

We might ask, however, if the change is due to aging or to an accumulation of life events. Have we grown because we have added years to our lives or because we have experienced love and the loss of love, have had accomplishments and failures, have been sick or injured, have faced death or watched others die? In the real world we tend to go through these events over time, adding years as we go. It doesn't have to be like that in the fictional world. With the exception of child-rearing, most life events are episodic.

Does it really matter to the reader if the sleuth ages? It certainly won't matter once the series has ended. If we know the sleuth won't age anymore, it doesn't matter if the sleuth ages at all. In my mind, Sherlock Holmes is in his mid-thirties, even though he was said to be 60 in his last story. He has been fixed in my mind at a certain age and that's where he stays with each story I read.

It would make some sense for the sleuth to age along with readers if readers read the series as they are written. But except for the most loyal readers, that is probably not the case. I can't think of any series I have read in order. Two years ago, my wife and I decided to devote the summer to catching up on Michael Connelly's novels. Over a three-month period we read all that we hadn't read and re-read some that we had. We didn't read them in order, but took them as we found them in new and used bookstores. Harry Bosch first appeared in 1992, so the stories spanned 17 years, but since we read them in 3 months, did Harry age 17 years or did he age 3 months. Or did he age at all?

Does aging help readers identify with the sleuth? Each of has an ideal age, an age that doesn't match the age on our driver's license. It's the age we would be if we didn't know when we were born. I believe we are more likely to identify with a sleuth of that age than with one our actual age. Our ideal age doesn't change much. It's usually the age when we were at our best. It makes sense that we would identify with characters who are at their best.

Who ages most in a series? The author. We get better and more experienced as we age which shows up in our writing style. We accumulate life experiences which show up in our stories. We accumulate wrinkles and gray hair which show up in the picture on the back cover. If the author shows signs of aging, does the reader expect that aging to show up in the sleuth? Maybe the secret is to make our sleuths the age we would be if we did not know when we were born and keep our birth dates out of the author bios and our pictures off the back cover.

What do you think?

Mark Troy
Hawaiian Eye Blog