Twelve Steps to Writing the Cozy/Amateur Sleuth Mystery Series
By Lois Winston
I started my career writing romance and was first published in 2006 with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water story about a young woman off to New York and the mother determined to bring her back home to Iowa. That was followed a year later with the romantic suspense, Love, Lies and Double Shot of Deception.
I wrote my first mystery after my agent had a conversation with an editor looking for a crafting mystery series. Since my day job consisted of designing craft projects for kit manufacturers, craft book publishers, and both craft and women’s magazines, my agent thought I’d be the perfect person to write such a series. Thus, was born my critically acclaimed and bestselling Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, a humorous amateur sleuth series which sold in late 2009 and debuted in January 2011.
In addition, I’ve written two books in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, which is a modern-day twist on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies, and one book so far in my Mom Squad Caper Series.
The following twelve steps are not a sure-fire guide to success, merely helpful suggestions for avoiding mistakes that could lead to a rejection letter instead of a contract offer.
STEP ONE: DECIDE ON THE TYPE OF MYSTERY SERIES YOU WANT TO WRITE
Before you begin to craft your series, you should decide on the sub-genre of mystery you want to write. Do you know the difference between a cozy mystery, an amateur sleuth mystery, a romantic suspense, a romantic mystery, a police procedural, a detective story, and a noir mystery? If not, you need to educate yourself prior to starting your series. Different sub-genres contain different conventions with different reader expectations. (For a complete list of sub-genres with definitions of each, click here.)
STEP TWO: DECIDE WHETHER YOU WANT TO WRITE A LIMITED OR AN ONGOING SERIES
In a limited series the story arc and characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts develop over a set number of books, usually (but not restricted to) three, and are resolved at the end of the last book in the series.
An ongoing series, typical of most mystery series, features episodic stories that resolve at the end of each book but include the same main and secondary characters throughout the series.
Episodic series can be as few as two books or as many as dozens, depending on various factors—the story the author is telling, the desire to keep writing the series, publisher support, and a fan base clamoring for more stories in the series.
Episodic series books should be able to be read out of order without causing reader confusion (More on that later). Stories are independent of each other with new antagonists and additional secondary characters in each book but can be tied to previous stories. Characters introduced in one book may come back several books later.
In most cases, the main and some secondary characters will continue to grow throughout the series, often going through life-altering changes such as marriage, a job change, birth of a child, or death of a family member.
STEP THREE: DEVELOP A CHARACTER WHO CAN CARRY A SERIES OVER MULTIPLE BOOKS
Readers love to bond with characters and continue to read about them, but as a writer you need to make sure you don’t keep writing the same story book after book. You need to create a protagonist who won’t become stale. You can achieve this by setting long-term goals for your protagonist and placing her in different settings.
Even though you end each book resolving the main plot of that book and having your character solve the murder, you want to leave your reader wondering what happens next in the character’s life. One way I’ve done this is by introducing new characters. For example, in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in my Anastasia series, I introduce Anastasia’s deceased husband’s previously unknown half-brother.
In Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh book in the series, I give Anastasia’s older son, Alex, a girlfriend and created a murder plot that involved her and her father. And of course, there’s the mysterious Zack Barnes, a photojournalist who rents the apartment above Anastasia’s garage in Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun. Even though Anastasia suspects he’s really a government operative, a relationship begins to develop between them as the series progresses.
STEP FOUR: GIVE YOUR PROTAGONIST A JOB CONDUCIVE TO DISCOVERING AND SOLVING MURDERS
If you’re writing about a professional investigator, this is a given. However, for cozy and amateur sleuth series, the sleuth needs a career where she isn’t chained to her desk in a cubicle forty hours a week, then spends her evenings watching TV with only a cat for company. Your sleuth needs a logical excuse for getting around to investigate the crime and interact with witnesses and suspects.
Giving her family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to interact with will give you more opportunities for additional plots in future books. If she travels for her job, that’s a plus. You can locate your crimes in various locales, keeping the settings fresh and interesting from book to book. Some of the settings for my series have included the magazine where Anastasia works, the set of a morning TV show, at a convention center, in the town where she lives, on a cruise ship, at a conference center, and at a winery.
STEP FIVE: CREATE YOUR SLEUTH’S WORLD
Decide whether your books will take place in a real town or city, a fictional town or city, or a fictionalized version of a real town or city.
I’ve set my books in and around Westfield, NJ and New York City because I find it easier to keep track of locations familiar to me. Some authors will take a real town or city but change the name. Others will create a fictional location.
If you decide on a fictional location, make it a place your readers will want to continue reading about from book to book. Give the place some unique characteristics. Is it a tourist destination? A commuter town near a big city? A college town? A town with only one industry? A shore town or one nestled in the mountains? Your setting should become an integral part of your series.
For fictitious locations, create a map to use as a reference while writing your books. You don’t want to make a street one way in one direction, then have it going in the opposite direction two books later. Savvy readers often catch such errors and let you know about them.
If you want to set a story in a real town or city you don’t know or don’t know well, do extensive research regarding the location. Don’t just rely on Google Maps. You don’t want to make the mistake of writing about a massive accident involving half a dozen eighteen-wheelers on a roadway where trucks are forbidden.
It’s perfectly acceptable to have your characters visit actual businesses as long as you don’t write anything derogatory about the establishment. Your characters can meet for Frappuccinos at Starbucks, but if you want your victim dropping dead after one sip, give both the establishment and the beverage a fictitious name to avoid a possible lawsuit.
STEP SIX: CUPCAKES, CRAFTS, & CATS
Three of the most popular sub-genres of cozy mysteries are culinary cozies, crafting cozies, and pet cozies. Culinary and crafting cozies generally include a recipe or craft project. In pet cozies, the pet becomes a secondary character in the series, one the sleuth will often view as almost human. In my Anastasia Pollack series, Anastasia’s mother owns a cat. Her mother-in-law owns a dog. Both animals mimic their owner’s personalities. Anastasia has inherited Ralph, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot who squawks situation-appropriate passages from The Bard.
Sometimes the pet will even play a role in solving the mystery. This is often the case in paranormal mysteries, which are also quite popular and usually feature cats. Even non-pet cozies often feature a pet, especially cats and dogs. I’ve known several authors who were asked to add a cat or dog to a submission before a contract was offered.
When planning your series, you need to decide if you’ll follow a trend or buck trends by writing something outside the box. In a crowded market it’s often difficult to break in and find a fan base when you’re competing against well-established series. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
On the other hand, although publishers will always say they’re looking for something new and fresh, they’re often reticent to take a chance on something different from what they know sells. It’s a publishing conundrum.
When I began writing the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, I did some research into crafting mysteries. All either featured a craft shop owner, a crafting club, or a crafter, and all concentrated on a single craft—knitting, crochet, scrapbooking, stained glass, etc. I decided to buck the single-craft trend by making Anastasia the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. That way I could feature a different craft in each book.
STEP SEVEN: BFFS AND SIDEKICKS
Most cozy and amateur sleuth series have a sidekick who becomes Watson to your protagonist’s Sherlock. This can be a coworker, a relative, a best friend, or a love interest. The sidekick often provides certain character traits that your sleuth might lack. She or he might be totally logical whereas your sleuth might appear flighty at times or be obsessively cautious when your sleuth has a tendency toward leaping before looking.
For instance, in my Empty Nest Mystery Series, my sleuth’s college professor husband is forced to tag along to keep her out of trouble when she insists on sticking her nose into murder investigations. But in Anastasia’s world, depending on the book, her sidekicks alternate between several people in her life, including her best friend, magazine food editor Cloris McWerther, and her tenant-turned-love-interest, Zack Barnes.
STEP EIGHT: SECONDARY AND TERTIARY CHARACTERS
Juggling the number of characters in your sleuth’s world can be a delicate balancing act. Too few characters won’t give you enough possibilities for plots to keep your series going, but too many can become confusing to the reader.
Remember, not every character you create needs to appear in each book. Some characters may play a major role in only one book or pop up sporadically from time to time. Resist the urge to force a character into a story because you introduced him or her in a previous book. Only bring the character back when it makes sense to the story.
Even characters you never expect to appear in another book might come back at some point. When I received a note from a reader wondering if I’d ever bring back Tino Martinelli, introduced in Decoupage Can Be Deadly, I was in the middle of writing Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide. I realized Tino was exactly the character I needed to round out that book’s plot.
STEP NINE: CREATE A SERIES BIBLE
If you plan to write a series over many years, it’s essential that you keep accurate track of all the character details. This includes a physical description of each character, their age, profession, back-story, relationship to the other characters in the series, their relatives, hobbies, and likes and dislikes in everything from books to music to fashion to the make, model, and color of the car they drive.
Don’t rely on your memory. Create a database. Each time you add a character or mention a characteristic of that character, add it to the database. Refer to the database routinely to make sure you haven’t changed a character’s eye color or given him a sibling when you mentioned in a previous book that he’s an only child.
STEP TEN: DECIDE ON HOW QUICKLY YOUR CHARACTERS WILL AGE
Most authors write a book a year. Will your characters age a year between each book, or will each book take place days, weeks, or months after the preceding one? This is something you need to decide before you begin writing the second book in your series.
If you choose to have your characters age a year with each book, how will aging affect their world? If your sleuth has teenagers, will they go off to college in book 4 or 5? Is she nearing retirement age? Will she have to deal with aging parents? What about technological advances? Will you incorporate new technologies into future stories?
I realized after I’d sold the first three books in my Anastasia Pollack series that I should have made her sons younger. As teenagers, they were too close to leaving for college. But the first book was already written. Making them younger wouldn’t have worked with the plot. I solved the problem by having each consecutive book start within a short period of time after the previous book had ended. I’ve even opened one book within hours of ending the previous book.
STEP ELEVEN: KEEP A TIMELINE OF EVENTS
It’s far too easy to lose track of the time elapsing in your story as you work on it, especially if you’re a writer who often goes back and tweaks scenes. You can’t always rely on critique partners or editors catching every mistake you make. The easiest way to avoid such errors is to keep a scene calendar for each book in your series. Print out blank calendar pages. Decide on the month and day your story will start. Record the scenes that occur on each day to keep your timeline accurate.
STEP TWELVE: DON’T LEAVE NEW READERS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS
It’s important that each book in your series can be read as a standalone. Most bookstores will not carry all the previous titles in your series. If a reader picks up a book from the middle of the series, you don’t want her to feel confused about the characters in your story. You want readers to have an enjoyable reading experience, enough so that they’ll search out your prior titles and purchase future ones.
Avoid the urge to info-dump, though. It’s not necessary to provide each character’s complete biography the first time you introduce him or her in each book. A few carefully worded phrases or sentences at appropriate times will give the reader enough back-story to avoid having her feel frustrated and lost.
LOIS WINSTON is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author of mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.
