Potluck, book three in the “dinner
is served” series, won the readers’ contest for which book I will write for
National Novel Writing Month. Wahoo! My publisher, Billie Johnson at Oak Tree
Press, will be delighted that this one won’t take as long to get to her as book
two has!
This post borrows portions from the blog over at Write onSisters that I write on Tuesdays. Over there, I wrote about cozy mysteries
and what the 16 elements are for writing a cozy. In this post, I want to drill
down even deeper to talks about a special kind of cozy: the culinary mystery.
A culinary mystery is a sub-genre of cozy mysteries that
prominently features food. Often that is done through the profession of the
amateur sleuth. Less often, food is presented as important to a character, and well-described,
but no recipe is given. Most often that happens with detectives who relish (!)
food or with food critics describing restaurant fare.
Other culinary mysteries, in fact most of them, have the
amateur sleuth involved in food preparation in some way. They might be personal
chefs, caterers, cooking school teachers, restaurant chefs, or bakery owners.
In one series, the woman is just a great home cook.
Many of the elements of the traditional mystery appear in
other sub-genres of mystery. Cozies are a variant on the theme. In the list
below, the first seven elements are the same in cozies and traditional
mysteries, but to make your mystery a cozy, you need to add in nine more
elements. Number 17 is what makes your cozy a culinary mystery.
1) Cozy mysteries are
always a puzzle to solve.
2) All clues are
revealed to the reader but obscured with red herrings and false leads.
3) Cozy mysteries
feature a murder (most often) or a crime of great substance.
4) The victim
typically is not admirable, thus the crime, if not justifiable, is often
understandable.
5) The murder or
other significant crime often occurs very near the beginning, in the
opening pages. But not always. Cozies can introduce the murder well into the
story.
6) Murders take place
“off stage” so there is little or no explicit violence or gore described.
7) Cozy mysteries use
plot devices to further the confusion of clues, suspects, and timelines.
8) The reluctant
and very clever sleuth uses common sense
to solve the mystery, is not a professional, and is drawn into solving the
crime by circumstances.
9) The villain is
clever and smart but not equal to the sleuth.
10) Cozy mysteries
are most often set in a small town or rural setting so you get to know
residents across books.
11) Almost all cozy
mysteries are a series.
12) The cozy mystery
series usually has a theme or an occupation or a hobby to tie it together.
13) Cozies involve
more active crime solving than traditional mysteries. Readers want more
than somebody being interviewed. Cozies have more action and dangerous
situations. However, they are still considered light reading in the mystery
realm.
14) Whereas cozies are generally G-Rated, they have
evolved to where there may be mild cursing and the mention of sex “off stage”.
15) Cozies often have
humorous components and/or quirky characters.
16) Cozy mysteries
often have punny titles tied to the theme/occupation/hobby of the series.
My culinary mysteries for example have titles of Mission Impastable, Prime Rib
and Punishment, Potluck, Cooks in the Can, Tequila Mockingbird, and Ancient
Grease.
17) Culinary
mysteries may or may not include recipes, but all of them feature food
prominently.
If you want to start writing culinary mysteries, here are
some authors to read. Note the elements so you can write these fun books, too!
Diane Mott Davidson
Leighann Dobbs
Misty Evans
Nancy Fairbanks
Jerrilyn Farmer
Jennifer L. Hart
Carolyn Hughey
Josi Kilpack
Harper Lin
Sharon Arthur Moore !
Tamar Myers
Joanne Pence
Leigh Selfman
Connie Shelton
Lou Jane Temple
No comments:
Post a Comment