Writing the Cozy Mystery (Magical Mystery Tour Part 2!)

Ruthy here, happily welcoming the mega talented, award-winning suspense and mystery writer Nancy Mehl! Nancy is doing Part 2 of our ongoing "How to be a Mystery Writer" Magical Mystery Tour series... and her advice is well-taken! Nancy, I've got coffee and cranberry muffins in honor of our Mysteries of Martha's Vineyard series that we're working on together... And Nancy will come by to answer any questions you might have about penning that first whodunnit! 

                                                                   

Ask almost any reader to explain what defines a mystery novel and most will respond with definite characteristics they feel should be present in this popular genre. However, ask the same reader to explain the elements of a “cozy” mystery and you may see a look of confusion creep across their face. So just what makes a mystery “cozy?”

The most fundamental elements in cozy mystery are fairly easy to define. First of all, there will be a basically bloodless crime that may happen “offstage.” In other words, by the time our amateur detective arrives on the scene, the dirty deed has already been done. Now, our sleuth, who is usually female, must solve the mystery because of circumstances she cannot avoid. In other words, the crime involves her directly in some way. This is true with any mystery, but in a cozy, many times the reasons behind her involvement are much more personal. Other signs that you’ve cracked open a cozy involve a small, confined setting; the lack of profanity and sexual content; a protagonist with an interesting hobby or job; and memorable, quirky characters. Also, many cozies are drawn with a touch of humor. Some go further, actually adding some giggles to the usual nasty business of murder and mayhem. Now let’s look a little more closely at each of these elements.

This is NOT a shameless Ruthy plug.... but this is the first book of the series Nancy and I are part of! There are 24 books scheduled, and we'll each write 3 of them. And we're having so much fun in our fictional Martha's Vineyard world!

One very important trait of a cozy mystery revolves around “location, location, location!” Cozies take place in confined settings, thereby drawing upon a small cast of characters and suspects. In other words, the killer can’t be someone passing though town who simply decides to “off” a few of the town’s gentle citizens!  The “investigation” needs to involve only the characters presented within this setting. You can use a small town (like Tisbuy, Massachusetts, in the Mysteries of Martha’s Vineyard), a ship, even an old hotel or isolated castle. This restricted location keeps the mystery contained – and the world out. Since cozies are not police procedurals, many times the setting will actually cut down on official involvement. For example – a woman goes to visit an old friend who has turned an old Victorian-styled church into a bed and breakfast. Someone staying at the inn is murdered while a storm rages outside. The bridge to town is washed out, leaving our protagonist, the surrounding characters, and the murderer caught like rats in a trap. Of course, since our characters can’t get out, the police can’t get in. Now the fun begins! One caveat: if you draw law enforcement into your story, you need to be as accurate as you can. Again, police in rural towns may not be as “by the book” as say, detectives in New York City, but don’t fudge the details past the limits of believability. For my “Ivy Towers Series,” I consulted an actual deputy sheriff who worked in rural areas of Kansas. This helped me to “keep it real” for my readers.

Addressing the overwhelming glut of mysteries on the market with language and sexual scenes that would have caused my grandmother to “swoon,” brings a mixed bag of opinions from mystery authors and readers alike. However, I believe cozies should be “gentle” mysteries. In keeping with this idea, no “harsh” profanity or lurid “boudoir” passages should be present. Usually, cozy mysteries are selected by readers who specifically want to avoid graphic words and images. Of course, in an inspirational cozy, this point is non-negotiable. No profanity allowed at all! In fact, various inspirational publishers have different standards. One publisher bans the use of “Holy cow!” while another has no problem with it. In my book, “There Goes Santa Claus,” upon finding a dead Santa Claus that has fallen off his roof, Amos Tucker greets the sight with “J-Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, Ivy. I think we just killed Santa Claus!” Many of today’s contemporary mystery novels might have offered language a little more colorful!

Now, on to s-e-x. Cozies should contain little or no sexual content. In inspirational cozy, there can be romance, but sex only occurs between married couples – and it definitely happens offstage! Remember the old black and white movies where the couple kissed, the camera swung away from them, and in the night sky behind them fireworks exploded? You got the idea without the embarrassing details!

A current trend in cozies gives our amateur detective an interesting hobby or job that adds an element of interest. Of course, this isn’t always true. Although Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was an interesting character, her creativity expressed itself most clearly in her mental acumen. However, today’s heroines can be hairdressers, interior designers, own antique stores, be cooks, quilters or may be characterized by some other specific professional or personal involvement. And “county coroner” doesn’t work here. It’s difficult to make that funny. In my “Curl Up and Dye” mystery series, my protagonist, Hilde Higgins, is a hairdresser – for funeral homes. That’s about as dark as you can get. One side note: I came up with this idea because I was joking with my agent one day about all the “hooks” being used by mystery authors. We agreed that the hairdressing sleuth had been done. My mention of someone who worked in a funeral home brought the revelation of another author who was already writing a similar series. As a joke, I mentioned a hairdresser who works for funeral homes. The concept got burned into my imagination and the “Curl Up and Dye” mysteries were born.

Another “cozy” element involves likeable, “quirky” characters drawn with humor, who appear to have something “mysterious” in their backgrounds. These characters can all be possible suspects. Be careful though, not to paint a picture of someone who seems completely innocent and then surprise your reader at the last minute by making him the murderer. Mystery fans, including cozy mystery fans, ask you to play fair. Hints must be dropped and clues must be scattered! And whatever you do, pick up all your clues by the end of your story and explain. Mystery buffs don’t like to be left hanging. Never forget a cozy mystery is still a mystery and as an author, you must play by the rules.

In conclusion, cozy mysteries are stories presented as gentle gifts to be unwrapped while the reader snuggles under their favorite quilt and sips hot tea or cappuccino. Inspirational cozies should not only warm the heart but should also touch the spirit.  They will never shock the reader or cause them to upend their cappuccino. (A little laughter might cause a small spill – but in a cozy, this reaction is perfectly acceptable!)

And today we've got a wonderful book to give away... so leave a comment when you grab a cuppa and we'll throw your name into the Sherlock Holmes hat! 

Nancy Mehl – Short Bio
Nancy Mehl is a best-selling, award winning author who lives in Missouri, with her husband, Norman, and her Puggle, Watson. She’s authored almost thirty books and is currently writing a new series for Bethany House Publishing based on the U.S. Marshals. The first book, FATAL FROST, in her Defenders of Justice Series, released on November 1^st, 2016. The second book, DARK DECEPTION, hit store shelves in June of 2017. Book three, BLIND BETRAYAL, will be released in the spring of 2018. She is also working on a new cozy mystery series for Guideposts, The Mysteries of Martha’s Vineyard.

All of Nancy’s novels have an added touch – something for your spirit as well as your soul. “I welcome the opportunity to share my faith through my writing,” Nancy says. “God is number one in my life. I wouldn’t be writing at all if I didn’t believe that this is what He’s called me to do. I hope everyone who reads my books will walk away with the most important message I can give them: God is good, and He loves you more than you can imagine. He has a good plan for your life, and there is nothing you can’t overcome with His help.”

Readers can learn more about Nancy through her Web site: www.nancymehl.com. She is part of The Suspense Sisters: www.suspensesisters.blogspot.com, along with several other popular suspense authors. She is also very active on Facebook.

Nancy's newest suspense novel:

What Makes a Cozy Mystery?

I like mysteries. I like to read mysteries. In fact, I give mysteries credit for starting me down the writing road since I picked up pen to write my own mystery at age ten after reading some Hardy Boy mystery books. So, it’s a little surprising that I published twenty-eight books before any of those books were labeled mysteries.

 But I did keep my love of mysteries. The truth is, I often sneaked a mystery thread into my stories through the years. I even included a suspicious death and a murder in my recent Shaker book, The Innocent. It’s good to make readers wonder a bit. But I had never written a full-fledged, murder-in-the-title, and mystery-on-the-cover book until Murder at the Courthouse, my first Hidden Springs mystery published last year. Now Murder Comes by Mail follows it up with more murder and mayhem in my little town of Hidden Springs.

Murder in the title is a sure indication the book is a mystery. Then readers can spot another clue on the cover to let them know what kind of mystery. Those lovely cats. The same as other fiction books, mysteries come in different flavors. You have police procedurals, detective stories, and suspense filled dramas, but when you see a cat or dog on the cover you can be pretty sure you are looking at a cozy mystery.

What makes a cozy mystery? Cozies are usually gentle mysteries. Oh, people die and not from natural causes, but the violent deaths rarely take place on stage. Bodies are discovered. Clues are uncovered. Murderers caught. Usually the amateur sleuth main character is an intuitive, intelligent woman who just happens to stumble across those dead bodies. Consider Murder, She Wrote. Think of how many murder victims just happened to show up in Jessica Fletcher’s little town. 

So we come to another thing that makes a cozy a cozy. Nearly all cozy mysteries are set in small towns, the more picturesque the better. The main character nearly always has some sort of business. A book store, a tea shop or perhaps an antique store or a knitting and yarn shop. The main character may have some sort of relationship with someone in the law enforcement business that enables her to get inside information regarding the crime. And don’t forget those cats and dogs. Those furry friends can play major roles in the story.  

The victims in cozy mysteries rarely get much sympathy since they are often unlikeable characters nobody is going to miss and to whom the reader has not formed any emotional attachment. Readers of cozy mysteries want an easy, entertaining read and not something that will make them sad or nervous about being alone on a dark and stormy night. They read to relax and have fun trying to come up with the whodunit answer before the amateur sleuth unmasks the perpetrator at the end of the story. 

At the same time, they can be disappointed if they figure out the answers too easily or too soon. Whether they guess the bad guy or not, they expect the clues to be there to point to the killer. They want to be able to look back and say, “Yes, I should have seen that.” Of course, the author throws in a few red herrings to try to lead the reader astray while the amateur sleuth character manages to sort through and figure out the real clues.

Cozy mysteries are often series books with the same main characters. Think of Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. She introduced Kinsey Millhone to readers in A is for Alibi and now is near the end of the alphabet with a new book titled X. Grafton’s mysteries are detective fiction and not cozies, but you can find plenty of cozy series too. Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who… series are definitely cozies with that cat in the midst of every mystery. Most mystery series have continuing characters but can also be read as stand-alone books. 

With all that said, I confess I must not have read the rules before I began writing my own cozy mysteries because my books break many of the rules I’ve just noted. I do have the cats. That may have been my saving grace. But my main character is a man, and if that isn’t bad enough, he’s a policeman. Admittedly, he’s a deputy sheriff in a small town that while not particularly picturesque, does have that friendly everybody knows everybody feel. Throw in some quirky, hometown characters readers can picture walking down Main Street and at least the setting works for a cozy mystery. My victims aren’t all unsympathetic characters either, but they are characters the reader doesn’t really know well. My main characters do run into danger and sometimes end up in dramatic will-there-be-a-way-out-of-this situations.    
Recently I sent out a newsletter with a giveaway contest, and for fun, I asked readers if they thought they would like to live in a small town like Hidden Springs. Far and away, the majority loved the idea of living in a small town. Many did either live in that similar small town now or had grown up in one. But one reader was right on the money when she sent this comment. “As far as living in the fictional town of Hidden Springs, well to be honest, the crime rate is sky high in comparison to the population. So, I don’t think I’d feel safe living there.” 

That’s another thing about the cute little towns where cozy mystery series are set. They have an amazingly high crime rate, but since it’s all in fun and only fictional people are victims of the crimes, cozy mystery lovers are okay with this. They are also happy the stories have no profanity or explicit sex (especially true with the inspirational cozy mysteries). Often there is no mention of romance at all, but I do have a thread of romance running through my Hidden Springs mysteries.  

So if you stroll down Main Street and stop in at the Grill for a cup of coffee and hear that somebody just met an untimely end, then you could be in Hidden Springs or some other small town cozy story. You might as well settle down to stay a while, pet the cat or dog, and try to figure out who did the dastardly deed.


How important is setting in a story? Have you ever decided to read or write a story solely because of the setting? Do you think setting sometimes dictates what sort of characters can come to life in a story?    

Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including Angel Sister, Small Town Girl, and Love Comes Home, the 2015 Selah Book of Year winner. She’s also known for her Shaker novels and Heart of Hollyhill books. Now, as A.H. Gabhart, she is writing the Hidden Springs Mysteries set in a small town much like the Kentucky town where she grew up. Ann and her husband have three children and nine grandchildren and still enjoy country life on a farm near that small town. To find out more about Ann’s books or to follow her blog, visit www.annhgabhart.com. You can also join the conversation on her Facebook page, www.facebook.com/anngabhart. 

Murder Comes By Mail

Deputy Sheriff Michael Keane doesn't particularly enjoy being touted as the hero of Hidden Springs after pulling a suicidal man back from the edge of the Eagle River bridge in front of dozens of witnesses--a few of whom caught the breathtaking moments with their cameras. But the media hype doesn't last long as a new story pushes its way into the public consciousness of Hidden Springs' concerned citizens. 


Photos of a dead girl arrive in the mail, and Michael becomes convinced she was murdered by the man he saved. With a killer one step ahead, things in Hidden Springs begin to unravel. Now Michael must protect the people he loves--because the killer could be targeting one of them next.

Ann is generously offering a copy of Murder Comes by Mail to one commenter. Leave a comment to get your name in the cat dish. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.

Cozy mysteries of England

Hi everyone, I’m Marilyn Leach, and it’s so great to be here with you.  I truly enjoy Seekerville, it’s a fun place to learn, dream and grow.  That might just be a good way to describe what I have for you today, a bit of what inspires me in writing my Berdie Elliott British cozy mystery series, with book number three, Into the Clouds: A Berdie Elliott AscensionMystery, just released. My wish is that the following pictures and musings may lift and rouse your own imaginings. 

News Flash!! A copy of Into the Clouds will go to a special Seekerville friend! Leave a comment and then check the Weekend Edition on Saturday to see if it's you!

The main character in the series, Berdie, is not only the sleuth extraordinaire, but also a vicar’s wife in a small English village, and village life is at the heart of the story.  Many of my aspirations began when visiting villages sprinkled all cross England.  Like the one below.

   

This is the view from the harbor’s fish and chips shop in the south coastal village of Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England.  My English friends and I went to the village to visit a chum who had just moved there from the city, and we took lunch at the local shop.  If the coast couldn’t inspire a story or two, what could?  This harbor played in my mind as I wrote a scene that takes place at a marina in Into the Clouds. Though it’s an action scene, it was drenched in memory of Lyme Regis.

So many different parishes stimulated my creation of Aidan Kirkwood, my mythical-village-based-on-real-places.  Bovey-Tracey in Devon was the first place I heard the term blow-ins, or village newcomers.  Whinchcombe in Glouchester had the sweetest tea shop and a vibrant High Street, which is Main Street in U.S. small towns, and Alnsmouth in Northumbria was quintessentially everyone-knows-everyone.  They all played a stimulating part.  Another special spot is Turville, Buckinghamshire.  Cast your eye upon this pedestrian lane, one of many that wind throughout the homes in this rural spot.

Below is the Bull and Butcher pub where we had lunch in Turville.  How could you forget a welcoming fire and ambience when it is so relaxing, and atmospheric?  It played a part in configuring the Upland Arms Pub in mythical Aidan Kirkwood.  Say, by the way, if you ever watched The Vicar of Dilby on PBS or BBC, you may recognize these spaces since the series was shot in scenic Turville.

There’s a Tea Shoppe in my stories, just like most respectable English villages.  The Copper Kettle is a shop on Aidan Kirkwood’s High Street, pulsating with the latest rumor and innuendo.  The tea shop below added its charms to my imagination when we indulged in steaming tea and cheese toasties on a blustery day of touring.  It is in Corfe, Dorset, just at the entrance to Corfe Castle.  A cuppa anyone?

I have to include the almost mystic Lindesfarne Castle, one of my favorite places.  It’s perched on the outer edge of Holy Island, the birthplace of Christian faith in the North of England.  I found the entire island personally uplifting.  It touched my soul.  In its physical attributes, this island has a causeway.  That means you actually cross from the mainland to the island on the sea bottom, when the tide is out.

My friends and I explored the isle and became so engrossed in the whole of it, including the priory remains, local church, museum, shops, and of course tea at the hotel/pub, that we nearly missed the departure time zone.  We were the last vehicle to be off, and the waves were literally lapping at our car’s tires when we reached the mainland.  The Berdie Elliott mystery I’m currently working on takes place in Northumberland and includes the breathtaking beauty of Holy Island.

And, certainly, since Berdie is a vicar’s wife, her husband being the parish pastor, there is a village church.  I’ve viewed so many ancient places of worship where, with a sense of awe, I bowed the knee and found myself joining the thousands that have lifted their voice in prayer to a sovereign God.  With this in mind, I chose for my stories, an edifice built in the twelfth century and still in use, as are so very many Christian sanctuaries throughout the UK.  In many towns, the church sits in the center of it all.  In my Berdie series, St. Aidan of the Woods Church is the heartbeat of the community.  This house of worship pictured below sits in the area of Three Choirs Vineyard near Herefordshire.  It could be, in style and architecture, St. Aidan of the Woods Parish Church.

In a different vein, but still inspiring, I found English food fun and delicious, unlike the complaints I’ve heard of stodgy fare.  Even pub grub is often locally sourced giving it fresh and vibrant flavor.  My first meat pie, a staple across England, was astonishingly moorish, a term that means you want more of the yummy treat.  So, it just seemed natural that Berdie, my heroine, is masterful at making meat pies.  My English friends, Andy and Lillie, make a steak and ale pie that’s mouth-watering.  Andy often watched his grandmother make it, and now I have that same recipe.  Does it catch your fancy?

Grandmother’s Steak and Ale Pie

Filling:

1& ½ large par-boiled potatoes, sliced

1 # chuck steak

1 Tb oil

1 large onion, diced

6 oz sliced mushrooms

1 & ½ carrots, thinly sliced

½ c of beef stock

2/3 c of red wine or ale

½ Tb Worshteshire sauce

1 Tb flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Cube steak and brown in oil on stove top.  Add onion, mushroom, and stir in flour and carrots.  Add stock, wine, sauce, salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil.  Put it in a slow oven (275 degrees) for 1 & ½ hours.  Remove from oven.  In a casserole/pie dish, fit a bottom crust, then layer potatoes and meat mixture.  Remove the meat from the oven dish with a slotted spoon to reserve liquid for a gravy topping.  Add the top crust and bake 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Pastry:

2 c. flour

1 c. butter, cut in pats

Pinch of salt

Cold water

Sift flour, and salt, blend in the butter to form a soft dough.  Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.  Cut in two parts.  Roll out 2/3 of one of the parts.  Dampen the edges of a casserole/pie dish with water, place the crust in the dish.  Add filling.  Roll out the rest of that part and place as the top crust, using a fork to pinch the edges, sealing the pie all round.

To make the gravy, simply heat the meat mixture liquid, add some cornstarch, and stir until slightly thickened.  Pour over individual pieces of the meat pie.

It’s a meal all to itself, but you can always add a fresh veg and pudding, the word commonly used the way we would use the word dessert.

There are so many other scenes, architecture, people, victuals and landscapes that have originated and shaped so much of the thought that flows from my pen.  But it would take a year and 365 blogs to even crack the surface, so we’ll stop here.  If you’d like to see more photos like these, you can visit my website at marilynleachteaandbooks.com and peruse the page Snaps of England.  I hope my notions and scenery give you some new ideas, or illuminates some older ones.  And tell me, what inspires your stories?  Leave a comment, and tell us a bit about your birthplace of ideas.  Let’s dream!

Amazon Link

Ascension Sunday balloons are not the only things disappearing in the English village of Aidan Kirkwood.  When the villagers celebrate the first Ascension Sunday Processional in fifty years, someone goes missing.  A well off widow that was amongst the crowd has vanished into thin air.  And, she’s not the only one who’s nowhere to be found. 

Berdie Elliott, the local vicar’s wife, goes into sleuth mode as eccentric cat lovers, a secretive informant, Portuguese holidays, an enigmatic “tree” house, and tangled family dynamics all add to the perplexing affair.  Don’t let this mystery slip from your sight.

At the age of nine, Marilyn wrote her first play with a childhood neighbor, “The Ghost and Mr.Giltwallet.” It was a mystery.  And she’s been writing in one form or another, hobby or livelihood, since.  As well as teaching art, she’s had the opportunity to co-author several plays that have been performed on both church and secular stages, as well as two screenplays. Marilyn has had the good fortune of “discovering her roots” while visiting England where she developed lasting relationships with wonderful people there.  It has greatly impacted her writing.  A great fan of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and David Cook’s Hetty Wainthropp series, Marilyn was inspired to write her most Berdie Elliott Mystery series, which takes place in a small English village where the vicar’s wife, Berdie, is the divine sleuth.  Marilyn lives lakeside in a cottage on the outskirts of Denver near the foothills. 

How to Cozy Up A Cozy Mystery! by Guest Larissa Reinhart

Mystery writer and Seekerville guest blogger,
Larissa Reinhart

Debby Giusti here! 

I'm excited to introduce today's guest blogger, talented author and dear friend, Larissa Reinhart. Many of you will recognize her name from frequent visits to Seekerville. Larissa sold her first book, Portrait of a Dead Guy, soon after hearing about our blog. Of course, we can't take credit for her sale, but we can celebrate her success and the release of her fourth humorous mystery, Death in Perspective, this June. Larissa's books feature Cherry Tucker, a struggling artist turned amateur sleuth, and a crazy cast of characters who hail from a small town in Georgia where zany is normal and dead bodies pop up as sure as dandelions. Her stories contain adult content, but lean more to PG-13 rather than R-rated. Join me in welcoming today's guest blogger, award-winning mystery author, Larissa Reinhart.

Hello, Seekerville. *waves* Long time fan, first time poster! I’ve got my coffee, since I know y’all start early! I’m very happy to be here!

Like romance, the mystery genre is fast growing and contains a lot of sub-genres. Many readers like a light dollop of humor, romance, and suspense in their books, which has meant an explosion of cozy mysteries in the market. In the most basic sense, a cozy has an amateur sleuth solving a mystery that’s more puzzler than thriller. Generally, the setting is small town, the characters are quirky, and the violence is off-page. Think Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, who made the genre famous. Or Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote.

There’s a blending of genres in mystery just like you see in other genre fiction, and because bookstores and libraries need categories, many mysteries are called cozy by publishers. This was the case for me and many of my mystery writing friends. I thought I was writing a humorous, romantic mystery series. Well, I did and am. But it’s a bit long of a title for a sub-genre category! In today’s market, it falls into the cozy category. Cozy mysteries themselves have broadened in their scope. On the shelves today, you can find mysteries with paranormal, humorous, chick-lit, treasure hunters, urban, culinary, crafter, animal (there’s a whole section in Amazon dedicated to cat mysteries), and more as subjects.

So how do you know if you’re writing a cozy? It’s easier to define what is NOT a cozy. It’s not hard-boiled or noir (gritty and dark, like The Maltese Falcon). It’s not a suspense or thriller (where the protagonist is pursued, like in The DaVinci Code). Or even romantic suspense because romance is a subplot at best in a cozy, not evenly balanced with the suspense (like Debby Giusti’s The Colonel’s Daughter). It’s not a detective (Sherlock Holmes), because the sleuth is generally amateur, although the amateur can be paired with a detective. It’s definitely not a police procedural (like Tony Hillerman's or Ed McBain’s cop books). And not a courtroom drama (like John Grisham’s) or medical mystery (Patricia Cornwell’s Dr. Scarpetta).

Where you didn’t find rough language or sex in a cozy, those are creeping in as well. However, Malice Domestic, the annual traditional mystery fan convention, defines “traditional” mystery as one that doesn’t have any explicit sex or excessive gore or violence. If you are a mystery writer, I highly recommend attending Malice Domestic (always the first weekend in May in the Washington DC area) to get a sense of all the different types of traditional mysteries out there, which are generally called cozies now, much to the chagrin of some of the authors.

Larissa (far right) took part in a panel at Malice Domestic, entitled,
The Art of Death: When Music and Painting Lead to Murder, with
authors (L to R) C. Ellet Logan, Kave George, Peter Lovesey,
and Karen Mcinerney.

Are you ready to write your cozy? Generally, these are the hallmarks that an agent or editor will look for in a cozy. And I say generally, because as you see above a lot of rules are being broken!

•    Around 80,000 words, give or take five to ten thousand.

•    Usually first person, whereas traditional suspense is third. It’s important for the reader to solve the mystery along with your sleuth. Cozies are a puzzle more than a suspense.

•    Tone is light. Murder is heavy, but because the violence is off-stage, you have room for humor both in your character’s voice, side characters, and situations. Light humor balances the darker subject of the crime.

•    An amateur sleuth with some kind of profession or hobby that lends them to crime solving.

•    Setting traditionally is small, however it doesn’t have to be a small town. I like to think “tight” rather than “small.” Murder on the Orient Express was on a train. In order to expand from killing off everyone in Halo, Georgia, where my character lives, I’ve had her solve mysteries at a private school, a festival, and now at a hunting lodge.

•    Side characters tend to be quirky.

•    Crime solving is generally done by gathering clues, listening to gossip, and deductive reasoning. Forensics aren't a part of your sleuth’s job, although your protagonist might have a friend on the force who provides that information.

•    Red herrings are a must. However, they can’t be so outlandish that the reader has no way to solve the crime.

•    Publishers prefer series, which means your protagonist doesn't have a big character arc like you see in a stand-alone romance or suspense. You can have series arcs, though.

•    Romance is a subplot. You don’t have to have any romance, although many do. And because cozies are generally a series, you can have a longer series arc with the romance, building it book by book (which readers love, including me!).

These are only the basics to get your cozy writing on track. I recommend joining groups like Sisters in Crime (SinC) and Mystery Writers of America (MWA), that also have local chapters. I’m in Kiss of Death, the online mystery and suspense group for Romance Writers of America. Other popular conferences and conventions, besides Malice Domestic (www.malicedomestic.org), are Sleuthfest, sponsored by MWA’s Florida chapter (http://www.mwaflorida.org/sleuthfest.htm); Bourchercon (http://bouchercon2014.com/); Killer Nashville (http://www.killernashville.com/); and Left Coast Crime (http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2014/). There’s a host of other ones, look in your area.

The best thing you can do to write a cozy is read the genre. Any of you writing a mystery? I gave you the basics, but would be happy to answer any questions. What mysteries do you enjoy reading? For some lucky person who comments, I’ll send an e-book of any in my Cherry Tucker Mystery series. The fourth in the series, Death in Perspective, releases June 24th! 

After teaching in the US and Japan, Larissa loves writing sassy female characters with a penchant for trouble. The first in the Cherry Tucker Mystery series (Henery Press), PORTRAIT OF A DEAD GUY, is a 2012 Daphne du Maurier finalist. STILL LIFE IN BRUNSWICK STEW, HIJACK IN ABSTRACT, and DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE (June 2014) follow, with the prequel novella, QUICK SKETCH, in the 2013 anthology, HEARTACHE MOTEL.  Larissa lives near Atlanta with her family and Cairn Terrier, Biscuit. Find her on her website (http://larissareinhart.com/) or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/RisWrites), Twitter (@RisWrites), Goodreads, and Pinterest (LarissaReinhart).

Debby again...

Head to the breakfast bar for Southern delights, including made-to-order eggs, Virginia baked ham, biscuits and gravy, fresh Georgia peaches and grits. The coffee's hot. Grab a cup and take time to chat with Larissa. 

Leave a comment to be included in a drawing for one of her books, digital format. I'm adding a second drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card. Now join me in making Larissa feel right at home!