Guest Blogger: K.B.Owen on: What Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo Taught Me About Writing Cozy
Mysteries
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| Coming in February 2013! |
I’ve been a mystery fan ever since I can
remember. Not even graduate school – a
place where the genre was considered “low-brow,” forumlaic, and barely
literature at all – could dim my enthusiasm for mysteries. I loved the classic authors, of course – Doyle, Christie and Sayers – as well as the
exciting new authors coming to the forefront at the time, such as Muller,
Grafton, Deaver, Paretsky and Perry.
Locked rooms, secret passageways, the “footprints of a gigantic hound” –
I couldn’t get enough.
But it was Nancy Drew and the gang of Mystery,
Inc. who were my original inspiration.
They remain with me even today, as I write mysteries about an 1890s female
literature professor who lives and teaches in a women’s college, getting into
all sorts of trouble in the process. A
strange combination, wouldn’t you say? Has
Jill gone ‘round the bend in picking her guest authors now? Ah, the connections may surprise you.
Lessons
in constructing a cozy mystery, courtesy of Nancy Drew and the Mystery Inc Gang:
1.
Give
your character freedom: You want as many opportunities as possible
for your character to stumble into some serious trouble. In the Nancy Drew mysteries, for example, the
extent of Mr. Drew’s parental oversight of his daughter is a frown and an
admonition: “Be careful, Nancy,”as he hands her the keys to that sweet red
roadster. In other words, the sky’s the
limit. And did you ever notice that we
never see the parents of the Mystery Inc gang?
Who’s keeping track of these teenagers as they drive all over creation,
in search of the next mystery or groovy concert? And who’s paying for the gas? The only treasure they ever find is useless
Confederate money. No wonder they
stumble upon a mystery with each wrong turn.
It’s a good thing for the Hanna-Barbera audience that GPS wasn’t
invented back then.
2.
Use
humor: If
placed carefully, humor dissipates tension quite effectively. Shaggy and
Scooby’s hunt for a 3 a.m. snack in a haunted house can be just the ticket when
things are looking oppressively gloomy.
3.
Create
sidekicks: These characters
are valuable assets in a mystery, on several levels. Bess and George, Nancy’s sidekicks, are at the
extreme ends of the femininity continuum, with Bess being the tentative,
somewhat hedonistic girly-girl and George the outspoken tomboy. Nancy is the happy middle between the
two. They act as her foils, her
partners, and her sounding board. Otherwise,
Nancy would be deducing aloud to herself.
4.
Include
mannerism and dialogue “tags”: These have value in reader/viewer
identification and series branding. The
cast of Scooby-Doo is a fabulous example:
- Velma “Jinkies” Dinkley: the brainy
girl geek who frequently loses her glasses and can’t see a thing without them.
- Freddy “Well, Gang” Jones: big
and muscular enough to simply tackle
the bad guy, but instead builds criminal-catching traps that make MacGyver look
like a mullet-sporting amateur.
- Scooby “Ruh-roh” Doo: the
cowardly dog who can be bribed with Scooby Snacks.
- Shaggy “Zoinks” Rogers: a physical
coward with a chronic case of the munchies.
- “Danger-Prone” Daphne Blake:
she’s pretty, trips a lot, and extracts odd items from her purse from time to
time to get the gang out of a bind (sometimes literally).
5.
Daring
and ingenuity make a great combination: These qualities in a protagonist can propel her/him
into and out of sticky situations. Nancy
and Velma are great examples, and even fearful characters like Scooby and
Shaggy will rise to the occasion. This
may seem like a “duh” point to make, but the current fiction trend seems to be
leaning toward deeply flawed and internally-tormented protagonists (not that
there’s anything wrong with that, LOL).
While many of those types are done superbly, I think it’s good to give yourself permission
to buck the trend, if that will serve your purposes. The protag can still be three-dimensional,
with flaws and blind spots. I like some
daring in my mystery characters. I still
remember one example of physical derring-do from the Nancy Drew mysteries: the
bad guy leaves Nancy in an old well - in the dark, with rats - and no way
out. She uses old nails and bits of
broken wood scavenged from the floor to dig toeholds in the dirt walls and
climb out. I loved that. I’d never want
to do it, but I got a kick out of
reading about it!
6.
Using
Formula: Don’t
be afraid of using some formulaic elements, as long as you can put a fresh
twist on them. Formulaic doesn’t have to
mean predictable. Perhaps this is more
true of the genre-writing that I do, but in my opinion it increases reader
pleasure and engagement. Although not
necessarily what one would duplicate in literature, Scooby-Doo is my favorite
example of a fun formula. During any given episode of the original
series, the viewer knows that the following will happen:
- Velma will lose her glasses
and, in her blindness, mistake the monster for Shaggy or Scooby.
- Daphne will inevitably find
a hole, trick slide, or booby-trap to fall through.
- Shaggy and Scooby will find
a kitchen and eat bizarre food items, usually cobweb-covered.
- Scooby will be the first to
see the ghost/monster, but Shaggy won’t believe him, because it will be gone by
then. (But we know it will return!).
- Fred will rig a trap that
rivals the most complicated Rube Goldberg creation.
- The trap will fail because
Scooby stumbled into it. The crook is caught anyway.
- We learn that either
transparent skis, secret passageways, phosphorescent paint, or dry ice was
involved in working the illusion.
- The bad guy, once revealed,
will snarl: ”And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for you
meddling kids and your dog.”
- During the wrap-up scene,
Scooby will steal and eat Shaggy’s super-duper-triple-decker burger, with
lettuce, tomato, chili, and chocolate sauce (so that’s why he’s so
thin).
Whether or not these “lessons” are ones you
would adopt in your own writing, I hope you enjoyed this look at two classic
childhood sleuths/sleuthing teams!
Do you have any favorites that influenced you?
Jill and I would love to hear about them.
K.B.
Owen taught college English for nearly two decades at universities in
Connecticut and Washington, DC, and holds a doctorate in 19th century
British literature. A mystery lover since she can
remember, she drew upon her teaching experiences in creating her
amateur sleuth, Professor Concordia Wells. Unlike the fictional Miss
Wells, K.B. did not have to conduct lectures in a bustle and full skirts. No doubt many people are thankful about that.
She
now resides in Virginia with her husband and three sons. She recently
finished the second book in the series, and is busily planning
Concordia’s next adventure.
Follow her on Twitter @kbowenwriter
Check out
her website for more historical mystery fun: kbowenmysteries.com
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