Elaine Faber

I’ll bet if 100 people were queried, at least 75% of them would claim that someday they plan to write a book, most likely a memoir. The remaining 25% likely would admit, humbly, that though they may never get around to it, and the world will be the lesser for it, deprived of reading about their fascinating lives, they could if they wanted to. The thousands of hours required to write, edit and format a book for publication is never considered. Yet a frightening number of us do spend the time and energy, and a zillion books DO get published every year. Most of them are available on Amazon where they are buried as deep as a sticker in a cow plop among a million other Amazon books. Occasionally, one actually sells!

Now, instead of becoming a writer, where was I when someone got the bright idea of creating a website where anybody could sell his book, and the website would earn more on the sale of the book than the publisher and the author combined. What a concept! I was probably standing behind the same door when someone said, ‘Do you want to invest in this driving-sleeping thingy we’re calling Winnebago?

Now, I’ve become one of those people who decided there was a book in me that the world would be the lesser for, did they not delve into its pages. After about a skillion hours of writing, rewriting, editing, mentoring, and more rewriting, my novel was finally completed, formatted, published and made available for sale to the millions of folks clamoring to be amused, entertained, charmed and delighted by my scintillating characters. I called this cozy mystery-romance Black Cat’s Legacy. In this yet to become a New York Times Best Seller, there is even a nonplused cat who knows where the bodies are buried. He wants desperately to share his knowledge with the inferior humans who are either too busy running afoul of the antagonist, or preoccupied with trying to solve a 25 year old murder without sullying anyone’s good name…good luck with that… Well, it’s quite a ride involving jealousy, greed, unrequited love, a smattering of downright stinkerisms and a cat that is appalled that these no-good-niks can’t understand a clue when he puts it right under their inferior noses. And yes, it’s available on Amazon in e-book for only $3.99. http://tinyurl.com/lrvevgm

So, why do I write when the hours are long, the glory is nonexistent and the financial rewards are few and far between?
I guess I write, because these characters in me, are screaming to get out and even if I don’t have a Best-Seller, many of those good folks who have read Black Cat’s Legacy come back and tell me about their reading experience. For just a little while, they are able to leave their own troubles behind, travel to a little resort town and experience my make-believe world where the good guy wins. For a few hours, they frolicked through the pages with a cat on a mission to help Kimberlee solve her father’s cold case murder. Then my friend tells me how much she loved it and asks, “When is the sequel coming out?”

That’s when I know. That’s why I write. That’s why it’s all worth it.

Avid mystery readers, whatever version of mystery they prefer, whether Thriller or Cozy mysteries, read multiple books each year. They acquire their reading material through book sales, garage sales, the library, borrowed from a friend and sometimes, though rarely, actually purchased from the author. At least there is a demand, so there is a need for supply.

Let’s pretend for a minute, we’re an author desirous of launching a new mystery series.

After careful analysis of a number of mysteries, we see a tried and true template; apparently we must follow to guarantee success.
Our story needs a female sleuth, preferably blonde and beautiful. She has a German Shepard in order to capture the animal lovers out there. The dog doesn’t have to help solve the crime, but if he can, so much the better. Now she needs an unusual job or hobby so she can encounter the crime which the inept police force can’t solve. Don’t forget the sweetheart somehow connected to the police department, otherwise how could she access the official information generally withheld from the public?

Sadly, most of the best jobs or hobbies have been taken by other mystery series’. We already have book store owners, catering services, coffee houses, writers, and private detectives, to name just a few. We need a career that hasn’t been done to death, but one that will give our sleuth access to plenty of material. It is going to be a series, after all.

How about a lady sewer technician who pumps out septic tanks? She’d be in plenty of back yards spotting nefarious going’s-on, or how about the Jehovah’s Witness that goes door to door handing out literature. Plenty of opportunities to look beyond the screen door and see someone bound and gagged…

Maybe not. Let’s stick with the 'sewer-pumper-outer'.

So let’s see…to follow the template formula. The plumber and her quirky sidekick (did I forget the quirky friend?) find a body in the pump house. Proceed to red herrings, a romantic interlude, unrequited love, and suspicious characters, all with alibis. Lots of flavor of plumbing tossed in, stopped up toilets, overflowing bathtubs, (a humorous scene or two), and move right on to the climax where our heroine goes alone to meet the villain in a warehouse, but doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going. She is captured, strung up by her thumbs to the rafters, death being imminent until her detective boyfriend and her dog burst down the door and save her life. The murderer is revealed, every toilet is unstopped, every drain unplugged and the heroine and detective ride off into the sunset in the sewer-truck. The end.

That’s the template. Lots of ways to change up the various topics; hobbies, quirky friend, red herrings, suspects, romantic interludes, murder, theft, kidnapping, contraband, illegal alien housekeeper, secret message or what-have-you that begins the mystery, identity of villain (always the most unexpected member of the cast) and final climax, etc. This is the formulaic template, with assorted variations, that most mysteries novels follow.

When will a brave author be willing to break the mold, or at least one who dares to write a mystery that doesn’t end with the heroine strung up in the barn (figuratively speaking)? Sadly, as long as the public is willing to buy these trite storylines, mystery books will continue to follow the same template.

What are your thoughts about books with similar storylines?