Hi, David Corbett here. This month I’m handing the wheel over to Laurie R. King, a dear friend and the New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels (two series and several stand-alones) and other work, fiction and non-fiction. She has some excellent advice to share for those of you considering a mystery series.
Laurie’s fiction includes the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories (from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, named one of the 20th century’s best crime novels by the IMBA, to this year’s Riviera Gold, due out this week), as well as a modern-day series featuring Homicide Inspector Kate Martinelli of the San Francisco Police Department. She has won an alphabet of prizes from Agatha to Wolfe, been chosen as guest of honor at several crime conventions, and is probably the only writer to have both an Edgar and an honorary doctorate in theology. She was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars in 2010, as “The Red Circle.”
Take it away, Laurie.
* * * *
Ah, there’s nothing like writing a mystery series. Standalones require so much work—reinventing the world each and every time. New characters, new situations, like moving house with every Page One. But a series is like a family reunion (even, as these days, a virtual one), right? You make yourself comfortable, you settle down, you prepare to catch up…
Well, it is true that devoted readers like to revisit familiar characters. And it’s true, some bestselling series novels are more or less interchangeable, with the ritual of the plot and fight scenes and banter giving precisely what people want.
Still, sometimes the reader (and more often, the writer) wants a change—but one that isn’t a change. Something in the same general world, yet new and enticing and fresh. I know that the times I’ve found myself writing the fourth novel in a row about the same exact characters are the times when I’ve started hurting them, a not-so-subtle vote of resentment. But how to keep a series from turning into a family reunion where That Uncle makes the same joke over and over? Well, here’s half a dozen things that have worked for me.
Hurt your characters. You can try resentfully upping the stakes by doing damage to your central characters. You might even be tempted to do a Conan Doyle and kill off your protagonist (though that was a temporary demise.) But you need to remind yourself what happened to Nicholas Freeling’s Arlette Van der Valk series, which began when he killed off her policeman husband after eleven successful outings. What, you don’t remember Arlette’s series?
Exactly.
Maybe we should look at less drastic ways of keeping your readers, and yourself, eager to start a new book.
Travel your characters. I started writing a series about a girl who meets an ageing detective on the Sussex Downs. Which made for a great meet, since that was where Sherlock Holmes retired, but there’s even less scope for dastardly murder on the Downs than there is in Cabot Cove. So beginning with that first book (The Beekeeper’s Apprentice), they wandered. And in subsequent volumes they went far afield: Palestine, Lisbon, Morocco, India, Japan… Each of those places, particularly in the 1920s, had a distinct personality and a new set of problems—political, social, economic, criminal. They also gave me a rich choice of true-life personalities to drag into the mix, letting me give walks-ons or major roles to everyone from Dashiell Hammett and the leaders of the Rif Revolt to the Emperor of Japan and the poet laureate of Portugal. There’s even a glimpse of Lawrence of Arabia.
(This has the added benefit of giving you an excuse to travel, with even a bit of tax write-off…)
Vary the point of view. In Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, six of the twenty-five are told in the first person (#s 1, 7, 8, 13, 16, and 19). Only four of Conan Doyle’s sixty Sherlock Holmes tales are from Holmes’ point of view (granted, not among the best). When I first started writing the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes stories, I wanted the intimacy (and limitations) of her first-person voice, just as the contemporary Kate Martinelli series needed the apparent objectivity of third person. And yet, portions of the Russells are now written from the third-person viewpoints of other series characters, while a recent Martinelli novella—one more personal than the previous stories—is in first.
“Limitations” and “apparent” are key here, in a writer’s tool-box. If you’re writing a third-person series but your plot requires that we question the reliability of the protagonist, a shift to first person can let the reader’s doubts seep in, triggered by the character’s vehement claims and loud protestations. Similarly, moving a normally-first person POV into third, which would appear to give greater objectivity, in fact permits a writer to show exactly what is going on, rather than presenting only truths that have been filtered through the eyes of the protagonist or narrator.
Shift the time. A story that takes place entirely or partially in the past of the series characters also gives the chance of a new perspective. A prequel is often a “How did they get here?” book, showing who the characters were before page one of book one. And don’t imagine that this prequel is the story that should have come first: just as new writers often find their novel stronger when they rip out Chapter One and dive into the action with the original Chapter Two, so does a prequel novel work better when readers know the characters. Or, think they know the characters….
A couple of books ago, I wanted to bring the character of Mrs. Hudson to the fore. Sherlock Holmes’ landlady-turned-housekeeper always struck me as having unexplored depths to her, so I wrote a story centered around her mysterious past (The Murder of Mary Russell). Which nicely set up matters for the current volume of the Russell “Memoirs,” Riviera Gold, where Mrs. Hudson’s past comes up to slap Russell and Holmes in the face.
Thus, old matters keeping things new.
Focus on other characters. I’m now writing the seventeenth book in the Russell series. Add in various short stories and novellas, and we’ve had some 7000 pages to meet new characters. Some of them walk off, lines performed, but others linger, even become central to later tales. I’ve mentioned Mrs. Hudson, but there is also the pair of “Bedouin” nomads we meet in Palestine and who later show up in England; the Baker Street house-boy now grown to manhood; and a shadowy, unknown son who is central in a linked pair of novels, then in a novella, and may well return elsewhere.
Emphasizing new characters, even if the story is not told directly from their point of view, gives a way to reflect on your usual suspects. Bringing in a child, for example, can surprise us with the softer side of a character, whether it’s an ageing historical detective or a young modern-day homicide inspector. Mrs. Hudson’s old-lady attitude towards her long-time employer, which holds more than a trace of amused disdain, casts a new light on The Great Detective. (And I hope that by the end of Riviera Gold, even devoted Holmes admirers will be rooting for the landlady’s triumph.) Chapters in which Dashiell Hammett, himself a Pinkerton detective, watches Sherlock Holmes at work makes the Conan Doyle character feel more true-life by contagion.
Play with flavor. Ten books into the Russell & Holmes series, and following a pair of relatively dark novels, I felt the need for a re-set button. So I wrote a farce: a novel about a film crew, making a movie about a movie about The Pirates of Penzance. Ridiculous, and not universally acclaimed by my readers (though the Gilbert & Sullivan fans among them adored it) but it certainly hit the re-set button in my own mind, so when I wrote the next adventure—a far more typical Russell & Holmes story that opens in an exotic setting and plays with that old crime trope, the amnesia victim—I had fewer problems finding the light tone of the early books.
Obviously, this can backfire, if not as catastrophically as killing your protagonist. You can see, in Harlan Coben’s light-hearted series about sports agent Myron Bolitar, when he began to feel constricted by the character, because he started to introduce themes and events that were an uncomfortable fit for his established mood. His answer lay in moving into more substantial standalone thrillers, rather than stretching the seams of what his characters could address. I did the same thing when, rather than trying to fit a somewhat more serious plot-line into the basically whimsical conceit of Sherlock-Holmes-with-girl-apprentice, I started a modern-day police procedural series where that theme worked just fine.
Mood shifts and changes in a sub-genre can be invigorating, but go too far and you risk alienating your readers. If you’re writing a cozy series set in a knitting shop, what will a reader’s face look like when they find you’ve introduced a sex-trafficking ring to the village? And the opposite applies if you write a gritty, action-packed protagonist without attachments: would Lee Child’s readers be pleased if Jack Reacher fell in love, settled down, and started driving a Volvo and changing nappies?
If you want to write books of a different flavor or mood, it might be a good idea to have two different series. (Or three, she said guiltily.) Catriona MacPherson does historical humor brilliantly, but she also writes dark, contemporary standalones: two flavors impossible to mix in a single dish, but delicious taken separately, and each offers the writer a palate-cleanser from the last effort. Or to return to the analogy we began with, makes a reader—and writer—all the more eager for the next family reunion.
What questions would you like to ask Laurie: Are you working on a mystery series and have some questions concerning the ongoing challenges of character, setting, or plot? Wonder what it takes to have a long-standing career like Laurie’s? Any general questions about the mystery genre specifically or writing in general?
And for those interested in the just-published Riviera Gold, here’s a brief overview:
It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy coastline. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes find themselves immersed in the social scene of American expatriates. Despite the luxury and leisure, a new mystery arises. Mrs. Hudson, Russell and Holmes’ former housekeeper, hasn’t been seen since she fled England under a cloud of murder accusations. But she proves elusive, managing to avoid even the great Sherlock Holmes as he and Russell try to figure out what new trouble she is in.
About David Corbett
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of six novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, Blood of Paradise, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, and The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories, and his non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest (where he is a contributing editor). He has taught through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character, and Writer’s Digest will publish his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Thank you for the informative post. I recognize some of the techniques in the different mystery series I’ve been reading. Some techniques sit better with me as a reader, and I can definitely see how killing of a beloved main character would be disastrous. Kind of makes you wonder why Nicholas Freeling didn’t.
I appreciate the opportunity to ask some general questions about mystery writing, as I am working on the first of what I’m hoping will be a cozy mystery series. One of my main concerns right now (finishing up Act I) is that I might be drowning in characters and setting. Between introducing the protagonist and her (varied) world, setting up the murder and introducing the idea of the first suspect, I’m wondering if this is normal or if I’m just going to be confusing my readers. The protagonist works at a senior living community, and would be familiar with even the walk on characters. I’m trying to limit naming just the main characters, but it seems weird that the protagonist wouldn’t acknowledge the walk-on characters by name, too.
Also, there are multiple settings, starting with introducing the town/area, then the senior living center and then a couple of chapters later introducing her living space. All of this obviously surrounds action and conflict and plot, and I’m introducing setting and characters as the story progresses (not all at once)but I’m just wondering how you handle such things, and maybe suggestions for how to streamline, if need be.
Thank you for your time even just reading this long comment/question!
Hi, Lara:
Laurie will get to your questions soon, but I thought I’d jump in with a brief remark.
Over-population of a novel is a key mistake, and many of us are guilty. We tend to think of the world as it must be (as we envision it in our minds) rather than the world as it needs to be for a strong story. For the latter purpose, we need to ask: Why does this character NEED to be in the story?
In your case, choosing one or two patients who stand in for the others as representative types will help you hone the number down. And the representative types you choose must tell us something about the main character or advance the story, otherwise they’re just furniture with a (fictional) pulse.
As for the others, a simple, “She said hello to the patients she passed, making a point of calling each by name,” will serve.
The same applies to setting. Less is more — make sure whatever you’re describing serves multiple purposes: orients the reader, reveals character, amplifies tension, creates atmosphere, etc. If the description doesn’t do more than one of these things, consider cutting it.
I hope that’s helpful.
It is! (helpful, I mean.)
I developed the story with the help of Halle Ephron’s book, so going into writing part I feel like the named characters are important, but I will use your suggested questions to evaluate the peripheral characters because it is possible I might be able to condense some of the scenes where they appear, and so get rid of some of the characters.
Also, love “She said hello to the patients she passed, making a point of calling each by name.” That helps a lot!
A multiplicity of complications–plot, characters, themes, villains–is a common experience to the newbie writer. Sometimes you need to let it all explode out there to see where it ends up, and choose which to develop in the rewrite. If you put your first draft aside for a while and go back to it cold, you can usually see which characters really work and which are extras, and decide if you really need seventeen different settings or if four will do, and if some of those sub-plots might be dropped. Etcetera.
However, at the end of that process, picking out the key elements and working with those might be more work than starting afresh with a new story, lesson learned.
Which is why many people write to an outline. If your mind works that way, by all means lay out the bare skeleton of the story so you know its general shape before you start.
In either case, please know how vastly better it is to face these issues with the first, pre-contract novel than it is with #5. You have the freedom to experiment, and find what works best for you, which is not always the case once you get turning on the publishing machinery.
Have fun! And I wish you all success with this, your first of many novels!
Laurie
Thanks for the ideas and encouragement!
Laurie, thanks for this very useful post. I have long been a faithful reader and can see how you used these techniques in your books, especially the Russell/Holmes series.
I read Freeling’s books so long ago that I had forgotten them until you mentioned Arlette. Then I recalled how let down I felt when the series limped along with the widow on her own–and then remembered, too, the brilliant last sentence of the book in which her husband dies.
So far my series is waiting in line behind my NF WIP, but I’m saving this column for when it becomes active.
Freeling is an example of a dreadful curmudgeon of a person who wrote some brilliant books. His book on writing–Criminal Conversations, I think?–is both rude and thought-provoking in equal measures.
Good luck on your NF work, and have fun when you join the ranks of the story-tellers again.
Laurie King
Smart stuff, Laurie — thanks!
This is a very useful post, at least for me. I wrote a novel that I assumed would be a stand-alone modern fantasy. Then, because I liked my characters and their situation, I wrote a sequel—which clearly calls for its own sequel and perhaps closure this time.
At the end of book 2, however, I managed to get my MC into a Jack Reacher/nappies fix. Other than booting him and his family into the future past the nappy stage, I have been struggling to come up with plot ideas that will be fun and feature the children—no easier in fiction than in life.
With your examples, you have given me several ideas to play with. Thanks very much.
Oh yes, having an action-hero(ine) type settle into a happy relationship is hard enough, without adding responsibilities like kids. And it’s usually difficult to justify focusing a threat on children in fiction. A fine balancing act, to be sure.
Several years ago I bought the Russell/Holmes books for my then-girlfriend who was a big fan of Doyle’s Sherlock stories. I’ve long wished I’d read them myself before we broke up. This post intrigued me more — looks like I’ll have to buy the books again!
Ah, sorry. Though you’re not actually required to buy them all, not right off. Enjoy The Beekeeper’s Apprentice!
Laurie
Laurie, Thank you for the opportunity to ask some questions about mystery writing.
My first cozy mystery was published in 2019 and features co-protagonist half-sisters, one serious and analytical, the other an actress who has a talent for disguises. The story is written in third person and concentrates on the analytical sister who discovers a series of cryptic clues that may lead her to information about her parents’ recent deaths. I hope readers come away with an enjoyable puzzle experience as well as getting to know the characters.
The second book in the series has gone through several revisions and is ready to go to the publisher. In it, the analytical sister is drawn into a murder investigation when an acquaintance is accused of the crime, but the actress sister has a romantic subplot of her own that carries almost as much weight as the main plot. Again, it’s in third person.
In thinking about book three, I felt there were only so many disasters I could visit on my co-protagonists, so I’m considering the introduction of a new character that may appear only in book 3. This new person would provide first-person chapters while the rest of the book is written in third-person. If it works, I could carry that idea into future books in the series.
What do you think? Is this a good strategy?
Thanks again.
That sounds like you could get some interesting textures going in the story, Kay. It would also let you show your main pair through the eyes of the first-person narrator, so you could play with the differences in how you’ve shown them and how this new person—friend? Villain? Voice from the past?—sees them. And a third would let you exploit the energy in a triangle, with your half-sisters sometimes assisting, sometimes opposing each other over the third point in their trio.
Sounds good!
Laurie
Ooh! I have a question! (Raises hand in the back.) I’ve read several of the Holmes/Russell books and loved them. One thing that always intrigues me about your books is how you manage to draw the reader into the story so effectively, especially during the first few chapters. I’m trying to start a sequel in a mystery series, and I feel like things just aren’t really getting off the ground. Do you have any thoughts to share on getting the reader engaged during the first few chapters, particularly in a sequel, where, as you say, everything is likely to get a bit humdrum and familiar?
This is great advice. I don’t think characters need to die for there to be great suspense. Having the characters really struggle and have to overcome great challenges can create great suspense as well if you really care about the characters. That’s also a great idea about giving your characters different types of people to interact with to show different sides to them. Thanks for this.