Lora Roberts

It started with the petits-fours. I saw them in the catalog of a certain Maven of Style (note initials). Cute little cakes in different shapes, beautifully decorated with fine-lined frosting curlicues. I wanted them. I was turning 50, and thought it would assuage my pain to have fifty little cakes for my birthday (not to eat alone; I planned to share them).

So I ordered the petits-fours kit from the catalog; the cost was about the same as my upcoming birthday. The kit was nicely packaged in a metal tin, with tools and instructions full of lovely pictures of the darling little sweets.

Luckily I got to work a day before the actual birthday party. Luckily a knowledgeable friend helped me. Even so, we spent eleven hours on our task, and not one of our petits-fours looked as nice as those photographs. The kitchen was a wreck, covered with fondant (an evil substance I advise you to have nothing to do with ever) and drips of royal icing. The party was the next day, so I had to spend another hour cleaning, and then make the tea sandwiches. The petits-fours didn’t look too bad displayed on doily-covered cake stands, but was it worth it?

That’s when I thought, somebody ought to kill that woman, that Maven of Style, before she brings the female half of the population to their knees. And that someone was me.

I began writing Murder Follows Money, the last in my series featuring Liz Sullivan, a sleuth who scrapes by financially with temp work and frugal habits. I gave Liz the temp job from hell: Act as media escort for motherly, comfy-looking Hannah Couch, whose cookbook and decorating empire make her a powerful figure, and whose behind-the-scenes personality leaves a good deal to be desired. Naturally I made up everything about Hannah, because the real-life Maven of Style, whom she in no way resembles, has excellent attorneys (I have none). Liz has to gopher around, fetching groceries for food demonstrations, being on tap for errand-running, and pandering to the raging egos of Hannah and members of her entourage. (I have always wanted an entourage, and this was my fictional opportunity to have one.)

Of course, the plan was that Hannah would be the murder victim. I could have had the killer stuff petits fours cutters down her unconscious gullet, achieving my revenge. I could have had her suffocated when her face got dipped in fondant, which hardened into an impenetrable mask. I thought of various ways, but to no avail. The fictional Hannah had a strong will and overwhelming personality (remind you of anyone?) and she refused to be a victim of anything. I had to settle for killing off someone else in the book. Because of this struggle, Murder Follows Money may not be for those with weak stomachs; it teems with vegetable mutilation, gratuitous luxury, and forced shopping.

I’ve learned my lesson. Now I recycle those catalogs the moment they arrive. And in my new mystery (Another Fine Mess, now available from Perseverance), I gave Liz a break and let her friend Bridget be the one confronted with too much tasty food at a tony writers’ retreat that takes a lethal turn.

The first Liz Sullivan mystery, Murder in a Nice Neighborhood, featured a vagabond amateur sleuth who lived in her VW bus for reasons of economy and expeditiousness—it was cheap and easy to get away quick if you needed to. It never occurred to me that Liz Sullivan should have a dog. She had enough to do just trying to keep herself fed, let alone a pet.

When the book was published, the cover artists drew their conception of a nice neighborhood, which included an elegant-looking fox terrier on a leash. People began coming up to me at book signings. “There’s a dog on the cover of this book, but no dog inside. Why isn’t there a dog in the story?”

Good question. Though my husband’s allergy precludes cats (and some dogs), we’ve always managed to find dogs he can live with over the course of our 30 years together. Selkie, our black Lab mix, is an important member of our family.

The more I thought about it, the more a single woman like Liz seemed to need a large, occasionally intimidating dog, as well as the pleasures of doggy companionship. So in the second book, Murder in the Marketplace, Liz gets a dog in the best way possible—he comes to her (or is sent by the deity in charge of human/animal pairings). A galumphing black and white mongrel, Barker is based on my dog’s brother, who is far more happy-go-lucky and adventuresome than my own occasionally irascible animal.

Once Barker entered Liz’s world, he began to function as far more than just her accessory. Like other continuing characters, he has his personality, his strong points and weak points. And Barker’s not the best sidekick, as some preternatural pets are. He causes trouble and gets into it as well. Her love for him and concern for his well-being inhibit Liz occasionally, as in Murder Crops Up. The responsibility of caring for a pet, especially a young and energetic dog, is not lightly undertaken, and it affects Liz’s freedom of movement.

But he adds an immeasurable richness as well. Liz is a loner, a woman who sees herself as outside the world of normal human relationships. And yet, because she has a dog, she finds herself more connected to the people around her. He embodies her playful, trusting side. His undemanding love helps heal the wounds she carries.

And he keeps the squirrels out of her vegetable beds. Could you ask for more?

…or how to do a who-done-it

Mysteries require a sharpening of the elements found in any good traditional novel. There must be conflict on many levels—personal, situational and systemic. Something important must be at stake for the viewpoint character, something the reader wants that character to have. Unlike other forms of fiction, mysteries require a neat ending—a resolution. In fact, that ’90s phrase “conflict resolution” is sort of a motto for writing mysteries.

The beginning sets up the conflict—which needn’t be violent, but must involve the viewpoint character. Develop the plot by giving your character too many balls to juggle. The screenwriting axiom is, get your character up a tree, then throw rocks at her. Plan a resolution, one which will solve the problems and bring a sense of closure to the initial conflict.

Knowing your characters makes the action in a mystery flow smoothly out of the character’s response to the conflict. Give the character weaknesses that can be strengths, and strengths that turn into weaknesses—examples: Mother’s love for child makes her vulnerable when child is in danger. Mother’s vice of cigarette smoking provides her with lighter for use in emergency. Let your characters use their strengths and weaknesses. Don’t clutter your story with unnecessary details.

Keep the resolution in tone with the rest of the story—if it’s a story of detection, then a violent resolution is out of place. If the story has humorous parts, then a grim and nasty ending is too much. Tie up the loose ends—always a major problem! Follow through on secondary characters the reader may have gotten fond of. A fellow author has compared the domestic mystery to a snow globe. A quiet scene, perfect and pristine. When shaken, it’s whirled with doubt, pelted with trouble. At the end, all is calm again. The fun of being a writer is, we get to shake the globe.

Those who love crime fiction divide it into many sub-genres—espionage, private investigator, police procedural, cozy. Those of us who are often slotted into the cozy arena prefer the term Amateur Sleuth, because it more accurately describes what happens in the book. My books, for instance, feature a viewpoint character who follows the trail but is not a PI or an officer of the law. She is an amateur sleuth, but she has a little too much attitude to be truly cozy. In fact, in my opinion, Miss Marple also had too much attitude to be cozy. The real tension in those books comes from the contrast between her fluffy, virginal appearance, and her shrewd grasp of the scope of human evil.

In amateur-with-attitude books, there’s violence, but it’s not dwelt on in loving detail. There’s humor, but that’s not the focus. The characters, as in all good fiction, carry the story, but the story makes definite progress toward a satisfying resolution. Ah, that resolution! That’s one of the reasons why I love reading and writing mysteries. One reviewer once damned a book of mine with the faint praise, “…although marred by a too-tidy ending…” Well, I like that tidy ending. As a child, I loved the books where the characters, though tossed by turbulent action, ended up tucked into bed, snug and safe for the night. I’m still trying to achieve that with every book I write. After I’ve put the characters through harsh and uncomfortable action, made them confront their weaknesses and exploit strengths they didn’t know they had, I want that ending that makes everything right with the world again. I want my readers to be glued to the pages, unable to sleep until they shut the book with a sigh of satisfaction and tuck themselves away in their burrows—er, beds.

So if that’s cozy, sue me. It’s hard to envision anything about death being cozy. In fact, the more innocuous the characters, the more macabre the effect, in my opinion. Look at “Arsenic and Old Lace.” What could be cozier than those sweet old ladies with their lace collars and teacups? The juxtaposition of that with their murderous dispositions is hilarious in the play, but in real life the comfy-looking elderly woman who murders her lodgers is downright creepy.

I am not trying to make my readers cozy. I create a world where people are prevented by the eruption of violence from living their quiet lives. That’s not cozy. It’s just the pursuit of the American Dream.