Cozy Mystery Writer Support

BfloGal · Jun 13, 2014

Cowboy, speaking of themes in cozies (and I don't like that term, because theme generally means something else entirely; I've heard it called the series hook), I think you'll have a hard time selling to many publishers without one. Almost all the cozies I see coming out from the major publishers are centered around a hobby or occupation of some kind.

And yes, it's frustrating, since it seems they've all been done. I think the key is going to be specializing. Hannah Swenson does cookies--at least that's what she started out to do. Can your sweet-maker focus on some other kind of sweets? Scones? Cheesecake? Vintage recipes? Ethnic cookies? Recipes centered around a different ingredient?

I was actually thinking the other day that it was odd that I hadn't seen a series of cozies centered around cheesecake. (Unless I missed it.) But if you use it, I want a mention in your acknowledgements.

Polenth · Jun 13, 2014

Speaking as a reader rather than a publisher, I've found a lot of baking series blur into one for me. There's a risk in picking a very common theme in becoming one of the mass. But on the other side, they clearly sell well or people wouldn't keep publishing new ones.

So, I'd rather see something unusual. But it also might not be the best selling point, because I'm apparently a strange person.

Helix · Jun 13, 2014

I'm not a reader or writer of cozies*, so I'm not sure of the full range of what's been done, what hasn't been done and what's been done to death (so to speak). But I like Polenth's comment about something unusual. So what about your MC either being in a 'non-traditional' occupation or having retired from one?

Not that I can think of one.

* I'm more yer police procedural type

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 13, 2014

BfloGal said:
Cowboy, speaking of themes in cozies (and I don't like that term, because theme generally means something else entirely; I've heard it called the series hook), I think you'll have a hard time selling to many publishers without one. Almost all the cozies I see coming out from the major publishers are centered around a hobby or occupation of some kind.

I'm with you on the terminology. A theme in literature isn't quilting or aviation. It's just the common term cozy readers tend to use to distinguish one cozy from another.

I can't think of any hobbies that I'd care to write about over and over again so I'm going down the Occupation Highway if I have to have a theme. I know there are cozies without themes but it's taking a while to research them.

And yes, it's frustrating, since it seems they've all been done. I think the key is going to be specializing. Hannah Swenson does cookies--at least that's what she started out to do. Can your sweet-maker focus on some other kind of sweets? Scones? Cheesecake? Vintage recipes? Ethnic cookies? Recipes centered around a different ingredient?

I was actually thinking the other day that it was odd that I hadn't seen a series of cozies centered around cheesecake. (Unless I missed it.) But if you use it, I want a mention in your acknowledgements.

I love culinary cozies. I still read them. But, honestly, the thought of choosing such a common theme drives me nuts. Speaking of Vintage and cheesecakes, below I posted a picture of a Victorian Cheesecake I made.

My brain will not let go of my redheaded heroine though. Hannah Swensen or not. I've had this woman in my head for almost 15 years and she's making her debut. I wanted a male protagonist, actually, but she arm wrestled him and won.

Something will come to me. And it will be perfect. I may be stumbling and grasping at straws right now but I know the perfect solution is coming. It just requires more patience, coffee and gray hair... apparently.

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 13, 2014

Polenth said:
Speaking as a reader rather than a publisher, I've found a lot of baking series blur into one for me. There's a risk in picking a very common theme in becoming one of the mass.

Exactly, to the letter, what I want to avoid and why I'm spending so much time thinking about this.

But on the other side, they clearly sell well or people wouldn't keep publishing new ones.

And that's the other hand thats trying to slap some sense into me.

So, I'd rather see something unusual. But it also might not be the best selling point, because I'm apparently a strange person.

Again, exactly! You're just like me. I want something different! The part of me that's been held back from writing for far too long isn't content with just writing a book. I want it to be an attention grabber. Do I hope to write the Great American Novel? Not at all. I'm not looking for literary fame. I'm not trying to be J.K. Rowling. But I do want to write something that isn't ordinary.

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 13, 2014

Helix said:
I'm not a reader or writer of cozies*, so I'm not sure of the full range of what's been done, what hasn't been done and what's been done to death (so to speak). But I like Polenth's comment about something unusual. So what about your MC either being in a 'non-traditional' occupation or having retired from one?

Not that I can think of one.

* I'm more yer police procedural type

Every avenue, or should I say occupation, is being explored. I've quite literally read every occupation in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

There is one occupation that I would love to choose and have simmering on the back burner. But it would take a very careful research and crafting to write authentically and engagingly. There aren't any authentic shops anymore. At least not in Minneapolis.

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 19, 2014

Cozy Question: Where do cozy authors get all of the recipes, patterns, etc., that they put in their books? They can't all be original recipes.

I've always wondered about this.

Polenth · Jun 20, 2014

Fictional Cowboy said:
Cozy Question: Where do cozy authors get all of the recipes, patterns, etc., that they put in their books? They can't all be original recipes.

I've always wondered about this.

I don't put recipes in books, but I do have a few recipes that I've created. The building blocks aren't original. Cake is cake. Biscuit mix is biscuit mix. You can often change things around a little, but the basics don't change much. Where the skill comes is in knowing how to adapt those recipes. It's knowing what you can safely change, what flavours work together and other stuff like that.

For example, I wanted to make traditional strong gingerbread and non-ginger gingerbread, but I couldn't find a recipe. I used a basic biscuit mix (which doesn't alter much, outside of whether you decide to add an egg or not... I go for the egg, as it's richer), then came up with seasoning ingredients that'd get what I wanted. It's my recipe and could go in my very own cookbook, but I'm not suggesting I invented gingerbread or that no other variation is similar to mine.

Also, I wrote out the recipe from scratch. It's not paraphrased from someone else's or anything like that. So even if someone else came up with a very similar recipe, we'd each hold the copyright on our own explanation of how to make it. Much like science books don't invent scientific theory, but the author's explanation is under their own copyright.

What I find a bit odd is that self-published books especially don't include a photograph of an item. It'd be no problem to include it in an ebook, and gives confidence that the author really has tried the recipe / instructions.

(If anyone's interested in the recipe, it's on my blog. No purchase required.)

juniper · Jun 20, 2014

GinJones said:
I went to a conference where I was overwhelmed by how much I didn't know about writing, and the final straw was a workshop that purported to teach us how to create characters, and we were given a five-page hand-out of things every author needed to know about their protagonists. One of the first things on the list was "what jewelry does he/she wear,"

Oh yeah, a writer's group I went to a couple of times has done 3 "special sessions" just on character development. The info is based on Holly Lisle's online course, and it's just OTT.

Here's an AW thread (in this very forum!) about knowing your characters.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=287419

Poet of Gore · Jun 21, 2014

lol, now i want to write a cozy. I am a big fan of Mystery Woman: Redemption (a movie)

but i want to make it a very well hidden satire and really kind of pervert the genre but below the surface and on the surface be very clean and proper and stuff. what is wrong with me?

Helix · Jun 21, 2014

Poet of Gore said:
lol, now i want to write a cozy. I am a big fan of Mystery Woman: Redemption (a movie)

but i want to make it a very well hidden satire and really kind of pervert the genre but below the surface and on the surface be very clean and proper and stuff. what is wrong with me?

In order to subvert a genre, you have to know it very, very well.

onesecondglance · Jun 22, 2014

And the best satires are done with a lot of affection.

See Galaxy Quest.

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 22, 2014

Thanks, Polenth. I don't have any recipes or patterns or plans that I'm looking to put into my books. I've always just wondered how authors do it. Recipes are easy enough to personalize but what about crochet/knitting/cross stitch patterns? I can't imagine they're all original. Just one of those things that gets me thinking.

Polenth said:
I don't put recipes in books, but I do have a few recipes that I've created. The building blocks aren't original. Cake is cake. Biscuit mix is biscuit mix. You can often change things around a little, but the basics don't change much. Where the skill comes is in knowing how to adapt those recipes. It's knowing what you can safely change, what flavours work together and other stuff like that.

For example, I wanted to make traditional strong gingerbread and non-ginger gingerbread, but I couldn't find a recipe. I used a basic biscuit mix (which doesn't alter much, outside of whether you decide to add an egg or not... I go for the egg, as it's richer), then came up with seasoning ingredients that'd get what I wanted. It's my recipe and could go in my very own cookbook, but I'm not suggesting I invented gingerbread or that no other variation is similar to mine.

Also, I wrote out the recipe from scratch. It's not paraphrased from someone else's or anything like that. So even if someone else came up with a very similar recipe, we'd each hold the copyright on our own explanation of how to make it. Much like science books don't invent scientific theory, but the author's explanation is under their own copyright.

What I find a bit odd is that self-published books especially don't include a photograph of an item. It'd be no problem to include it in an ebook, and gives confidence that the author really has tried the recipe / instructions.

(If anyone's interested in the recipe, it's on my blog. No purchase required.)

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 22, 2014

I have another question for everyone. I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts are about when the murder should happen in a cozy mystery. I'm not familiar with submitting yet so I'm not sure what agent/publisher requirements or preferences are. (Embarrassingly, I don't even know who the top publishers for cozies are yet. I'm just concentrating on writing and thought I'd cross that bridge later.)

As a reader, I've seen them happen anywhere from the first chapter to several chapters in. I'm not fussed about it personally. I kind of like a chapter or two of getting to know the setting and characters first.

When it comes to the suggestions of fellow writers, I find the answer varies. For example, make sure the murder happens 1) in the first chapter, 2) in the first ten pages, or 3) close enough to the beginning that it will be in the Amazon sample.

What are your thoughts? Personally, I'm writing my novel the way I want it to unfold. (Early on, yes, but it may not occur until the end of chapter two.) Sometimes, if it happens too early, I get turned off a bit. It can seem forced and abrupt. Let me get to know a couple of people and see a few things around town first. It's like walking into someone's house for dinner, having your jacket stripped from your back and immediately being sat at the table with a plate of food. Give me a chance to breathe first!

Nancyleeny · Jun 24, 2014

BfloGal said:
Cowboy, speaking of themes in cozies (and I don't like that term, because theme generally means something else entirely; I've heard it called the series hook), I think you'll have a hard time selling to many publishers without one. Almost all the cozies I see coming out from the major publishers are centered around a hobby or occupation of some kind.

And yes, it's frustrating, since it seems they've all been done. I think the key is going to be specializing. Hannah Swenson does cookies--at least that's what she started out to do. Can your sweet-maker focus on some other kind of sweets? Scones? Cheesecake? Vintage recipes? Ethnic cookies? Recipes centered around a different ingredient?

I was actually thinking the other day that it was odd that I hadn't seen a series of cozies centered around cheesecake. (Unless I missed it.) But if you use it, I want a mention in your acknowledgements.

My cozy has triathlons as a "hook," but since the character is ADD like me, she also is a teacher, makes custom cakes and loves to sail! I'm thinking I'll need to trim that down!

Nancyleeny · Jun 24, 2014

Fictional Cowboy said:
I have another question for everyone. I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts are about when the murder should happen in a cozy mystery. I'm not familiar with submitting yet so I'm not sure what agent/publisher requirements or preferences are. (Embarrassingly, I don't even know who the top publishers for cozies are yet. I'm just concentrating on writing and thought I'd cross that bridge later.)

As a reader, I've seen them happen anywhere from the first chapter to several chapters in. I'm not fussed about it personally. I kind of like a chapter or two of getting to know the setting and characters first.

When it comes to the suggestions of fellow writers, I find the answer varies. For example, make sure the murder happens 1) in the first chapter, 2) in the first ten pages, or 3) close enough to the beginning that it will be in the Amazon sample.

What are your thoughts? Personally, I'm writing my novel the way I want it to unfold. (Early on, yes, but it may not occur until the end of chapter two.) Sometimes, if it happens too early, I get turned off a bit. It can seem forced and abrupt. Let me get to know a couple of people and see a few things around town first. It's like walking into someone's house for dinner, having your jacket stripped from your back and immediately being sat at the table with a plate of food. Give me a chance to breathe first!

Hi,
I recently read a cozy, "Owls Well That Ends Well," in which the author, Donna Andrews, has a yard sale, all these strange relatives show up, and the murder didn't happen until Page 54. I don't know, compared to some of the earlier cozies which I love, like Diane Mott Davidson, I felt this book was contrived and forced. Her characters were made quirky/odd too blatantly, and I was annoyed and bored by the time someone was killed. (For great quirky characters, it's hard to beat Lawrence Sanders' McNally series. the ones he write, not the later ones.) Then she has about ten pages in which her MC is raising and lowering herself in a dumbwaiter to spy on the sheriff/head cop, which gets old after about a page.

I thought, "Really? This is a best selling author?" I know my writing needs work and I know the writer does some things well, but her obvious writing-to-a-genre just distracted and annoyed me and gave me hope for my writing.

So please kill someone before page 54.

Fictional Cowboy · Jun 24, 2014

Nancyleeny said:
Hi,
I recently read a cozy, "Owls Well That Ends Well," in which the author, Donna Andrews, has a yard sale, all these strange relatives show up, and the murder didn't happen until Page 54. I don't know, compared to some of the earlier cozies which I love, like Diane Mott Davidson, I felt this book was contrived and forced. Her characters were made quirky/odd too blatantly, and I was annoyed and bored by the time someone was killed. (For great quirky characters, it's hard to beat Lawrence Sanders' McNally series. the ones he write, not the later ones.) Then she has about ten pages in which her MC is raising and lowering herself in a dumbwaiter to spy on the sheriff/head cop, which gets old after about a page.

I thought, "Really? This is a best selling author?" I know my writing needs work and I know the writer does some things well, but her obvious writing-to-a-genre just distracted and annoyed me and gave me hope for my writing.

So please kill someone before page 54.

Your comments that I bolded are 1) what I look for in reader comments. Their thoughts and feelings help me more than their suggestions. And 2) exactly what I want to avoid doing to readers.

I think your comment about making quirky characters quirky so blatantly, for the sake of having a quirky character, is a really important reminder. Obvious and contrived are probably two of the highest ranked traits I want to avoid in my writing. I'd rather write badly than be obvious and contrived.

I added Lawrence Sanders' McNally series to my library list. Thanks!

Fictional Cowboy · Jul 4, 2014

Do the mysteries in cozy mysteries always have to be murder? I know there are some series that never have them but I don't know how popular they are. Then there are the series that usually have murders but, once in a while, one book in the series will be about a different crime, like theft.

How about a series that continually switches up the mystery? A murder here, a theft there, arson, kidnapping, etc.,

Or is murder the preferred expectation and everything else considered too boring?

GinJones · Jul 4, 2014

Murder is the expectation in cozy mysteries. For thefts, it's generally going to fall in a slightly different genre: caper story. For arson and kidnapping, you're probably heading into thriller or suspense territory.

I'm sure there have been a few cozy mysteries with lesser crimes, but I can't name any.

Other crimes just don't have the same visceral appeal (if "appeal" is the right word; it's not that anyone WANTS to read about death, but they want the life-affirming opposite of that, that death matters, that justice will come to those who take a life, etc.).

Because, really, if a thief escapes justice, do we really care? Maybe, if it's someone at the level of Bernie Madoff, but not if it's a car thief or any mere property. (I can sort of see it where the item is of sentimental value -- someone stole my dad's fishing tackle from my brother's car, shortly after my dad died, leaving my brother heartbroken. That person I would really, really, really want caught. But I'm not sure it would be a particularly satisfying story, because it doesn't really matter how or why the theft happened. What matters is the emotional connection, and that's backstory, not so much the story now.)

There are even times when we go so far as to cheer on thieves, and actually hope they WON'T get caught, so we wouldn't be invested in seeing them get caught. (e.g., the BBC series, Hustle, or the American series, Leverage, or the Ocean's movies).

Stealing a life, though, that matters, and making sure the bad guy pays is at least part of the appeal of a cozy mystery.

BTW, I just found out that in Italy (and possibly some other European countries), murder mysteries published there don't always end with the killer being caught or even identified. I would HATE reading a book like that!

Fictional Cowboy · Jul 4, 2014

GinJones said:
Murder is the expectation in cozy mysteries. For thefts, it's generally going to fall in a slightly different genre: caper story. For arson and kidnapping, you're probably heading into thriller or suspense territory.

I'm sure there have been a few cozy mysteries with lesser crimes, but I can't name any.

Other crimes just don't have the same visceral appeal (if "appeal" is the right word; it's not that anyone WANTS to read about death, but they want the life-affirming opposite of that, that death matters, that justice will come to those who take a life, etc.).

Because, really, if a thief escapes justice, do we really care? Maybe, if it's someone at the level of Bernie Madoff, but not if it's a car thief or any mere property. (I can sort of see it where the item is of sentimental value -- someone stole my dad's fishing tackle from my brother's car, shortly after my dad died, leaving my brother heartbroken. That person I would really, really, really want caught. But I'm not sure it would be a particularly satisfying story, because it doesn't really matter how or why the theft happened. What matters is the emotional connection, and that's backstory, not so much the story now.)

There are even times when we go so far as to cheer on thieves, and actually hope they WON'T get caught, so we wouldn't be invested in seeing them get caught. (e.g., the BBC series, Hustle, or the American series, Leverage, or the Ocean's movies).

Stealing a life, though, that matters, and making sure the bad guy pays is at least part of the appeal of a cozy mystery.

BTW, I just found out that in Italy (and possibly some other European countries), murder mysteries published there don't always end with the killer being caught or even identified. I would HATE reading a book like that!

Good points. My cozy does have murder. I ask because I thought of a plot that I like involving a theft. I'll just wait and see how the first book goes. Thanks!

Polenth · Jul 5, 2014

Often even when the main crime is something else, there's a side murder. So it might start with theft, but someone will die on the way.

But I have seen some readers asking for cozies without murder. My guess is it'd be easier to promote a series based on other mysteries, than a series with mostly murder with one that suddenly isn't. Sort of an extra-cozy cozy, for those that want a series where the victims don't end up dying or getting hurt. What market there is for it is another matter, but I expect there's a niche there who'd go for it.

jeseymour · Jul 5, 2014

Middle grade and younger mysteries often do not involve a murder.

WeaselFire · Jul 9, 2014

jeseymour said:
Middle grade and younger mysteries often do not involve a murder.

But they also don't normally fit the cozy genre.

Jeff

BfloGal · Jul 11, 2014

Annie's Attic books are cozy mysteries that don't involve murder. But they can be harder to get a hold of because they're sold by a craft company. I don't know if I would have known about them if a friend of mine hadn't written several of them.

http://www.anniesfiction.com/home.php?program_id=FIC

tiffany318 · Nov 4, 2014

Does anyone have a listing of publishers that accept unagented cozies?

Cozy Mystery Writer Support

Lost in a plot hole

Mushroom

socially distancing

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Mushroom

Always curious.

socially distancing

pretending to be awake

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Life is short. Live with purpose.

Mushroom

Benefactor Member

Lost in a plot hole