Three Keys to SFF/Crime Crossovers By Jayne Barnard

Both mysteries and SFF stories need characters, plots, and world-building. In SFF, the world differs from the one readers occupy. To develop all those elements within the word count of a short story can be agonizing. Here are three keys to cutting down the word-wastage while delivering a tight crime plot in an unfamiliar setting:

1.  Don’t describe anything about the story’s alternate world except     what’s different from the reader’s default Earth-based mental image. Only describe the bits they need to know to understand the current story.

In When the Tide Burns (appearing in BURNT, Analemma Press, August 2016), the setting is a barge moored in a garbage-packed cove as the wind is rising. This could be present time, familiar reality for coastal dwellers until the fifth sentence. The soapberry wax, all that protected their clothing and equipment from the acid spray, was down to its last sheen in the tin’s bottom corners. Not such a normal cove after all, but one holding a danger unfamiliar to the readers. That one line does double duty as both a world-building element and a spur to the menacing events the protagonist must face.

2. When introducing characters, only describe what makes the alien, orc, or robot different from an ordinary human. Don’t bother with anything about their culture or planet of origin unless it’s vital to the plot of this story. You need to know it all; the reader doesn’t. Integrate. Don’t info-dump.

In Quest for Parts (Enigma Front, Analemma Press, 2015) we see what the protagonist sees: a scrawny, pasty, generally human-looking intruder. But… the guy stared into the sky-blue mirror, adjusting a knob at his collar with one claw. His face shimmered, gaining warmer tones while losing the sharp tips to his nose, ears and chin. This character has claws, not fingernails, and can adjust his appearance by turning a knob. He’ll need those assets later in the story, so best to slide them into our protagonist’s, and the reader’s, first impression.

3. Make some element of your mystery one that could only occur in that particular alternate reality. Stories that could have happened down the block but are set on a space station will not be as engaging as those that require, nay, demand the setting and culture you have created for them.

In MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND (Tyche Books 2015), the inciting incident reveals this element immediately: The expeditionary airship of Baron Bodmin, ardent African explorer, has been found adrift and deserted. Its logbook is missing and no clue remains to its captain’s fate.  Only airships can stay aloft indefinitely without fuel or a pilot. Exactly where the batty baron vanished is the first of many questions for which our intrepid steampunk reporter must seek answers. 

If each sentence of your opening paragraph can touch on one or more of the three keys, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a smoothly blended crossover tale.

Jayne Barnard’s award-winning short fiction has appeared in print for a quarter-century. Her first steampunk YA novella, MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND (Tyche Books 2015) is a Prix Aurora finalist. Her full-length mystery, WHEN THE FLOOD FALLS, won the Dundurn Unhanged Arthur Award (Best Unpublished First Crime Novel by a Canadian writer) in June 2016. Visit her at www.jaynebarnard.ca or connect on Twitter @JayneBarnard1