Sunday, September 15, 2019

Why Writers Kill



While coming up with a topic for today’s blog, I asked for ideas from my “street team” on Facebook. The fabulous Dru Ann Love asked why we write murder mysteries. Why not a mystery without a murder?

Considering we named our blog Writers Who Kill, I thought this was the perfect subject to write about.


I have read a couple of mystery novels in which no one died. To be honest, I kept waiting for the body to show up. Maybe I’m a little sadistic, but I was disappointed when, at the end of the book, the missing person turned up alive and well.

(Just to be clear, I’m only sadistic where fiction is concerned. In real life, I always pray the missing will show up unharmed and weep when they don’t.)

But I digress.

As a writer, I’ve never attempted to not kill anyone in my long fiction. Short fiction? Absolutely. But to sustain the tension for an entire novel, the stakes have to keep rising. How can you raise the stakes any higher than the threat of a life lost? In thrillers, failure usually promises many lives lost.

Fear of being killed. Fear of losing a loved one. And a demand for justice when a life is taken. Those are the biggies to keep the characters driven and the readers turning the page. At least for me.

Another question from my street team, this one from Fran Joyce, involves the other side of the homicide equation—the killer. Fran wanted to know about their guilt and how I decide whether the killer is overcome with guilt or devoid of it. This one offers a lot of variables, which, for me, is what keeps it interesting.

I’ve created killers who were vicious and cold-blooded. I’ve also created killers who are every bit as sympathetic as their victims. In fact, several of my favorite characters in my books have been the so-called villains.

My writing may have been influenced by a favorite early 1970s TV show, Alias Smith and Jones. The western comedy revolved around two outlaws who attempt to go straight. The premise is spelled out in the opening narration of the pilot episode:

Into the West came many men. Some were good men and some were bad men. Some were good men with some bad in them. And some were bad men with some good in them. This is the story of two pretty good bad men.

When I create a villain—or a hero for that matter—this passage, decades later, still plays in my head. I don’t want a character who is completely good or completely evil. They’re no fun to write.

Another quote (and I don’t know from whom it originated) says, “every villain is the hero of his own story.

So whether the killer is heartless and feels completely justified, or whether the killer is consumed by guilt for his actions, I want him to have a motivation that the reader can relate to even if they can’t forgive.

Dear readers, what about you? Do you need a murder in a mystery novel to hold your interest? And do you prefer a villain you can despise? Or one who tugs at your heart a little? 

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for selecting my question and good answer. As for a murder in my mystery, yes I prefer that but I've read a few where there was no body as well and the author did a great job in keeping up the suspense.

    I like villains that make me feel for them a little until the motive is revealed. If I dislike a villain from the start, the payoff is worth it when they are brought to justice.

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  2. Thanks for the terrific question, Dru. You'll have to give me a list of non-murder mysteries that work well!

    Yes, it's great when a villainous villain gets their just desserts. It seems to happen so rarely in real life. At least we get our gratification in fiction!

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  3. I would bet that neither writer/producer Roy Huggins, note Pete Duel nor Ben Murphy could have imagined the impact that their rather inconsequential (in the overall history of television westerns) would have nearly 50 years later. It proves Huggins' genius.

    Despite it being a lighthearted western, ASJ had a few pretty serious episodes including "The Bounty Hunter." Joe Sims is killed for being a black man. Was he the villain or a man just trying to make his way in the West? It points to the comment about even villains having a story.

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  4. If I read a mystery without a body in the first 75 pages, I'm disappointed.
    If I read a book about someone finding a body, but the death is from natural causes, I'm frustrated and impatient.
    A body dump tops a good drug bust.

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  5. Sandy, "The Bounty Hunter" was ahead of its time and an excellent example of a multi-faceted villain. You hated him, empathized with him, cheered for him, hated him again, and ultimately grieved for him. All within a one-hour show laced with some of Pete Duel's best mugging.

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  6. Margaret, I'm with you, although fascinating characters and a suspenseful plot can keep me reading to the end.

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  7. Death by natural causes? Hum, haven't encountered that in a mystery, but I think it would be a let down, blood thirsty as that sounds. While I prefer a murder - I agree with others that if the suspense is there, and the writing good, a crime based non-murder mystery will be just fine.

    Books that make me identify with the villain haunt me, in a good way. It takes a skilled writer to lay all the clues and have a likable killer.

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  8. I'm disappointed too, Annette. For me, it's not a mystery, it's just a novel, if nobody drops dead.

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  9. I notice no one ever considers crimes other than murder as the focal point when this question comes up. Scammers, especially of the poor and elderly, and thieves can hurt people who touch our hearts. Sometimes a secondary crime is more interesting than the murder, but as long as the wonderful authors I follow keep killing off people, I will read murder centric cozies.

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  10. There's a reason some people call them "murder mysteries."

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  11. It depends. Two of my favorite books are Josephine Tey's mysteries without murder. But Tey can do just about anything well. I wrote two stories in which a character tries to commit murder but doesn't manage it; the wrong people keep dying. But it was suspense, not mystery, and humorous, so that doesn't count. I like a villain I understand, which means I like one that tugs at the heart, I guess.

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  12. Kathy, you bring up a point I talk about all the time. An author can do anything, break any of the rules, provided they do it WELL.

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