Spotted in the Wild by Mary Dutta

 

The future of short crime fiction is a bit of a mystery at the moment. Writers continue to create terrific stories, but finding a home for them keeps getting harder. Several mystery magazines have shuttered, as have some of the publishers that produced story anthologies.

My recent travels, however, have given me some reassurance about my writing future. For instance, in a recreation of a 1950’s family apartment at the Norsk Folkesmuseum, Norway’s museum of cultural history, I spied an Agatha Christie novel on the shelf. Den Fjerde Rytter, or The Fourth Horseman, was originally published in English as The Pale Horse.

While waiting to board the boat for my fjord tour in Flåm, I explored the local railway museum. It included a copy of Detectiv Magasinet, a long-running pulp fiction magazine from the first half of the twentieth century. The issue on display featured a story by Sverre Vegenor, the pen name of Sverre Nicolaisen, who published hundreds of stories across multiple genres, most of them detective fiction.

Closer to home, the Mustard Museum in Madison, Wisconsin displayed a copy of Murder cuts the Mustard, a cozy mystery published in 2019. And as the author of humorous mysteries, I particularly appreciated a local garden shop shelving its pesticides in a section called the murder department. It reassured me that there is still an audience out there for my style of storytelling. 

Luckily, several of my own orphaned upcoming anthologies found new homes after their original publishing house folded. One sadly didn’t, but given the enduring interest in mystery fiction I spotted in the wild across continents, languages, and decades, I feel confident that the story I wrote for it will be published someday. There’s a whole world of opportunity still out there, you just need to know where to look.

Have you spotted mystery fiction in unexpected places?

Righting the Wrongs by Copy Editing by Martha Reed

Whether writing short fiction or a novel length work, a new creative writing project can present a minefield of hurdles from initial blank page paranoia through chapter structuring terror until finally a satisfactory conclusion is reached and I type those ever-blessed words: The End (or ###.)

And then the real fun begins. Copy editing.

It’s never easy handing my brand-new baby over to a professional editor, even when I’d trust that editor with my soul. The new story is still so fresh, so delicate there’s a fear that if I jigger it too much, shift too many pieces, I may lose the vital essence that brought the story to vibrant life. I’m sure there are writers out there who are so knowledgeable about the craft of writing that they can grammatically dissect their stories into bits and then fit the tiny bits back together without a bobble, but I’m not one of them. When my story is as complete and polished as I can make it, I’m terrified that if I edit it too much it will end up looking like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, all patched up paragraphs with thick obvious sutures, a shaky house of cards that may come tumbling down with one harsh puff or worse: that I may change something vital that I can’t fix.

There’s a definite left brain/right brain thing going on with mystery writers, and I think it’s the difference between imagining whole new worlds and new characters (right-brain) versus developing plot points, twists, and logical conclusions (left-brain). This difference may explain why some writers are gifted “pantsers” (e.g., writing by the seat of your pants) versus gifted plotters (e.g., following a step-by-step story outline.)

I’ve decided that editors are neither one of these two types. They are an entirely separate and alien species. These folks take copy editing to another, higher level. They spot story flaws from outer space, from Mars. I also know that when an editor agrees to review my work that I need to throttle my fragile ego, calmly close my eyes, listen to their advice with an open ear and step off into the void, trusting that in the end all will be well and that they fundamentally do come in peace.

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with an amazing professional editor. She gave me exactly one hour via a Zoom call to review three hurdles she identified in my story while at the same time offering such excellent fixes that I was in complete agreement with her from the start of our over caffeinated conversation. One of her suggestions was even so good, so much better than what I had written that I felt a twinge of professional jealousy that I hadn’t come up with it on my own. My only real difficulty was in accepting that my “final version” was really and truly final and that I couldn’t make any additional last-minute tweaking edits after I sent the “final version” off, probably some form of separation anxiety.

To be fair, any emails that I send out that start with “But, wait…” should be ignored.

In podcasts and at conferences you repeatedly hear that working with a professional editor is about developing a long-term relationship, that it’s never about one single book, that editors are looking for publishing career partners. What has your editorial experience been like?

Innovating With Short Stories by Jennifer J. Chow

 

I feel like there are authors who excel at short stories. I’ve enjoyed various such authors over the years, from O. Henry to John Updike to Sarah M. Chen. I’ve written a few myself, but it takes a different sort of skill to craft a novel than a short punch of a tale.

 

Last year, I decided to challenge myself by writing to a theme and submitting my work. I’m happy to announce that my short stories were accepted by two anthologies. The first, Festive Mayhem, is a collection of holiday-themed tales of suspense and mystery. The stories range in flavor from warm and cozy to downright cold. Here’s a rundown of the works you’ll find in the collection:

 

• "The New Year's Hex" by Carolyn Marie Wilkins. Carrie McFarland finds her New Year's plans derailed when a psychic vision pulls the 1920s African American amateur sleuth into someone's evil scheme.
• "Pipe Dreams" by S.G. Wong. In this hard-boiled Crescent City short story, infatuation and passion drive Minnie Chen straight into danger as she tries to best the City's most glamorous private detective in a reimagined 1930s-era Chinese Los Angeles.
• "A Christmas Tip" by Elizabeth Wilkerson. A surprise Christmas bonus becomes too tempting for Philadelphia nursing assistant Brianna Byers to resist—even if accepting requires some skillful skirting of the law.
• "The Stranger in the House" by Stella Oni. This London House Mystery prequel stars Elizabeth Ojo, a Nigerian housekeeper at a posh guest house, who finds her Christmas intersecting with that of a mysterious resident in trouble.
• "What Lies Inside" by Kia Dennis. A tormented university professor falls deeper and deeper into a destructive obsession in this harrowing tale of love and longing.
• "A Deadly First" by Delia C. Pitts. Thanksgiving takes a fatal turn when New York private eye SJ Rook finds himself thrust into his first murder case in this darkly atmospheric tale of noir.
• "The Holiday Murder Mélange" by Myra Jolivet. This Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis short story follows the Creole P.I. around the San Francisco Bay Area on her quest to figure out who killed a man outside of her office.
• "Those Holiday Blues" by Jennifer J. Chow. Jasmine, aka "Jazz," can't escape the tragic past when an old boyfriend asks to meet on the anniversary of his mother's death.
• "Holiday Holdup" by Paige Sleuth. In this Cozy Cat Caper Mystery Short, Imogene Little gets tangled up in a Christmas Eve bank robbery orchestrated by none other than Santa Claus himself.

 

The second anthology releases in fall of 2021. Spearheaded by our very own Abby L. Vandiver, it’ll be published by Crooked Lane Books. The collection will feature original mystery and crime stories from nineteen authors of color. 

 

(Photo credit: Abby Vandiver)

Although my mystery writing specialty is cozy series, I’ve veered off course for these anthologies. The stories in them are more chilling than my usual fare. I think I needed a break from the same type of writing, and I also wanted to stretch my creative wings. Sometimes I doubt myself and wonder if I should have strayed from my typical writing style. Share your thoughts below.

 

Do you prefer stories similar to an author’s previous works? Why or why not?