Why Writers Kill

By AnnetteDashofy

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? 

Why Do We as Writers Kill? by Debra H. Goldstein

Why Do We as Writers Kill? by Debra H. Goldstein

Why do the writers on this blog kill? What perverse joy do we or our peers get from dead bodies, dismembered body parts, bashed brains, or subtle symptoms of poisoning? Secretly, do you think our families wish we wrote literary works instead of books and stories in the mystery genre?

What makes us listen to two people in a restaurant and immediately discern a conflict that will result in the death of the one of the two we least like? Do other people observe their surroundings and think about where a dead body can be shoved? Outside of our sphere of friends, are we classified as “normal

The answer probably is “no,” but who cares? I can’t speak for my fellow bloggers, but I write in the mystery genre, because I love it. Although I have written and been published in the non-fiction and literary areas, my passion is whodunits.

Despite reading every aspect of the genre, I primarily write traditional or cozy mysteries. In my other life, I traveled a lot and found traditional or cozy mysteries to be easy plane or beach reads that completely took me away from the stress of my everyday world. Often character driven and with crisp dialogue, these mysteries quickly invested me in their stories and challenged me to figure out the murderer before the great reveal. My goal in writing them is to provide the same fun for other people.

To some, the fun may seem a bit macabre, but I think I can speak for all of us --- we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Norman Rockwell's Murder Mystery

By Shari Randall

Traveling through the Berkshires after a holiday visit to upstate New York was a great excuse to stop in charming Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Rockwell, who preferred the term “illustrator” to “painter,” was a meticulous artist who designed his scenes, chose and posed his models, photographed them, and only when satisfied with the photos, used them to guide the final painting of his artwork. This painstaking process produced some of the best loved images of all time. Exhibits of his iconic Four Freedoms raised over a million dollars in war bonds during World War II, a stunning amount for the time. His art appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post 323 times. His work, considered sentimental or false by some critics, is undergoing a reappraisal and is hotly collected by tastemakers such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. An exhibit of his work at the Smithsonian broke records.

That’s why it was so shocking to hear about the Rockwell cover the Saturday Evening Post rejected, the work that, despite its celebrity firepower, failed to make the cut and was never published.

In 1948, Rockwell did a drawing he called Murder Mystery, or Who-Dun-It. Rockwell’s intent was to present a classic drawing room murder mystery that the viewer would solve from the clues in the picture. Instead of choosing his subjects from his friends and neighbors as was his custom, Rockwell went Hollywood. He approached Ethel Barrymore to portray the lady of the manor; Linda Darnell as a glamorous actress; Boris Karloff as the chef; Loretta Young as the maid; Clifton Webb as the butler; Richard Widmark as a disreputable gentleman with a riding crop; and Lassie as, well, Lassie. Van Johnson plays The Body, with only his legs and feet portrayed, splayed on the carpet.

Rockwell said, “I’d show a murdered man surrounded by his friends and relatives, one of whom had done him in. The clues to the solution would be present in the picture and Post readers would be asked to solve the crime.”

Here’s a link to the museum image and here’s my photo. The clues are hidden in the details, so enlarge away! http://collection.nrm.org/search.do?id=630050&db=object&view=full

photo by the author

Standing in front of the painting, tucked away in a side gallery, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the quality of the work. The mystery? That was another thing. A Boy Scout standing next to me pondered the painting for a good five minutes. He sighed. And tilted his head to look closer. And sighed again.

I understood how he felt. I thought one solution was obvious, but, could see a case for others. A man wearing a Bruins sweatshirt joined us in front of Murder Mystery and peered close at the work. We exchanged glances and guesses.

We all chose a different suspect.

That was the problem. The Saturday Evening Post agreed with me and the Boy Scout and the Bruins fan. After Rockwell presented Murder Mystery to the editorial board of The Saturday Evening Post, the Post test-drove it with staff. The work was rejected, the Post editors explained, because not one staffer came within “miles of the correct answer.” I have a feeling that mystery readers may do better than the staff of the 1948 Saturday Evening Post but still, the solution is not clear cut.

So dear readers, take a look. Who-Dun-It? Put your guesses in the comments and I’ll check in later with the correct answer. Well, with the artist’s answer. Your solution may vary.