Why Do We Write Mysteries?
Kaye George is a novelist and a short story writer whose story, “Handbaskets, Drawers, and a Killer Cold”, was nominated for a 2010 Agatha award. It can be found in the collection, A Patchwork of Stories, available on Amazon and Smashwords as an ebook.
Her first novel, Choke, was published May 2011 by Mainly Murder Press.
She reviews for “Suspense Magazine” and other articles occasionally appear in newsletters and booklets.
She, her husband, and a cat named Agamemnon live together in Texas, near Austin. They can be found there sometimes, but they often visit children and grandchildren who, for some reason, have decided to live in Tennessee and Virginia.
Visit her webpage, KayeGeorge.com for more information. Or catch her at TravelsWithKaye.blogspot.com, her solo blog. She also joins other writers at AllThingsWriting.blogspot.com and DialogForMurder.blogspot.com .
On a recent visit to the local library, I spoke with the manager and mentioned that writers are not normal, that there’s something wrong with us. (It was in context, sorta.) The library manager said she hopes that’s not true since we’re her bread and butter. (Hey, at least someone realizes that we do all the work!)
But really, we are a little different. We focus, day in and day out, on what happens surrounding a crime that ends a life and puts other lives in turmoil. Why do we do this?
I know that, for a few people, being touched by an actual murder spurred them to write about crime. One person I know lost someone close to him to murder and went on to write murder mysteries. Another person whose relative was murdered wrote a true crime book about the event. But I don’t think that’s true of most of us.
I, of course, can only speak for myself, but I do sort of know why I write about one of the most forbidden of all human actions. Because I don’t understand it.
When I was in college, I majored in Russian Studies. It was during the Cold War and I thought that, if you truly understand why a person does something, it helps your relationship. I still think that. I think open communication can solve lots of problems.
Another of my beliefs is that people do what they think they should, or sometimes, what they think they have to. I don’t think anyone wakes up every day and decides to be a bad person, to do bad things. They get put into a situation where they can’t see anything else to do. Of course, very bad decisions often have put them into that situation!
So, to understand why a person would get into the situation where he felt that the only action left was murder, I write about it. I try to write about people who are compelled to kill, who are left with no recourse, or are driven to it. (I’m leaving sociopaths out of this discussion, although I do write them sometimes. I don’t know why I do this!)
Most of us, most of the time, behave ourselves. But we all have our dark sides, don’t we? There’s a capability for doing awful things in each of us. That’s what I want to explore through my writing. And one of my answers to the darkness is light. I like to laugh–I think it’s physically beneficial to our bodies to laugh, the harder the better. Norman Cousins wrote a book about that, saying that laughter cured him of a serious illness (Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration, I think, although he wrote other similar books).
So I wrote a funny book about murder. What can I say? It’s my way of coping. That’s why I do what I do. But I’m still not there with understanding how a person can take another person’s life. Maybe I never will be all the way there.
Do any other writers want to weigh in on why you write about murder? Or readers–why you read about it? (I do that a lot too, of course.)
May 24, 2011
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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9 Responses
I laughingly tell people I write murder mysteries that happen at a small Midwestern university because it’s “very therapeutic.” That’s not so far from the truth. I spent 30+ years teaching and chairing a department. The fact that murder is rare on campuses amazes me still.
Nora, I’m likewise astounding people don’t go stark raving mad working in cubicles. I did kill someone for being a poor cube neighbor. That’s the advantage of being a mystery writer!
I think I enjoy the WhoDunIt factor — as a reader and a writer. People are such interesting and complex creatures!
~ Krista
Somewhere I read that mysteries give you justice whereas in the real world too often there isn’t any. I think that is one reason for me.
Kaye, I just have to say that I’m glad folks like you do want to write mysteries so the rest of us have something good to read—and, by the way, I love the cover of CHOKE
Come back soon, please!
Thanks so much for having me, Lelia! And for the good comments! Didn’t the publisher do such a good job on the cover? Thanks, Mainly Murder Press.
We do what we love. A mystery is a puzzle, and I love puzzles. Every mystery is a riddle that must be solved. I think what did it for me was having to research a hundred year old unsolved crime.
I agree with J. P. Many of us love figuring out puzzles and mystery novels are interesting puzzles. The protagonist in my Kim Reynolds series is an academic librarian who compares reference work to detection. One is given a series of clues and must find the solution or answer to the question/crime.
Jacqueline Seewald
THE TRUTH SLEUTH–new release from Five Star/Gale
It’s fascinating to hear your analysis of your motivations, Kaye (usually we deal with the killer’s motives
and those of others in the comments. I think I write crime fiction because it rights a disordered world. Recently I read a review of Stuart O’Nan’s SONGS FOR THE MISSING in which a teenage girl vanishes. The reviewer complimented O’Nan for “avoiding the cheap pay off of a thriller”. For me it’s all about that so-called cheap pay off. In fact, I don’t think that finding out reasons–understanding, just as you say–is cheap at all.
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