Crossover mysteries - is kinky okay?!

[MarkEsq]

I see on the book shelves plenty of mysteries with themes, or MCs with specific jobs or hobbies - sewing, cooking, religious etc. How far can one push this idea before it dominates the novel and takes it out of the cozy category?

Here's why I'm asking: I wrote a cozy mystery that got some requests for partials and positive feedback, but no representation. My MC is an Englishman in Texas, a law professor who smokes a pipe. He's upper class, a little sarcastic and very intelligent. His sidekick is a New York chick, a former student who is extremely sarcastic and constantly picking on the MC, making fun of him for being a fuddy-duddy.

So one of the things I heard from a couple of agents was that my characters were not "quirky" enough.

And so here's what I was thinking: what if I raised the profile of the NY girl? What if I made a her dominatrix in her spare time and the MC (still otherwise as I have him) a client? Is that too far out??? I imagine keeping the tone light, humorous and not be graphic at all. Thoughts?

[Clair Dickson]

I'm not sure kinky is the answer to quirky...

Why go so extreme? She could just be really open about her sexuality.

And I think I'd look at how the other characters are portrayed as well. Is it the main characters that aren't quirky (or real) enough of is it that the other characters seem flat, espcially when compared to the MCs?

[Gillhoughly]

In the mystery genre the readers are specific about their likes. Cozy readers want a safe environment with familiar icons in it.

A sidekick who's a dom is pushing it. Ditto for your detective going to her. It also reinforces the stereotype that all Brits are sexual kinks. Maybe they are, but benefit of a doubt and all that. (And no I'm not saying this is a kinky thing in these politically correct days, but much of your potential readership might.)

You can keep it humorous--points to you if you manage that!--but if you intend an open-ended series, that's going to be hard to maintain as the characters grow and develop.

It will also be a hard sell. An editor might take a chance on it, but they know their readers, and most will not.

Perhaps your first choice for "quirky" should be to find something other than a sexual quirk to fill out your menu.

Speaking as a fuddy-duddy in training, I question why he would put up with what sounds to be a horribly unpleasant person. Getting sexual gratification from a woman is as good a reason as any for some men to put up with put-downs and sarcasm, but take sex out of the picture and you've got an unbelievable situation.

If your she was a he, and your detective straight, would he tolerate such obnoxious behavior from a male helper?

Swap genders. If your detective was female and the uber-sarcastic one delivering put-downs male, you'd have feminist groups picketing your office if not burning your books.

Perhaps some more beta readers are needed to pinpoint what the problem is.

A good mystery detective should be someone a reader can admire and aspire to be like. We would all love to be Sherlock Holmes, but Holmes was not so nice, being a rude, messy drug addict with few social skills. Watson was a likable fellow who made Holmes likable to others.

A mildly sarcastic pipe-smoking professor is one thing, but having him going to a dominatrix will squick most cozy readers out. There are plenty of fuddy-duddy readers who will lose respect for him, and you can't have that for a hero.

If you want to keep the characters as-is, I would suggest he not be the girl's customer. To him it can be just a job that he's aware of and separate from whatever partnership they form to solve crimes.

I can give you a safe quirk: he can be addicted to Scooby-Doo cartoons. I had a roomie for a time who was a bi-sexual escort when he wasn't bartending, and was as obnoxious as they come--just not to me, he was smart enough not to do that--and he could not get enough of Scooby and the gang.

Your professor can draw parallels between his cases and Scooby mysteries the way Remington Steele did between his cases and his beloved movies. (There's a good quirk.)

Quirky on TV: Monk, House (He's Sherlock Holmes with a drug addiction, a medical degree and Watson's limp), Columbo (just one more thing...), there are more, but I have to write today.

You might want to read this book by Delores French (http://www.amazon.com/Working-My-Life-As-Prostitute/dp/0575602368)as it has a chapter on her turn as a dom. It's pretty funny, but you get the vibe that she had a touch of contempt for the clients.

A sidekick as sarcastic as you say would also very likely have contempt for the professor, not be able to resist putting him down for it--their "sessions" bleeding into daily life--and she'd have a lot of blackmail material!

An alternative job for her could be as a stripper, but research that before taking the leap. It's not the cleaned up stuff we see on cop shows; they have to deal with sleazy drunks, addicts, bouncers, late hours, and a short shelf life going from club to club.

One of my writer buds sold a cozy that had murder at a strip club. She interviewed several real-life strippers and noticed a common thread of hating men in many of them. They were often alcoholics, chain smokers and/or drug addicts. They'd been victims of abuse and battering from the men in their pasts. One had a strong wish to beat her father to death. Not too cozy!

Those cozy detectives with their quirks, including cats, gardening, cooking, knitting, are mainstay reading for grannies wanting a safe morality play. If they want sex in the mix they'll pick up a hard-boiled or a thriller or cross the aisle for a romance!

You might want to read these two books by Dilys Winn.
Murder Ink; Murderess Ink. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Dilys%20Winn)

They should be in the library, or you can interlibrary loan them. They taught me much about the genre.

Good luck! http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Captain Howdy]

I think you might be on the right track, but Dominatrix and client sounds a little cliched to me. If you are really writing a cozy i would think any show of sexuality won't sell to readers of cozys, but if you want to steer your book toward the quirky market, I'd say keep the sexual angle strictly for the girl. It could be fun to see what sort of "scene" she is into this week.

btw, I do remember reading a Robert Barnard mystery years ago that involved someone being done in while they were done up in a strapedo...did I spell it right? As far as I can recall it was pretty tame and cozy, but I guess the point is, it CAN be done.

here's another tangent...I also remember a shortlived mystery series by Michael McDowell writing as Nathan Aldyne where the detectives were a Fire Island style gay male and his fag hag who's boobs were so big they usually entered a room before she did. There's a real knee slapper for you :)

[BfloGal]

His sidekick is a New York chick, a former student who is extremely sarcastic and constantly picking on the MC, making fun of him for being a fuddy-duddy.

So one of the things I heard from a couple of agents was that my characters were not "quirky" enough.



Your one-sentence description of the woman reminds me of Sharona, the original sidekick from the series Monk, except that she was from New Jersey. Her back story revealed that she had been an exotic dancer and had once posed for nude photos. (Of course it's hard to tell from a sentence.)

I like a good cozy, but I am a little put off by the current trend of excessive quirkiness. Many of the characters from recent cozies appear almost cartoonish to me, and the mysteries have fallen in quality. I'm hoping the pendulum swings back the other way.

But as a cozy reader, I probably would not be interested in the dominatrix angle. I'd also need a compelling reason why this sarcastic woman is hanging around this guy of whom she is so openly derisive.

Could increased interest in the sidekick come from her past? Does this woman have an ex? Has she run into trouble with the law? Is she a sucker for a get-rich scheme? Is she superstitious? Has she been through any trauma?

Oh, and I think the idea of the detective being a Scooby Doo fan is kind of cute. It would get a smile from me. Especially if he wears Scooby jammies.

[leon66a]

It seems to me that your quirks are mostly verbal. I think a lot of the successful quirks are more action oriented. It's easier to build a story around. A dominatrix angle it seems to me would be mostly limited to their relationship and somewhat difficult to incorporate into the rest of the characters.

I have found an unusual incompetence in a certain area most people are reasonably proficient in to be good, easily written quirks. People, I think, are especially interested in intelligent people that struggle at ordinary tasks.

[Melenka]

If you've put a New Yorker in Texas, the quirks can be cultural - the constant search for a good bagel or real cheesecake (impossible to find), yelling at people from your car (forgetting lots of them are armed as a matter of course), colorful hand gestures, etc. Check out the web site Overheard in NY for speech patterns.

Professors put up with people who annoy the crap out of them all the time. It doesn't have to mean he's stuffy, just restrained. His sidekick pushing him to the point where he unleashes both his intellect and potential for cutting remarks that only people in polite society can make would be delicious. And the reason he puts up with her can be something as simple as her having a skill set or flashes of insight that he doesn't. You want him to have a quirk? Insist that he take tea every day, no matter what, or change his clothes for dinner. Or won't allow any discussion of business during a soccer match - even if that match is taking place at a bar where they went to do business.

If you're going to wrike BDSM, I hope you know what you're talking about. That community is rather sensitive to the way they are portrayed. You may be able to get a professional to talk to you, but I would strongly suggest offering to pay him/her for the time they take to explain things to you. For internet research, Mistress Matisse has a good site, though she specifically states that she will not teach anyone anything. The vibe and pictures are enough, trust me. Her writing is quite good, but some research I should have avoided...