Wed 26 May 2010
On her blog, author Jane Haddam takes issue with my review of her book Cheating at Solitaire here on this one. She’s certainly right to take issue. Overall I didn’t find the book particularly rewarding, and I tried to explain why.
I did end the review on a positive note by suggesting that “…values are the key to Cheating at Solitaire — hometown values, small town values, I don’t believe it matters either way. Maybe they’re even universal values and and maybe this is why readers keep coming back for more.”
Earlier on, though, I expressed my displeasure with the lack of actual detection that went on in what I assumed to be a book about a detective, ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, the leading character in most if not all of the author’s books. I had to conclude that solving a mystery, the undoing of a puzzle plot, was not one of the reasons readers keep coming back for more of his adventures.
Nor does Jane Haddam deny it. Quoting here and there from her comments, and you can go read them in full to fill in any blanks I’ve omitted, she says:
“But even so, even most plot-besotted readers should have noticed by now that there really isn’t anything new in the way of plot out there, and hasn’t been for years. There isn’t much new in the way of detection, either. I’ve been watching my way through four and a half seasons of the old Perry Mason, and I can see the plots coming down the pike as predictably as summer follows spring.
[…]
“I guess what I’m saying here is that I can’t imagine reading a mystery for the plot, and I really have no particular use for reading one for the continuing characters, who are either going to be boring as hell in no time at all or are going to have the kind of overwrought lives that make Dark Shadows look like a children’s story.
“Apparently, however, a lot of people out there are innocent of the idea that you might want to read mystery fiction for any other reason.”
So there we are, miles apart. Miles. (But you might also want to read my second paragraph above again.)
May 26th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
“…I can’t imagine reading a mystery for the plot …”
Much as I respect Ms Haddam for her success and her devotion to her fans, that statement does sort of floor me. If she had said she couldn’t imagine reading a mystery “only” for plot I would have applauded, but the idea that plot has no place …
And then she can’t imagine reading them for the continuing characters either …
Well, at least it explains why I could never get into her books and series. We are at loggerheads on the fundamental reasons for reading mysteries. Not that either of us is ‘right’, but we certainly think differently.
The plot is only one element of why I read mystery, but a really good one can certainly improve my enjoyment, and series characters are always an attraction for me — can’t say I ever read a Rex Stout because the suspects held my interest.
But it’s nice to see the subject debated, and nice to see a writer who cares enough to respond even if you don’t agree with her.
May 26th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
What I can’t understand is why one would write MYSTERY novels if one doesn’t care at all about plotting. Mysteries are all about plot, it would seem to me (there has to be, by definition, a mystery to be solved). At a very basic level, you want to know “whodunit?” in a mystery. If the book has good writing, developed characters, effective setting, etc., that’s all to the good, but there needs to be a decent plot too. If all the mystery plots are used and there is nothing else to plot, then we really just have characters standing around talking to each other for 350 pages. That’s okay, but then why call it a mystery then?
Of course, this is a bunch of darned men talking here, but I’m currently reading a Ruth Rendell, The Babes in the Wood, and, while the characters are okay and it’s nice to read about Wexford again, I’m mostly interested in finding out what happened to the missing woman and the two children. Plot again! And it’s the same in Rendell’s “psychological” books. I want to know what happens, how the mysterious events work themselves out over the course of the book.
Whether it’s a detective novel or a more loosely structured “mystery” or a thriller, I want an interesting plot.
May 27th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Tons of women mystery writers have been brilliant plotters, from Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers to today.
The author’s comments absolutely floored me.
Traditionally, mysteries before 1970 tried to be “ingenious mystery plots wrapped up in good storytelling”.
I have repeatedly been confused by modern mysteries. When reading them, have often been baffled by such questions as “What are this book’s goals? What is the author trying to accomplish? Why was this book written?” The author often seems not to have an interest in plot, or saying anything new, or anything I can put a finger on.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:27 am
I can see one saying one isn’t really interested in the mechanics of clueing and detection (though I am myself), but to say one isn’t interested in PLOT in a mystery–I don’t see that. Maybe we the two sites are not in sync on what is meant by “plot”?
May 27th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Curt
Mike
I take it by plot she means the actual mystery itself — why the crime was committed and how the detection is accomplished — especially since she refers to Perry Mason on television as her example.
First, I would never use a television series as a basis to describe the use of plot in print fiction. The demands of the media are totally different.
But I’ve read good mysteries and series where plot was not the writers first concern — it could be argued than Chandler was far more interested in Marlowe’s voice and reactions than those complex plots of his, and that his fans read them for that and not plot. Cleve Adams was so disinterested in plot that he regularly borrowed them (sometimes more than once). Ross Macdonald tended to repeat the same theme and general plot as an excuse for Archer’s observation of people and society. Simenon’s plots are mostly an excuse for Maigret to observe, react, and muse on his world and in the non series novels to expose the psychological underpinnings of his characters under stress.
Still, if you are going to take the plot element out of it I’m not sure why you are writing a mystery, and if you aren’t interested in continuing characters why create one?
According to what Haddam says here I’m not sure why she isn’t writing mainstream fiction where the demands of plot aren’t as vital. By it’s very nature, even in Chandler, at some level plot is vital to all genre fiction because the reader is usually reading the book to discover the solution or the resolution — even if only how it effects the characters in the book. The very term ‘page turner’ implies the reader wants to know what happens next.
When critics say a mainstream novel reads like a “detective story” it is almost always a compliment and almost always refers to plot.
I would agree with her that there are only so many plots out there, but there are endless variations on them from clever writers and it is possible to find a middle way between plot heavy writers and character driven ones. Few writers today are really working in the classical tradition of plot heavy mystery, but most of them are well aware of the needs of plot in relation to the genre.
I’m not a cozy fan, but I don’t look down on them. I understand many readers who enjoy them are less interested in the mystery, but the background, the milieu, the details of everything but the mystery itself (though I would argue what happens in any book and how the story unfolds is plot — even FINNEGAN’ WAKE has a plot in that sense — just don’t ask me what it is).
Still, I’m intrigued by what Haddam says, because I cant quite figure out what she means. The closest I can figure it out, and based on the one or two of her books I read, I assume she means she is more interested in character driven stories and creating and observing new characters under stress in each book, but character driven plot is nothing new in the genre — in fact it is the basis of most suspense and noir fiction as well as more domestic fiction.
Still, I’d be interested to know who her favorite mystery writers were and why she chose the mystery form if she has so little interest in plot.
And I know she writes for a primarily female audience, but going back and reading Steve’s original review I can’t see that he was stating a particularly male prejudice, and cozies get reviewed here favorably all the time despite the largely male nature of the bloggers. In fact I thought his mention of her values oriented fiction was a real attempt to explain her appeal to her readers.
If she really doesn’t care about plot and continuing characters then nothing Steve wrote should bother her. You really can’t take offense when a critic gives you credit for what you do, and only points out that isn’t what he reads for.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Right after I wrote this post on my blog, I left a comment on Jane Haddam’s, inviting her and her readers to stop over to see my reply.
It takes some effort to leave a comment there, as you have to take the time to register first, and then she has to approve it before it shows up online.
So far, nearly a day later, the comment I left is still waiting moderation. I can see it but no one else can.
She and I (and by extension, David, you, Curt and Mike) seem to have quite different meanings in mind when we use the word “plot,” and so I’m hopeful she’ll decide to continue the discussion.
— Steve
May 27th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
My comment can now be seen on her blog.
— Steve
May 27th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
My web site keeps track of my picks for best detective short stories of the year:
http://mikegrost.com/zbest.htm
These are all traditional mystery tales, with a sleuth solving a mystery, usually with strong plotting.
Looking at contemporary writers, from 2005-2010, the breakdown is:
39 male writers
23 female writers
3 whose gender isn’t clear from their names (S. L. Franklin, Mithran Somasundrum, Lou Manfredo).
This doesn’t support an idea that women have no interest in mystery plotting.
May 27th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
And her response is here:
http://blog.janehaddam.com/2010/05/27/whining-in-theory/
I’m still working my way through it, but besides our differences regarding the word “plot,” I seem to have stepped into something when I made the suggestion that part of the appeal of Ms Haddam’s books that that of home town values.
She says:
“Hometown values? REALLY? I’d rather drink hemlock.
“Aristotle, yes. But death before Sarah Palin.”
Once more I’m floored. What on earth do hometown values have to do with Sarah Palin?
Forgive me, anyone, if you’re a fan of hers, but I do not believe that Sarah Palin has any values at all, except avarice and greed and a thirst for power.
When I spoke of hometown values in regards to the Demarkian books, I was referring to his home life, his community of family and friends, the mutual love affair between Bennis and him; and in particular, in the book I reviewed, the loathing expressed toward such popular culture creatures as Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Spears.
After pointing out that there really was no detective work that took place in the book, but faced with the question of what made her books about Demarkian so popular, I came to the conclusion that it was a matter of “values,” and even though to this point she takes exception to what I said, I still think so.
Once we each come to terms about what the other means by values, I’d like to think she might even agree with me.
If you’ve come here via Jane Haddam’s blog, welcome. Feel free to join in the discussion here as well as over there.
— Steve
May 27th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Steve
It seems likely she has ‘agreed to disagree’ with you whatever the subject. I didn’t take your mention of hometown values to in anyway refer to Tea Party politics but simply to the values of community and traditional life — Democrat or Republican. I guess you were thinking Mayberry and she was thinking home grown militia.
However, if she thought you were identifying her as a Palin fan maybe she is right to be upset.
I hope some of her fans do speak up. I’d like to know what they enjoy about her books and who else they read regularly. I can’t help but think those simple domestic old fashioned virtues of community and caring would be part of it.
I don’t think I would ever relate hometown values to Sarah Palin, more homegrown hypocrisy.
May 27th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
David, I was actually surprised how well-plotted I found Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window and The Lady in the Lake are (The Big Sleep lives up to its notorious reputation as highly confusing, however). I got enjoyment out of the plots, although of course much of the fun is the characters and the splendid narration. Chandler complained about it, but he obviously felt he had to conform to that norm to some extent. I bought a Cleve Adams a while back, have not read.
Speaking for myself, I do like a mystery novel to have an interesting plot. If I find I have no interest at all in the whodunit or howdunit or whydunit questions, my interest tends to drift. I’m not sure I’ve read a mystery that had such strong pure literary elements that they compensated for a totally unengaging mystery.
Still, the division of mystery readers into camps, plot-oriented men and character-oriented women doesn’t quite work for me. The rise of the hardboiled was often seen as the triumph of pure action of plotting (the famous line about when you’re stumped, throw in a man with a gun). Women readers at the same time were shifting away from detection more to “psychological suspense” but psychological suspense was still plot-oriented (look at Margaret Millar or Celia Fremlin). So you could have made the argument at that time that it was women who were more plot oriented.
Now, I do think it’s probably true that more mechanically oriented writers, like Freeman and Rhode and Crofts and even John Dickson Carr, with his locked rooms, have traditionally appealed more to men. But fans of those writers hardly predominate even among men today (sadly)!
It sounds like Haddam doesn’t like being associated with the “cozy” school! For some “cozy” is meant as a pejorative. As for the whole Palin thing, I don’t get the impression that cozies are associated with one ideological school or the other necessarily. It’s perfectly possible to have a “liberal” cozy (one where, say, offshore drilling is portrayed negatively). I guess the rap from some on cozies is that they fly from the seamy aspects of life, but I don’t see what’s wrong with having a branch of the field that is somewhat gentler in its handling of crime.
May 27th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
To Mike Grost, back up in Comment #8, in which you refer to your annual lists of Best Detective Stories in terms of short fiction.
For the year 2008, you list almost twice as many (around 30) as you do for 2009 (about 15).
Does this indicate a trend (drastically downward) or is it more of a side effect of your having not yet read all of possible candidates for 2009?
May 27th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
David
You’re right. Jane Haddam and I are also in a disagreement about what a cozy novel is.
She says “…because a cozy is essentially a book about the community in which the detective is embedded–which is what, I think, the original review thought I was doing with Gregor Demarkian.”
I don’t think that anyone else considers that a working definition of a cozy, since who does it let in? Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and almost every detective I can think of. They all work out of their own cities and neighborhoods, and their attitudes and the ways they approach crime are influenced by where they live, work and breathe.
Nor have I called her books cozies, although perhaps I came close, and maybe we’re closer on our definition than I suggested above.
Quoting from my original review: “Are the books what are commonly referred to in the vernacular as cozies? Not really, although some of early parts of this particular adventure takes place in Demarkian’s boyhood Armenian neighborhood in Philadelphia…”
Whether she likes it or not, whether her books are cozies or not, whether her books have plots or not (I think they do, but the puzzles in her plots are weak, and perhaps by plot she means puzzle) I really do think her books are about values. I also have an idea that she and I just might happen to agree about them more often than she thinks.
— Steve
May 27th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Steve,
The very sad passing of the great Edward D. Hoch in 2008 removed a major source of great mystery tales. The pre-2008 lists have up to six tales each year by Hoch.
Plus I have not explored any 2009 anthologies yet – they tend to take a long time to reach paperback.
There might be other factors, too.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I see in her further comments Haddam is distinguishing between “plot” and “story.” I’d be interested in an expanded discussion of this terminology.
I think going back to the Golden Age, there generally were recognized three types of “mystery” novel: the detective novel, which was puzzle based (clues were provided enabling the reader to try to solve the mystery himself through a ratiocinative process); the thriller, an exciting account of criminal activity that made no pretense of offering a solvable puzzle; the “mystery”, which had the surface appearance of being a detective novel, but didn’t really “play fair” with the reader.
Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd would be your classic detective novel, of course. Something by Edgar Wallace or Sapper or Sax Rohmer would be your classical thriller. Rinehart and Eberhart often wrote books that were more loosely plotted “mystery.”
Then you had the development of the crime novel, which put more emphasis on psychology. Often you knew who the killer was and the interest was in seeing whether/how he was caught (Malice Aforethought), By the 1950s this was often being called “psychological suspense.”
Now all these forms vary in their commitment to a solvable, formal murder “puzzle” (some dispense with puzzle entirely) but they all have mystery plots of some sort I would say.
In a classic Christie detective novel, you’re trying to to actually solve the murder mystery yourself; the clues are provided for you to do so if you are clever enough. In a thriller by Edgar Wallace, say, you might be trying to figure out who the criminal mastermind is or just what his gang is up to. In a Rinehart or Eberhart, you want to know who the murderer is, though you may be given no chance by the author of really deducing the solution yourself and thus you have to wait for the author to hand you the great revelation.
In a crime novel, you might be wondering, who will be killed, what is driving the murderer, will he be caught. I mentioned Ruth Rendell above. Well, the Wexfords of course are in the traditional detective novel mode, more or less. But even many of the more psychological Rendells and the Barbara Vines are complexly plotted. People who read A Dark Adapted Eye, for example, are endlessly teased with the question of who did what to whom. Anyone who starts that book will finish it in a day if she can, because she will want know how it all works out!
It just seems to me that a great attraction of this form of literature for people has to be “plot” (in the cruder thrillers it may just be “event”).
May 27th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Steve
Actually I didn’t think of the books of cozies in the sense of many series that fall in that category (cats, antiques, etc.), but after reading a few I began to think of them in those terms only because of the emphasis on elements of community, even when the hero is an outsider.
True, many writers who aren’t the least cozy are strongly oriented to community. We think in terms of Maigret’s Paris for instance, and K.C. Constatine’s Mario Balzac series is certainly about community and not cozy in any sense, but cozies tend to be oriented to a particular view of community that is more domestic than Maigret or Balzac.
But cozies are about community in a particular way, with the emphasis on the relationship between individuals and the way they support and care for each other, and those simple values that relate to that.
I don’t (and I don’t think you do either) use the term cozy as a pejorative. I simply mean a book whose emphasis is on intimate (non sexual usually) relationships between individuals in a community, usually, though not always, involving more domestic issues and themes. In one sense folksy would be as good a term as cozy.
The Rabbi Small mysteries fall into the category, but so do Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax books that get around all over the world. Cozies cover a good deal of ground and aren’t just about little old ladies knitting and solving mysteries with their cats. I’ve even read a few that involved a private eye or cop or in one book a child sleuth. It is less subject matter than the approach to it whether dramatic, humorous, or even a bit scary.
But by and large if I had to categorize Haddam’s books I would lean toward calling them cozies in a broad sense with the caveat that I don’t mean she is writing about cats or antiques or nosy neighbors with a taste for crime. I would call M. K. Wren’s Conan Flagg books cozies too based on subject matter and execution.
From her mention of the Perry Mason series I assumed by ‘plot’ she was referring to the puzzle or detective element, and I grant that good mysteries don’t always have to involve complex Christie like plots. I enjoy a good puzzle story with solid detection, but I’ve read books where those elements take a back seat to character, observation, and other elements with equal pleasure.
I suppose it comes down to my not seeing how Gregor Demarkian can be defined as a great detective since he doesn’t do much actual detective work. I think that was your original complaint, and I think it is a genuine one in relation to a mystery. If you read a western where the hero never left his job as a butcher in New York you would have a legitimate question as to why it was a western. There is crime in Haddam’s books, but her hero doesn’t actually solve them so much as observe the solution.
When you call a character a detective the reader has a right to expect he will do a little detective work in relation to a mystery even if that isn’t the author’s primary concern. I think that’s all either of us had to say originally. Maybe that is a male complaint — but then last time I looked we were males and nothing on the cover of the Haddam books said anything about men not reading them.
Curt
I don’t find Chandler’s plots so awful either, but only meant that few people read him for the plot save to the extent the plot allows Marlowe to comment on it.
I think you’ll like Cleve Adams, but he freely admitted to ‘borrowing’ other writers plots — he was really attached to Hammett’s RED HARVEST.
And I agree too there is nothing inherently politically conservative about cozies.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
David,
I think Simenon gets pretty close to the “plotless” idea, yet even there there are mystery plots (in the Maigrets). There is a murder and there is a solution. The Ross Macdonalds often are complexly plotted, with involuted family relationships, false identities, etc.
Now are there crime writers interested in other things besides the mystery plot? Obviously. Simenon and Macdonald, for example! Yet they kept writing in a plot-oriented genre. Plot at some level must have still drawn them. It just seems to me if the books is a “mystery” there must be a “plot.” It was often stated back in the Golden Age that mystery had become so popular precisely because the modern novel had abandoned plot and people were resorting to the mystery novel to get it (you read a Chekhov story and, lo and behold, there really often is little plot there).
May 27th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Curt
And even Chekhov wrote a mystery — his only novel, and a pretty good one, THE SHOOTING PARTY (filmed by Douglas Sirk as SUMMER STORM). But plot certainly has always been part of the appeal not just of mysteries, but all genre fiction.
May 28th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Today on her blog Jane Haddam explains, with examples, what she means by plot and what she means by story.
http://blog.janehaddam.com/2010/05/28/kisses-sweeter-than-whine/
May 28th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
I finished Ruth Rendell’s The Babes in the Wood and I have to say the great Queen of Crime nodded this time. Very meandering “plot” (and story for that matter). And if characterization, excellent writing and setting can offer a fully sufficient substitute for “plot,” they didn’t in this case. The writing was bland, the characters unmemorable and the setting…mainly wet.
May 28th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Hi.
I take it that this is Netiquette I was unaware of, so I apologize for it taking so long.
But I’ve published a reply to some of the above on my blog this morning.
That’s at
http://blog.janehaddam.com
mostly on the subject of why write mysteries, and what there is when you’re not looking at plot.
I’ll probably do more during the week-end.
I’d like to say that this entire experience has been really nice. Some of the comments here have helped me understand something I never did understand before, and that’s always helpful.
Hope everybody has a good week-end.
I’ll try to get to Sarah Palin sometime soon–but I tend to froth at the mouth when I start, so I stay off her as much as I can.
I’m usually a fairly calm person. Sort of.
May 28th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Hi Jane
And thanks for stopping by. We’re all mystery lovers here, but we still manage somehow to find a lot to talk about between ourselves and argue over, sometimes heatedly, but never in less than friendly fashion, I hope!
And if we don’t learn anything from each other, it’s a waste of time.
All the best
Steve
May 29th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Okay, a couple of things. And I apologize up front for the spelling, but my allergies are going nuts and I took some Benadryl. So the field to type in is a little fuzzy.
1) First, by “hometown values” I definitely inferred Mayberry. And I mentioned Sarah Palin because her entire damned campaign consisted of her running around talking about how she was speaking for “real Americans” instead of “liberal elites.”
That whole thing drives me straight up a wall. I’ve got very little use for that whole Mayberry, gee-shucks we’re all just folks here thing.
I’m an urban animal, and always have been. I’ve got the kind of academic background that has people like SP screaming about “elites who look down on everybody,” not because I do look down on everybody but because one factor in “hometown values” is resentment of anybody, anywhere, who wants to accomplish more in life than just being “regular people.”
You want to get a graduate degree, publish a book, move to New York, not change your name when you get married?
Who do you think you are!
No, really. You don’t want to get me started on this one.
Or, you know, maybe you do. I’m told I can get fairly amusing when I really get going.
2) I agree that the kind of thing I write has been with us since the beginning of the genre–in fact, I said so, in my first blog post over there.
That was MY point–since there have always been novels in the mystery field with the kind of focus I use, it shouldn’t be such a surprise that I’m using it.
3) I am not attracted to books by plot. I barely notice it. And I’m not alone. Of those readers who posted after my first post about Steve’s original review, most of the said that they’re interested in what I’m interested in–the characters and stories of the suspects, seen through a natural pressure period (which is what a crime and its resolution are).
There are lots of readers out there like me. Story, yes. Plot, not so much. They keep a fair number of mystery writers going, lots of them considerably more famous than I am.
4) Yes, certainly, there are many women who are good at writing plot. My comment about men was an observation–by and large, women readers tend to be less interested in plot than male readers do, and whenever I find somebody driven to distraction by a book that doesn’t concentrate on plot, at least up to now, they’ve always been male.
Of course, men read my books, too, and not just gay men and metrosexuals. So there’s that.
5) I have never written a cozy.
First, cozy has a definition with rather strict guidelines, at least IN the publishing industry, which is why book clubs like the Literary Guild are careful to put warnings about things like graphic sex, graphic violence or “bad language” in their catalogues.
Cozies are generally cutesy, light fluff–and yes, I do think the term is a pejorative, and has always been meant to be. It’s certainly a pejorative in most print media reviews.
But mostly, a cozy requires: no graphic sex (I had two people screwing on a kitchen counter in one Gregor with a complete play by play), no graphic violence (lots of that in mine), no harm to pets (Gregor once investigated the evisceration of a dog in a garage); no religion or politics (you’d have to dump half the series).
I would say a cozy is a mystery that takes place in a community of silly, offbeat people with broad characterizations played for laughs, lots of exaggerated cute situations, and requires no more mental effort than it would take to…watch the old Andy Griffith Show.
Except the old Andy Griffth Show was a lot better written.
6) I was never particularly upset by Steve’s review. A little exasperated, but not upset.
It takes certain kinds of things to get me upset. People who proudly proclaim “hometown vales” as desribed above, for instance.
7) As to moderation on my blog–there actually isn’t any. The program automatically holds the first post by anybody new and sometimes holds posts with URLs in them.
Then it’s supposed to send me a message saying I should go look at it all, but it sometimes doesn’t. So I didn’t know Steve’s posts were there until I read about them here.
Anyway, once the program no longer responds to a poster by (figuratively) screaming, “it’s something new! we’re being attacked,” it just lets stuff on through.
I need to go to sleep now. I think I’m falling over.
May 29th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Hi Jane
There are home towns and there other home towns. Mine was a small town of about 10,000 people in the upper portion of lower Michigan.
It was nothing like Mayberry, and I don’t know if there ever was a town like Mayberry, which was OK to visit every once in a while, but like you, I don’t think I’d care to live there.
See Comment #9 for my take on Sarah Palin. I do not believe more need be said by me about that!
As for the question of plot-driven mysteries vs those centered on characters, I posted an essay by Bill Pronzini about this a couple of years back. I’m kicking myself for not bringing it up before, but he’s agreed to let me repost it, which I will and very shortly.
And thanks to all who’ve left comments. This discussion has been very helpful, I think. It has for me, speaking only for myself. We’ve been stuck getting around each others’ words and what we mean by them: plots, cozies, hometown values — and I have a feeling that we haven’t been all that far apart after all.
— Steve
May 29th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Here’s the link to Bill Pronzini’s essay, just so you don’t have to go hunting all over for it:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=2078
May 31st, 2010 at 7:32 am
Okay. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here, but–my response to why write mysteries and not mainstream fiction, given what I like to read and write, is number four in today’s post here
http://blog.janehaddam.com
May 31st, 2010 at 7:33 am
Oh, and one more thing–there’s also a thing on there about why I think Bill Pronzini’s categories do NOT fit either what I do or what somebody like, say, P.D. James or Frances Fyfield does. I think that’s number two, but I’m not sure.
May 31st, 2010 at 11:08 am
Most definitely the right thing!
A more precise URL is
http://blog.janehaddam.com/2010/05/31/whine-country/
It will get you to the exact post, not just Jane’s blog.
And for anybody who’s worked their way through all of these comments, you can’t stop now. Go check it out.
Thanks once again, Jane, for your part in the very interesting discussion and exchange that’s been going on between our two blogs these past few days.