 Mystery: May 06, 2009 Issue [#3041] |
  Mystery
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream
Edgar Alan Poe
"Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy, Cervantes, Turgenev, the authors of books of the Old Testament, all confined themselves to regions, great or small - but are they regional? Then who from the start of time has not been so?"
Eudora Welty
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Greetings, mysteries are simple. There’s this puzzle your reader must solve. You plant clues in verse or prose to lead or mislead your dedicated reader along the way to the believable solution that solves the puzzle and ties up loose ends. Simple, right
Mysteries are complex! The solution to the puzzle may be obvious or obscure, clues may be elusive and the puzzle itself may confound the erstwhile reader along the way to the resolution that changes the sleuth and delights your reader. The fun of it is in the journey, the means by which your sleuth and reader, immersed in the surroundings you’ve created for them, find and solve the clues in order to solve the puzzle. Or, it’s not knowing that Colonel Mustard did it with the candlestick in the conservatory (from 'Clue,' the game), but the means by which you challenge your sleuth and reader to deduce and then prove this as the one logical and viable solution.
Mysteries, because of their versatility, have grown in appeal and popularity over time, and the demographic of readers, and puzzle-masters (writers), has taken the mystery from its hard-boiled urban mean streets (where it still resides and grows) into the burbs and countryside, across seas, and mountains and fjords – you get the picture. Some marketers and editors have coined the phrase ‘regional writers’ or ‘ethnic mysteries’ to denote those which have migrated outside the hard-boiled urban mean streets.
But think about it; aren’t all mysteries regional? Whether that region be the inner city or isolated mountain range, hidden Druid cave or Papal conclave, they each allow the writer to take his/her reader on a journey through those environs in order to find clues and solve the puzzle.
Let’s go with the editors’ classification of ‘regional mysteries.’ How are they distinct from noir or classic mysteries? Consider Tony Hillerman’s mysteries set in the Navaho country and Nevada Barr in U.S. National Parks. Also, what of V.I. Warchowski’s ethnic immersion in Chicago and Marcia Muller’s environmental focus in California? What sets these writers’ mysteries into a distinct ‘category.’
What I see is that the mysteries each of these writers weaves focus on the setting as a character – either benevolent or antagonistic. The environs, ethnicity, group ideals of a community appear as a character or underlying heartbeat to the story itself, central to the puzzle. They proffer clues to the culture, mores, belief systems, ethnic identity, which are central to the puzzle, and often challenge or mirror the reader's own virtues and failures.
To keep the focus on the puzzle, however, and not become a social treatise or essay on mores or religion or the environment, the mystery writer engages the sentient characters – and reader- actively, not passively.
 Movement of your character through a scene – engage the environment, topography, architecture using the senses. What if your character arrives at a snake-handler’s meeting hall deep in the Appalachian foothills, enters through the open door, and a sudden crack of lightning cuts the power. What does he hear or see or smell right away? What does he perceive as he encounters other persons? Amphibians? A storm that rattles the timbers and drives piercing hail through holes in the old log cabin? Engage your character with the character of the setting. Perhaps your character could “hear death’s rattle among the teeming multitude of snakes newly freed, no longer subject to manufactured electricity or caged cold metal bars.”
Show what your character feels at the encounter, how it affects him. Does it frighten and, if so, how does he interact with the scene, culture; and how does it change him or affect his quest. Does the encounter give him pain, pleasure, recognition? The possibilities are as many as the writers to envision them - show the reaction and interaction, in concert with the puzzle - whether true or false 'clue.'
Engage the encounter from the character’s frame of reference. For example, although each may be bent on finding a camper who went missing, a forest ranger would perceive and react to an encounter with a bear in the woods differently than a weekend camper. Based on his level of experience and you, as writer’s knowledge of this, each would perceive differently the encounter itself and react accordingly. The ranger might notice the scent of fresh blood on the bear, while the camper would react first to the sheer size.
If you treat the encounter as with another character, giving life to the surroundings, it becomes a character either helpful or antagonistic. It comes to life in the pages of your novel or epic poem or short story and interacts with the sentient characters – and your readers. So, giving a personality to the environs of your mystery creates for your reader not merely additional clues to find and solve but another ‘character’ to engage, vital to solving the puzzle/mystery itself.
I guess this is what the editors mean when they say they seek a ‘regional mystery,’ and some specify the ‘region’ or subcategory religious, ethnic, or cultural. A puzzle that engages the sleuth – and reader – in its environs in order to find clues, wrap up loose ends, and arrive at a satisfying, believable solution. The writer causes these ‘characters’ to interact with the sleuth – and reader – to effect subtle or overt changes in his perception along the way, as would a sentient antagonist or fellow protagonist.
So, a ‘regional mystery’ isn’t limited to locale or scenic descriptions, and you don’t have to live there to write one. Research online, in libraries, travel guides, local churches, synagogues, museums, libraries, offers the means to answer your questions as you write, that you create a ‘region’ with depth of ‘character’ to actively engage your sleuth – and readers - throughout your story poetic or prosaic.
If you’ve a place or group or ideal that intrigues and excites your muse creative, introduce it into your puzzle and engage your sleuth – and readers – in a ‘regional mystery.’
Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate Kate - Writing & Reading
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Some intriguing adventures in mystery far and wide ~ enjoy the read and take a moment, perhaps to let the writers know how they've engaged you with their 'characters'
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And don't these challenges just incite the muse creative to pen a mystery?
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Thank you for this respite in your virtual abode. I hope you've enjoyed this exploration, perhaps incite the muse creative to engage such a puzzle
Until we next meet,
May your clues lead true your puzzles ^_^
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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