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CONFESSIONS OF A
RELUCTANT MURDERER
To murder or not to murder, that is the question…
‘I don't really like murdering people,’ I once said in a
public place when chatting to writer friends, startling innocent bystanders
unaware of our occupation.
Of course, I was speaking about murdering fictitious
characters in my books. In real life I find it hard to kill as much as a fly. This
may surprise you when you hear I’m an author of murder mystery novels.
Admittedly I write in the sanitised sub-genre of cosy mystery,
which lies at the upbeat end of the crime writing spectrum. Here, no gruesome
scenes are allowed, murders are mostly neat and tidy, and the stories won't put
you off your tea. My neatest fictional death to date was to shove someone down
a well, keeping his injuries entirely out of sight.
I'm not particularly squeamish, but I am sensitive and
suggestible. Watching anything violent on television gives me bad dreams. Knowing
my limits, I avoid what will upset me. My daughter was only about 12 when our
roles reversed when watching television. She had to tell me when it was safe to
uncover my eyes, rather than the other way around. She found it hilarious that
the BBC TV production of The War of the Worlds gave me such nightmares,
I had to stop watching after episode one.
WRITING BY NUMBERS?
Early on in my career as a crime writer, I read a craft book
that laid down a formula for the perfect mystery novel. ‘Writing by numbers’, I
call it. It insisted that every murder mystery requires two deaths, each at a
specific percentage point through the story. Crime writer Bryan Mason told me
the other day that if you’re writing about a serial killer, the minimum
headcount is three.
And here's me struggling to bump off just one victim per
book. I try to make the murder victims unlovable, but even then, I find it hard
to stomach their deaths. Each one is some mother’s son or daughter, I find
myself thinking, and that’s enough to make me want to stay my hand.
Sometimes I even allow
a stay of execution leading to a last-minute rescue. There's still plenty of page-turning
intrigue and tension, just as in those old black-and-white movies where the
heroine is tied to a railway line as a steam train approaches, to be rescued at
the last minute by the dashing hero.
My novels also include copious humour and sweet romantic
subplots to lift the mood.
NO SUCH THING
A few years ago, I was invited to do a book signing event at
Books on the Hill, the excellent independent bookshop in Clevedon. An elderly
lady stopped at my signing table to examine the covers of my books. All the
novels I’d published at that point had ‘Murder’ in the title (Best Murder in
Show, etc), but the covers were bloodless.
‘What sort of books are they, exactly?’ she asked.
‘Oh, they’re murder mysteries,’ I replied cheerily. ‘But they’re upbeat, funny stories too. Nice
murders, really.’
She fixed me with a hard stare.
‘There's no such thing as a nice murder,’ she retorted and
stalked away.
I couldn't disagree. There’s already far too much murder in
our daily news, whether by individual criminals or by nations and terrorists in
the name of war. But still readers hunger for more fictitious murders.
GOLDEN AGE TRADITION
Perhaps it was ever thus. The modern preoccupation with
murder mysteries dates back to the Golden Age of Detection Fiction between the
two World Wars. Even in the aftermath of the First World War, whose carnage deeply
affected just about everyone, crime writers readily embraced fictitious murder
and death, including direct references to the War itself. Agatha Christie’s
Hercule Poirot arrives in the UK as a Belgian refugee from the war on mainland
Europe, and Dorothy L Sayers gives her detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who served
on the front line, recurring shell shock (PDTSD). His valet, Bunter, had been
his batman.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, addressed other kinds of crime to
add variety to Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, including theft, blackmail,
smuggling and fraud among the many murders. I’ve read a few Agatha Christie in
which no-one dies, but her body count across her vast oeuvre is high.
THE FORGOTTEN VICTIM
In the UK, prior to 1965, when the death penalty was
suspended, to be finally abolished in 1969, any fictitious sleuth solving a murder
mystery was potentially sending the murderer to their own death by hanging. Wimsey
is often plagued by remorse after securing a conviction; I wonder whether his
creator shared this experience.
My own aversion to murder made me decide when starting my
second cosy mystery series that the crimes would be anything but murder. The
Gemma Lamb series is set at St Bride’s School, and I couldn’t bring myself to
introduce dead bodies to a school setting, although many writers do, e.g. Val
McDiarmid in her debut novel, Report for Murder (great title, by the way).
OTHER CRIMES & MISDEMEANOURS
I’ve also written cosy mysteries novelettes that focus on
other misdemeanours. In The Natter of Knitters, the ‘crime’ might be
described as a breach of the peace at a yarnbombing event. In The Clutch of
Eggs, I write about the illegal collection of wild birds’ eggs. Both
novelettes are set in the same cosy world as the Sophie Sayers novels. They include
a rewarding amount of intrigue, but no-one loses their lives, and the
denouement of each story is 100% heartwarming. (I hope the elderly lady from
Books on the Hill would approve!)
Not all crimes would make entertaining reading, such as failing
to pay your TV licence or council tax, but there are plenty of other crimes that
would be fun to write (and to read) about. I’ve got a little list…
KEEPING THINGS FRESH
Ringing the changes with different crimes offers authors
another advantage: it’s much easier to differentiate your stories from each
other. When I announced my ambitious plan to write a seven-book murder mystery
series, author Orna Ross’s top tip was, ‘Don’t fall into the trap of writing
the same book over and over again.’ Excellent advice, especially for a long series.
(My original seven-book series is now nine books long and set to grow further –
shades of Douglas Adams’ famous ‘five-book trilogy’ that is his Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy series.)
LAST WORD TO CONAN DOYLE
For any authors who are still dithering as to whether to
diversify from murder, this quote from Sherlock Holmes’ creator might persuade
you. In his excellent autobiography, Memories and Adventures, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle answers a question he was often asked: ‘To what extent does Sherlock
Holmes represent yourself?’
He replies: ‘A man cannot spin a character out of his own
inner consciousness and make it really life-like unless he has some
possibilities of that character within him. Which is a dangerous admission for
someone, for one who has drawn so many villains as I.’
Perhaps in future I’d better keep my public confessions of
murder to myself!
© Debbie Young 2024
Debbie's Amazon author page:
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Website: https://helenhollick.net/
Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick
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