Saturday, January 5: Mississippi Mud
IT’S A MYSTERY TO ME
by John M. Floyd
Like all writers, I often get questions from folks at meetings and conferences and signings. Questions like “Where do you get your ideas?” and “Do you write at a certain time every day?“ and “Do you outline your plots beforehand?” Those are pretty common, but since I write mostly suspense fiction, there’s another that pops up now and then. (I even heard it asked at a mystery reader’s group awhile back.) The question is: “What is it about a story that makes it a mystery?”
About a year ago I ran into a friend and his wife at an independent bookstore here in Jackson. The wife told me she was looking for the then-new Greg Iles mystery, True Evil. Her husband informed her, a little wearily, that he’d already read it, and that it wasn’t a mystery because the identity of the villain is revealed early in the book. She ignored him, of course, and later I heard her ask one of the bookstore staff for the new Greg Iles mystery. Well, I’ve read it too, and yes, I know that technically it’s more of a thriller than a mystery; after all, the antagonist is a killer-for-hire. But I also know the bookstore worker didn’t bat an eye when he was asked the question. In a way, that book is a mystery.
Why? To me, it’s a simple answer: A novel or a short story is a “mystery” if a crime is central to its plot. A broad definition, I know, but I think it’s a valid one. The story does not have to be a whodunit in order to qualify; it might be a howdunit, or even a whydunit. But if a crime is central to, or important to, the plot — to the extent that if the crime weren’t present there wouldn’t be a plot – then I think the story meets the requirements of a mystery.
Some of the popular commercial mystery magazines are even more lenient. Certain submission guidelines state that a short story is considered a mystery if it involves a crime or even the implication or threat of a crime. Which is fine with me, too, even though I think those kinds of stories might more likely fall under the general heading of “suspense” fiction. Actually, I sort of prefer the term “mystery/suspense.” It’s a safe pairing, those two words, a catchall that allows you stray from some of the more strict rules and still reach the intended audience, which is anyone who likes fiction that features a lot of tension and anticipation. All this is a long-winded way of repeating my opinion that the identity of the villain does not have to be withheld until the end of a story or novel in order for it to be considered a mystery.
I can think of a couple of examples worth mentioning here. One is the Lucas Davenport series of novels by John Sandford (the titles of which always contain the word “prey,” like Mind Prey, Sudden Prey, Mortal Prey, etc.) and one is the old TV series “Columbo,” starring Peter Falk. In both, the reader or viewer always knows, long before the end of the story, who the villain is. (With “Columbo” you know at the end of the opening scene.) The stories in these two series are more howcatchems than whodunits, but they are usually referred to as mysteries.
Sometimes it seems too much even to insist that a crime be involved. One of my favorite short stories of all time is Roald Dahl’s “Man From the South,” which later became an episode of the television drama “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” (The TV adaptation, which starred Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre, even added a final, delightful twist onto the end of what was an already spellbinding tale.) The interesting thing here is that there is no crime involved in the entire story. There’s a lot of everything else — conflict, deceit, mistrust, fear, uncertainty, etc. — but no occurrence of a crime. My response to that is: Who cares? I think almost everyone who’s read that short story or seen the TV presentation would classify it as a mystery story. And certainly mystery/suspense.
One final point, on this subject. A few years ago, Mystery Writers of America presented its prestigious Grand Master Award to Elmore Leonard, one of my favorite authors. The award is given to honor a lifetime of outstanding achievement in the mystery genre, and in Leonard’s case was well deserved. The funny thing is, I’ve read almost every short story and novel Mystery Grand Master Leonard has ever written, even his westerns, and to the best of my knowledge none of them — not a single one — was a whodunit.
That seems to answer the question, doesn’t it? Just write a story that includes a crime of some kind, or at least a deception, and generate enough suspense to keep your reader on the edge of his La-Z-Boy . . . and voila! — you’ve written a mystery.
What’s so mysterious about that?
I like your broad definition, and it’s the one I use in practice when asked what my favorite fiction category is: I say “mystery,” meaning anything involving a crime. I’m less interested in the literary cubbyholes than in the stories. Elmore Leonard isgc5h9 a favorite of mine, too.
My 2 cents from Mendenhall, MS
I believe Otto Penzler defined a mystery as a story in which crime or the threat of crime is a major element. The problem of course is that by that definition Oedipus Rex, The Brothers Karamazov, and MacBeth are all filed in the wrong part of the book store. Definitions tend to be useful for starting arguments more than for ending them.
I agree, Rob. There will always be many different opinions on this subject. I suspect that the only folks who worry about it much are writers who might be trying to either (1) assign a “genre” label to a novel submission or (2) ensure that they target the right kind of short story to the right publication. So far I seem to have been on pretty safe ground, at least on the short-fiction side of things, by categorizing my crime-related stories as mysteries.
John
Hey, Rob! “Puzzle stories,” like Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers stories, don’t always involve a crime! A mystery can be something hidden. Not all the Queen stories involved criminous activity. This is like defining Science Fiction or Fantasy. But doing the research(i.e. reading the stories) is a lot of fun!
Uh, and I forgot to say, “Great column, John!!!!”
A novel I love is FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies. It is not a mystery in any typical sense, but all the action begins with a prank (or is it a crime?) with tragic consequences, and the second half of the book deals with a mysterious death. Even more complicated, this is the first book in a trilogy and you have to read all the way to the end of the series to find the (possible?) explanation of the death.
With regard to the definition of what a “mystery” is, there are three things it might be fruitful consider:
(1) Genre definitions are part of a spectrum; there are no strict boundaries. E.g., Nobel laureate Orhan Pahmuk’s novel My Name is Red is certainly a literary novel–but it is also very distinctly a murder mystery.
(2) Duke Ellington is reputed to have replied to the request that he define “rhythm”: “If you don’t know it, you ain’t got it.”
(3) There is also Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous observation in 1964 concerning hard-core pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . ”
Definition games are usually the sign of an undisciplined intellect and an inflated ego. Adherence to strict boundaries between literary conventions is the result of conflating certain aesthetic values while undervaluing others.