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?