Cozy Mystery Writing: Parceling Out Information

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Here’s a quick tip today for cozy mystery writers.

Is your cozy mystery too short?  Do readers (or beta readers) say that they were able to figure out the murderer too soon in the story?

The answer to both of these problems may be something very simple.

How much are your suspects giving away in their interviews with your amateur sleuth?

There’s a temptation (at least, there’s always been for me) in giving away a little too much information in each interview.  I want the sleuth to have some material to work with, of course, and I want the story to progress: I don’t want my amateur’s investigation to stall out or for the book to be boring for readers.

And that’s all very important. But it’s equally important to make sure that the suspects aren’t making things too easy for the sleuth, and for the reader. Cozy readers are experts at solving these cases.

Maybe, instead, your sleuth is gaining information from some of these interviews, but it’s the wrong information.  Maybe your suspect is trying to redirect your sleuth away from something that might make him or her look guilty.  One thing I like to do to ensure a good pace for my mysteries is to have each suspect tell a lie and a truth. That means you do give clues to the reader, but you’re also providing red herrings to send them (and the sleuth) on tangents.  Sally says that Jim was fired from his job…and the victim was his supervisor.  But she also says that she hasn’t seen the victim for the last few weeks (a lie).  Later, another suspect can disprove this information and say that, in fact, Sally and the victim engaged in an argument not long before the victim’s murder.

Maybe your suspect is only hinting at information.  Sally says that she heard that Jim was fired at work, but she doesn’t know why (or she prefers not to say).  This gives the sleuth a lead to work on and maybe leads her to find another source of information…perhaps someone that Jim worked with.  An interview like this can lead the story in a variety of different directions: maybe Jim was fired unjustly and because he knew the victim was engaged in something unlawful. Maybe Jim was fired because he was pilfering from the company and he was desperate to cover that information up.

Cozies don’t need to be overly complex to the point of reader frustration.  But if the story is too linear or if the suspects are unloading everything they know on the sleuth, the mystery itself could be in trouble.

For more information on cozy mystery writing, see my full series here. 

The same goes for other genres, too.   Have you read books where the author has front-loaded the story with too much information and eliminated surprises?  As a writer, do you try to make sure you don’t give away too much too early?

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