Homicidal Humor

Susan Sundwall is a veteran freelancer, blogger and mystery writer. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and newly adopted stray cat, Sister Agnes. Her first Minnie Markwood Mystery, The Red Shoelace Killer, is available at Amazon, Untreed Reads, Barnes and Noble and from the publisher, Mainly Murder Press. Visit her blog at www.sundwallsays.blogspot.com and chime in if you’re so inclined. 

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Okay, the first thing that comes to mind when you find out someone has been murdered is probably not a comedic moment from an old Seinfeld episode. No, you’re more likely to draw back in horror, mouth open, nothing coming out, and then, for weeks, there are nightmares with you in the starring role – victim of the week. Not a single thing funny about it.

So imagine my dilemma when I wrote my mystery, The Red Shoelace Killer, (hilarious title, huh?) and called it a comic-cozy. Nothing in the title even hints at humor so I really had to put my nose to the grindstone to make my definition true. Add to the mix that a cozy is restricted in ways an all out brawl of a crime novel isn’t. Meaning?

Well, it means I won’t be using foul language, or graphic sex scenes or anatomically specific gooey guts violence. But that kind of fits in with my prudish nature anyway (oops – a brief moment of “coming out” there). You see, I know about foul language but prefer a good old Yosemite Sam cuss – ya ring tailed varmint – to copious use of the F-bomb (or any other consonant bomb that’s out there). I know about graphic sex. Been there, done that, three kids. And I’ve watched enough CSI through my fingers to know about gooey guts and all the “splorking” sounds you hear when brains hit the wall. Alas, I don’t visit any of these themes in my books. So now you’re thinking, “Huh, then how could it possibly be any good?” Right? That’s what you’re thinking, I just know it.

Pay attention, Lucy’s going to do some ‘splainin.

You have to do it with characters. Fun, quixotic, fully animated, and slightly dysfunctional characters. My protagonist, Minnie Markwood, is plump, old fashioned and just a whisker away from Social Security. Great. Now you’re thinking boring, boomer, chick lit. Hang on. I thought the same thing. Then I realized if my Boomer Babe had a youthful element for balance, it could only be a good thing. So I gave her a sidekick, Rashawna. She’s Minnie’s bubble headed, twenty-one-year-old ex-swimsuit model, co-worker. And I gave Bubble Head a boyfriend, Joel. Now, if that isn’t a dynamic trio destined for the New York Times bestseller list I don’t know what is.

The humor enters subtly when we experience these characters reactions to a horrible murder. The kind of reaction any ordinary, trying to pay the bills and keep the weight off, kind of person you probably are. And with a couple of degrees of separation from said horrible murder a brief relief moment intercedes when those reactions are shown.

For instance, while contemplating the nature of a killer, Minnie muses, “A killer doesn’t usually ask someone to accompany him to his killling ground, for heaven’s sake. Usually he stuffs your face full of old chloroform rags, and bam, you're toast in the trunk.”

Or Rashawna, brow furrowed, trying to understand someone using a red shoelace as a murder weapon. “Who would buy them, anyway? Like who and why?” Rashawna asked, palms up. The tone of her voice screamed fashion police.

Of course, once you’ve got your homicidal humor all figured out, you must weave it into a compelling plot and then, the penultimate challenge, sell it. From inception to acceptance can be a long, rough road. It took Minnie and me almost ten years. She started out older than me but by the time I sold her she was a few years younger. I had to revise – a lot. I endured many critiques (my mother did not like it so much – God rest her soul). I was crushed with each rejection one of which was a third of a sheet from a yellow legal pad stating “you write with facility” but they were no longer publishing fiction. Sheesh. They had it for a year. And who got the other two thirds of the pad? A staff member needing something to wrap a leftover tuna sandwich?

I’ll compare the course to publication to the course of true love. In your carefully examined life you look at all the possible suitors for your talents; NASA, llama whispering school, water polo training, and it comes down to this. You’re a writer, plain and simple. You have stories to tell,and by Sam, you’re going to set your cap for all those readers out there. And if you choose to add some homicidal humor as part of the deal, I’m right there with you, honey.

© 2014 Susan Sundwall

Humor – The Secret Weapon

When I was newly married and struggling to learn how to write publishable fiction (my ambition from the age of ten), I placed some humorous articles in a local magazine called COUNTY TIMES. I only remember one of the topics – how to get rid of a pile of bricks – but I do remember the pieces were odd and silly and I was thoroughly delighted that an editor put them in print.

Unfortunately, one reader most certainly was not. He sent me hate mail telling me so and in the process taught me this: Comedy is without a doubt the most subjective sort of communication, so count on it at your own risk.

Not crazy about the odds of success, I haven’t written a purely humorous anything since. Instead, I write mysteries around a character who has a lighter way of looking at things. If readers think she’s fun – terrific! But if my jokes go over like another pile of bricks, there’s always that dastardly murder to solve.

Old influences were Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series, Gregory MacDonald’s Fletch books (not the movies) and the film Charade starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Another special favorite was Hopscotch starring the late Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson. All of them old enough to have whiskers, I know, but they still hold up beautifully.

Which brings me to some of the curiosities I’ve run across regarding humor.

Asked when he planned to do some more serious work, Walter Matthau replied, “Humor is my serious work.” He claimed it was more difficult than “noncomedic or tragic or whatever you want to call it."

Comedian and motivational speaker, David Naster, concurs. “Humor is intellectual… It’s an idea you make funny… [s]ome more complicated than others.”

Street thugs take note: Making someone laugh gives you a certain power over them. Think about it. You’re causing another person to do something they didn’t expect, or perhaps even intend, to do, and usually they’ll thank you for it.

Historians credit the British sense of humor for helping the UK endure two horrific world wars. Our own Bob Hope, and others, did much the same for us. Yet if a funny movie – or book – were to be put up for a prestigious award, most likely it would be laughed off the docket. That subjective problem again.

My first agent may have said it best. “Nobody takes humor seriously.”

Donna Huston Murray

Lois Winston

Q: Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in your Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series, came out this month from Midnight Ink. How much of Lois Winston is in Anastasia Pollack?

LW: LOL! When I was writing romance, the first question I usually got was about how I researched my sex scenes. Now that I’m writing mysteries, everyone wants to know how much of Anastasia Pollack is really Lois Winston. I like this question much better.

Anastasia and I have similar backgrounds. We’re both North Jersey girls. We both went to art school. She’s a crafts editor for a women’s magazine. I worked for many years as a crafts designer and editor for various kit manufacturers and publishers. I still design for several magazines. We both have two sons and one other relative in common. The differences? My husband is very much alive (thank goodness!), I don’t have a Shakespeare quoting parrot, and I haven’t found any dead bodies glued to my office chair -- at least not yet.

Q: Several reviews have favorably compared Anastasia to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum character. Kirkus Reviews called Anastasia, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” Other than both series taking place in New Jersey, what do you see as the differences between the two characters?

LW: Anastasia is an amateur sleuth, and quite a reluctant one at that. Stephanie works in a field where she comes into contact with bad guys on a daily basis. And even though Anastasia and Stephanie are both born Jersey girls, Stephanie is the embodiment of blue-collar Central Jersey. Anastasia is more middle-class North Jersey. At least she was until her husband permanently cashed in his chips at a roulette table in Las Vegas and her life crapped out. Now she’s stuck with a mountain of debt, her communist mother-in-law, and her dead husband’s loan shark attempting to shake her down for fifty thousand dollars.

Q: What about the other characters in your series? Are they based on people you know?

LW: Lucille is loosely based on my deceased mother-in-law. I guess that’s why most of my husband’s relatives no longer speak to me.

Q: Where do you get your plot ideas?

LW: Mostly from the voices in my head who demand I tell their stories. However, I’m also a news junkie. I have a loose-leaf binder filled with stories I’ve clipped from magazines and newspapers. Whenever I’m stuck for an idea, I read through my clippings, and invariably an idea will present itself.

Q: Are your books character driven or plot driven?

LW: Both. No one wants to read about cardboard characters or stale plots. However, in a mystery, plot is paramount. Still, I want my characters to come alive on the page, be both interesting and believable to the reader, and never TSTL.

Q: Do you find it hard to write humor?

LW: Absolutely. Humor is very subjective, and I never really know until after the book is written whether or not others “get” the humor I’ve infused into the story.

Q: Do you read reviews of your books?

LW: I do read my reviews, and I don’t expect all of them to be good. Taste is very subjective. Not everyone is going to like my writing or get the humor in my books. I’m fine with that. I just hope at the end of the day there are more people who love my books than hate them. Reviews are part of the business of publishing, and I believe it’s important for an author to know how her books are being received. Word-of-mouth has huge impact in driving sales. Besides, if I didn’t read my reviews, I wouldn’t know that Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. And that’s going to go a long way in taking the sting out of any bad reviews the book may receive down the road.

Q: Anything else you’d like to tell us?

LW: First, I want to thank you for inviting me to guest today at Crime Writers’ Chronicle. Also, in celebration of the release of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, I’m doing a blog tour throughout January. The schedule is on my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and at Anastasia’s blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Everyone who posts a comment to any of the blogs over the course of the tour will be entered into a drawing to receive one of 5 copies of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun. (If your email isn’t included in your comment, email me privately at lois@loiswinston.com to let me know you’ve entered.)
Q: Thank you, Lois!