VBT Day 1 Discussion
May 7th, 2007Today, mystery authors, Peter McGinn, Marjorie Abrams, Susan Waller Miccio and I, Cheryl Hagedorn, will be discussing:
Cheryl: Peter, let’s start with you.
Peter: I suppose technically they all add realism to fiction, but if so, I can usually do without it. I know people who use the F-word a lot, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend a lot of time with them, and a lot of my characters feel the same way. I once had a theory I could use the F-word once in every book. That way the reader figures out that I know the word but choose not to use it.
Susan: My mysteries are cozies that feature a wholesome, though not naïve, heroine and her charming, comical dogs. I write purely for entertainment value. I have no agenda and no literary pretensions. Where violence, sex or language would interfere with my readers’ enjoyment of my books, I avoid it.
Personally, I avoid books and films that employ explicit violence. Oh, I understand the need for violence as a dramatic device – it’s gratuitous, graphic cruelty that offends me. I have closed many books a few pages in when a violent scene of particular repugnance intruded on what I thought was going to be an enjoyable read. I believe that my target readers – chiefly women who love animals – would generally agree with me. So, much of the violence in my books is implicit, not explicit.
Cheryl: I guess I assumed that in a murder mystery novel that there would just naturally be some blood and guts. I have five murders in my book, only one of which I think is particularly gruesome. I didn’t spend a lot of time on my description of it for that very reason. Incredibly, the murder that troubled my father most wasn’t the actual murder. It was the fact that it took days to find the body. I didn’t describe what the body looked like, just the overpowering smell. He supplied his own images and it shook him.
Cheryl: What about sex?
Susan: As for sex, well, much of our society’s preoccupation with sex as the “root of all evil” quite mystifies me. Explicit sex of the order in a romance novel doesn’t really belong in my series, but my readers definitely want to read about the heroine’s “love interest” (pardon the euphemism), and so I will be happy to write about it. As for language, my books are set on the Delmarva peninsula, of which I am a native, and the language I use comes from the mouths of Delmarvans. No self-respecting Delmarvan would say, “Oh shucks, gosh darn it.” If the scene calls for it, I’ll write it as we Delmarvans would say it.
Cheryl: Peter, how does a guy feel about sex? No, don’t answer that. Answer the original question, about the use of sex scenes in a mystery novel.
Peter: With love scenes, I think you can stop short of describing body parts and make it more interesting by tackling it obliquely. But in Caught Holding the Bag, a young woman has surgery that changes her self-image and mars her confidence, so I realized I would have to take the intimate scene farther than usual. What I ended up doing was developing the scene so that it was mostly dialogue. It felt unique as I did it. If other authors have done it I would like to see what they ended up with.
Cheryl: Marjorie, you’ve been quiet. How about it? What do you have to say about the use of explicit violence, language and sex?
Marjorie: I generally don’t use it at all.
| Author blurbs and books | |||
| Interviews | |||
| Peter McGinn |
Susan Miccio |
Marjorie Abrams |
Cheryl Hagedorn |
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I think it is worth noting that “”The Agatha Awards honor the traditional mystery—-books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is generally characterized by mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence… .” (from Malice Domestic, Ltd.)
In an article about women mystery writers: “Lisa Daily, a columnist in Sarasota, Fla., finds mysteries by women often “funnier and less gruesome.” She adds, ‘You get all of the excitement of a good mystery yarn without having to endure seven nauseatingly descriptive pages of blood.’ ” (from the Christian Science Monitor).
Comment by Cheryl ? May 7, 2007 @ 11:24 am
You know, I didn’t comment on graphic violence, just the language and sex. I just plain don’t like the buckets of blood style of writing. I mean, my victims of violence don’t hit the ground with neat little holes in their bodies, but I don’t spend a lot of time on decribing it. I suppose it would be different if forensics plays a large role in the solving of the crime, but even then there is a difference between detailing that kind of evidence and giving graphic bloody detail of the crime itself. So I don’t go there.
Comment by Peter McGinn ? May 7, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
Murder is often the theme of the mystery (some blood and gore is usually involved) and it seems that many mysteries tend to include detailed sex scenes (not necessary as far as I am concerned). A book that I read recently included a BBW, big, beautiful woman, porn star and you got the idea without a lot of graphic description. Some graphic details detract from the story instead of adding to the story. Graphic for the sake of being graphic does not a good story make.
Comment by Annie ? May 7, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
Article “The Cosy Conspiracy”
By Brian D Rubendall
Referring to the Agatha awards, Rubendall wites, “My ultimate goal is to someday find a way to break all three Malice commandments in the same paragraph [no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence] — tastefully, of course.”
He later writes in the same article, “The dominance of cozies, and other less-than-gritty works is, pardon the pun, something of a mystery, especially considering how other forms of genre fiction are pushing the envelope of what is acceptable. The last couple of decades in the horror field have seen the rise of the so-called Splatterpunks, writers who pile on the gory mayhem with maniacal glee. Cyberpunks have become prominent in the world of science fiction, stretching the genre’s boundaries with their high tech, apocalyptic world-views. Only in mystery writing does the trend seem to be heading in the opposite direction, away from the cutting edge, so to speak.
“Once upon a time, it was mystery writers who tested the limits of what was acceptable. Legendary authors such as James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and yes, even Raymond Chandler shocked contemporary audiences while they entertained them. Mickey Spillaine became one of the best-selling fiction writers of the 20th century by ratcheting up the sex and violence quotient to a whole new level.”
Comment by Cheryl ? May 7, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
Tastefully? Interesting viewpoint you are quoting there, but it seems like the point is that it is much harder to shock modern readers so what’s the point? And if the Agatha award winners are a haven for those who want to avoid the gratuituous, it seems rather small-minded to try to push the limits just for the sake of doing it. If you want cutting edge, stretch in other ways: unusual plots, non-stereotypical characters, a mystery that doesn’t fit into the formula in other ways. I don’t read many mysteries because after writing a few it seems like I can see the framework of the genre glaring in front on me as I read and I’m thinking, oh yeah, it is a mystery so this has to happen. Try pushing that edge! Okay, minor rant over.
Comment by Peter McGinn ? May 7, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
I’m currently reading Dancing in the Dark by Mary Jane Clark. At least two teenage girls are abducted. After a day or two of being bound, blindfolded and gagged, the girls are draged to their feet, still bound and gagged and forced to dance with the perpetrator. As repulsive as the image is, the sheer repetition (and the author does repeatedly bring it onto the screen) is somewhat hypnotic. I feel like the poor mongoose watching the cobra sway. Is the description gratuitous? Not all. But I confess, a bit too graphic for me.
Comment by Cheryl ? May 7, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
Sex can be a useful tool for writers if it’s an important part of a character, an important means for her/him to express herself, or, as one writer pointed out, a sexual encounter is an important event in the plot for one reason or another. Like, it’s one way to find out if someone is a sadist, frigid, controlling, maybe masquerading as another gender, etc.–things you might not find out otherwise. Maybe even to show that these characters’ relationship has reached a stage of intimacy (and sorry, I just don’t buy it that that can happen 10 minutes after they meet, as so often appens in fiction.)
However, I don’t think sex scenes are always necessary, and sometimes they seem ridiculous. In an action-adventure book by a bestselling author, there was a sex scene as two people were escaping from a ruthless pursuer. It was bizarre. As I recall, the escapees were in the desert somewhere and mutually masturbated, without really touching each other. They just watched each other and it turned them on. Seems the author was hard-pressed to find some new way to do it in his latest epic. The whole scene seemed mighty peculiar and didn’t have anything to do with the plot, in fact was a somewhat implausible diversion. That’s what I would call “gratuitous”.
Suppose instead of stopping to have sex, these same escapees had stopped to play game of basketball. Just as weird and pointless, given their situation.
For those who write erotica, sex plays a different role. Sex, then, is the whole purpose, isn’t it?
Most sex scenes, too, come off as almost laughable. They’re often so full of flowery euphemisms they’re silly. On the other hand, they can get so clinical the scene sounds like notes on a surgical procedure. I think sex, like car chases, works much better on film than in written fiction. The writing gets in the way.
I only really find sex scenes offensive when they’re gratuitous. It’s like the author trying to get your attention on a primal level, in place of writing a really engaging story. Like bribing you with a cookie to buy this book. Sort of insulting — figuring that’s my “price.”
Comment by Jeanette Clinkunbroomer ? May 8, 2007 @ 8:56 am