by Korina Moss
This month marks five years since I started writing my Cheese Shop Mystery series. I’d been writing all my life and had a couple of short stories published before then, but signing a contract with Macmillan Publishers definitely felt like diving into the deep end. And boy, did I learn a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Now, I’ve got six books published in my Cheese Shop Mystery series. My latest, Bait and Swiss, released just last month.
Photo courtesy of Korina Moss – Nosh while you read—Raclette cheese, warmed and scraped right off the wheel onto potatoes at the Bryant Park Christmas Market in New York City in December.
I have a fantastic editor in Madeline Houpt at St. Martin’s (an imprint of Macmillan), who has taught me so much about writing stronger cozy mysteries. The revisions I find myself making after her editorial comments are never just about that particular book—the lessons carry over to all the books that come after. The series has garnered multiple award nominations, with Cheddar Off Dead winning the Agatha Award for Best First Novel and USA Today listing the Cheese Shop mysteries as one of the “best cozy mystery series.” I don’t think those things would’ve happened without having learned from my editor’s insights.
The thing about writing fiction is we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s where a developmental editor comes in handy. A beta reader may be able to point out plot holes or tell you what they like or don’t like about that particular manuscript, but an editor can teach you things about the craft or the genre that you don’t yet know. Once you know it, it becomes part of your foundation as a writer.
Using everything I’ve learned about the craft and the expectations of publishing house editors, I became a freelance developmental editor, specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. It’s fulfilling to help writers make their publishing dreams come true by homing in on what makes their cozy mystery stand out while also keeping it marketable within the genre.
Based on common issues I’ve seen as an editor, here are three guidelines to consider when writing a cozy mystery:
Cozy means comforting.
Make sure you have comforting elements in your story: A likable protagonist who’s surrounded by (mostly) likable characters. A cozy home. A lively town or neighborhood. Humor. Friendships. Many writers think their suspects have to be one-dimensional villains—mean, rude, or confrontational. This isn’t the case. If you have five suspects, your story can quickly become overrun with unlikable characters. The best suspects are the ones who your sleuth doesn’t want to suspect but for the mounting circumstantial evidence against them.
Keep the mystery at the forefront.
I see plenty of manuscripts where the author really wants to portray a deep character arc for their protagonist. It’s laudable to want a complex, three-dimensional main character. However, it often means the protagonist starts off broken, angry, impulsive, sullen, or distrusting to a degree that makes it hard to like our sleuth or even root for her. Your protagonist can be interesting and worthy of growth without quite so many flaws or problems. This goes back to the first guideline, that cozies are meant to be comforting. Too many personal problems and deep-seated character flaws could make readers DNF (Did Not Finish) a book. It doesn’t matter if your sleuth has a redemption story or a major transformation by the end—readers may not stick with it long enough to see that. Start your characters in the middle of that arc, where they’ve already learned many lessons and healed in most ways, but there’s still some growth to be had. Likable does not mean perfect or lacking complexity. It means readers want to befriend your protagonist and hang out with them for the duration of the book. Is your sleuth someone your readers will want to spend time with?
Cozies still have high stakes.
Some people think cozies equate to light, fluffy, or shallow. I was on a panel once with a thriller author who actually said, “The ending to my thriller is more exciting than a cozy mystery.” Of course, I took umbrage at that remark and corrected it. Cozies may be more cerebral than some thrillers, but they are exciting. In fact, the reason it’s important to include those comforting elements I mentioned earlier is to balance out the very real stakes your sleuth must deal with. They’re not dark stakes—no children or pets have been killed; there’s no sexual assault or serial killings—but the stakes are high for the protagonist. So high that she can’t just leave the investigation to the police. Your protagonist finds a body outside her place of business and wants to investigate? Nope. Nothing at stake. Leave it to the police. Being nosy or paranoid isn’t enough reason for your protagonist to start investigating. There has to be something meaningful at stake. How do you know if the stakes you set are high enough? Ask yourself what would happen if your sleuth doesn’t solve the mystery. Would her life (or the life of someone she cares about very much) be changed irrevocably and for the worse? If not, then the stakes aren’t high enough. And those high stakes have to get even higher as your story continues, so that when the danger level is raised, your sleuth still has no choice but to continue on and solve this mystery.
Balancing cozy with an exciting mystery and complex characters is not a simple task. It’s easy to tip the scales to one side or the other, leaving your book either boring or too dark. I hope keeping these three guidelines in mind will be helpful. And if you need further insights, you know where to find a reliable cozy mystery editor.
Korina Moss is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley, which includes multiple Agatha Award-nominated books for Best Contemporary Novel and the winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead. Listed as one of USA Today’s “Best Cozy Mystery Series,” her books have also been featured in PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, and Writer’s Digest. Korina is also a freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. To learn more or subscribe to her free monthly #teamcheese newsletter, visit her website korinamossauthor.com.
