SleuthSayers: Rocks in My Socks

SleuthSayers: Rocks in My Socks:    This post comes to you today from the Pet Peeves Department here at the SleuthSayers Building. Many of us who work at SS have occasionall...

Guest Post: Romantic Suspense Author Kris Bock In Defense of “Too Stupid to Live”

What is a pet peeve to some readers regarding characters that do really stupid things can be seen from another perspective as Kris Bock points out today. Make sure you check out her earlier guest posts here on the blog after you read her thoughts below….

  

Romantic Suspense Author Kris Bock In Defense of “Too Stupid to Live”

Readers complain about characters – almost always female – who are TSTL: “too stupid to live.” Writers dread the accusation but also want to tell an exciting story, and excitement doesn’t come from a character who stays inside with the doors locked and calls the police at the slightest hint of danger. But how do you define stupidity in character behavior? When is a bit of carelessness, inattention, or reckless courage all right, and when is it going to cause people to roll their eyes or throw the book across the room?

I think this is actually a much more complex question than many people realize. A lot depends on personal history, personality, and even region. In my small New Mexico town, I don’t hesitate to go walking or jogging alone after dark. I have never once been harassed in this community. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I’d worry more about drunk drivers and aggressive dogs on the loose than muggers or rapists. Yet I have lived in other communities where it would be considered “stupid” for a woman to go out alone after dark. (I’m not claiming I’ve never done it though.)

The issue has real-life relevance as well, in victim blaming – the tendency to assume that a crime victim has some responsibility for being foolish enough to get into a situation that led to the crime. That is usually untrue and always unfair, but it can make others feel safer because they wouldn’t be that foolish.

Heroic Stupidity

I also think it’s unfair that behavior standards are so different for men and women. A man who hears a noise outside his house and goes out alone to investigate would often be called brave for protecting his family. A woman who does the same thing is called stupid.

Granted a man might be stronger or a better fighter than a woman, but it’s not a given. For either one, the behavior could be rational or stupid depending on whether they have a legitimate reason to suppose that the noise is coming from a stray cat or from a killer. In real life, many of us would assume the former, and we’d be embarrassed to call the cops to chase away a stray cat. But in books readers know to suspect the worst, which means characters look stupider when they don’t expect horrible things. (Personally, I’m more likely to roll my eyes at a CIA agent who misses an obvious plot twist than an average person who doesn’t expect danger.)

In my romantic suspense Whispers in the Dark, my heroine recently suffered from an attack. She is not by nature fearful, but this has left her struggling to recognize when panic is legitimate and when it’s something to control. A couple of readers accused her of the dreaded TSTL behavior, though I’m not sure if they’re referring to the times when she controls her panic and keeps going, or when it overcomes her and she flees. In some cases, running away is more dangerous, if you’re in a blind panic.

Ironically, other readers have said that character rings true, because, in essence “she thinks just like I do.” She’s not a kick-ass action heroine. She’s an ordinary woman who finds herself in an unexpected adventure. She has a hard time believing she’s really in danger, or figuring out which direction it’s coming from.

How People Really Behave

In my romantic mystery What We Found, the heroine is walking in the woods with a man – someone she knew slightly in high school but doesn’t know well now – when they stumble upon a dead body. She assumes they’ll call the police, but he insists they don’t. He takes her phone away and threatens to get her boss (his father) to fire her if she reports this. His behavior throws her so much after the shock of finding a body that she doesn’t know what to do. She delays doing anything, and then a few hours later fakes finding the body for the first time on her own.

Many readers sympathized and even identified with this character. But one reader (a man, perhaps not coincidentally) left a review railing against her choices, because in his mind, if something like this happened, you call the police. You just do, no question. (Curiously, he blamed her, not the man who insisted she didn’t call.)

However, this book was actually inspired by a real experience where friends and I found the body of a murder victim. Of course we reported it, but someone high up in law enforcement mentioned that often people do not report crimes like this. That got me wondering why … all the reasons people might think it’s safer to ignore a crime than report it … and What We Found came out of that. So whether the character’s behavior was “stupid,” it was not unrealistic – it was more real than that one reader wanted to believe.

In real life, are we always smart? How many times have you regretted a choice? How many times do you see your friends making the same stupid choices over and over, even though you, as an outsider, are convinced they should do something different? Is it fair to have higher standards for fictional characters? Perhaps it is, if we expect books to be better than real life. Besides, experienced readers can see things coming in books in a way they can’t in real life, so authors have to work harder to surprise readers. But it seems that not everyone agrees on what behavior is TSTL.

Chances are most of us do “stupid” things frequently and get away with it. Fortunately, we don’t always get what we deserve!

Kris Bock ©2016

Kris Bock writes novels of suspense and romance involving outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. In Counterfeits, stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. What We Found is a mystery with strong romantic elements about a young woman who finds a murder victim in the woods. The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives compete to reach a buried treasure by following a series of complex clues. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit her Amazon page. Sign up for Kris Bock newsletter for announcements of new books, sales, and more.

Guest Post: Jeanne On Animal Deaths in Mysteries

Last month Jeanne of the Bristol Public Library offered a few thoughts on mystery pet peeves. Today she offers her thoughts on the issue of animal deaths in mysteries. Like Jeanne, I have noticed the complaints over animal deaths in mysteries as well as the role of social media in spreading pictures of things that most do not want to ever see. Unlike Jeanne, not only have I seen the animal stuff, I do have a reference for someone killed by gunshot as well as one by stabbing. Is that why animal deaths do not bother me more than human deaths? I have no idea. I have some thoughts on this topic myself so down the road a bit I may offer them. In the meantime, consider what Jeanne has to say and feel free to continue the conversation in the comments…

On the mystery list DorothyL, readers will occasionally complain about the death of an animal in a book.  Some authors will respond by bemoaning readers who get upset when an animal is killed.  They’ve had editors ask them to take out an animal’s death, otherwise the books won’t sell to the cozy readers. In an issue of Mystery Scene Magazine a couple of years back, author Joanna Carl wrote an essay entitled “Death of a Furry Animal.” She described reader displeasure with the animal deaths, including an unpleasant encounter a fellow author had with a reader over the death of a feral cat. She deliberately wrote in a death scene of a rattlesnake to see if that would cause reader ire but no one mentioned it, drawing the conclusion that it’s only furry and cute animals whose deaths spark controversy.

So why do readers get so upset about the death of a pet in a mystery?  As authors have pointed out, people are getting murdered left and right, but if an animal dies the author will never hear the end of it.  Why is that?

Obviously I don’t have THE answer to this burning question, but I do have some answers, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Yes, I’m afraid I’m one of those people who doesn’t like it when an animal dies. I have refused to read books because I know an animal dies.

When I’m reading about someone killed by a gunshot or dying of cyanide poisoning, I don’t (thank God!) have a frame of reference for that.  And if I don’t want to read about death agonies or explicit descriptions of dismemberment, I simply skip those parts. I don’t have any immediate, visceral images to shock me. 

With animals, I do. Like it or not, I’ve seen injured and abused animals.  There’s the dog tied in the back yard with its ribs showing because its owners aren’t home enough to know it has no food or water.  There’s the cat with only one eye because someone kicked it in the head so hard the eyeball ruptured.  There’s the deer hit by car trying desperately to get to its feet, its eyes rolling wildly in terror. Even dead animals evoke a reaction: there’s always a catch of breath when I spy some bundle of fur on the highway, be it possum or rabbit.

And with the advent of the internet and social media, it’s even harder to avoid.  There’s the guy who posted a video of him throwing scalding water on a cat.  There’s the dog beaten and thrown in the garbage.  There’s –well, anyone on social media has a litany of abused animals.  It’s to the point where some people have requesting folks NOT post such pictures not only because it upsets people but because it may give abusers new ideas.

So when an author writes about a dead animal, I can easily visualize the scene without trying.  It doesn’t do any good to skip the description because I’ve seen enough that my mind fills in the blanks. 

Saying that the dog or cat is a stray and not a beloved pet doesn’t really help because many of my pets have started out as strays. One of the loves of my life showed up as a tattered, toothless orange tabby who settled in my yard because he was too weak to go further. 

When asked about an animal death, authors tend to respond with some variation of it’s needed to show how ruthless the murderer is, or to ratchet up tension.  That is certainly one way to do it.  Is it the only way?  That’s a question only the author can answer, but I will add that Sharon Bolton once terrified me with the appearance of a pine cone. That takes talent.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I have indeed given up on reading some authors whose books have animal deaths.  One I have kept reading but I read warily, withholding most emotional involvement. Fool me once….

If an author feels that the death of an animal is crucial to the book, then that’s what should be written.  I’m not here to tell anyone what to write; but I reserve the right not to read a book I will find upsetting.

Guest Post: Jeanne on Mystery Pet Peeves

We all have those things in a book or series that just annoy the heck out of us. Jeanne of the Bookblog of the Bristol Public Library (something you should be reading if you are not already) is back today with a list of pet peeves. Like some of mine, they can be overcome by the work of a talented author.

Mystery Pet Peeves

I have been reading a number of what I refer to as my “happy little cat mysteries.”  By this I mean paperback mystery books with a cat on the cover.  There may or may not be an actual cat in the book and some of them aren’t particularly happy, but the description serves my purpose.  It means I want to be entertained and I’m willing to be forgiving in some areas providing that other aspects of the book are good. Interesting characters, for example, or learning something new, an ingenious plot, or even an unusual setting, any of these can redeem a book with problems. Give me fully fleshed out characters instead of cardboard one (and no, hobbies and quirks don’t make a character!) and I’ll happily overlook plot holes, unbelievable small town murder rates, and cops who are delighted to have an amateur poke into investigations.

However, by reading so many close together I’m finding myself frustrated by some of the same scenarios over and over.  It gives the books a cookie-cutter quality that I find off-putting.  Lesa of the incomparable Lesa’s Book Critiques blog recently wrote about one such problem, that of the dueling boyfriends and the heroine incapable of making a choice. Here are four others that I find annoying:

He Doesn’t Love Me Anymore!  I don’t mind romance in my mysteries, and a good one can turn me to mush, but I am tired of insecure heroines who suspect their partners of infidelity at every turn only to have the mysterious flower order to Ruby turn out to be a long lost aunt who celebrating a birthday.  It seems to be an attempt to add tension to a relationship, much like soap opera lovers have to have a crisis every week. Which brings me to:

You Can’t Be a Detective, You’re Married! Why is it that some authors believe that being married or being in a relationship means the heroine has to give up investigations? For the most part, it seems to me to be another cheap plot device to inject conflict.  You knew she poked her nose into murder investigations before you married her, so get over it.  And for the author:  you trust your readers to believe a small town can have at least one clever murder a year, but you don’t trust us to believe that a man or woman can deal with a spouse who sleuths? Fortunately, Mrs. Pollifax’s Cyrus doesn’t share that prejudice nor Amelia Peabody’s Radclilffe nor … well, you get the idea.  Sleuthing together can be downright romantic, in fact:  just think of the TV show Hart to Hart or Castle.

Don’t You People Ever Talk? This goes along with point one above, but can include any other relationship in the book:  parents and children, business partners, etc.  There’s a situation that has the character concerned but which could be cleared up with a simple conversation.  After 200 pages, all is revealed and it’s been a misunderstanding. As an attempt to add tension or distraction to a book, it gets old fast.

The Incredible Immovable Obstacle! Like a superhero in reverse, this character – usually a boss or authority figure—functions only to block the heroine (or hero, this one appears for both genders) from investigating.  Usually he or she is also a generally vile human being with no redeeming virtues. He’s pre-reformed Scrooge, Caroline Bingley, Mrs. Danvers, and Thenardier all rolled up into one.  (Actually, I always think of Shirley Jackson’s, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts.”  Sometimes it’s the only possible explanation for people’s behavior.) He or she serves no other purpose in the book than to make life difficult. 

This said, none of these are hard and fast rules.  Every objection can be overcome with good writing and purpose.  A writer once convinced me that her heroine absolutely had to go into the deep dark woods all by herself, an action that could have made me put a book down in disgust instead of willingly following her. The books that cause my irritation are ones who use the above as excuses to force the heroine to do, or fail to do, something in order to stall a solution.  This is especially true when the characters are superficial to start with.

On the other hand, there are writers who can use all of the above to great advantage.  One recent book had Our Heroine in hot pursuit of the Dream Boat, overcoming all the odds, and winning him—only to find that his love for her was conditional on Our Heroine changing her ways.  I did not audibly cheer when she dumped him, but I may have punched the air.  It lifted the book from an amusing little cozy to a memorable one, and made this a series I’ll follow. Likewise, a stock bad boss in another series has become a bit more understandable as his motivations have been revealed.  We don’t necessarily like him any better, but his actions don’t appear random and unreasonable anymore. It’s upped my interest in a series that I had viewed as marginal.

So keep those cozies coming!  

Jeanne also has some suggestions for Historical True Crime Books and recently did a guest review on The Haunted Season by G.M. Malliet

Via Jen's Book Thoughts: I Wish We Could Stop Seeing...

Jen's Book Thoughts: I Wish We Could Stop Seeing...: Most people who are regular readers here know that I'm not a big fan of book blurbs. I don't put any stock in them and think the wh...