This week: Mystery Fun … or Funny? Edited by: A Thankful Carol St.Ann  
More Newsletters By This Editor 
 
1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions
Hello. I joined WDC in September of 2006. My name is Carol St.Ann, and I write for this newsletter once a month. This year, 2025, I plan to focus on the craft with a hard focus toward publication. Please feel free to hit me up with any issues you’d like to see addressed, and I’ll do my best to research it for you. |
I’m interested in writing a comic mystery, or maybe a mystery Comedy I’m not sure. So I’ve been scouring the good old Internet. And I have found a myriad of conversations. I’m going to reference a couple of them here to open my topic.
Question 1: Should I aim mostly for funny dialogue and characters? Would comedic characters and events simply stand in the way of effectively solving the (crime)?
Response: If the protagonist is a good detective and the mystery is very well done — there should be no reason why comedic scenes and characters would stand in the way of plot.
Question 2: Roger Rabbit sees serious characters in a less than serious world. Naked gun sees non serious characters in a serious world? Which would you rather write?
Response: Both work.
•===•=====•===•
So what do you all think, if and when you ponder this issue; is the humor derived from the characters or from the situations?
Columbo isn’t comedy but it is comedic.
Pink Panther balances both very well; it’s true mystery comedy.
As I grow into this art of the craft, I’m leaning more toward attempting comedic.
Author Jesse Q. Sutanto “Dial A for Aunties” (Penguin Random House) says: “As long as you have a sensible, believable character, you can go all out with your side characters and use them to infuse your story with humor.”
Author Elmore Leonard preaches, “Your average criminal hatches schemes that are doomed to failure.That’s comic gold if you know what to do with it.” He affords equal time to the bad guys as to the good guys and develops quirk and wit for characters pursuing the American dream a bit off the beaten track. It’s elegant and believable.
Columnist Bill Gormley also believes characters should be quirky and/or witty. And adds “Humor is not just about funny characters or funny situations. It’s about the right characters in the right situations.”
I agree with all of them. In fact, it’s my belief that if you really work on it, anyone can write a mystery comedy or comedy mystery. I’d bet there are several people you’ve met along life’s highway way who’d make marvelously mysterious or comedic characters. Put them together in a room in your head, and you’ve got your story. Or at least its backbone.
There are dozens of books and hundreds of articles on what to do and how to master this craft.
Conversely, for me, there are times when I’ve unwittingly learned better from what NOT to do.
As I often do, in order to make my point, I’m going to reference a TV show, but I remind you **before it was a TV show there was a written script. There was a writer who had the idea and created the characters. And the serious and silly quirks.
TV’s long running NCIS has a marvelous cast of quirky, witty, intelligent characters. Together they solve a mystery every week (for 19 years, so far). However, there is one character among them whose number one quirk not only never worked for me, but it always yanked me out of the story.
I loved the impeccably designed and developed quirks of genius forensic scientist, goth-queen Abby Sciuto. And I never stopped smiling at Tony DiNozzo‘s over-the-top flirting and perfectly inflected movie references. McGee is the consummate save-the-day computer nerd genius we all wish was in our close friend circle. And of course Gibbs, is Mr. Icy Serious with a hidden broken-heart of gold.
But the one character whose quirk never worked for me was Ziva David. (Love the actress and the idea.) But, frankly, her quirk was a fail.
It failed because it was utterly unfeasible. There’s no way an undercover Mossad Agent who spoke multiple languages so fluently that she could go undercover anywhere in the world - and whose father was Mossad Director, would ever have the multitude of American vocabulary-faux pas, week after week, scene after scene to the point where it became nails on a blackboard.
That quirk was an epic fail. Don’t do that. It’s lazy. It’s cliche. It’s forced. I feels as though the writers were determined to give her a quirk and were grasping at straws.
In my opinion, it would have been better to have further developed the dark and bruding side of her, (the groundwork was brilliant) and left the comic relief to the others.
I’m still learning and fussing with this type of story.
What about you?
Have you written a mystery comedy?
Is it on your someday list?
What have you gleaned or learned about writing one.
Let me know.
See you next month.
Have a safe, warm, and wonderful Thanksgiving!
Carol St.Ann
Remember to nominate great Mysteries
|
If you’ve got a mystery in your head:
Try out your mystery chops here:
A few good reads!
|
Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
What about you?
Have you written a mystery comedy?
Is it on your someday list?
What have you gleaned or learned about writing one.
Let me know. |
To stop receiving this newsletter, click here for your newsletter subscription list. Simply uncheck the box next to any newsletter(s) you wish to cancel and then click to "Submit Changes". You can edit your subscriptions at any time.
|
Mystery: November 26, 2025 Issue [#13471]
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
