How to Write a Mystery by Larry Beinhart

Author:Larry Beinhart [Beinhart, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77605-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

ASSEMBLING THE HERO (LET ME CONTRADICT MYSELF AGAIN)

It is clear, from the market, from my own reactions, from other readers, that the hero’s lifestyle is important. We seem to take great delight in these trappings of character. At mystery conventions I hear things like, “My hero is special because he always consults his mother-in-law about his cases and he has a mynah bird that he calls Donald Duck.” “My heroine is a graduate student in computer science and she drives a Volvo with a dent and no one’s ever had a Volvo driver before.” “My heroine is the first woman Formula One driver and she always has to solve her cases between laps.” They’re not entirely off the mark.

If you’ve read lots of crime fiction, you probably have some feelings and ideas about what you would like in your protagonist and what you wouldn’t like. If you like reading about people with pets, give your hero a pet. If you’re annoyed that the typical detective hero is a loner, give him attachments, a family.

You yourself have certain traits and types of knowledge and attitudes and social groupings and points of reference that you’re used to carrying around with you, that are at hand and easy to grab. Unless there are compelling reasons otherwise, that’s probably what you should make your hero out of.

What are compelling reasons otherwise?

Theme is one. The subject of American Hero is war. Though the war happens offstage, it still meant that the hero should have been a soldier and it suggested that he should have liked Vietnam and studied the art of warfare.

Lots of heroes are created for their special powers: weapons experts, knowledge of martial arts secrets unknown to mere mortals in the West, computer wizardry, psychiatric pharmacology, anthropology, forensic pathology.

Some are created to be unsentimental, others to have appealing depths of feeling.

Some are fantasy figures: of revenge, sexual conquest, getting out of the house, driving fast cars, spitting in the face of the establishment, asserting the power of the establishment over the punks who are ruining life as we wish we knew it.

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