Fall, 2001
Volume 6, No. 2 Murder is the backbone of the mystery genre. Someone (or several someones) are killed and readers follow along as the sleuth unravels the puzzle of "who dunnit." For writers, an equally important question is, who got it done to him? Here's how we go about choosing our fictional victims.
Valerie Wolzien When I sit down to write a mystery I know only one thing: who will be killed. I've killed twenty-one people in eighteen books and I've never changed the identity of any of my victims. The person who is the victim as I number page one is the victim when I type "the end". For me, the victim is the starting point in my sleuth's investigation. The forensic evidence is always important, of course. But what interests me and my sleuths is the life the victim lived, his character, his colleagues, his family, and his friends. It is by examining the victim's life that the reason for his murder will be discovered. The people who surrounded him are who my sleuths will turn to for information and for their list of potential suspects. And one of these people is, of course, the murderer. The victims are different in each of my series. It's probably not smart to become acquainted with Susan Henshaw, my housewife amateur sleuth. She usually knows the victims of the murders she investigates. Josie Pigeon, a contractor, discovers victims on the job and finds herself involved in the lives of people she has barely met. Valerie's latest is Murder in the Forecast. The victim in that book is washed away during Hurricane Agatha. Valerie can be reached at valerie@wolzien.com.
Lora Roberts Who to kill, who to kill? It's a delicate question that each mystery writer handles differently. I find it hard to kill off characters that I and the reader find appealing. It can even be hard to kill the characters I've marked for death. In my last Liz Sullivan book, Murder Follows Money, one person I wanted to kill was a certain Maven of Style (note initials) from whose catalogue I had ordered what turned out to be The Craft Project From Hell. She had to die, and I was just the person to tie everything up in tasteful black ribbons. However, something happened on the way to her demise. As I wrote about my fictional style maven, I discovered a reluctant admiration for her, to the point where I changed my story to accommodate her. My next mystery (Another Fine Mess, fall 2002, which features Bridget Montrose) has a very famous and well-paid author as a victim. The idea of bumping off such a writer was very appealing. (Not that many are like that; most writers are the best folks in all the world). The rich and famous make good victims because so many people have reasons to get rid of them, which is, of course, the first requirement for any mystery victim. You can e-mail Lora at myslora@pacbell.net.
Lee Harris Let me begin by describing the kind of person I do not choose as a victim. I don't make my victims hateful and hated people, although one might creep in occasionally. A victim should provoke interest, even intrigue, not necessarily dislike. In The Good Friday Murder the victim was the mother of idiot savant twins. In The Christening Day Murder the victim was a young woman who was well liked, and the people who knew and liked her could not understand why anyone would kill her. In The Father's Day Murder the victim was a beloved member of a group of men who had been friends for almost sixty years. In these cases the motive isn't obvious and has to be dug out of whatever information Chris Bennett, my ex-nun sleuth, can elicit. One thing I will never do is kill a child gratuitously. While some of my victims "deserve" to die, at least from the point of view of the killer, children never deserve such a fate. And as always in the series, the reasons for the murder can be found somewhere in the history of the victim and the killer. When you read a Christine book, you know that somewhere in the past, often the distant past, are the answers to the questions Chris and the police are asking. Lee Harris's newest book is The April Fools' Day Murder. Her next book, The Happy Birthday Murder, is due out early in 2002. E-mail Lee at MysMurder@aol.com.
Jonnie Jacobs Authors sometimes start by selecting a victim, killing on the page someone who annoys them in real life. (Ex-spouses and nasty bosses, beware.) I generally begin at the other end, namely with the killer and the killer's motive. The story then dictates the victim(s), but I try to make them intriguing characters in their own right. I want my victims to seem real, to have traits readers can connect with, and of course, a life fascinating enough to sustain several possibilities for murder. In my latest, Witness for the Defense, Kali becomes entangled in a contested adoption and defends the adoptive mother charged in the murder of the birth father. In Motion to Dismiss, Kali represents a man on trial for murdering the woman who'd accused him of date rape. A particularly difficult victim for me, because of her youth and general appeal, was the high school girl killed in Murder Among Us (Kate Austen series). But the story and motive left me no choice. Even my unsympathetic victims have redeeming qualities, however, and it's always difficult for me to do away with them. Murder makes for a good story, but the horror of the act is never far from my mind. Jonnie's latest Kate Austen mystery, Murder Among Strangers, is now available in paperback. Jonnie can be reached at jonnie@jonniejacobs.com.
©2005-07 by Lee Harris, Jonnie Jacobs, Lora Roberts and Valerie Wolzien. |
