Crime Fiction Rules: Rules, Schmules

At the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Watercooler, the group's monthly Zoom gathering, as well as on its lively e-list, members frequently comment about the absurdity of trying to hold short fiction to rigid rules. It's been said that a short story should have only three characters and that it should always have four scenes (I think that one was a joke, a well-known writer's answer to a newbie's earnest question). More seriously, we tend to think a story should have a twist at the end.

The same is true for crime and mystery novels, though those rules have changed drastically between when I started reading them in the 1960s and today. The classic structure of a mystery was crime, investigation, and solution. Its template was a coat hanger on which you could hang anything you wanted—bell ringing, making cupcakes, or hunting the whale. (Isn't Moby Dick a suspense novel? And doesn't it end in death?) The beginning of a mystery novel was devoted to a leisurely setup foreshadowing murders and motives and introducing the characters who would become victims, suspects, and witnesses.

When I started writing mysteries in the early 2000s, things had changed. A modern traditional mystery had to start with a body on the first page or at least the first chapter. If not, we were told, neither agents, editors, nor readers would read on. In other subgenres, the story had to start with "a pie in the face." (I heard this term from Chris Grabenstein, who attributed it to James Patterson.) Suspense had to build constantly. One body was not enough. And even an amateur sleuth had to face personal danger at the climax.

For those who wanted rules, those who make rules are happy to supply them. There must be subplots. There must be an antagonist to give the protagonist a hard time. Third person is better than first. Prologues, alternating points of view, and present tense narratives are to be avoided.

In both short stories and novels, all these rules are constantly broken. We've all read and written successful fiction that ignores them. In particular, alternating or multiple POVs and present tense narrative are ships that have not only sailed, but vanished beyond the horizon. I would say almost half the crime fiction I read these days is written in present tense.

Sure, writers, editors, and readers all have their preferences. One mystery lover on DorothyL has mentioned more than once that when she reads a mystery novel that alternates a narrative set in the present with a narrative set in the past, she skips the chapters set in the past. If I'd carefully constructed a book that way and knew a reader was doing that with it, I'd be tearing my hair.

I've written short stories with alternating POV for a variety of reasons. In one case, I have an ongoing series with a familiar character. In one story, I introduced a new character with a different voice in an entirely different setting and then told a story involving her with my ongoing character. This livened things up for me as a writer and enriched the series as a whole.

In another case, I had a particular story I wanted to tell and couldn't decide how to tell it. I ended up with several beginnings in different voices and decided to use them all. It worked— the characters and stories came together, and the rest almost wrote itself.

The next challenge was placing a 3,500-word story with five different POVs. All my usual markets turned it down over a two-year period. I did blinch a little, as Piglet says. (Do you know Winnie-the-Pooh is now in the public domain?) But I sent it off again and got an immediate acceptance from an editor who said, "I love how you alternated the third-person POVs, finally ending with the first-person POV." You can read "Suds in the Bucket" on the webzine Yellow Mama.

So rules, schmules— if you believe in your story, there's an editor for it out there somewhere.

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