Tips for Writing Humor

Later this week I'm going to be one of the speakers at a Short Mystery Fiction Society zoom meeting. The topic is writing humor. Humor is one of those things that can be hard to teach, especially because it's subjective. What causes one reader to break into a fit of laughter might cause another reader to sigh in exasperation. Humor is also intuitive--at least that is how it seems to me. If you aren't naturally funny, you're going to have a hard time writing something funny.

Nonetheless, this zoom is imminent, so I recently skimmed through a list of my published stories, thinking about the funny ones (at least the ones intended to be funny) and why I thought they were funny. In the end, I realized it all comes down to voice. Even if an author devises a hysterical setup, if the characters don't react in a humorous way, either by what is said or thought (the characters' voices) or by what is done (essentially, this is the author's voice at work), the humor likely will fall flat. 

To illustrate, I'm going to address the humor in some of my stories. This will spoil some of the stories, at least a little. Sorry about that to those folks who haven't already devoured everything I've had published. Though surely, dear reader, I'm not talking about you. (See, that was voice, used for humorous effect! Anyway...)

"Bug Appetit" - This was a story about a con artist who ended up at a Thanksgiving dinner made with insects, but he didn't know about the ingredients until mid-meal. The setup was amusing (at least to me), but one of the funniest parts of the story was the big reveal about the bugs, both the dialogue (especially that of Helen, a grandmother without a filter who was also hard of hearing) and the reaction thoughts of the main character. Helen also spoke in a folksy manner, turning what she said, which could have seemed sinister or mean, into something funny. Here's a key part, starting with the main character talking about the food, followed by the big reveal:

"This butternut soup is fantastic. I especially like the bacon bits."

As he lifted another spoonful into his mouth, Helen yelled, "Bacon bits my ass. That's worms you're eating!"

I think the rhythm of how Helen spoke, as well as her frankness and her word choice, is what made it funny.  

"A Tale of Two Sisters" - This story was set at a wedding at a resort. The main character was the anxious bride's sister. She was determined to ensure everything would go smoothly. This story was supposed to be funny, but I wasn't feeling funny when I wrote it. As a result, the reaction thoughts and the dialogue were falling flat. I finally realized the story needed a foil--a character the other characters, especially the main character, could feel antagonistic to and react to in a funny way. And that is how the two sisters' mother came to be. 

Funny thing, I thought I had written that the main character heard The Wicked Witch of the West music whenever her mother appeared, but I just searched through the story, and that detail wasn't in there. It must have just been in my head as I wrote, and it was enough to get me in a snarky, humorous mood. The moral of this story: sometimes, in order to get humor flowing from your fingers, you need to take steps to make you feel funny yourself.

"Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy" - This is another Thanksgiving story. It took place in the pristine home of an uptight woman. An heirloom ring went missing (it actually was stolen, hidden in the filled gravy boat), and the family members searched frantically for it, resulting in a food fight. What really made the food-fight scene work was the main character's horrified reaction to her dining room being destroyed as the food flew. It was fun to write. And that, I think, is a key element of writing humor. You should be amused as you write. If you aren't making yourself laugh, it seems highly unlikely you'll make anyone else laugh.

"Gone to Pot" - In this tale, Annabelle learned that her next-door neighbor Micki's cat, Chairman Meow, was rushed to the vet after the poor baby got a contact high from the outdoor pot smoking of the neighbors who lived on the other side of Micki's house. The setup of this story wasn't funny. Annabelle's reaction--what she said, what she thought, and what she did--is what made the story shine (in my humble opinion). 

Here is one of Annabelle's funny reaction thoughts. It opens with Micki telling Annabelle that she spoke with the pot smokers about what happened to Chairman Meow. Micki didn't get the empathetic response she'd been hoping for.

"Dean said it was my choice to own a cat, and if the smoke bothered him I should 'keep my damn windows closed.'"

I'd never heard such un-neighborly behavior in my life, and my hometown had a serial killer when I grew up. 

I've heard it said that all acting is reacting. I think reacting plays the same important role when writing humor.

You can find "Baby Love" in
 this this great anthology. 

"Baby Love" - In this story, Dan is a PI who's determined to solve his new case, while his wife, Hannah, keeps trying to lure him into bed so she can get pregnant. You'd thing Hannah's actions would impede the investigation, but every seductive move she makes gives Dan an idea of where to look for his next clue. I thought that basic setup was funny. Then I tried to pump up the humor through Dan's avoidance (dialogue and thoughts) of Hannah's come-ons as well as through her exasperated reactions. I also used details to add to the humor throughout the story (as I did in "Gone to Pot" with things like naming the cat Chairman Meow). For instance, I thought it was amusing when Dan found Hannah wearing an apron--only an apron--that said on the front "Is it hot in here or is it just me?" 

All of this funny stuff (Dan's thoughts, Hannah's frustrated responses to being put off, and the amusing details in the story) ultimately boils down to voice--the characters' voices, as well as mine, which is shown in my wording choices, amongst other things. So if you want to make your characters funny, think about the way someone you find funny talks and try to bring that quality to your characters.

I hope you've found these tips helpful. If you'd like to read any of the stories I talked about above, they're all listed on my website with the original place of publication. Just click here. If you'd like to read "Baby Love," you can find it here on my website for a limited time. (If you would prefer to read a PDF, click here, then scroll down to the titles of the five short stories nominated this year for the Agatha Award. They all link to PDFs.) And if you're a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, I hope to see you at the watercooler zoom on Thursday evening, where John Floyd, Robert Lopresti, Josh Pachter, and I will regale you with our humor tips--though I think I've covered all of mine here. Uh oh...

Red Herrings Can Still Stink

Five years ago, I ran the following column, which had the most views of all my SleuthSayers essays published before and since then. It therefore seems worthwhile to run it again, with minor modifications.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say something that may be controversial, at least among writers: Readers should understand why a red herring (something that is said or happens in a novel or story that leads the reader to a false conclusion) was not the solution to the puzzle by the time the tale is over.

Until recently I didn't think this was a controversial opinion. I thought it was a standard approach to writing mysteries. Sure, I'd sometimes heard authors say they didn't need to explain by the end of their stories why Character X said Y because Y was a red herring, but I thought they were mistaken, and since I wasn't their teacher, it wasn't my place to correct their misguided notion. But recently I edited a story by an author I respect, someone who's a solid writer, and the issue arose. Since I was this person's editor, it was my job to say my piece.

I'm going to talk about the story, but I'm completely changing the names and plot so that you can't identify the author because who this person is doesn't matter. In the whodunit story, Princess Consuella tells Annie the Amateur Sleuth that murder suspect Bad Bad Leroy Brown lied about something, based on personal observation, and therefore, Leroy must be the killer. Princess Consuella was believable and seemed absolutely certain, so I suspect most readers would have finished that scene believing Leroy had indeed lied and thus must have been the killer. It's what I thought. Yet at the end of the story, I learned I'd been fooled. Leroy may be bad, but he never killed anyone--at least not in that story.

I raised the problem with the author--that no explanation of Princess Consuella's statement about Bad Bad Leroy Brown was provided by the story's end. Either Leroy did lie (which by the story's end didn't seem right, since we never learned any reason Leroy would have lied about the issue in question) or the princess had been wrong (but how could that have been true, since she had seen with her own eyes the thing she was certain Leroy lied about, and it wasn't the type of thing that could have been misunderstood, and she had no reason to lie either). The reader would be left wondering how to reconcile this situation, so some  explanation should be provided, I said. The author pushed back, saying that no explanation was necessary since it was a red herring designed to fool the reader into thinking the wrong suspect was the killer. The reader learns who the actual killer is by the end, and that's what matters, the author said; we don't need to revisit the red herring. 

That response prompted me to do some research about red herrings. Had I been wrong all these years? Do red herrings, by their very nature, not require explanation? To my surprise, I found nothing addressing this issue. There are a lot of articles about crafting solid red herrings, but I found nothing addressing the idea that red herrings should be explained by a story's end, that the reader should be able to understand how she got fooled. Even now, some time later, I remain quite surprised, because if authors can toss in red herrings without eventually providing an explanation for them, it makes writing a mystery too easy. It feels like a cheat.

In the case of Bad Bad Leroy Brown, sure, he could have been lying for reasons the reader never learns, despite seeming to have no reason to lie. Alternately, Princess Consuella could have lied for reasons the reader never learns about or she could have been wrong, despite being so certain and giving the reader no explanation for how she could have been mistaken. It certainly would make life easy for authors if they could write red herrings that didn't have to be explained in the end, but I think it would leave readers with a bad taste in their mouths. That is why I believe such scenarios need to be resolved. Did Leroy lie and why? Or did the princess get it wrong and how could that be? Without an explanation, the red herring feels contrived. It makes me feel like the author was playing games with me. 

This is why I recommended the author use a little misdirection when the red herring was introduced. More specifically, I suggested that when the princess called Leroy a liar, the author should use the wiggle word "recall" in the dialogue. Notice the slight difference:

Scenario A: The princess slams her hand on the table, its sound echoing throughout the castle. "Bad Bad Leroy Brown is a liar! I was sitting right next to him in the dungeon cafe last week, and he didn't leave money for his meal on the table when he left. I wonder what else he's lying about. I bet he rips off restaurants throughout the kingdom all the time. He's a rip-off artist."

Scenario B: The princess slams her hand on the table, its sound echoing throughout the castle. "Bad Bad Leroy Brown is a liar! I was sitting right next to him in the dungeon cafe last week, and I don't recall him leaving money for his meal on the table when he left. I wonder what else he's lying about. I bet he rips off restaurants throughout the kingdom all the time. He's a rip-off artist."

In Scenario A, the reader ends the story shrugging, thinking Leroy (who has a reputation for honesty, despite his name) had no reason to lie when he said he paid for his lunch, yet the princess's adamant accusation against Leroy remains unexplained. (She too had no reason to lie, and her certainty indicated she hadn't made a mistake.) In Scenario B, the reader can go back and reread the language of the princess's accusation and think, "Oh. The author fooled me."

Here's why Scenario B works: Because (1) the reader has no reason to think the princess lied; (2) the princess seems certain, so the reader will believe her account; and (3) the princess distracts the reader by slamming the table, muttering about what else Leroy might have lied about, and declaring that he's a rip-off artist, the reader easily could read right past the key words--the princess didn't recall Leroy leaving his payment. When the reader gets to the end of the story, she could flip back to reread the princess's accusation and think: "Oh! It was right there. She merely didn't remember that he had paid. It makes sense considering that she was distracted. I was fooled fair and square." That's the way to make a red herring work. That's the way to make the reader feel satisfied rather than feeling played. It would especially work if the author built elsewhere into the story that while the princess was at the cafe, something else was going on that could have held her attention.

Alternately, the reader could learn by the story's end that Leroy did lie for reasons unrelated to the murder. If there was a good reason for his lie, especially something that worked well with the plot, then revealing both the lie and the reason for it could have elevated the story. It also could have left the reader feeling satisfied because, while she was fooled, she wasn't played for a fool. Distracting the reader into missing a key word is playing fair with the reader. In contrast, dropping a lie into the story to fool the reader without any ultimate explanation isn't playing fair, not to me, at least.

So that's my advice about red herrings. If you're going to use them, make sure they're explained by the end so they don't seem contrived. Otherwise, you're taking an easy way out and you're not playing fair with the reader. Just like fish that sits out too long, that approach stinks.

***

In other news, here's a little BSP: My short story "Baby Love" has been nominated for the Agatha Award. The story was published last August in the anthology Double Crossing Van Dine. The attendees of the Malice Domestic mystery convention will vote on the winners in April. Click here to see the finalists in all six categories. The titles of the five short stories link to PDFs of those stories for your easy reading. 

Senior Sleuths and Sinners

Senior sleuths may be all the rage thanks to The Thursday Murder Club series and Only Murders in the Building, among others. But authors have been making use of older sleuths--and older sinners--for a long time. (Paging Miss Marple.) 

 

I tackled this topic back in 2017. Given the increasing popularity of senior characters since then, this seems a good time to rerun that column, with minor edits. I hope you find it helpful.

Looks can be deceiving.  No one knows that better than people who try to slip something past you. Con artists. Murderers. Even wide-eyed children and little old ladies. When you appear nice and innocent, folks will let you get away with murder.

 

I've written before about using teenage girls as protagonists. They work well as evil-doers or crime-committers because no one suspects them. They're young and peppy and can come across as sweet if they try. They're also fearless and their brains aren't fully developed, so they'll do stupid things few adults would. Today, I'm going to focus on the other end of the age spectrum: the senior set. (I know some people don't like that term, but I mean no animus, so please bear with me.)

Imagine you come home to find your house burglarized, with your files ransacked and your computer--with all your notes--stolen. In real life, you'd call the cops, never thinking you personally could find the culprit. It could be anyone. But things are different for fictional Amateur Sleuth Sally. 

Sally knows she's been investigating the arson death of poor Mr. Hooper, who owned the corner store. So with the neighbors leaning on their porches or whispering in small groups on their lawns, watching the police spectacle (it's a small town, so there's spectacle), Sally goes outside and studies her prime suspects in the arson murder and her own burglary: those very same neighbors.

Is the culprit Oscar, the grouchy guy in the green bathrobe across the street who puts out his trash too early in the morning? Sally heard he owed Mr. Hooper money. Or is it Maria, the skinny lady who works at the library? She lives two doors down, and Sally has heard she spends time with Mr. Hooper when Mrs. Hooper is away on business--or at least she used to until Mrs. Hooper put a stop to it. Or is it Mrs. Hooper herself, the betrayed spouse? Sally has lots of questions and suspects, but she never stops to think about kindly Katrina, the grandmother who lives next door. Surely a woman who bakes cookies and serves as a crossing guard couldn't have done in Mr. Hooper.

You all know. Of course she did. And Sally Sleuth's failure to recognize that appearances can be deceiving will almost be her undoing. (Almost. This is a cozy novel I'm outlining, so Sally must prevail in the end.)

But things don't always tie up so neatly in short stories. In short stories, the bad guy can win. Or the ending can really surprise you. Or both. And kindly Katrina could end up pulling one over on Sally Sleuth. I've made use of this aspect of short stories in several of my own.

In my 2017 story "Whose Wine Is It Anyway?," seventy-year-old Myra Wilkinson is in her final week of work. She's retiring on Friday after working for forty-five years as a law firm secretary, forty of them for the same guy, Douglas. But as her final day looms, Myra isn't as excited as she anticipated because Douglas has chosen Jessica, a husband-hunting hussy, to replace her. Jessica doesn't care about doing the job right, and this is bothering Myra to no end. Then something happens, and Myra realizes that Douglas has been taking her for granted. So she comes up with a scheme involving Douglas's favorite wine to teach Douglas a lesson and reveal Jessica for the slacker she really is.

The beauty of the plan is no one will see Myra coming. On the outside she's kind and helpful. She calls people "dear." As one character says, she's "the heart of this department." Myra's nice on the inside, too, but she also has sass and a temper, which come into play as she hatches her scheme and it plays out.

Another great thing about Myra is she's known Douglas for so long that she knows his weaknesses, and she makes use of them. (This reminds me of a wonderful scene from the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray's character says of God, "Maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long, he knows everything.") The older a character is, the more knowledge she'll have--information she can use against others.

Towanda!

An older person like Myra also might be willing to throw caution to the wind, seeing she's made it so far already. (That reminds me of a wonderful scene from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes in which Kathy Bates's middle-aged character is cheated out of a parking spot by two twenty-something women, one of whom says, "Face it, lady, we're younger and faster." Kathy Bates goes on to repeatedly ram her car into the the other woman's car, then says, "Face it, girls. I'm older and have more insurance." Granted Kathy Bates's character wasn't a senior citizen, but she had reached the point where she wasn't going to just take things anymore.)

Anyway, what happens to Myra, Douglas, and Jessica? You'll have to read the story to find out. You can find "Whose Wine Is It Anyway?" as a standalone e-story at Barnes and Noble (click here) and Amazon (click here). The story originally appeared in the anthology 50 Shades of Cabernet. It was a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for best short story in 2018.

 

Getting back to seniors, I had fun writing another senior character in a story that came out in 2016, "The Best-Laid Plans." Eloise Nickel is a mystery writer, a grande dame of her profession, and she's being honored for her lifetime achievement at this year's Malice International convention. (Does this convention's name sound familiar? Good.) It's too bad for Eloise that the convention's guest of honor this year is Kimberly Siger, Eloise's nemesis. Then, to make matters worse, a few weeks before the convention, Kimberly insults Eloise in Mystery Queen Magazine. Eloise isn't going to take that, so she plans to make Kimberly suffer during the convention. Because she's known Kimberly for many years, Eloise knows Kimberly's weak spots. And because she's thought of as a nice, aging lady, she figures no one will suspect her of any nefarious doings. Do her plans work out? Read "The Best-Laid Plans" to find out. This story, published in the anthology Malice Domestic 11: Murder Most Conventional, was a finalist for the Agatha Award in 2017. The anthology remains available in paper and digital formats from a lot of retailers.

So, fellow mystery authors, when you're thinking about your next plot and want a bad guy or gal who can hide in plain sight, think about a senior citizen. The same goes when you're devising your sleuth. A bad guy may not spill his guts if thirty-something Sally Sleuth is nearby, but he certainly might if Grandma Greta is. He thinks she's so innocuous, he won't see her coming--until she pulls a gun on him.

Do you have a favorite character--good gal or bad--who's a senior citizen? Please share in the comments. We can never have enough good short stories and books to read.

Two ... Oops Three ... Great New Series

The first week in January is the perfect time to talk about reading from the prior year. So I'm going to take this opportunity to share two (oops three, see below) of my favorite mysteries published in 2025 that start off new series. There are other books I read in 2025 that I loved too, but I like to promote new series when I can. First up ...

The Botanist's Assistant by Peggy Townsend 

Here's part of the story description from the publisher (Berkley):

A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself. 

Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. She lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a twenty-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing. But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric—an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything—make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.

It's those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her. 

And here is my take: 

I grew to love Margaret because she is wed to the truth, even when playing office politics would be a smart move. She's logical, loyal, smart, kind, and unintentionally funny. She sometimes did dumb things, but the author made those actions grow from Margaret's character and thus they were totally believable. The book has some great supporting characters, good clues, strong writing (including similes that are perfect for someone into science), and it has a cat too! I am eagerly awaiting book two. Highly recommended.

Vice and Virtue by Libby Klein

Here's part of the story description from the publisher (Kensington Books):

Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, thirtysomething recovering alcoholic and former cop, is trying to reinvent herself as a rock musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an eight-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .

Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . . 

 

And here is my take: 

 

This book has a solid mystery and rich character development, especially between Layla and her fun dad, Layla and her new friends, and Layla and her love-interest neighbor. Layla herself grows, too, thanks to all these people in her life. The book has lovely, heartwarming moments, humor sprinkled throughout, and a dog! I wish there had been a little more sleuthing, but that is a personal preference. The book's main mystery is solved, but an overarching series mystery has been set up that I expect will also be addressed in book two. (If you ever watched Veronica Mars, I think what the author has done is similar to how each episode's mystery was solved in that episode, but there was a season-long mystery too that was wrapped up at the season's end.) Book two, Gimme Shelter, will be released in late April, and I am ready for it.

 

Did you read anything great in 2025? Any fab novels kicking off a new series? I'd love to hear about them. 

 

Adding this Tuesday morning: I learned yesterday that another new great series kicked off in 2025. I had thought the first book was released in the last week of 2024, but I was wrong. It was released last January. If I had known in time, I would have included a third book above: The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler. Fabulous book with a gay female PI in 1898 Chicago. I read it in one day.

Half-Topless?

It's wonderful when story ideas come to mind fully fleshed out so you can sit down and start writing. Or, if you don't have the time to write right away, you can jot down enough notes so that when you have writing time, you can dive in. But writing doesn't always work that way.

I have a big file of story ideas. Some of them are somewhat fleshed out. Others contain a sentence or two followed by the statement: Figure out the plot. (That's always so helpful.) Sometimes I'll have come up with only a good opening line or title, again leaving the hard work for future me. Sometimes I will have a newspaper article that intrigued me, followed by: Can I make something from this? Often the answer turns out to be no. If I had no grand story idea when I was first intrigued, an idea probably isn't going to come years later. But sometimes…

About five years ago, I read a story involving a topless bar that had a word I immediately thought had to be a mistake. At one point, the bar was described as "half-topless." How in the world could a bar be half-topless? It was such delicious wording that I knew I had to make something from it. Yet no matter how much brain power I expended, I couldn't come up with a workable story. So this half-baked idea about a half-topless bar went into the story idea file, where so many others have withered away. 

But not this idea! Earlier this year, editor Andrew McAleer reached out to ask me to write a PI story for him for Von Stray's Crimestalker Casebook. After a two-decade hiatus, the magazine (previously called Crimestalker Casebook) was coming back, starting with a December 2025 issue. My first instinct was to say no. I have been so busy with work that I have been turning down a lot of opportunities over the last two or three years. But Andrew said he wanted a flash story, meaning fewer than a thousand words. I figured I could fit that short a story into my schedule if I had the right idea. 

I delved into my story file, came across the half-topless prompt, and finally things began to coalesce--evidence that sometimes waiting does help. Suddenly I pictured a PI sitting in his car, staring at a sign that said "half-topless." And I was off and running. The story ended up set at a strip club rather than a bar. I give thanks to my friend Dina Willner, who suggested the name of the club, which in turn suggested the location and enabled me to add more humor to the story. 

A couple of days later, I sent the story to some beta readers for their thoughts. Thanks to Sherry Harris for pushing me to think about my main character's arc. Thanks to Minnesotans Tim Bentler-Jungr and Michael Allan Mallory for checking if my dialogue and Minnesota references worked. 

So what's the story about? It can be hard to talk about a flash story's plot without giving too much away. But it opens with a PI and his trainee sitting in their car, staring in confusion at a strip club's sign that proclaims the place is half-topless. They've been hired to find a woman named Angel Trapp, who they've heard dances there. So they go inside to see if she's there--and learn how somebody could be half-topless.

Some of you may recognize the name of the aforementioned woman: Angel Trapp. The character is named after a real person who won naming rights in a charity auction last spring at the Malice Domestic mystery convention. Thank you, Angel, for being game for anything.

The moral of this story: never throw away your story ideas. It may take years, but sometimes you'll be able to turn a wisp of an idea into a fully fledged tale. In this case, the story is appropriately titled "Half-Topless."

This issue of Von Stray's Crimestalker Casebook is available on Kindle here. I think a paper version will eventually follow. The issue includes stories by fellow SleuthSayers Michael Bracken and John Floyd and a poem by Art Taylor.

Thanksgiving Humor

Seven years ago, I ran this column Thanksgiving week. Since many people might need a laugh this year, I'm running it again, with minor edits. Happy early Thanksgiving to those of you in the US. 

It's two days until Thanksgiving, and I bet some of you are stressed. Maybe it's because you're cooking and ... it's the first time you're hosting, and you want it to be perfect. Or your mother-in-law is coming, and your turkey never lives up to hers. Or the weatherman is predicting snow on Thanksgiving and you're afraid that your relatives won't show up ... or maybe that they will.

Or maybe your stress stems from being a guest. Are you an introvert, dreading a day of small talk with the extended family? A picky eater, going to the home of a gourmet who makes food way too fancy for your tastes? Or are you a dieter, going to the home of someone who likes to push food and you're likely to spend the day going, "no thanks, no rolls for me," "no thanks, no candied yams for me," "no thanks, no cookies for me," ... "dear lord, lady, what part of no thanks don't you get?"

No matter who you are, or what your situation, Thanksgiving can cause stress. The best way to deal with stress is laughter. And that's where I come in. So set down that baster and get ready to smile, because I've got some fictional characters who've had a worse Thanksgiving than you.

Paul and Jamie Buchman from Mad About You
 

They tried so hard to make the perfect dinner ... only to have their dog, Murray, eat the turkey.


Rachel Green from Friends

All she wanted was to cook a nice dessert for her friends ... only to learn too late that she wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle. It did not taste good.


The Gang from Cheers 

Those poor Thanksgiving orphans. They waited hours for a turkey that just wouldn't cook ... only to then suffer the indignity of being involved in a food fight. (For anyone who's ever read my story "Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy," this Cheers episode was the inspiration.)


Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond

She was determined to have a happy Thanksgiving despite her overly critical mother-in-law ... only to drop her uncooked turkey on the floor three times before flinging it into the oven. Yum.


Arthur Carlson from WKRP in Cincinnati

He wanted to create the greatest promotion ever, inviting the public to a shopping mall and providing free turkeys ... live ones ... only to learn too late that tossing live turkeys out of a helicopter from 2,000 feet in the air isn't a good idea. As God was his witness, he thought turkeys could fly.


Garner Duffy from "Bug Appétit"

I've written a bunch of funny Thanksgiving stories over the years. One had a food fight. One was set at a nudist colony. One involved ... well, the title gives you a hint. In 2018, "Bug Appétit" was published. Its main character, Garner Duffy, is a con man. And all he wants for Thanksgiving is to eat some good food at his mark's home before stealing her jewelry. He learns too late that her mother is ... an inventive cook. This story was a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards, and the fine folks at Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine asked me to record it for them. You can listen to it here: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/eqmm/episodes/2019-04-01T06_10_35-07_00

I hope you're smiling and feeling less stressed by now, dear readers. Until next time, happy Thanksgiving!

Use of Memory in Fiction

Last June, USA Today and Amazon best-selling and multi-award-nominated author Connie Berry shared the following essay with her newsletter readers. I immediately wanted to share her thoughts about using memory in a mystery’s plot. (I waited until now because, as you’ll see, Connie talks about June being a nostalgic month, but I find the holiday season to be nostalgic too, with friends and family coming together, remembering times gone by. So as we approach the holiday season, it seems the perfect time to share Connie’s thoughts about memory.) Thank you, Connie, for graciously allowing me to reprint this essay. 

--Barb Goffman 

 

Use of Memory in Fiction

by Connie Berry 

June is a nostalgic month for most people, bringing memories of family gatherings and vacations, high school and college reunions, weddings and anniversaries, and holidays like Fathers’ Day, Flag Day, and Juneteenth.

Last week I had a long phone conversation with my best friend from college. Patty and I haven’t seen each other in more than twenty years—and then only briefly—but she and I were very close during those formative years between 18 and 21.

We knew each other’s high school crushes, and we made up code words no one else understood. We laughed at the same silly jokes, and we pondered some of life’s most important questions.

Once, she stayed up all night with me, typing while I frantically wrote the English paper I had learned about the day before it was due (I'd cut a lot of classes).

We spent almost a year in Europe together, attending classes in Germany and England and driving all over Europe between terms in her little baby blue Karmann Ghia. She taught me to drive a stick shift, and I introduced her to my relatives in Norway.

Long before there was such a thing as the internet, smartphones, or streaming music, we bought a small record player and several albums. We wore those albums out--literally.

It’s fun looking back. It’s also interesting because, as we were sharing our memories (many decades later), we realized that the things we recollected weren’t always the same.

For example, she reminded me of driving in the hills above Monaco. A crazy driver overtook us on a blind curve. If a car had been coming from the opposite direction, we all would have been killed. My response (as she remembered it) was to say, “I refuse to die in Monaco!” I don’t remember that at all.

Then I reminded her that we met an elderly woman in our Monte Carlo pensione who claimed to be of Russian nobility. We thought she was making it up until she escorted us into the inner, private rooms at the famous casino. The attendants bowed to her, and she pointed out other Russian ex-pats— “That’s Count So-and-So.” My friend has no memory of that elderly woman.

Time flies, and memories differ. Writers can use that fact to create complexity and obscure clues in a murder investigation. Police will tell you that eyewitness accounts of a crime differ, even immediately after an event. After years have passed, people may have completely different accounts of something they both witnessed.

Is one of them lying, or is it simply a matter of human psychology? What is it that cements a memory in one person’s mind but not another’s?

Right now, I’m playing with this concept in my WIP. Human brains don’t retain perfect recordings. Instead, they selectively encode information based on individual factors such as emotions, interests, past experiences, and biases.

So how does someone seeking the truth sort through these differences? My protagonist is trying to figure that out. So am I.

Do you have a memory that no one else shares—even those present at the time? I’d love to hear about it!

 ----- 

Connie Berry, unashamed Anglophile and self-confessed history nerd, is the author of the USA Today and Amazon best-selling and multi-award-nominated Kate Hamilton Mysteries, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Like her protagonist, Connie was raised by antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. Connie is a member of the Crime Writers Association (UK), the Authors’ Guild, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Buckeye Crime Writers, Grand Canyon Writers, and Guppies, of which she is the immediate past president. Her fourth book, The Shadow of Memory, was nominated for the Lilian Jackson Braun Award, and her fifth, A Collection of Lies, was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. Her latest novel, A Grave Deception, will be released in early December 2025. Connie lives in Ohio and northern Wisconsin with her husband and adorable Shih Tzu, Emmie. You can sign up for her very entertaining monthly newsletter at www.connieberry.com.

Looking for Tips about Writing and Submitting Mystery Short Stories? This is the Blog Post for You

You want to start writing crime/mystery short stories? Great. Jump right in. After all, you've gotta start somewhere. Every long journey begins with a single step. So don't be afraid to put yourself out there when you put pen to paper. But be sure to think outside the box and avoid cliches like the plague. If you do all that, before you know it, you'll live happily ever after.

If you're a new or newer writer, you may be wondering if my word choices in the prior paragraph were ironic. They were. But the sentiment behind them was not. It is important to take risks and try to achieve your dreams, and you do have to start somewhere. 

I started my fiction-writing journey more than twenty years ago by taking a workshop in writing a mystery novel. I wasn't aiming to write short stories back then, but the skills I learned were applicable. I was fortunate to have found a workshop that exactly fit my needs a five-minute drive from where I lived. I recognize that might not be the experience of everyone who is reading this now.

But here is something you all do have in common. You can sign up for a free online webinar being held this Saturday, October 18, where you can hear from some seasoned writers and editors, as well as some successful newer writers, about writing and submitting crime/mystery short stories. It doesn't matter where you live or your experience level or what your ability to pay is. If you have an internet connection and are interested in the topic, you are welcome.

You're also welcome even if you aren't new to writing short stories. This advice could be useful no matter how many stories you've had published.

The webinar, titled Mystery in the Midlands: Writing Short Mystery Fiction 2025, is sponsored by the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Here is the schedule (note that everything is Eastern Time):

11:15 a.m. Welcome

11:30 a.m. Plotting Short Stories

12:30 p.m. New Voices in Short Mystery Fiction

1:30 p.m. Intriguing an Editor: So Your Writing’s Remembered Even If Your Story’s Rejected

2:30 p.m. Conclusion

 

Segment Descriptions and Participants

Plotting Short Stories

John M. Floyd’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Strand Magazine, Best American Mystery Stories, Best Mystery Stories of the Year, and many other publications. John is an Edgar nominee, a Shamus Award winner, and a six-time Derringer Award winner.

 

New Voices in Short Mystery Fiction — Michael Bracken, moderator

N.M. Cedeño writes across genres. Her short stories have appeared in Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, After Dinner Conversation, Black Cat Weekly, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Crimeucopia. “Predators and Prey,” was selected for the “Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense of 2024” list in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025.

LaToya Jovena's crime fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Best American Mystery and Suspense. She writes about the DC suburbs a lot, because that’s where she lives.

Tom Milani’s first story was published in 2022. Since then, his work has been short-listed for a Derringer Award, and he has published an additional nine stories, a novella, and his debut novel.

 

Intriguing an Editor: So Your Writing’s Remembered Even If Your Story’s Rejected — Paula Gail Benson, moderator

Barb Goffman has won the Agatha Award four times, the Macavity twice, and the Anthony, Derringer, and Ellery Queen Readers Award once each, as well as the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s lifetime achievement award. She’s been a finalist for major mystery awards forty-nine times. She has edited or co-edited fifteen anthologies with another in progress, and she received a Derringer Award for Murder, Neat.

Sandra Murphy is a Derringer-winning writer whose stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and several other publications. Additionally, she is the editor of four anthologies, including, most recently, Sex and Violins: An Erotic Crime Anthology and Yeet Me in St. Louis: Crime Fiction from Under the Arch.

Josh Pachter is an author, editor, and translator. A two-time Derringer winner and the 2020 recipient of the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement, he is the editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including four Anthony Award finalists. 

 

Are you eager to watch? If so, it's easy to register. Just click here. 

Thank you to the organizers for inviting me to participate. I hope you join us. 

The Extra Voice

Author Sherry Harris is a good friend (and editing client) of mine. Recently, she mentioned how my prior edits continue to influence her to this day, and we realized it might be helpful for Sherry to share some of my past comments/concerns in case any of you have the same writing issues. So I invited her to be our guest blogger today. Take it away, Sherry!

— Barb Goffman

 

The Extra Voice

by Sherry Harris

All writers have voices in their head, but I have an extra one. It's Barb Goffman's. She edited twelve of my thirteen published books, one that isn't published, and all the short stories I've written. So, trust me, when I'm writing, Barb is right there with me. Below are some of the things she's saying:

Not enough sleuthing – What, Barb? I write mysteries; of course there's sleuthing. But apparently, in every third book or so, there isn't! I get distracted by a relationship or a subplot and forget the main point of the book--that my protagonist has a mystery to solve. Here's a comment Barb made when she edited Rum and Choke: "I've already mentioned this, but to flesh it out, a large majority of the book (at least it felt like a large majority) involved Chloe helping Ann search for the treasure. The rest of the book had a lot of subplots, and sleuthing into Enrique's murder felt like one of them. Obviously, that's a problem."

Are you writing a travelogue? – Apparently, I was. In an early book, I sent Sarah from her little town of Ellington, which is about fifteen miles northwest of Boston, to the North End of Boston. I love Boston. I love the North End. It took Sarah two pages to make it from the T by the Government Center in Boston to the North End, which is about a ten-minute walk. In the original version I waxed on about the history of Faneuil Hall and its famous golden grasshopper weather vane. Sarah stopped at the Holocaust Memorial and at Union Oyster House. She padded across the cobblestone street and went by Mike's Pastries before she arrived at her destination. In the final version of the book, her walk was one paragraph, as much as it pained me to delete so much detail about my beloved Boston. Sigh, Barb was right. Now when I'm waxing on about something in a first draft, it gets axed by the second one.

She needs to react – I'm reacting to this voice. Both of my series have female protagonists, and this bit of advice has made a huge difference in my writing. Find a dead body? You need a reaction. Someone say something startling? Your protagonist has to think something or say something or make an expression that gives away their thoughts to the reader. This seemingly simple statement is key to writing a book with more emotional depth. Now, it drives me nuts when I read a book where the characters don't react.

Slow down – but the pace...  It's one of those rules of writing to slow down the fast-paced (action) scenes and speed up the slow ones. While my logical brain knows that, apparently my writing brain forgets it. BTW, reactions work in the fast scenes too.

Make it a full scene – all too often when I'm writing early drafts I jump to the next scene and start it with a line that summarizes something that happened since the last scene. It's fine to do it if what happened isn't anything important. However, in the book I just wrote, I found myself hearing Barb's voice telling me that the summary deserved its own scene. She was right. Again. 

When was the last time she ate? – I don't know. If your protagonist has kids or a pet, you can add fed/took care of them to the above. Ah, yes, meals. My protagonists can apparently go days without eating. And it's not that each meal needs to be a scene (see paragraph on description above), but characters can grab something as they go out the door, or stop for something, or it can be a scene if something important happens.

I could probably write ten more pages of examples of things Barb's voice is saying. Like, why is your character doing something, or why is that scene in there–just because the writing is pretty doesn't mean it has a place in the story. Thanks, Barb. Sigh. But if you have to have an extra voice in your head, I hope it's Barb's! 

---

Sherry Harris (https://sherryharrisauthor.com) is the Agatha Award-nominated author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mystery series and the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mysteries. She's published short stories in Edgar Allan Cozy, The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, Black Cat Weekly, Three Strikes--You're Dead, and Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House. Sherry is a past president of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America.

Breaking a Writing Rule to Humorous Effect

Two years ago, the fine folks at Crippen & Landru released an anthology called School of Hard Knox, in which all the stories broke one of the ten rules handed down by Father Ronald Knox back in the golden age of mysteries. Last year, I was pleased to be asked to contribute to the follow-up anthology, in which all the stories would break one of the twenty rules for writing detective stories handed down by golden age author S. S. Van Dine. That book, titled Double Crossing Van Dine, was released two weeks ago.

When Donna Andrews, one of the editors of these two anthologies (along with Greg Herren and Art Taylor), asked me to write a story, I quickly looked at the twenty rules to see which one might inspire me. As soon as I saw rule #3, my mind was off and running. This rule states:  

"There must be no love interest in the story. To introduce amour is to clutter up a purely intellectual experience with irrelevant sentiment. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar."

Heavens, we wouldn't want a little love--and lust--to gum up the works.

Or would we? 

What if, I thought, a private eye is hired by his next-door neighbor to solve a case dear to the PI's heart, but at the same time his ovulating wife is eager to get pregnant, and she keeps trying to lure him to bed. It is an amusing premise. I figured this scenario would drive Van Dine up the wall. It is exactly why he declared there should be no romance in detective stories--a desire for amour should not impede an investigation. 

But I wasn't done. I love writing funny stories, and I had an idea to ratchet up the humor: Every seductive step the wife takes gives her husband an idea for the next step he should take in his investigation. In the end, it is the wife's desire to distract her husband that leads him to solve the case. 

Take that, Van Dine! I think if he were to read this story, "Baby Love," he might decide he was a bit too harsh with rule #3. In the right circumstance, amour could be just what the detective needs.

I think Van Dine's ghost is working at the
fortune cookie factory.

I hope you will check out this anthology, which has a great list of contributors and an introduction by Catriona McPherson. The trade paperback version can be bought from the usual sources, as well as directly from the publisher. Just click here. (You also can purchase straight from the publisher a clothbound numbered edition--signed by the editors--with a Van Dine pastiche written by Jon L. Breen thrown in.) I believe an ebook version will be coming out soon too.