Me and the Mini-mystery

I hesitate to write this article, mainly because there is one amongst us who has much better credentials than I do in this particular area. And, that area now in discussion is writing mini-mysteries for Woman's World Magazine, I feel pretty good about having recently sold then my 10th story (that's a total of $5,000 so far), and I don't feel too bad about my .400 batting average. However, it seems to me that our John Floyd has placed at least four times as many mini-mysteries with them as I have and while I have no idea what his batting average is, I suspect it is a lot higher than .400.
Okay, I'll admit to being slightly hard-headed and making my own learning curve in this market. Sure, I could have purchased a copy of the magazine on a regular basis to study how other authors were getting accepted, but I always feel like the person behind the cash register is looking at me funny when they hand me my change and inquire if I'd prefer paper or plastic to carry this woman's magazine out of the store.

Anyway, trial and error showed me that the WWM editor did not want anything related to spies, violence, scary suspense and several other ideas I tried in order to differentiate my stories from the mass in the slush pile. I also found that the stories could not be too complicated.

In my mind, the mini-mystery has similar components to a joke. With a joke, you have the setup and the punch line. In the mini-mystery, you have the setup and the close out.

The setup in a mini-mystery is the plot or storyline which the author uses to present the mystery to the reader for solving. Like any mystery, appropriate clues must be planted in order to give the reader a "fair" chance to come up with the correct solution. Naturally, these clues may be hidden in plain view by throwing them  in with false clues, planting them at a distance in the story from a description of the crime, or even distracting the reader's attention to some other action going on.

 Any character arc is so short as to be almost negligible. As for setting or character description, the author has a maximum of 700 words to move around in. In one of my stories, in order to place a memorable image of my detective (sporting a large mustache) into the mind of the editor and that of potential readers, I once described him as looking like a soaked cat coming out of the rain. And, yes, the rainy weather also had to do with a clue to the solution in this one.

Since it often becomes difficult to create a mystery plot for these stories, much less 25 of them, I have adopted the strategy of mining plots from other books, such as those series which present five-minute or two-minute mysteries. I type up all those solutions in a long list and number them. Then, the next time I need to write a mini-mystery, I merely go down the list until one sparks an idea I think will work. This method saves me a lot of downtime scratching my head trying to figure out what to write from Square One. Instead, I get a running start from Square Two. Naturally, my settings and characters are different from the original mining operation. Look at it this way, there are only so many plots or "tribal lays" (according to Rudyard Kipling, there's nine and sixty), so I'm merely acquiring them in the order someone else wrote them and then forming those plots to my own purpose.

The close out part of the mini-mystery actually consists of two separate  parts, the Question and the Solution. They look similar to the following.

Question:  Why did (your detective) think (something) was wrong with the scene or the suspect's alibi?
OR
Question:  Who does (your detective) think committed the crime?

Solution:  (Author explains the clue(s) which solve(s) the mystery.)

Simple, huh? Just write short.

A couple of suggestions. You can write Why-dunnits, where the reader has to figure out what the detective is suspicious of and why, or write Who-dunnits, where the reader uses clues to select from a variety of suspects. Hey, I just realized I haven't tried a How-dunnit, where the reader has to figure out how the crime was committed. Well, there goes my learning curve again, unless John can give me some tips here. Actually, I'd like to see a column on this subject from John or at least hear how he managed to come up with those 40+ sales to WWM. That's amazing.

And now I must confess that a few days after receiving a contract from WWM for my 10th mini-mystery as mentioned in my last blog, I went to the mailbox and found another white, #10 business envelope postmarked from Seattle. Sadly, there was no contract in this one. My .400 batting average just took a dip.

It's my own fault. I violated one of my own learning curve rules, the one about not having the solution depend upon a little known fact. Rob can tell you I mentioned this rule to him last year, long before I wrote this latest rejection. One of these days I've got to start listening to myself. But, it was such a good story and I was in a hurry to get on the road to South Dakota for a few weeks to help take care of my mother-in-law (my biggest writing fan), so I sent it anyway. Otherwise, I'd have run it by Rob and he could have saved me the postage. Next time.

Working for The Woman

A few weeks back, I went to the mailbox with my usual expectations of both hope and dread. The writer's hope of good news, such as a contract or something of interest from the world of writing. But then, there's also the dread of receiving a very unnecessary rejection of one's most excellent creation. Of course, the box could contain nothing more than junk mail and bills. Those, I give to my wife, Kiti.

On this day, nestled in with the utilities bill, an offer of a free steak dinner if we listened to a lecture on how to invest our money in a retirement fund, two health insurance companies who desperately wanted my future business, plus several discount coupons from various stores offering to save me some money, was a single, plain white, #10 business envelope with one of my address labels on it. No return address. The postmark was Seattle.

I quickly recognized this envelope as the SASE I had enclosed with a mini-mystery manuscript submitted to Woman's World Magazine. In the more distant past, such an envelope would contain two pieces of paper. They would either be a form rejection letter and the first page of the rejected manuscript, OR they would be a very nice congratulatory letter of acceptance and a one-page contract stating when this story was to be published and the $500 fee the author was to receive in a few weeks.
HOWEVER, last year in reply to my 24th submission, I had received an e-mail from Johnene Granger, the column editor, stating that she needed an electronic copy of my manuscript because the head editor wanted to be able to look at a mock-up of the proposed magazine issue on screen before he made his final decisions. Thus, an e-mail request meant the column editor liked the story and there was only one more hurdle to pass. A follow-up e-mail would then provide info on acceptance or rejection, and the contract still came in one's SASE.

Advance notice on what to expect in the snail mail. I could live with that, after all that's how they bought my 24th submission in 2011. Problem now was here I stood holding the return envelope on my 25th submission and there had been no advance e-mail from Seattle. CRAP!

My questioning fingertips felt the envelope. Yep, it was the usual two pages thick. Same as always. And, you can't tell a one-page contract from the first page of a rejected manuscript.

Should I pour a Jack and Coke before opening, or just tear into the envelope and pour the drink later? Maybe pry up one corner of the seal and sneak a peek? Nah, be a man and take it on the chin. All or nothing. It's not the end of the world.

RIP!

TEAR!

PULL OUT!

Sonofagun, it's a contract and a congratulatory letter of acceptance. A hand-written personal note at the bottom of the letter says, "Thanks for another good one, Johnene Granger."

Whatever happened to the advance e-mail notice program and the mock-up on screen for the head editor before accetance? At this point I don't really care. The Woman has just accepted my 25th submission. Let's see, that makes 10 acceptances and 15 rejections. A whopping 40% goes to the plus side for that market. My average is improving. It's another writing credit, which you the reading public can run right out to your local grocery store and find "Officer, It Was Self-Defense" in Woman's World Magazine, issue #31 with an on-sale date of July 19th. Hey, that was yesterday. Better hurry, that issue is only on the racks for one week. (Actually, Dix had a last minute uploading problem, plus his Dad was having eye surgery, and he flat ran out of time. Therefore, we swapped weeks and  this is early, so don't look for that magazine until next week.)

Moving on. Tune in next time when I go over some personal notes about writing those 700 words or less, $500 mini-mysteries. But right now, you'll have to excuse me, I have to go back to working for The Woman.