by Helen Currie Foster

Mystery readers are tetchy. We want an interesting plot with a fair shot at noting each clue—but don’t want to guess whodunnit too soon. We’re prepared to care about the protagonist, the sleuth, perhaps the victim. We hope some characters will intrigue us; others should do their part and get offstage.

Of course, setting is key. We may want a mystery set in our own state––or on the far side of the world. We demand accurate detail; we’re slow to forgive mistakes. We want to feel we’re actually in the setting: riding the Cornwall train with an exhausted Cormoran Strike, in the basement of the Russian Club with Peter Wimsey, escaping from a southside Chicago industrial complex with V.I. Warshawski.

So for setting, how much description is too much? Do you find yourself sometimes turning the page, skipping the paragraph describing the view from the ski-lift, the row of shops in the village, the squalor of the factory yard?

Recall Oliver Strunk’s Rule 6, Do Not Overwrite (Section V, “An Approach to Style (With a List of Reminders”): “Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.”

Oliver Strunk’s Elements of Style

Yes, but sometimes a writer stops us in our tracks with beauty. Take Robert MacFarlane, The Wild Places (my favorite, describing hikes in Britain), or The Old Ways, or Landmarks. Contrary to habit I scribbled many quotes in the back of my copy of The Wild Places. He describes moonlight on a freezing night atop a mountain: “trillions of lunar photons pelting on to my face and the snow about me, giving me an eyeful of silver…”

An eyeful of silver! He writes of hiking an eroded old seabed, “We moved through dozens of weathers.” Of a frozen waterfall: “A hard portcullis of ice, beautifully mottled by dark figures of thaw.” Can’t you see it? Feel it? He quotes Stephen Graham on the rare moment when we feel part of nature: “‘As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.’”

The great door, that does not look like a door!

Maybe our sleuth lacks the time, is in too much peril, to describe moonlight “giving me an eyeful of silver,” or the moment when she or he, lying beneath a tree, momentarily sensed “the great door, that does not look like a door…” Too contemplative, when the sleuth has no time to contemplate.

A mystery setting has additional jobs besides painting the landscape. Ideally it draws us straight into the plot, shaping our view of the characters. Here’s the beginning of Sayer’s Strong Poison:

“There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.

The judge was an old man; so old, he seemed to have outlived time and change and death. His parrot-face and parrot-voice were dry, like his old, heavily-veined hands. His scarlet robe clashed harshly with the crimson of the roses. He had sat for three days in the stuffy court, but he showed no signs of fatigue.

He did not look at the prisoner as he gathered his notes into a neat sheaf and turned to address the jury, but the prisoner looked at him. Her eyes, like dark smudges under the heavy square brows, seemed equally without fear and without hope. They waited.”

Already we’re caught, sensing the prisoner’s peril. Immediately we must turn to the next page.

            Or Tony Hillerman’s first paragraphs in The Ghostway:

“Hosteen Joseph Joe remembered it like this.

He’d noticed the green car just as he came out of the Shiprock Economy Wash-O-Mat. The red light of sundown reflected from its windshield. Above the line of yellow cottonwoods along the San Juan River the shape of Shiprock was blue-black and ragged against the glow. The car looked brand new and it was rolling slowly across the gravel, the driver leaning out the window just a little. The driver had yelled at Joseph Joe.

“Hey!” he’d yelled. “Come here a minute.”

Joseph Joe remembered that very clearly. The driver looked like a Navajo, but yelling at him like that was not a Navajo thing to do because Joseph Joe was eighty-one years old, and the people around Shiprock and up in the Chuska Moutains called him Hosteen, which means “old man” and is a term of great respect.”

Hillerman has us. Shiprock silhouetted against a sunset, the Chuska Mountains, Navajo tradition being violated––we’re hooked by this authoritative voice placing us where we wanted to be, in Navajo country.

            Strunk has other words for us writers as well. His Rule 14, Avoid Fancy Words: “Anglo-Saxon is a livelier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo-Saxon words.” I checked: “word” itself is Anglo-Saxon. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=word

This instruction helps mystery writers follow several other rules, such as not overwriting, and choosing powerful verbs and specific nouns. See page two of Hillerman’s The Dark Wind:

Lomatewa glanced past the rabbit brush at the second boot. It matched. Beyond the second boot, the path curved sharply around a weathered granite boulder. Lomatewa sucked in his breath. Jutting from behind the boulder he could see the bottom of a foot. The foot was bare and even from where Lomatewa stood he could see there was something terribly wrong with it.”

Here he uses mainly (not all) Anglo-Saxon words, though some traveled from Latin through old French.

When I’m writing I’m always aware of Strunk’s strictures (uh-oh, late Latin). Indeed, I should probably reread him every week. But in working on this seventh mystery I also hope to discover “an eyeful of silver”, or “the smell of charred stone”, or move through “dozens of weathers,” or more.

You can find more information about Helen Currie Foster at helencurriefoster.com

I took my grandson to Barnes and Noble yesterday. When we got there, I realized I’d forgotten to take his mask.

“Uh, oh,” he said, looking forlorn. “Do we have to go back, YaYa?”

I reached into the bottomless pit, called my purse, and pulled out the extra mask I always carry. “No problem, darling. I always have extra.” But it was precisely the same as the one I wear. Hmmm. What to do? I smoothed the masks out on my lap.

“See that little mark?” I asked, pointing to one.

“Yes. Is that one for me?” he asked, hopefully.

“No, my dear. That mark is from my lipstick. You’ll wear the other.”

So, into B & N we went. He had a great time looking through toys (educational only—YaYa’s policy) and books for Kindergarteners.

I, on the other hand, puffed into my mask, fogged my glasses, and whenever I felt no one could see me, I cheated. I lifted the thing off my face for a couple of breaths of fresh air! After all, I’d rather not be treated worse than a murderer or rapist because I need some oxygen along with the C02 I’m breathing by wearing the mask.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the reason and basically agree that wearing masks is at least some help against ALL viruses, not just COVID. It’s not a bad policy if uncomfortable and lipstick-smearing. I learned during the great toilet-paper chase, not to wear lipstick under the mask.

Early on, I was also using disposable masks. I knew that paper made incinerated garbage burn hotter, and I wondered how all this extra fabric and paper would impact the environment. It didn’t take long to find an answer about the potential problems for the environment at https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-face-masks-could-have-a-devastating-effect-on-the-environment/

While I am not an environmental warrior, I was the first in my family to question the wisdom of the public using disposables. Those should be reserved for our courageous nurses, doctors, and workers who actually need them to preserve their own health while on the job. Thus, by the end of March, everyone in my family, kids, kids-by-marriage, and grandkids have switched to washable masks. We disinfect and launder them at the end of each day. Kudos to me!!! LOL

Of course, I can’t take much credit, since I have also developed some bad habits in this new masked and locked down society. As an example, here I am, today, awake, writing, and taking care of business since four a.m.—no praise here – just my body clock- I haven’t yet bothered to comb my hair, wash my face, or get into street clothes. Sitting in front of a computer screen absolves me of the responsibility to present a decent face to the world – or does it? Or should it? I say no, but do it anyway, except for Zoom meetings, when I’m forced to at least wear some makeup.

So, as my grandson browsed, I looked around at all the masked people. Some wore ear-loop face masks, others wore the type with elastic bands that wrap around the head, while others wore the pull-up masks.

How different from our pre-COVID lives. We would have reacted quite differently to anyone walking into high-value targets for robbery like banks, restaurants, jewelry stores, and movie theaters with face coverings. Also in our pre-COVID life, we were encouraged to be environmentally responsible and bring our own reusable bags to stores and supermarkets. Now, if we do, the cashiers tell us before beginning to scan that we must pack the bags ourselves. This suits me anyway. I prefer doing it myself. I want ‘like items’ bagged together, which makes unpacking faster and more efficient.

And now, the social distancing. No more hugs for friends and relatives. That stinks, and I refuse not to hug and kiss my grandchildren, but I have learned to kiss their heads on top, not their faces. Can’t live without my hugs, but we hug with our faces turned away from one another—well, it’s better than nothing!

So, while I complain, grouse, have hissy fits over the whole thing, I remember how fortunate we are as history repeats itself. One-hundred-and-two years ago, the world suffered a pandemic called the “Spanish Flu, or the Spanish Lady,” even though it did not originate in Spain. 500-million people worldwide fell ill with this early variety of H1N1 and Avian Flu combined (as per CDC). In the U.S., 675,000 died, including those who are always most susceptible: young children and the elderly. The surprise in that pandemic was men and women in their primes became ill and died at alarming rates. At least we can be grateful that the young children and young adults seem to weather this COVID thing much better.

A-hundred years ago, there were no antibiotics, no pharmaceuticals to treat the virus, and they knew less about better hygiene. Although state and federal governments did close some schools and some businesses, most people had to leave their homes to earn a living or leave their family’s to starve.

So what have I learned from all of this? First off, back to good hygiene, people. For years domestic chores like house cleaning weren’t high on the intellectual list of essential tasks. How much better might people have fared in 1918 if they’d had the cleaning products we have today? Perhaps we should resurrect the saying, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

And of course, masks. They are not foolproof, but they are valuable tools and if wearing them was good enough for my great-grandparents, I guess it’s more than good enough for me.

As for my bad habits, when COVID-19 ends, I will once again learn to groom early, get my face on, and leave sufficient travel time for appointments. Meanwhile, I can jump on to virtual meetings without contending with traffic, or worrying about what I’m wearing. While all of this lasts, I’ll spend less on lipsticks and face powder, less on clothes, but have more to spend on books, and I’ll also pay attention to many of the unique ways we’ve learned to cope with this stinking virus. Stay safe, and stay masked!