Janet Frobisher is a writer with a problem. She's got "Betty Davis Eyes." Okay, that's a song pun, not the actual problem. The problem is that she a crime writer who thinks that writing about crime will enable her to actually commit murder and get away with it.
Now, I'm not saying that we thriller writers tend to try out hand at real-life murder to prove a point, but I'm willing to bet that most of us have already planned and committed at least a handful of ghastly killings and other crimes in our imaginations (even if they don't eventually make it onto the page.) It can't really be helped. It's just the way our minds work.
And it's a good thing that we don't actually try it because we'd quickly learn that no matter how well we plan the ideal murder in our books, we'd always leave out that one key thing that gets us caught. Murder is like dialog for writers. We don't try to capture true speech with all it's uhs and ums and stops and start-overs -- we create the illusion of true speech for the page. In the same way, we don't create true murder, we present the illusion of murder. We control all the variables, so of course we'd never get caught.
Real life seldom works that way.
But enough about murder. Let's talk about writing.
One of my favorite bits of dialog in this tightly woven, tense little thriller is this: "You asked a pretty question," says Frobisher to her secretary. "I've given you the ugly answer."
This, my friends, is the essence of most of fiction. Giving ugly answers to pretty questions.
One of the most consistent movements in the history of fiction storytelling is the push from the pretty and the simple to the more real ugly truth and the more complex. Even with our constant belief in the axiom that "fiction is escapism" -- that escapism is the cloud with the dark lining.
Sure, there will always be readers who look for light, fluffy fun, where the good guys always beat the bad guys and lovers always end up hand in hand, but in order for fiction to tell even those stories well, those good guys need to lose often enough to make winning seem like something gained and those lovers need to face the kind of troubles that cause them to really fight for and work toward achieving that happy ending.
And that doesn't even bring in the world's most renowned works, which are typically those focused on suffering -- War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Romeo and Juliet, Ethan Frome, The Awakening, The Turning of the Screw, and the list goes on.
Readers ask pretty questions. We writers provide the ugly answers.
Here's another of my favorite lines: "Yes, the night air teems with unexpected guests. Sounds like Shakespeare but isn't."
Frobisher says this to show off how well read and literary she is as a writer, but the truth of the line goes far deeper than that. More often than not, it's "Sounds like Shakespeare because it is."
So much of our characterization and even bits of dialog comes from the Bard. Something wicked this way comes. Get the to a nunnery. Soft, what light through yonder window breaks. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
And not just quotes but also plots. Sons avenging dead fathers. Families falling apart over how legacies are given and properties are divided. Ill-fated lovers from different sides of the tracks. Mistrustful husbands and wives. Fathers who play tricks to make sure the boys who chase their daughters are worthy. True loves who are too dumb to notice they're the yin to each other's yang.
It's all from Shakespeare. So yeah, sounds like Shakespeare because it is.
Finally, there is this exchange between Frobisher and Dr. Henderson about he (not so) secret connection between a writer and her readers:
Janet Frobisher: Hello, doctor how are you?
Dr. Henderson: Intrigued, Mrs. Frobisher. Intrigued.
Janet Frobisher: Oh, really. Why?
Dr. Henderson: Well, I come to the station to pick up my serums, and what do I find? My neighbor, who has a telephone in every room, and has walked miles to a phone box in a deserted station.
Janet Frobisher: You've been reading too many thrillers, doctor.
Actually, my line is out of order.
Dr. Henderson: You can better me to thrillers, mrs. Frobisher. In any other author's detective stories I spot the murderer not later than chapter two. Yours invariably baffle me, until the middle of chapter four.
Janet Frobisher: You have an unfair advantage. You know the way my brain works.
Wow. So much to unpack in that short bit of dialog.
First, I love how Dr. Henderson models the type of detective instincts common to the sleuths of novels and short stories. It's the context clues, not the police procedures, that solve the crime. It's the instinct of the detective, not the practices of the detective, to which, Frobisher is able to quickly show how unreliable that sort of bookish approach can be in reality outside the "rules" of setting and story. But that's the beauty of the fictional detective story, isn't it? They have to be sort of outside the norm, that and above it as well. That's why they are main protagonists and not background police clerks.
Second, we get a really good look at the contract between the reader and the writer of mystery stories. How often do you hear readers complain that either (a) they figured out the mystery in the early pages of the book or (b) they feel like the writer cheated and didn't reveal all the facts so they could solve the mystery themselves. Rarely do we get that perfect third option (and even then I mostly saw it in Encyclopedia Brown stories when I was just a kid) in which all the clues are there for us, but like the detective, we have to put them together and find them in their subtlety.
So, even Dr. Henderson's "compliment" that he has to wait until chapter four to solve the mystery is still a rather backhanded one. But, as I mentioned in the review of Agatha and the Truth of Murder, once readers learn our tells, or the way our "brains work," they have us over the proverbial barrel.
So, mystery writer beware, and learn how to keep your readers on their toes, all the while being fair with them if you're writing a whodunit.
But most important, when it comes to murder, don't try this at home.
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