Vinnie Hansen's Blog - Posts Tagged "cozies"
Easy Reviewer?
Scanning my reviews and noting the lack of one and two-star ratings, a person might conclude I'm an easy touch. That would no doubt shock my former English students.
But it's true that I give 3-5 ratings, or in the school world, C's, B's and A's. Why don't I fail books?
When I was a teacher, it was my job to read all papers, even the most paltry and pathetic. I also used to be compulsive about finishing books. But now I'm retired and life is short. If a book doesn't capture my interest, I abandon it, which means I don't read D or F books. A book may not fulfill the promise of its hook, but that doesn't negate that it had something going for it. It got me to read it. So how could I give it a bad mark?
This soft spot results partly from being a writer myself. I appreciate how hard it is to produce a full-length manuscript. It requires a greater time commitment and effort than any assignment I ever meted out to my students. So even if a book collapses at the end, giving it a failing mark is like saying a marathon runner failed because he stumbled across the finish line in last place.
Finally, I try to evaluate a book based on what it attempts. If we watch a romantic comedy, we don't expect it to be Citizen Kane. We expect a boy and girl to meet, seem insurmountably mismatched, but after some entertaining and perhaps amusing incidents, to end up together. Similarly, I don't approach a cozy mystery expecting it to soar into the literary heights and gravitas of Snow Falling on Cedars.
Like a romcom, the cozy has fairly specific parameters. When it succeeds within those parameters, it deserves 5 stars. After all, if I assigned students to write a limerick, I wouldn't dock their grades because their poem didn't have the qualities of a sonnet!
So there you have it--the reasons I'm a big softy.
But it's true that I give 3-5 ratings, or in the school world, C's, B's and A's. Why don't I fail books?
When I was a teacher, it was my job to read all papers, even the most paltry and pathetic. I also used to be compulsive about finishing books. But now I'm retired and life is short. If a book doesn't capture my interest, I abandon it, which means I don't read D or F books. A book may not fulfill the promise of its hook, but that doesn't negate that it had something going for it. It got me to read it. So how could I give it a bad mark?
This soft spot results partly from being a writer myself. I appreciate how hard it is to produce a full-length manuscript. It requires a greater time commitment and effort than any assignment I ever meted out to my students. So even if a book collapses at the end, giving it a failing mark is like saying a marathon runner failed because he stumbled across the finish line in last place.
Finally, I try to evaluate a book based on what it attempts. If we watch a romantic comedy, we don't expect it to be Citizen Kane. We expect a boy and girl to meet, seem insurmountably mismatched, but after some entertaining and perhaps amusing incidents, to end up together. Similarly, I don't approach a cozy mystery expecting it to soar into the literary heights and gravitas of Snow Falling on Cedars.
Like a romcom, the cozy has fairly specific parameters. When it succeeds within those parameters, it deserves 5 stars. After all, if I assigned students to write a limerick, I wouldn't dock their grades because their poem didn't have the qualities of a sonnet!
So there you have it--the reasons I'm a big softy.
My Books Are Not Cozies
I’m not a fan of cozy mysteries.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a cozy is a mystery with an amateur sleuth, no foul language, the sex and violence off the page. As my friend and cozy-mystery writer Mary Feliz puts it, “There’s a murder, but no one gets hurt.” In my world, it means the good bits have been left on the editing-room floor.
This may seem an odd attitude when some people have slapped the cozy label on my Carol Sabala Mystery series. However, as author Cara Black once noted, “Carol Sabala has a mouth on her.” One of my readers once suggested maybe we need a category called “Cussy Cozies.” But even then, the Carol Sabala series would be stretching the label due to . . . .
Read more: https://vinniehansen.com/2019/12/my-b...
For those unfamiliar with the term, a cozy is a mystery with an amateur sleuth, no foul language, the sex and violence off the page. As my friend and cozy-mystery writer Mary Feliz puts it, “There’s a murder, but no one gets hurt.” In my world, it means the good bits have been left on the editing-room floor.
This may seem an odd attitude when some people have slapped the cozy label on my Carol Sabala Mystery series. However, as author Cara Black once noted, “Carol Sabala has a mouth on her.” One of my readers once suggested maybe we need a category called “Cussy Cozies.” But even then, the Carol Sabala series would be stretching the label due to . . . .
Read more: https://vinniehansen.com/2019/12/my-b...
5 Ways to Coax Me to Your Cozy
On my last post, I pointed out that my books are not cozies, and that I’m not particularly fond of cozies. Yet, I read a lot of them.
My own series starts with a murder in the kitchen of a restaurant, so one might think I’d be drawn to culinary cozies. Nope.
I created baker amateur sleuth Carol Sabala because I didn’t want my protagonist to be a teacher like myself. My husband at the time was a sous chef in a fancy Santa Cruz restaurant so I had a direct conduit for information about the workings of a kitchen.
Then we got divorced. I wanted my character to evolve, anyway. Carol Sabala’s arc includes a movement toward more professional investigation, taking the series into the P.I. tradition and nearer to my influences of Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller.
So what does draw me to a cozy?
(Read more at https://vinniehansen.com.)
My own series starts with a murder in the kitchen of a restaurant, so one might think I’d be drawn to culinary cozies. Nope.
I created baker amateur sleuth Carol Sabala because I didn’t want my protagonist to be a teacher like myself. My husband at the time was a sous chef in a fancy Santa Cruz restaurant so I had a direct conduit for information about the workings of a kitchen.
Then we got divorced. I wanted my character to evolve, anyway. Carol Sabala’s arc includes a movement toward more professional investigation, taking the series into the P.I. tradition and nearer to my influences of Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller.
So what does draw me to a cozy?
(Read more at https://vinniehansen.com.)
