Developing a New Cozy Series: Nuts and Bolts
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Today I thought I’d cover my process for starting a new cozy series. This post isn’t intended to replace the more in-depth posts I created for developing a sleuth, sidekick, setting, et al. For tips on the nitty gritty part of developing those specific elements, see those particular posts and this series.
My thought on creating a new series this time was to look at all the specific elements and put them on a Word document. I brainstormed ideas for each element and wrote down pros and cons of every choice.
I started out with the sleuth. Considerations were: age of the sleuth, gender of the sleuth (there are cozies with male sleuths…I’ve been asked about this regularly by male mystery writers), sleuth’s occupation (the theme/hook is incredibly important in a cozy mystery), and his or her personality type.
The theme or hook of the book came next. As I mentioned in this post, the choice of theme is a big one for cozy mysteries. I made the list, considering how comfortable I’d feel writing the theme long-term, how much research was entailed in the hook, and how saturated the market was with that particular theme.
The setting came next. Considerations: fictional or real (there are advantages to both, although now I prefer a made-up town with real origins so that I can map the setting in my head)? Small town or city (the majority of cozies use small towns, but there are successful series set in cities)? What is the main setting for the hook (for me, it’s been a barbeque restaurant and a quilt shop…the Myrtle series, however, doesn’t have one and it works fine)?
Then I considered the sidekick. What was I looking for in a sidekick? What age in relation to the sleuth? What gender? Does the sidekick provide the humorous bits (humor also important in a cozy), or is the sidekick the straight man? Is the sidekick a friend or a colleague? I came up with a list of candidates and pros and cons of all the choices. (Would having a retired male sidekick be too similar to another of my series? Would having a really outgoing sidekick with my more-introverted sleuth lead to scene-stealing?)
I moved on to quirky recurring characters. You guessed it: this is another vital component of cozies. First off, how many should I have, considering that I’d need 5 suspects for each story and didn’t want to bog readers down? Next, what was their relation to the sleuth? (In my other series, they’ve been everything from neighbors to book club members, to members in a quilt guild, to shop owners.)
Next, I considered whether to have a love interest for my sleuth. There are a lot of single sleuths out there in cozy mysteries (widowed or unmarried) because avoiding a husband in a mystery series is similar to avoiding having parents in YA books–spouses tend to hold a sleuth back because of the danger involved in their chosen pastime. Considerations: how good am I at pulling off romance (not my forte)? How many recurring characters do I already have? What are readers drawn to…more or less romance (for this I read customer reviews for many series on Amazon. I found that too much focus on the romance seems to irk a lot of cozy readers. It apparently needs to be very secondary to the mystery)?
Pets. Pets are important in cozies (there is an entire subcategory for animal cozies at retail sites). Cat or dog? Animal’s personality? How involved is the pet in the story and in the life of the sleuth? How can the pet help the story along?
After this, I set about on an outline for book one, feeling that I had enough in place to be able to get started on the first story.
How much mapping-out of basics do you do before writing the first book in a series? If you’re a cozy writer, what’s your process like?
Developing a Cozy Mystery Series: Nuts and Bolts:
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