Writing the Cozy Mystery: Opening and Closing Images

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig 

After writing about fifty cozy mysteries, I think I've used just about every story opener possible. I've opened with the dead body a few times. Sometimes I've had just a few pages of set-up and then a body. Sometimes I've had the annoying future victim interact with the irritated future suspects and then the victim about 30 pages in.  They all seemed to work for the story, in different ways.

Although I never worried about beginnings (often choosing to open with dialogue and just hop right in), the endings of my books were always a bit more of a struggle for me. The moment of danger for the sleuth was over. The police had arrived and taken the bad guy/gal away. Everything else seemed a bit anticlimactic.

Having the ending reflect the beginning works particularly well for a cozy mystery, I think. A nice bonus is that it helps nicely with tying up the troublesome endings of my books. With this method, I'll often open my stories with a brief scene of a perfect version of the story world. My characters are happily ensconced in their safe, cozy world. They're working crosswords and drinking coffee. Or they're eating tomato sandwiches and watching their favorite soap opera.

I've written before about my “quiet beginnings” for cozies and how the mirroring technique can help establish that. But I didn't really mention much about how it plays into the endings and make them both stronger and easier to write.

Mirroring works well for other genres in different ways. It's often touted as a great way to remind readers of character growth. Janice Hardy has an excellent article on this technique.

With cozies, I think it serves a slightly different purpose (of course, you can use it to indicate protagonist growth, too). In the example I gave above, it's all about the comfort of the repeating scene. . . creating a tableau and then pulling it together again at the end. You're bringing back the peace and harmony at the end of the story. It's a very pleasing, tidy process. Return your protagonist back to the safety and security of the opener.

For more thoughts about creating cozies, here are the other posts I've written in the series.

How do you handle story openers and closings in your books?

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