Only Murders in my Mind
Episode 34: The Impact of Crime Writing in Mixed Genres
[Music] Welcome to Only Murders in My Mind. A random thought production. Hi, I'm Carol Bissett, a crime writer. And I invite you with my co-presenters, Liz Hedgecock and Mike Jackson, each week to our conversations on all things murderous. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Only Murders in My Mind. And as usual, I have my co-host, Liz Hedgecock Aloliz. Hello! And Mike Jackson, sat in the corner. Still awake. Good afternoon, Carol. Good afternoon, Liz. Hello. Before we go back to that episode, episode 26, and it's gone well over 5,000, what they call views on YouTube now, well over. So, we're quite taken aback really, aren't we? I think that's fair, yeah. We have no idea why it's gone over 5,000, why that particular ones were taken off. So, if any of you got any ideas, please tell us so we can try and do it again. Yes, our producer tells us it's to do with algorithms and all this sort of thing. So, you know, if you want to subscribe and like and things like that, that all helps with our sort of viewing and how well YouTube push a certain product. Saying that, we don't advertise at all. Nothing we say is because we're getting paid to do anything, is it? No, no. It's out of the love of our hearts, that's what... That's our reason for being. So, I'm going to say this very carefully. Today, we're going to discuss cross-genre crime. So, has anybody got a definition of what that means, please? To me, it just means the mixture of one or two genres when you write in crime fiction. So, in my life, for example, be a mixture of crime and science fiction, or crime and horror, or crime and sci-fi, crime and romance. Historical crime. Yeah, crime and a lot of things really. So, I wonder which sort of balance could one be more obvious than the other? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, the first thing that I was taken to when I was thinking about this is crime and historical fiction. Whereas I wasn't, even though I write historical mysteries. I think I just assume that's normal. Yeah. So, I immediately thought of CAD file, which is a crime story, but it's set in the 12th century. I guess it is. It's going back a long way. Yeah. In the monasteries in the 12th century. So, you know, I think it's the setting. When you think about it, if you took a CAD file murder mystery and took it out in the 20th century and put it in the 21st century, the crime story will be the same, but the character and the setting would be different. And the way they go about? Yes. So, what quality do you think the medieval setting brings to a CAD file book? I think it's probably the lack of all the sophisticated DNA, et cetera, that we have today. It was real sort of a slog in terms of trying to solve the problem because they didn't have anything sophisticated. It was really very much a case of talking to people, noticing things about the dead body, such as, you know, or you don't usually get that sort of clay around here. Or, you know, if he'd hit on the head with such and such, I'm sure the indentation would be different. I suppose it's much more grounded, much more down to work. I suppose in those days as well, there would be a lot of herbs and poisons that would give different, you know, the person that might have blue lips or frothy mouth or something like that. Things like that would be to somebody knowledgeable like a monk. Yes. They would know about those. Also, I assume it wasn't like you could go to the chemist and buy stuff over the counter, like, you know, in the Victorian period where you could get pretty much anything from yellow wool chemists, no questions asked. I mean, another one for handy for me. Talking about the crime and historical genre is the other one that struck me, it was the Shard Lake. Yes. That's been on recently. That's been on the television. Television, yeah. You know, and that was set in, I don't know, Tudor times. I mean, yeah, Thomas Cromwell, and the thing I like about those, like the CAD file, you know, it's all very down to earth, solving the crime, but there's a lot of historical information that goes on, you know, about what London smell like, look like, you know, disillusion the monastery, power of somebody like Thomas Cromwell. Yes. They've got all that running alongside the crime story. Yeah, so you are literally getting a mixture of two sorts of historical information and you're getting your crime story as well. So hopefully you're guessing kind of the best of both. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm one of my favourite times in history is the Tudor period. Probably because it's one of those that's been written about and portrayed a lot in films, television, and there's been so many books about it. Factual, as far as they know, and ones that have been based on, you know, and that they're absolutely, you know, the other bullying girl. Was it called the bullying girl? Yes, it was. Things like that, I find, you know, really, I mean, one day your friend could be very high in authority in the next day. You could both be in the tower. Yeah. So imagine it helps that you've got, you know, colourful monarchs as well. You know, Henry VIII. Yes. Yes. Yeah, and then of course Elizabeth, you know, she was, Elizabeth I was, she should have happened really, should she, you know, she was a queen that nobody really wanted on the throne, but she managed it. The other thing too, I mean, if you take something like the Shard Lake ones with CJ Sensum is the author. Would have had to do a lot of historical research as well as having a good crime story. Yeah. You know, because I think you, even if it's a crime story, if you're setting it in a particular period, you've got to get your facts right. Oh, yes. Because otherwise people do get upset. Yes, yes. Yeah. And these will let you know we're all stale, you know, give you a bad review and never read another one. Yeah, I think you've got to make a declaration at the beginning of your book that, you know, some of these facts have been stretched a little bit to assist the plot. Yes. I did have to move a cholera, but they're being quite honest. Yes. Only by a year though, I was very restrained. Yes. And what would you put in this category for yourself? Cross genre crime. Oh, well, I was thinking, you know, there's obviously the science fiction. There's fantasy. Yes. So if you think of things like cozy fantasy, which is quite big at the moment, and then the not so cozy. Crime, such as a strange time. Yes. Which is definitely in there. Yeah. Lots of strange goings on. Yeah. I suppose the thing is, I've, you know, in my own writing, I've done quite a lot of mashing up different things. Yeah, you have historical crime. And then there's the magical bookshop series, which is, you know, got lots of fantasy elements. And then there's my ghost suspense series, which has got the supernatural and it's got sort of, you know, time slip stuff going on and, you know, cold cases and whatnot. So yes. Yes, I mean, I like the crime and fantasy. I mean, Ben Harro, a run of it. Yes. The rivers of London. Oh, yes. Yeah, I like those. Yeah. I mean, I was going, I was going to talk about stranger times as well, because I've got down here, we've got newspaper. It's funny. The occult magic detectives crying. It's got a bit of murdering. It's got it all hasn't it in the stranger times. I've just started listening to, I think it's book three as an audio book. And yeah, they're absolutely marvelous. I'm listening to, and again, I think it fits into this cross genre one by Jody Taylor, the time police. Heard of that. Yeah. And I'm just listening to book five, the last book. It's tremendous. Very amusing. But the whole idea of having time police who track down people who have pods and disappear into the future or the past and can cause all sorts of problems. It's intrigued. Yeah. One I was going to mention, or I am going to mention, you may not have heard of, you may have heard of it. It's called the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. And the reason that I mention this, I have read the book and I've seen the play. Can't say that very often. And this, for me, fits into this category because it's about a 15 year old boy, Christopher Vone. He's on the autistic spectrum. And he tries to solve a death, a murder. I won't say any more than that because I'm not putting any spoilers in. And so there was quite a lot going on there. It was how this person who saw things differently from the rest of us tried to solve this crime. And it took you to a different place, you know, sort of mentally took you to a different place. The the play was amazing because it was very minimal and sort of things on the stage of scenery. There were boxes basically and lighting and things like that. But you may have heard of that. The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime refers to a Sherlock Holmes observational. No, that's right. That's wrong. A title refers to Sherlock Holmes, a venture of the silver blaze where he said he actually said that was a phrase he said. Yes, the dog did nothing in the nighttime. That was the curious incident. Yes, exactly. So that's where that's where it comes. It's quite a long title, isn't it, for a book? It is. Well, it's out for him. Yeah, yeah. So that's one. And as I say, a stranger time, I always fit into that. I'm really a stranger time. There's a mixture of that sort of crime and fantasy. Definitely. And humour. Oh, I was laughing. It's that whole crime and humour. And the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy. You know, there was a murder in their murder mystery. You've got murdered. I can't remember, but I'm trying to think now. I wouldn't have thought that as a crime book, but there we go. Maybe that's one I need to go back and check out. We need to. We need to allow you a futuristic crime. Yeah. A long time after this, I read it. On the subject of time travel, it was National Cinema Day. Oh, yes. And we did the Terminator one and a two double bill. So lots of going back in time to sort stuff out there, which was... The other one wasn't though, was it? Oh, that was, we saw Coraline in 3D. Yes, we did. Fab. Yes. Yes, it was excellent. I've got to say the first two Terminator films, I absolutely love them. And my middle son, who was only small when they came out, used to watch them. And they didn't phase him at all. They're quite frightening really, aren't they? Oh, in bits, yeah. However, he did watch a naughty video one night and had nightmares for the next three nights. So, you know, I'm just saying we've got a strange family. Oh, I don't know. I'm trying to think it would be more disturbing turning up, you know, not here big ears. A big ears. They'd scare you, wouldn't they? Yes, come with me if you want to ride in my little red car. Yes, yes, I'll be back. When you hear the bell on my hat. Yes, dinglingling. What was that? What was that joke? Why has... No, I can't remember it now. If I remember it, I'll come back to it. I'm keeping very quiet here because I've never watched these two films, and I'm just putting it down. You never see? No, but I'm just putting it down to the fact that everyone lives in having funny moments. Big ears and naughty and what have you, but I'll just go back to sleep while they carry on. We were talking about time travel, which you started at. Yes, I like time partly to blame. How can you never have seen either Terminator? I've never seen Terminator 2 before this weekend, and I thought I was strange. I must have lived a very sheltered life. It's just not your thing, is it, that sort of? But you like futuristic stuff? I do, yeah. You should try it. Are you saying before you've never seen Blade Runner? Nope, never seen Blade Runner. Wow. I know, I know. We'll have to take you through a cinema night. Well, definitely, yeah. Sounds a bit scary, but... Yeah, it'll be naughty and big ears, the road trip. So then we've got anything we want to read out on this particular subject. Because, as I say, Liz actually writes in this cross genre, don't you? Yes, I'm starting to wonder if I actually write anything that isn't cross genre to be honest with you. He's slightly concerned now. You know your wrong come that you're... Yes. Is that cross genre? It's got a tiny bit of mystery in there. A tiny bit of mystery. Yeah, even there I can't resist messing around. Yeah, she puts a little tiny question mark in the plot to be figured out. Okay, ghosts or vampires? Oh, vampires. Okay. I'm quite worried about Carol. I'm quite worried about Carol most of us. Yes, this is true. Right, so the bits I'm going to read is a bit from the magical bookshop series where the staff of the bookshop are kind of interesting people. And where we are at this point is that they are trying to infiltrate some premises they're not supposed to be in. And they've managed to get themselves invited to a meeting, which is a great start. But actually, you know, sneaking off and investigating what's going on in the rest of the building is proving a bit more difficult. However, luckily, one of them is a vampire. Yep. Oh, it's handy. Yes, it's handy. You should always have a vampire. We'll be trying to infiltrate a building. Okay, so I'll read a little bit of that. We should proceed to item 1.3 in tone the chairperson revision of the company's management structure. Gemma nudged Raphael who jumped and sat up straight. "Was I asleep?" whispered. "You were snoring," said Gemma, "but only quietly." "You know, that time we saved on the journey," muttered Karl on her other side. "I reckon it's been put into this meeting." "Shh," said Gemma, "I'm trying to concentrate. I ought to be interested in this, organizational structure and all that." But the chairperson droned on in his soothing voice about the history of the organization and the reason why making a minor change was extremely important and she felt her own eyelids drooping. She made herself sit up and studied the large mahogany table where the board sat. Adam has said it was full of middle-aged men in suits, some with hair, some not, sitting in a wood panel boardroom with a high vaulted ceiling. To reach the boardroom, they climbed a grand staircase straight out of a stately home. "Whatever they do," thought Gemma, "they must be good at it." Then again, if most of your work was underground, boring was presumably an advantage. She suppressed a snigger and peeped at the other members of the public, sitting on the rows of chairs around her like an audience. They were generally well-heeled, middle-aged to slightly elderly, and had cast curious and disapproving glances at the bookshop contingent when they entered. Local people maybe, or investors. "And now an update on the Charing Cross Transportation Hub," said the chairperson, and she joked to attention. "After a few setbacks due to site issues, everything appears to be proceeding smoothly, and as is envisaged, we shall be able to meet the project milestone circulated in the position paper we presented at the previous meeting," cleared his throat. "That is the end of the open section of this meeting," he said, addressing the rows of seats. "If you would leave by that door, we have refreshments waiting for you." "That's not fair," muttered Em. "What about questions?" "I don't think they do questions," Gemma murmured back. "Maybe if we hang around, we can listen in." One of the younger men sitting at the table stood up. "If you would come this way," he said, with a pleasant smile, and opened the door for them to leave. Gemma was one of the last to go, and outside the door she stopped to retire the shoelace she had pulled undone a minute before. The man waited for her to finish. "Refresherments are in the second room on the right, I'll take you down in a moment." "Is Robarthram I could use?" asked Gemma, hopefully. "Oh yes," he said, "we have two bathrooms opening off the refreshment room," and he shepherded in them along the corridor. Gemma noted that no sound came from the ballroom, even though inhabitants were waiting until they'd gone or it was soundproof. When they reached the refreshment room, she pulled the others into a corner, despite Rafael's longing glances at the finger sandwiches and voluvants. "What are we going to do? We have to get into that meeting." "No chance," said Carl. "Check out Sheepdog over there." The man who escorted them was consulting his watch and eye in the door. "I bet this place is crawling with security." I counted at least 20 cameras on the way up here. "Hang on a minute," said Luke. He went to the buffet table, got a plate, and piled a handful of sandwiches on it. He folded one into his mouth as he came back. "Rear roast beef and horseradish," he said, "lovely." "I'm sure it is," said Gemma, frowning, but we're not here to enjoy the hospitality. "Maybe we are," Luke bolted another sandwich. Thing is, they'll notice as somebody tries to sneak in, but there are other ways. "What other ways?" asked Gemma, as Luke stuffed another sandwich into his mouth. "I think I understand," said Rafael. He cupped his hands, Luke's ear, and whispered. Luke nodded. "That's it. I haven't done it for ages, but I'll give it a try." He drew Maddie closer and whispered to her. She looked at him, eyes wide. "You'd do that, for the bookshop," she flung her arms around him. Rafael leaned down to Gemma and whispered, "Luke will assume bat form." "Oh," Gemma stared at Luke. "Wow." "So this is the plan," said Luke, once he'd finished his fifth sandwich. "Maddie and I leave. I need someone to mind my clothes, and obviously I can't do this here. I'll do my best to get in. If I can't, I'll come back." "You stay till they kick you out, then return to Gertrude the van, and Maddie and I will join you there." "I hope." "Excellent," said Rafael and wandered over to the buffet. Gemma gazed at Luke as he walked yet another sandwich. "I feel as if I should shake your hand or hug you or something." "Don't worry," said Maddie, laying her hand on Luke's arm. "I'll do all that." She gazed at Luke's starry-eyed. "Are you sure you don't mind me seeing?" Luke played with the end of her plat. "As long as you're okay with it." "Of course I am," she said. "It's part of who you are." Her eyes sparkled. "Come on, let's go." "Oh." "No." "Vampire love." "I see." "Yeah, I think you'd have to kind of think of all the technicalities with vampires and stuff." "So." "Because you can't be just one bat." "No." "Gotta be a lot of bats." "Yeah." "And there's a slight complication." "Yes, saying it comes into it." "Well, I think it's a mass thing." "I mean, you can't just turn into one small bat, can you, if you're a full-sized person?" "No." "And this is all the stuff you've got to think about." "Yeah." "In some ways it does mean extra work." "Yeah." "It's fun work." "Yeah." "It's difficult, isn't it, because it's not like the historical where you have to get your facts right." "But with something like fantasy and science fiction, you've got to make sure that you keep your facts consistent." "Mm-hmm." "Yeah." "To a certain extent with vampires and things, you almost need them to be in every ordinary person's idea of what a vampire is." "Mm-hmm." "To a certain extent." "Oh, well, it's difficult, because on one hand you think, well, I can't be exactly the same as all the other vampires." "No." "Because otherwise it gets a bit boring." "You know, you know, sleeping in the coffin." "Yeah." "It's finding that twist, isn't it?" "Mm-hmm." "They went to drink your blood." "Mm-hmm." "I've just been looking up, did you know?" "No, I had no idea." "I didn't think you would have done that." "No." "But in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there were millions of deaths." "Hands was on public." "Do you want to read some out to you?" "Yeah, that was the business with the bypass, wasn't it?" "Yes, yes." "Yes." "And in the restaurant at the end of the universe?" "Oh, yes." "The dish of the day committed suicide and was later eaten." "Oh, yes." "Oh, yes." "Ten unnamed environmentalists shot by a disaster area representative." "Oh, there's the whale." "Well, there's the bowl of petunias and the very surprised-looking whale." "Well, that's not so much a crime as unfortunate." "Well, ten unnamed vogon shipmates were wiped out by the prosthetic vogon and jelts in a disciplinary exercise." "Oh, and there was the poetry as well." "See it?" "Oh, yeah." "That's killed a few years." "Which boot was the depressed robot in? Was that hitchhiker's home?" "He was in all of them, yeah." "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy." "Yeah, I'm so depressed." [laughter] "Oh." "Have you written any, Lisa, a cross genre that romance and crime?" "Well, that's an interesting one because, like, when it's romance and crime, it's sort of..." "You've got a line, and if there's more romance than crime, it becomes romantic suspense." "Oh, right." "Oh, so yeah, the Mrs. Hudson books are kind of..." "I think there's still more crime than romance." "Yes, I agree with that." "You've got historical, you've got crime, and you've got romance." "So, is it amazing?" "Is it amazing?" "Yeah, I mean, they're quite often there's an arm to romance." "Yeah, it's sort of..." "You see what I mean, I just can't stop messing with them." "Yes, yeah." "You're crossing your cross genres." "I am, yeah." "Tratical, comical, historical, pastoral, just why..." "And the warranty detective, when it has a love interest, and in later boots there is somebody else as well that's possibly infatuated with her." "But it is very low key in those boots." "Is that going to ramp up at all?" "I think it might." "Interesting readers want to know." "I think the thing with cross genres, some of the stuff we've talked about, for example, the historical and crime..." "Because it is specifically, it's almost clear cut to genres that there's the historical aspect and the crime aspect." "That does at least open it up to appeal to two different audiences." "There will be people out there who like reading historical stuff." "Yeah, I think there's something around balance." "Yes." "Because it can be kind of interesting when you've got, for example, historical and romance and it's like..." "You're going to have to have a sort of an art for both of those things." "And it's how you manage it because maybe when it comes to the big crisis and they thought it was going great and all of a sudden..." "No, it isn't going great at all and you're actually messed up completely." "You compound that by having some kind of romantic misadventure or do you kind of keep that going or..." "You've got lots of decisions to make and think about." "Well, if I have too much of this, is it going to unbalance it or is it going to..." "If I have too much romance, is it going to make the crime seem trivial?" "Yeah." "But it's just about getting that balance, isn't it?" "Yes, isn't it?" "I'm in the mode, as I say to you, it said I'm listening to these Jodie Taylor books, the time, please." "And I have read one of them, but I kind of... I had a question and I thought, 'Mmm, yeah, if that had happened then that would kind of knock out all the books.' "Yes, yeah." "It's right, I felt like I had to do a lot of willing suspension of disbelief." "Yeah, I think quite often when you're going down that fantasy, dystopian road, you have to suspend the road." "Because again, with some of these time-police stories, you know, they're going back in time to stop people from interrupting time." "You think the fact that they were there may interrupt time." "Yeah." "So you do have to." "But then again, that's the joy of books like that. It takes you into the world of make-believe." "Mmm, yes." "Where actually people like to read books like that because they like to suspend, believe what it does, to suspend reality." "It's quite nice to go off into another world and think, 'Oh, it's all going to turn out.' "I used to get myself into absolute knots trying to figure out how the Terminator got there and how he got back." "And in the second film, you know, what happened and if they do that, it's going to mess the whole reality up." "I used to overthink it instead of going, 'This is a really good film.'" "I think you should have to go with the flow. Have you seen Austin Powers?" "Yes, and there's a character called Basel Exposition." "That's great." "And at one point he just turns to the camera. I think Michael York plays him and just says, 'You know, I don't think you should worry about that, you know, people who are watching. Just, you know, accept it and let's carry on and then just turns back to the scene.'" "That's kind of how I feel about the Terminator." "You see, when I watched The Matrix, all three films, never entered into my head, but this is not possible." "I think it's a measure of the success of it as well, how much you're willing to go along with it." "That's true, yeah." "With the Time Bliss book, I just kind of thought, 'I'm not sure about that.'" "But Stranger Times is another one where..." "Oh, I'm absolutely invested in that." "So, it's unreal, you know." "But you've got, you know, when they do the headlines on the news about, you know, what's coming up?" "Yeah." "And you think, but you do hear things like that, don't you? If you Google things, it'll be like, 'Oh, vampire landed on roof and nothing killed during the carnival and killed three people.'" "It's like that thing in Men in Black, where they get all their news from, like, the National Inquirer and the World Week and movies and all those, you know, papers that everyone thinks it just, you know." "Stranger Time should have been in with them." "Yes, definitely." "I'm wondering if that's where he kind of got the idea from." "He brought it on." "Yeah, so as I say, it is about just enjoying the moment, isn't it, when you're watching these films." "So what do we think the benefits are of mixing genre?" "I think it can sometimes, going back to what I said about the crime and historical fiction, it can draw in a different audience." "Yes." "You know, somebody who likes historical fiction or somebody likes romance and likes a bit of crime mixed in." "Yes." "I suppose it depends on whether it's an equal balance. For example, I think the CAD file that we talked about and the Shard Lake ones are very historical with a crime thrown in." "Right." "Rather than..." "So it's historical with crime, rather than crime." "That's my opinion, those, those." "Yeah, yeah." "Yeah, I think you are expanding your audience by doing that. You're by having this crossover of ideas." "Yeah, yeah." "Yeah, people who, as you say, like something with historical background will really enjoy them." "I mean, I've seen some of the ones pawns on the television and I have enjoyed them. I've not read the books." "And yeah, I think, I'm just trying to think of something. I can't think of the name and it was male and female detective." "It was like half..." "I'm going back a lot of years now and they pretended to hate each other." "But they didn't. Everybody knew that they actually..." "That's what moonlighting was, yeah." "It was your moon!" "I'm such a guesser." "But that's exactly what it was, wasn't it?" "They used to pretend they didn't like each other and there was always that undercurrent of romance." "Did you watch it for the cases though? Or did you watch it for simple shepherd and Bruce Willis?" "Yeah, the second one." "Yeah, so it was probably romantic suspense then, rather than, you know, mystery or crime with a bit of romance." "My daughter was in New York a while ago and she crossed Bruce Willis's path. He was coming out of a restaurant that she was going into." "She said, 'He smiles at me mum.'" "Wow." "That's what I said." "Oh yeah, so I think probably that winds it up talking about Bruce Willis and his dreamy eyes." "I think I think that's probably a good place for us." "Not possibly before Mike exploded this wind. All these rabbit holes that we've got down there." "And I still can't remember the naughty joke." "I apologise." "If we remember, we'll have just on the blog or something or in a future episode." "Oh, it's something about big ears." "No, no, no, no." "While we're winning, let's stop." "All right, there. We're winning." "Awesome." "Can I just mention very quickly that there is, of course, the only murders in my mind - blog post, blog rather." "And there's a couple of posts go up every week, so if you just want to find out a bit more about us, please feel free to go and have a look." "It can be found on WordPress, only murders in my mind.wordpress.com." "That was very professional." "I thought that." "That's very good." "I'm just trying to put you two to shame." "Have the BBC heard." "I have no show." "But we also do a weekly writing prompt on there. If anybody finds he's writing a story, put it on there or give us a link to your blog and we'll have a look at it and maybe read some out." "Fantastic." "Right." "Looking forward to seeing what you send us." "And don't forget to like us on YouTube, give us a review, like us, make a comment on the blog post." "Send us money." "Whatever." "Carol and I do not endorse that last for a while." "Actually, what am I saying?" "Yeah, if you want to send us money, that's brilliant." "But please, please do not send us your notties and big ears jokes." "Please." "Somebody offered me sterling money for giving the child a vaccination once because we're from another country." "And they were used to paying and I was going, "No, no, no, it's free." "I would have said, "No, no, no, that's not enough." "My colleague behind me, only joking I'd like to point out, was sort of going, 'We could have a drink.'" "We didn't take it, obviously. We were professional." "Right, well, with that, I will wind this episode up. Thank you very much everyone for listening once again, and we'll see you at the same time next week. Bye for now." You have been listening to Only Murders In My Mind, a random thought production produced by John Bissett. The music in peril was composed and recorded by OM Studio Strings. [Music]