Words Matter, a guest post by E.J. Copperman

 One lucky commentor will win a hardcover copy of \

Bones Behind the Wheel by E.J. Copperman!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Mystery readers and writers are used to our genre getting sliced and diced (no pun intended) by agents, publishers and bookstores. Do you write dark psychological thrillers? Madcap historical mysteries? Police procedurals? Romantic suspense? Most of us - readers and writers alike - would prefer their mysteries classified in one of two ways: Will I like it? Or won't I?

 I know many, many JRW readers put E.J. Copperman's books in the first category. His Haunted Guesthouse series continues to grow in popularity (the newest one, BONES BEHIND THE WHEEL is now out!) and his Asperger Mystery series garners critical acclaim and five star reviews. So love Copperman, love his books - just please think twice about how you describe them...

Photo from Poison Pen Bookstore

Let us, for a moment, consider the term “humorous cozy mystery.”

I am, at least it says in some of the reviews of my books, a writer of humorous cozy mysteries. I have, for the past 17 or so years (but who’s counting?) been making my living as such. You could say, were you so inclined, that humorous cozy mysteries have been the main source of my income for a good portion of whatever career this is.

The problem is, I hate the term “humorous cozy mysteries.”

Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks, let me clarify: I don’t for one second dislike the genre (Subgenre? Sub-sub-genre?) itself. I like mystery novels. I like mystery novels that don’t rub my face in the gory details and try to get me to think that the world is a horrible, depraved, frightening place. There’s the newspaper for that.

I’m a particular fan of those novels – mystery, bloodless or otherwise – that exhibit a sense of humor. I am a comedy nerd. I have little patience for any form of entertainment (art, if you must) that has no sense of humor at all. It bores or irritates me. So I am not by any means suggesting that the type of books I and so many others (who tend to get nominated for awards, but am I bitter?) write are in any way a second-rate art form. Much to the contrary.

It’s the words “humorous cozy mysteries” that I object to. To which I object. Fine. Be a grammar cop. Because words do matter, and those are possibly the most terrible choices available for the kind of stories I tend to write. Let’s take them one at a time:

Humorous. If there’s a worse way to say “funny,” I’m not aware of it. Humorous has an almost sarcastic ring to it, like what you would say to someone who just tossed off an unusually bad joke or pretended an insult was just their way of kidding. There’s a scene in Silver Streak where Richard Pryor jokes that Gene Wilder is more or less acting in a racist fashion. Pryor doesn’t mean it but he makes the joke. Wilder looks at him and says, “Oh, that’s very humorous.” 

 

It’s the comedy version of pleasant. You might as well say that something is droll or whimsical. Even amusing is better than humorous. It makes comedy polite. Who needs that?

Cozy. Perhaps the worst culprit of the bunch. The word cozy in and of itself demeans the form it describes. If there’s a dead body on the floor and you feel cozy there is something deeply wrong with you, or you just killed that guy. There are no other explanations.

No, cozy was adopted to assure some readers that nothing nasty (sex) was going to happen in this novel and no unpleasant images (sex and violence) would be presented. Cozy says, You’ll be fine. Don’t be afraid. And once you’ve done that to a work of fiction you might as well just say that it’s toothless, pointless and free of any honest human emotion. It will be, at best, cute, a word which is mercifully left out of the phrase humorous cozy mysteries.

Cozy has led to a serious segregation of the form, too. Cozies are separated in the mystery section at the bookstore, they are generally left out of any awards discussion (except the Agatha, and no, I didn’t set out to write a piece about mystery awards), and they tend to feature crafts and baking over, in some cases (not all!) plot and character.

I was once having lunch with a group of cozy authors and discussing the trends of the day in that field. It was observed that the two big features publishers wanted at the time were crafts and supernatural beings, in particular vampires.

Joking, I said, “What about a knitting vampire?”

One of the authors didn’t look up from her soup. “I was offered that one,” she said.

Cozy.

Mysteries. That was a tease. I have no argument at all with the word mysteries.

We should call these things what they are: Funny Mysteries with No Sex or Graphic Violence. Granted, that’s not as catchy as humorous cozy mysteries, but it’s more accurate and less grating to the ear. I’d be happy to hear your suggestions for ways to banish those words from our mystery vocabulary. Ideas?

E.J. Copperman is the author of many funny mysteries with no sex or graphic violence. Wow. That took up a lot of words. Well, the latest one is the 10^th (!) Haunted Guesthouse mystery, BONES BEHIND THE WHEEL. E.J. would greatly appreciate it if you’d pick up a copy. You can put it down again after that, but paying for it would be nice.

 E.J. Copperman, is on Twitter as @ejcop, has a web site and a blog, SLICED BREAD.  You can also learn more about his alter-ego Jeff Cohen at his web site,  friend him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter as @JeffCohenWriter.

Who’s This Spade Guy, Again? a guest blog by E.J. Copperman

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: E.J Copperman, the author of the popular Haunted Guesthouse series, remains an elusive figure in the crime fiction world, swathed in mystery (or in an old bathrobe, it's hard to tell) difficult to pin down (especially by authors owed drinks.)  What we do know? First, the Haunted Guesthouse series, featuring single mom/innkeeper Alison Kirby and ghosts Maxie and Paul, has been called “Funny, charming, and thoroughly enjoyable," by people unrelated to the author. Second, the fifth book in the series, THE THRILL OF THE HAUNT, is coming out this November 5th. (A specially priced e-novella, AN OPEN SPOOK, is available to download right now.) And third, EJ always has some wise words for readers and writers.

On those rare occasions when I’m not writing about ghosts, murder, the Jersey Shore (sans Snooki) and did I mention ghosts?, I sometimes teach writing of various kinds at various colleges. And the students are lovely people (most of them), eager to learn, more eager to get a good grade, and at least pretending to be interested in the subject matter.

Still, it astonishes me how much they don’t know.

I’m not talking about writing. Some of them can write walking in the door on the first day, and others are timid at first but learn to spread their wings (and other clichéd metaphors) as the term progresses. No, teaching them about writing is my job, and I don’t expect them to know much coming in. 

 

It’s the important stuff. (I’m getting there, mystery fans; just hang in a bit). I teach screenwriting at one college, and after showing a clip of Laurel and Hardy have been asked, “What’s up with that guy in the hat?” I have assigned an essay at another college that at least peripherally deals with the shootings on a New York subway by Bernhard Goetz in 1984. My students asked who this Goetz guy might be. 

 

The one that tore it for me was when mentioned a bowling alley in one class and the student raised a hand and asked what a bowling alley might be.

Personally, I blame their parents. Wake my 24-year-old son up at three in the morning and ask him which studio made the Marx Brothers classic DUCK SOUP and he’ll stare at you with pity in his eyes and say, “Paramount. Why?” And then roll back over and go to sleep because it’s three in the morning.

We raised that boy right.

 

My daughter, now a 20-year-old senior at one of the colleges where I teach (she was a student there before I started teaching there), is a fan of Aaron Sorkin. A fan of a screenwriter. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.

What touches us, what we take with us, from any experience is random and subjective. There are people who truly believe that THE ENGLISH PATIENT is one of the greatest films ever made. I remember having a good nap, and then noting that the configuration of an airplane meant the whole movie didn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make either of us wrong; we have differing tastes. It’s what we remember about the experience that counts, finally.

And that, mystery lovers (you knew I’d get to you) is why I think character is more important than the most devastating plot twist in fiction history. I believe that a character who gets into the reader’s head and (better) heart is the key to a memorable story.

Sometimes when I talk to groups about writing, I’ll survey the audience and ask for a show of hands: “How many people here have read, or seen, THE THIN MAN?” Many hands will go up; in the right audience (over 40), almost all the hands will go up.

So I’ll go on: “Now, how many people remember who the killer was revealed to be in THE THIN MAN?” On a strong night, two hands will remain raised.

“Okay,” I’ll say then, “who remembers Nick and Nora Charles?”

Every hand goes up.

Characters are our surrogates in the story sometimes. They are our nemeses. They are our companions in tough times, our compatriots through difficult but exhilarating adventures, our guides through unfamiliar territory. Characters in series sometimes become like old friends, or family—we’ll read the book or see the movie just to see how they’re doing these days.

I’m not saying plot isn’t important; of course it is. You can’t write a weak story and say, “Well, the characters will sustain it.” (Actually, sure you can. You can write that. I don’t recommend it, but you can.)

But come up with the twistiest, juiciest, most intriguing plot in the world, populate it with cardboard, dull characters, and even if you manage to draw an audience, the experience won’t be what you’d hope to create. Ask those people in a year what happened in that book, and they’ll ask which one that was, again.

But ask them about Indiana Jones, or Spenser, or Miss Marple, or Superman and they’ll respond immediately. Some will get a dopey smile on their faces. That’s what I hope for as a writer; it’s the face one puts on for a lost love from decades ago, a favorite, a special memory.

Where was the body hidden and how did the killer manage to keep the police from finding the gun? Go remember.

Nick and Nora Charles? You should see the dopey grin on my face right now.

Nick and Nora? Lord Peter and Harriet? Who are your most memorable characters, dear readers? Let us know, and one lucky commentor will win a copy of CHANCE OF A GHOST, the 4th Haunted Guesthouse mystery!

E.J.Copperman is the author of the Haunted Guesthouse mystery series, whose latest entry THE THRILL OF THE HAUNT will be poltergeisting its way to your bookseller on November 5. E.J. lives, teaches and writes in New Jersey (and teaches sometimes in Philadelphia), and can be found at www.ejcopperman.com. You can read more from EJ at the blog Sliced Bread, friend EJ on Facebook, and follow EJ on Twitter as @ejcop.

The Medium has a Message: a guest post by E.J. Copperman

eta: Jessica Brooks (coffelvnmom) is the winner of Sara J. Henry's A COLD AND LONELY PLACE! Jessica, please contact Sara with your info. Congratulations!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We here at Jungle Red love the elusive E.J. Copperman (most frequently seen in the company of notorious Barry-Award winning author Jeffrey Cohen.) The latest book in Copperman's Haunted Guesthouse series, Chance of a Ghost, has just hit the shelves, so of course E.J. is here to tell us all about...
 
...watching television. 

Which I guess leaves it to me to say you should all  check out Copperman's funny, fantastical mysteries. I know I'm going to pick up Chance of a Ghost. Just as soon as I finish this House of Cards marathon...

I love people who say they don’t watch television. I think they’re lying, but I just love them to pieces. They’re adorable.

People who say they don’t watch television (the really hardcore ones will tell you they don’t own a television) are subscribing to that hoary old notion that because television comes into your home and arrives on a screen smaller than the one in your local movie house, it is somehow an inferior, cheap, dirty conveyor of entertainment. They truly think that reading Mickey Spillane is a more highbrow experience than watching The West Wing. (I’m not discussing Downton Abbey, because I haven’t imbibed the Kool-Aid on that one yet.)

That’s just cute, is all. What decade is this?

I never disparage reading anything, because I think reading is an unparalleled form of entertainment and information gathering. I read for pleasure and I read for work. But I also go to movies and I surf the web and I play stupid games on my Kindle Fire (I read paper books almost exclusively, but you can’t play Scramble in a book).

And I watch television. Yeah, I said it. I watch television and I like it.

Indeed, as a student and (hopefully) practitioner of comedy, I think the best work being done today is on the old box (now really more a rectangle). You think Ted is higher class than the late lamented 30 Rock because the screen is bigger? I don’t.

Somewhere in this country (the USA, for our readers from elsewhere) is a household in which the author of such excellent crime novels as Every Secret Thing, I’d Know You Anywhere and By A Spider’s Thread is coexisting (one assumes peacefully) with the creative force behind such cheap television entertainment as The Wire, Treme, and Homicide: Life on the Street. Is one’s work by definition more worthy because it is presented on the printed page and not the small(ish) screen?

When I was a young and struggling writer, I went through a period of unexpected unemployment (that means I got fired from my job and couldn’t find work, kids). It was a very difficult six months, the closest I’ve come to honest-to-goodness depression in my life. Two diversions got me through that time: Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, which I had just discovered, and the television series M*A*S*H, brought to television by the genius writer/producer/director Larry Gelbart.

I don’t discount Parker for a moment—the man was a master at what he did—but I think the endless reruns of the Korean War dramedy did more to keep me sane. Seeing the cast go through their trials and maintain a sense of humor kept me grounded. Cheap entertainment? I’d have paid twice as much for it.

This is not a diatribe against books, movies or opera (although I’m not a fan if Groucho, Harpo and Chico aren’t on hand). This is a defense of that underdog of the entertainment business, the boob tube, or as a government functionary famously called it so long ago, the “vast wasteland of television.” 

And he said that in the era when the writer’s room at Sid Caesar’s weekly live program included the wonderful Gelbart (who became a long-distance friend of mine years after saving my sanity), Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Lucille Kallen, Sheldon Keller, and some kid who called himself Woody Allen.

That’s some wasteland.

(To be fair, it’s also the time when they told us watching TV was bad for our eyes, that radiation from sitting too close would give us some unspeakable disease, and that seeing all that suggestive material on the airwaves would turn us into a nation of depraved sex addicts. And only one of those things turned out to be true.)

So don’t feel inferior when your friend tells you he or she doesn’t watch television. Consider that means your friend isn’t seeing things like The Daily Show (the smartest comedy done anywhere in decades), Homeland, Mad Men, Arrested Development, The Newsroom, The Colbert Report, or if they subscribe to Netflix, reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Star Trek, 30 Rock, The West Wing or… pretty much anything.

I watch television. I read books, too. Each has a great deal to offer. One night when you can’t find something you might enjoy on television, you might want to take a look at one of my books. I’d be grateful, and sincerely hope you’d enjoy it.

After all, you don’t want to watch TV all the time. That’s bad for your eyes.




I KNOW you have opinions on the boob tube, dear readers. Jump on the back blog to dish on your must-see TV, and one lucky winner will win all four of the Haunted Guesthouse books!

Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. She's returned to her hometown on the Jersey Shore to transform a Victorian fixer-upper into a charming-and profitable-guest house. One small problem: the house is haunted, and the two ghosts insist Alison must find out who killed them...


Find out more, and read excerpts, at Copperman's website. You can also  friend E.J. on Facebook, follow E.J. on Twitter as @ejcop, and yes, there's even a blog: Sliced Bread.

 

The Best Writing Advice You'll Never Get: a guest blog by E.J. Copperman

Looks like the Jersey Shore, all right.

The elusive and mysterious E.J. Copperman has long been a friend of the Reds. Rare orchid collector, bon vivant, international curling champion (we won't mention the rumors which suggest the sport is merely a cover for espionage) Copperman still manages to pen type word process write the Haunted Guesthouse mysteries. Are the tales of a ghost-ridden manse on the Jersey Shore ripped from life? Copperman isn't telling. (Showing, sure, but not telling.) We feel fortunate to get Copperman's unique take on the ubiquitous Advice to Writers.

Nobody has ever given me writing advice.

Wait. No. One person has given me writing advice, but I haven't followed it (maybe that's why nobody else has offered).

I know; I'm shocked, too. You always hear authors talking about "the best writing advice someone ever gave me," or "the one piece of writing advice I wish I'd never heard," or "the one piece of writing advice I always pass on to young writers." It seems like every writer is absolutely inundated with tips and inside information on the best way to rearrange those 26 letters in the English alphabet to somehow tell a coherent story.

Not me. The one piece of advice I remember getting--and this was in response to a direct question--was from the late brilliant comedy writer and screenwriter Larry Gelbart, who once told me (in response to deciding what to write about), "Go where the pain is."

I believe Mr. Gelbart was a genius, an underappreciated master who could make you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same moment (he was also a ridiculously nice man and a gentleman). But I don't think I've ever heeded his advice. I haven't gone where the pain is. It's too painful.

Other than that, I've been on my own for quite some time now. And I don't really mind all that much. I mean, I haven't actually sought out any writing advice, although I haven't actively dissuaded anyone from offering it, either. I guess it's just never come up in conversation. I've met a good number of writers in my time, including many of the fantastically talented Jungle Reds, but I've never asked how they write, nor have they asked me. We just do what we do, and figure if anybody wants to know, they'll say so.

I really don't mind the lack of direct mentoring. I'm not sure I'd be able to implement any changes even a world-class writer might suggest. Writing is such a personal thing, after all. When an aspiring author asks, I will hand out two pieces of... I don't know that I'd call it "advice" so much as "products of experience":

1. Don't tell me about "Writer's Block." I don't believe there is such a thing. I believe writers are the best procrastinators on the planet, will do ANYTHING to avoid pulling the day's allotment of words out of their heads, and therefore have created a fictional disease that prevents them from writing. Nonsense. If you feel "blocked," write anything. It's easier to fix something you've written than to write something new.

2. Here's the exact style and method you should use in your writing: The one that works for you. If it entails getting up at 4 in the morning and working until 9, more power to you. Try not to make too much noise, because I'll be fast asleep. If your process is to write longhand with a quill pen on parchment, enjoy yourself. I am a Jobsian Mac maniac. I will avail myself of technology and write at 4 in the afternoon, when I'm awake. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. That's why there's more than one writer on the planet.

That's it. If you want more advice, you're going to have to ask questions. But I'll give you this for free, because it came from a genius: Go where the pain is.

Maybe it'll work for you.


E.J. Copperman is the author of the Haunted Guesthouse series, in which a divorced mom tries to run a Jersey Shore guesthouse that happens to be inhabited by two ghosts. The latest in the series (which can be read out of order), OLD HAUNTS, publishes on February 7. You can also friend Copperman on Facebook, chat on Twitter, or catch Copperman's blog, Sliced Bread.

Usually, we'd ask you to tell us what writing advice you've used, dear Reader. How about we mix it up this time? Share with us the most ridiculous piece of writing lore you've read or heard!