More on the Writing Group

As I mentioned last week, there is a genre smorgasbord in my writing/critique group.

We have two writer's whose specific writing genre's I don't know. Then there is one Victorian murder mystery writer, another who has a background in zombies and horror but who is writing a WWII era murder mystery (I think) and a gentleman who is writing a compelling, high-landeresque, gruesome fantasy. Then there is your's truly who is writing a thriller/mystery centered on conspiracy theories.

So it was with great attention I read this article in the WSJ on murder's in the Victorian era, Bloodied Minded Victorians by Alexandra Mullen. Naturally I sent the link to the story to my writing group friend, but I link to it here because the author's position is that the fundamentals of today's murder mysteries started during this era.

Fenning's sad tale, like many of the other murder cases recounted here, was quickly adapted into fabulously melodramatic fiction. This is the final piece of Ms. Flanders's puzzle: how writers—from hack journalists to highfalutin novelists—eventually used such raw material to shape the narrative expectations for the mysteries and thrillers that we read today.

Then there is the fact that so many of the murder's that were popular to read about and follow in the press were so lurid and horrific.

• Most evocative for fans of the great sleuths of the mystery novel are the middle-class murderers, quietly going about their nefarious business in country houses and suburban villas. Who savagely murdered the 3-year-old Francis Kent, last seen sleeping in a room with his nursemaid and later found "thrust down the outside privy, his throat cut"? 

• There are unsolved violent crimes, such as the Ratcliffe Highway murders in 1811, in which a whole family (including a baby in his cradle) was massacred in their house. 

At first, this was a bit shocking then I thought about some of the horrific modern day massacre's and murders and I decided maybe things haven't changed so much.

It's a terrific little article about the nascent stages of the murder mystery and how they came about in the Victorian era. But it was the books suggestion portion of the article that really made me take notice, particularly the way that "avoirdupois" is used so adroitly.

The Woman in White (1860)

By Wilkie Collins

Collins's story is sensational in all senses of the word, but the bravura effect comes from the way Collins drew on his time watching a trial: the novel imitates the collection and evaluation of often contradictory documentary evidence, diaries and witness accounts. And there's the first master-criminal to boot, the charmingly evil Count Fosco, as large in avoirdupois as he is in ego.