(no subject)

[skygiants]

I am doing so awesomely at this resolution I started over a year ago of "reading mystery series ALL THE WAY THROUGH from BEGINNING TO END," guys. I am only two books away from finishing one of my current mystery series! And three books away from another! And . . . still have nine books to go in the Great Cadfael Reread of '08-????, but that is Ellis Peters' fault for writing FIVE MILLION books and not mine, so. Anyway, my promise to myself is that once I finish any one of the above series, I get to start reading either Ngaio Marsh or the Mrs. Pollifax books.

The one I have three books left in is the Easy Rawlins series, because I read two more over these past few weeks - Bad Boy Brawly Brown and Six Easy Pieces: Easy Rawlins Stories. Bad Boy Brawly Brown is pretty normal Easy Rawlins fare - no massive timeskips and no major life changes for Easy, although he's still dealing with the death of [SPOILER] - and centers on Easy trying to get a young would-be revolutionary safely out of an activist group that's about to turn criminal. I liked it, but, weirdly for me, I actually liked the collected short stories lot better. Normally, I'm not as much a fan of episodic; I am all about the overarching plot. But in this case, the stories work together to show an emotional arc that spans the length of the book, while all the mysteries are nicely bite-sized. This is nice for me because I can actually follow what is happening most of the time (often difficult in long noir plots). It's also nice for me because I tend to be significantly more interested in the emotional arcs in these books than the actual single-book mysteries anyway (this is also generally true across the genre, for me) so the focus in the collected short stories was pretty much exactly where I wanted it to be.

What do you guys think? Do mystery short stories sometimes work better than full-length? (I know there are GREAT DEBATES about this as far as Sherlock Holmes goes . . .)

Comments

[ceitfianna]

Ngaio Marsh has written some short stories but not as many as Christie who wrote too much. I think that short stories all depend on the author.

I have Marsh's collected short fiction and enjoy it, but I prefer her novels better since her talent is building a world you care about. In the stories, there's not always as much time to do it. Though one of the pieces of short fiction is a teleplay, which was so interesting since she was very involved in the theater.

I've actually been rereading all of my Marshs and realizing that somehow I don't own everything she's written. I'm not sure what it says about me that I think I'm missing maybe three out of all she's written.

[skygiants]

Teleplay does sound interesting!

Hah, I don't think there is a single author in the world that I own all of their books - not even Diana Wynne Jones, and you know my feelings about Diana Wynne Jones.

- okay, actually, there may be some who have written only one or two books, which I own. And in this case, my collection is complete. But for people with huge backlogs, no way; that is what libraries are for!

[ceitfianna]

If you'd like, I could lend you my copy of her collected short fiction. Its weird, I'm at library school, but I've bought more books this year. I think its the fault of all the good used bookstores and Borders giving me coupons.

Also there are some authors that I like rereading often enough that owning tends to make more sense. Marsh is one of those for me.

[skygiants]

I would be amenable to this! Although I don't get to read ANY until I finish ONE of the series I am currently on. This continues to be the rule. *very firm*

Yeah, there are some books I keep meaning to get around to buying, just because I want to have them to reread and lend out and so forth. But on the other hand . . . space.

[ceitfianna]

What's the current series that you're in the midst of?

[skygiants]

It's the Easy Rawlins books that I posted about here, the Benjamin January books (I have two more to go!) and the Cadfael reread.

[ceitfianna]

How many January books are there? I recently finished the second one.

There are so many Cadfael books, I love them but so many.

[skygiants]

There are nine of them - the latest just came out this year, after a several-year gap when they weren't sure any would be published.

I KNOW RIGHT. @_@ Shrewsbury must be, like, the murder capital of the medieval world!

[ceitfianna]

Hee, well they don't all take place in Shrewsbury. Also she's all about bring in strangers and then kill them off.

Nine, okay, that's doable. I'll add that to my series list.

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

I think that a lot of the short stories versus novel-length debate is less about the mystery genre and more about individual reader desires, you know? Personally, I like them a lot: it lets me enjoy the book in shorter chunks and doesn't assume that I'm going to devote all my time and energy to the story. (Which, ahhahaha--NO. Grad student, dissertation, I have waaaay too much to do than work hard to remember some steenkin' mystery novel's "foreshadowed" plot twist that appeared 200 pages before any clues made it relevant! Like, um, sussing out those same connections in medieval literature. >_>) And I see world building has already been mentioned, and that's not easily accomplished with short stories. If I'm in the mood for world building, I want romance, relationships, a touch of mystery to make things interesting...but I don't want the book to be dominated by the mystery (or lack of knowledge), I want it to be constructed and built with knowledge and detail, and sure, mystery is part of life, but it's not the central focus of life. Well, generally. ANYWAY. Mystery / unknowing adds a bit of spice, but I don't want it all the time, you know?

[skygiants]

*nods* I definitely see what you mean - and in terms of worldbuilding, I also think that there's a certain freedom that you get when you're writing stories already in a set continuity/world. Although even then, I guess, there's still a sort of hesitancy about changing the status quo. Which is one of the interesting things about the short stories in this volume, actually - like, series-long-term characters died in the stories, and were brought back to life, and major, impactful things happened. That seems unusual to me, for short stories that are part of a larger series where not everyone might be expected to read the short stories.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

Hmm, surprisingly enough, I'm going to come down in favor of the long form.

...Okay, so me being in favor of a long form is generally not surprising, but in context it kind of is! While I keep meaning to read some mystery series, I haven't yet, so I'm coming at this from the angle of someone who is fairly fond of crime and mystery shows, which tend to be very episodic. And the primary reason for my decision isn't the plotwork, though I love that, it's the character arcs you mentioned, and because I best love mysteries that bring in a lot of the world.

For example, there are plenty of absolutely astounding single episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, some of which are strong social commentary ("Colors" springs to mind), some of which are wonderful character explorations (who doesn't love "Stakeout"?), and many of which mix these two. But for all that Homicide is brilliant in short form, it's even stronger when it has more plot to work with. The four-episode arc in season three that begins with "The City That Bleeds," for example. The most powerful parts of it are scenes that provide some incredible insight into the characters and their relationships, but that's only made possible by a strong, propulsive plot.

You can take it too far, though. Even thought the main plot of the second season of Stand Alone Complex is fascinating from many viewpoints and brings out some very interesting things in certain characters, it really does go on too long and the writers get bogged down in a lot of the little details and extra machinations they can throw in. I love the second season, but I think the first season was better, partially because it broke up the overarching plot much more with self-contained episodes which showcased more than the main plot could. (...And frankly, in spite of how interesting the indictment of Japanese xenophobia angle is in the second season, I just like the Laughing Man case more.)

So balance is very important. My favorite way is to have a longer running plot and smaller plots side by side, so you get greater variation while also getting all the things that only a larger plot can offer. But I'd err on the side of long form.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I think I agree with you that longer running plot with smaller plots side-by-side is often the best way to run a series - taking the example above, I think one of the reasons the set of stories worked so well for me is that the emotional developments were able to build on things that were were set up in the long-form stories, and continued over the course of the several short stories.

I mean, I really, really love an enormously tight plot that all ties together from beginning to end, in long-form storytelling - see, for example, FMA or any Urasawa work. The mystery genre (literary or visual) makes that difficult to do, though, because the format kind of inherently relies on a case-by-case basis. But you can do different things in terms of storytelling with long-form mysteries and short-form mysteries, and it's always fascinating to see the ways those play out against each other.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

That really does seem like the best of both worlds, as far as using short stories in a series goes! Easy Rawlins is actually pretty much at the top of my list as far as "mystery series I should read" goes, by the way. I picked up the first book used and it is on my enormous TBR pile (a good portion of which I should point out is your fault, that included).

Enormously tight plots are one of my favorite things in the world! But yes, it is hard to do with mysteries, so the best idea there can be to use the episodic parts in different ways. Like, technically everything from the end of the first episode of Homicide to the end of "Three Men and Adena"* is part of the Adena Watson arc. But some of the episodes in that time span focus on the cases that some of the detectives solve while Bayliss continues to slave away at the case in the background, hitting walls and coming up with little pieces bit by painful bit. And then at the same time Howard solves some cases in five minutes, because she's awesome like that.

Though I have to admit, because a really long mystery is so hard to do in a way that doesn't collapse and keeps viewer interest, I have to admire anyone who tries, and admire even more those who succeed, even when I think they're capable of better work.

(I imagine a meeting about the the second season of S.A.C to have gone something like this:
"Man, it's great being part of a hugely popular and widely respected franchise! What should we do with this new season?"
"How about we basically start the main plot in motion in the first episode and then have only about three episodes in the season that genuinely have nothing to do with it?"
"That sounds great! We did the pharmaceutical industry last time, what social topic next?"
"Hmm, how about some more anti-war stuff in support of an indictment of xenophobia?"
"...Do you really think that second part will fly?"
"As long as we throw in some anti-American stuff."
"Good point. Let's do that."
"Hey, hey, can we have Salinger references?"
"NO. I mean, we all love Salinger, but he was a major plot point last season. We should mix it up."
"Then can we have an episode or two where we pay homage to our favorite movies?"
"Yes. Yes we can.")

...ohgod I have gone on for so long, I will shut up now. >.<

*Which is quite probably the best episode of television to ever air.

[skygiants]

I will be curious what you think! There are a couple things about the series that bother me, but enough that fascinate me (and strike me as being really unique for a private eye series, too) that I keep reading. (I will accept my guilt in this. *dignity*)

*nods* Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'll always love season one of Veronica Mars, which also hit this formula really well - a series-long mystery tied in with smaller mysteries, some of which played a role in the bigger arc and some of which didn't. It felt incredibly balanced, to me. And then it all fell apart in the second two seasons, but I digress.

(*giggling* I LOVE IMAGINING DORKY WRITERS' ROOM MEETINGS SO MUCH. <3333 "Do you think anyone will notice if we make this whole episode about how much we love spaghetti westerns?" " . . . yes. Yes, I think they will." "Do we care?" ". . . no, probably not.")

Do I ever mind wordiness? NO, I DO NOT. :D Especially since I am often guilty of the same myself.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

I will be sure to report my thoughts when I finally get around to reading them!

Perhaps my belief in this balance comes from early exposure to The X-Files (not that they handle the balance particularly well, in many ways, but it does establish a pattern).

(YES, THESE THINGS ARE AWESOME. "Do you think all our viewers have seen Wings of Desire?" "No." "...Can we make this entire episode homage to it anyway?" "Of course.")

I AM RELIEVED TO BE REASSURED OF THIS.

[skygiants]

I will look forward to it!

I missed out on the X-Files experience as a kid, which always makes me a little sad. I mean, not super sad, because I was an easily frightened small child and it would have terrified me. But I feel like it would have been a good introduction to many things!

(It amuses me when authors do it, too, because it's often even more blatant. "I am now going to take a full chapter to have my characters babble about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead! AND YOU'RE GOING TO ENJOY IT.")

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

This was my legends class:

Teacher: While we are talking about childhood summoning legends, who here knows the Bloody Mary mirror legend?
[Several people raise their hands, including Orly]
Teacher: How did you find out about it?
Orly: It was in an episode of The X-Files.

This happened on a number of occasions.

(HOW WOULD I NOT ENJOY CHARACTERS TALKING ABOUT A PLAY THAT IS CHARACTERS TALKING ABOUT A PLAY?)

[skygiants]

I actually heard the Bloody Mary mirror legend in the wild! At summer camp, to be specific. The way it was meant to be heard.

Which in no way diminishes the value of The X-Files as a tool of cultural transmission, obviously.

(ONLY CRAZY PEOPLE WOULD DISAGREE!)

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

Becca, Becca, I am listening to this week's This American Life and it's about summer camp and they're interviewing girls who are telling the legend and performing the Bloody Mary ritual. I NEARLY DIED.

Somehow I missed out on most of the cool legends in real life, so The X-Files was invaluable.

(...seriously what book is that from?)

[skygiants]

HAHAHA THAT IS AWESOME. Oh, summer camp nostalgia. *cracking up* There is something about the scary-stories-in-an-isolated-cabin experience, for serious!

(Pamela Dean's Tam Lin! Pamela Dean is an amazing author for anyone who does not mind taking detours for the characters to babble about their favorite plays and fantasy novels, it is glorious.)