What is the importance of mixing things (ideas, topics, genres: home renovation and murder) up when writing fiction?
As someone who writes a series, I have to keep certain things the same in all the books. Readers come to them expecting familiarity, and that’s what I have to deliver. At the same time, each book has to be different from the others, because no one likes to read the same story over and over again. My books are set up so that my main character Avery Baker and her sidekick, handyman Derek Ellis, renovate a different house in each book. There are fresh dead bodies in each, too, but there is also always a “history mystery,” a riddle from the past that is somehow connected to the current house or plot. In a broader sense, too much mixing of things, especially genres, makes a manuscript a hard-sell. My genre is cozy mystery, which lately has come to be synonymous with cutesy, crafty mysteries about scrapbookers, knitters, petsitters, and bakers. The genre sells well, and for someone who wants to write in it, it’s important to stay within certain parameters. The same thing goes for other genre
