I've Lost the Plot

Some readers love plot-driven thrillers, and some readers want character-driven series, and some readers like the literary genre that doesn't seem to have either.

I'm not sure where I fall. I gravitate toward series that allow me to know and follow a character for many books: Anna Pigeon and Sebastian St. Cyr and Meg Cabot and Ian Rutledge. But I also enjoy a romping plot. As I try my hand, not for the first time, at writing a cozy mystery, I am endeavoring to learn more about plot structure.

Over the past few weeks I've read articles and blog posts, watched YouTube videos, and restructured my story over and over again. I've written at least three drafts already, but in addition to it being too short for a novel and too long for a short, there's just something wrong.

The majority of the other works I've written have been historical mysteries. I say the majority, because as I sit here wondering if mysteries just aren't my cuppa, I recall that my first writing project was in fact a mystery.

Not a murder mystery. I don't actually recall the mystery itself. All I remember at this far removed date is that I wrote it longhand in a spiral notebook with green pen and it was 88 pages longhand. (So maybe 30 pages typed?)

What do you expect? I was eleven.

The very first thing I ever wrote was a mystery. I put that aside to write character-driven historical YA, but I read more mysteries than YA, as the list of characters above shows. And yet, this story that just won't gel is contemporary murder mystery.

The characters are so real to me. I can sit and have a conversation with Mia Makenzie. I can feel sadness for her loss and smack my forehead at her penchant for trouble of her own making. She is me, but more adventurous. And then there's Kate, her would-be sister-in-law and dear friend, who is mourning the loss of her brother, Mia's fiancé, trying to manage her own pain while watching Mia sink deeper into the oblivion of the bottle. She is the soft voice of hope. Tom, Mia's boss, has been where she is and knows she has to want to pull out of this nosedive at 6 Gs. Tough but sweet, I really love Tom! Then there are the side characters: Fern, the borough worker with access who collects dirt to grow gossip later; Chief Oden, who is smarter than he lets on but probably should have retired by now; and Dr. Warner, the medical examiner, who is so used to talking to dead people that he forgets his manners in public. Lizzie, Mia's sister. Hannah Betterstone, a dear friend. Lance, the colleague, the play boy.

Great story, right?

Um, where's the plot?

And that's where we are. I've lost the plot.