Writing Exciting Chapters

Thoughts on writing cozy action!

The Way I Work

I’ve set out to write chapters in a specific sequence: outline the Motte & Bailey chapter, then the Blackstone Chronicles chapter. Draft M&B. Draft BC. Spelling and editing pass on M&B. Spelling and editing pass on BC.

I have an entire system built around this, and what I find genuinely fascinating is how the chapters can be so different from each other, and sometimes so surprisingly similar.

Chapter 4, for example, which will be the first chapter released on Patreon for Motte & Bailey, differs from the Blackstone Chronicles chapter 4. I love that. But the chapter I just finished? Both series went to very similar places, and in such a fun way. It’s going to be interesting to hear what you think chapter by chapter as we go.

Writing Cozy Action

Cozy is such a broad and confining term. Some things are straightforward: no swearing, no explicit sex or graphic violence. But writing action and physical conflict? That gets more nuanced.

There’s an old Robin Williams bit about British police, the punchline being “Stop, or I’ll say stop again.” I think about that a lot. It captures something real about the challenge: in cozy mysteries, the methods of control available to your characters can sometimes feel a little... impotent. I’ve been known to yell it at the TV, especially during British crime dramas.

What makes this interesting in my two series is that Motte and Bailey have no guns. Jackson Hurd in the Blackstone Chronicles likely has one, but I don’t talk about it. Finding genuinely dangerous situations that still fit within the cozy framework is one of my favorite puzzles to solve. These first two books are the easier end of that challenge. The further we go, the more interesting it gets.

Show the Results, Not the Event

One thing I figured out early in writing murder mysteries is that you show the result of an event rather than the event itself. The killer raises the axe. The victim says, “Oh, it’s you.” Cut to someone finding the body. All the violence and horror lives in the reader’s imagination, calibrated to whatever they’re comfortable with. It’s actually a more powerful technique than showing everything directly.

I hope you enjoyed the action chapters I just wrote, and I hope you’re eager to read more.

What Do You Love About the Cozy Genre?

I’d love to know. Drop it in the comments.

Next week will be the last post like this before the preview goes out to the wider world, and I’ll be letting you know exactly how you can help spread the word.

Thank you, as always, for your support and your input. It means more than you know.

Mark

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