Journalists and the Mystery: A Match Made in Heaven?

If you read author bios on flaps, back covers, "About the Author" pages, and the like, you may have noticed how many mystery novelists have journalism somewhere in their backgrounds. A stellar example is Laura Lipmann, one of my favorites (that woman can WRITE).  There are plenty of other examples, too: Michael Connelly, Todd Ritter (a new name, whose Death Notice I quite enjoyed), Edna Buchanan, Kathryn Casey, Betty Webb, Brad Parks, Anna Blundy, Jan Brogan ... the list goes on and on.

Manuscripts by former (or current) journalists usually move to the top of my pile, even if the high concept doesn't particularly move me.  Why?  Because these people are trained writers, and I can usually assume that the story is told competently.

If you think about it, it's not hard to see why the journalism background is so helpful. Those writing for newspapers are trained to put the most important details up front in the article, with increasingly less important information later. This way, if the editor has to make cuts, it's easy to lop off an entire chunk of the story without doing time-consuming line edits.

An article also has to grab readers' attention instantly - lest the reader skip it and move to another, more interesting, place in the newspaper or magazine. This is an extremely useful skill for a novelist, who has to grab the reader's attention in Chapter 1 with the promise of a good story and interesting characters. 

In longer stories or investigative pieces, the journalist also has to parcel out the information in a way that keeps the reader involved - not giving away everything up front, but rather planting "clues" (as it were) and developing the story. It's a bit sad that most magazines have moved to shorter pieces these days - the days of those Atlantic-type 30-page articles seem to be almost over.  But such is the American attention span.

The ability to keep the reader's attention over a longer piece is also extremely useful to novelists, needless to say.

Finally, the parallels between investigative journalism and the sleuthing process are many. In fact, other than professional private detectives and police, investigative journalists are probably the closest thing we have in reality to fictional sleuths.  So their methods, when fictionalized, have an air of truth about them that brings a nice tone of reality to their manuscript.

The only suggestions or criticisms I'd offer would be these.  Often, journalists make their protags journalists as well. I truly don't like saying this, but everyone knows that these jobs are going away. It's a damn shame - doubly so when I read articles on Yahoo.com and elsewhere that were clearly written by kids with little to no journalistic training or experience. So I think that books featuring traditional journalists working for the local newspaper (or even a big-city newspaper) are going to have a harder and harder time finding a wide readership. So, if you're going to have a journlistic protag, I might find a way to make this person a private or freelance journalist who works for political pundits, or private industry, or even an Internet journalist working for a major Website or search engine. These somehow seem more "relevant" in the current age.

Also, I not unfrequently catch a whiff of self-congratulation in books by journalists, a sort of "We journalists save the world" tone. To see what I mean, look no further than Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al. While I loved the book and would have published it exactly as is, the "Journalism Saves the World" motif does get a little tiring, I suppose because, at the end of the day, we want escapism and a good story, not necessarily an authorial ego trip.

 

Comments

[mollie cox bryan]

I love Laura Lippman's writing, too. Along those same lines, have you read anything by Hilary Davidson? She was a journalist and is now a mystery author. I just finished THE DAMAGE DONE and was very impressed. I can't wait for her next book. I'm a journalist-turned-mystery author, as well. As luck would have it, my main character is a freelance journalist. Thanks for the great post.

[Jersey Jack]

I think the best thing about journalism for writers is learning to cut out unnecessary words. Your prose gets leaner, more to the point. First week at The L.A. Times (way back), they gave me a copy of Strunk & White.

[Peter]

Yeah, but that was back in the days when newspapers had copy editors. Journalists can and do write good crime novels, but I tend to think that the further they break away from their journalistic backgrounds, the better the novels.

[Peter]

"I not unfrequently catch a whiff of self-congratulation in books by journalists."

This is very much to the point.

[Todd Ritter]

Many thanks for the nice mention, although I'll be the first to admit I don't belong in the same paragraph as Laura Lippman and Michael Connelly. You also make great points about journalism/mystery writing. Another reason the two go together is that we're accustomed to deadlines, getting to the point and heeding the advice of our editors. But I fear you're also correct that newspaper reporter protagonists will soon be a thing of the past.

[Peter]

In today's newsrooms, Strunk & White is like an illuminated gospel book in the Middle Ages: venerated by all, invoked by some, understood by none.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com

[Savio @ homestays in goa]

I agree that journalists are better writers.

[abercrombie tienda]

Me encanta la escritura de Laura Lippman, también. En ese mismo sentido, ¿ha leído algo de Hilary Davidson? Ella era periodista y ahora es un autor de misterio...

[ralph lauren pas cher]

Molte grazie per la citazione bello, anche se sarò il primo ad ammettere che non appartengono allo stesso punto di Laura Lippman e Michael Connelly. È anche fare grandi punti sul giornalismo / mistero scrittura.