When I sit on our front porch and look out, I love seeing the ridge on the other side of the highway leading out of town. We’re heading south for the winter. I’ll miss it. The evergreens at the summit have thinned out, and I can see patches of sky through them. The hardwood trees lower down have shed their leaves and bare limbs reveal things hidden away behind a green canopy all summer. At times, cloud masses have blanketed the ridge entirely. In other moments, cloud and fog have floated up the hillside like smoke escaping into the sky. Sometimes, dark thunderclouds have carried a threat of rain.

When I was growing up in California, looking out across the ridges of hills toward the west provoked a sense of longing. Often, that longing was for the adventures I felt awaited, perhaps in far corners of the world. Sometimes as a teenager, the longing had to do with more immediate associations. It was in the valley, where I got together with my high school associates, went to football games and after-game dances. New delights at the time, like an A&W Root Beer drive-in and a Foster’s Freeze soft ice cream stand offered oases of pleasure to any kid with a car. Delights waiting in the valley.

I’ve seen many distant ridges, and crossed them to their other sides. The Blue Ridge Mountains, the steep hills coming out of Virginia into North Carolina and highway 40 west. The land settles into rolling hills once past Tennessee and into Arkansas and Oklahoma. Then it flattens into a great open expanse punctuated by distant mesas as you go through New Mexico and Arizona.

I’ve never tired of the beauty of a distant ridge, never failed to feel its lure. A distant ridge makes me want to put my fate into a new cross-country run, even down an old highway.

Driving through New YorkI don’t know that everyone feels this way when they see a high ridge in the distance. I suspect many don’t. For me, it’s a feeling that something almost magical lies just over the hills. It’s a sense of new discovery being within my grasp. An editor I was talking with some years ago heard me remark that looking for home was what kept my protagonist on the road. She insisted I stop and write that down immediately. I did. It captures an essential aspect of Bobby Navarro, along with his insistence that there be some morality and justice in the world. I’d love to hear what sights tug at the emotions of other people, and in the case of other writers, what compels their characters to step into another adventure or solve another murder.

Driving through New York

I’m noticing a lot of the mysteries I read or watch these days have an understory that appears to drive the protagonist’s behavior. It may be their drinking behavior, or their attraction to the wrong people in their personal life, or an unresolved issue from an earlier trauma.  I like that. It gives the story depth. And, since I enjoy mysteries but think they ought to be more than a simple whodunit, depth is important. But so is surprise. Life is full of surprises, and we usually like our mysteries to contain some elements of surprise. Of course, the surprises should also move and enrich the plot. They may provide an unexpected clue as to who the villain might be, or why the villain is a murderer. They may impede the ability of our protagonist to carry on the investigation into what happened. They may develop character.

Surprises don’t have to be whimsical events, though, like an airplane engine falling out of the sky and landing on the hero’s head. In fact, I think it’s better if they’re not. If the protagonist is suddenly injured, it works better if we have known all along the protagonist is prone to taking risks. Getting injured at some point is almost predictable then, and thus believable. The timing of the surprise mishap adds excitement to the story. Realizing at some level that the potential is there all along adds tension. The surprise event also adds an element of challenge for the hero to overcome, and overcoming obstacles is what it’s all about. Getting injured makes danger real. So, writing a good mystery should include some ‘predictable’ element of surprise that still catches us off-guard.

Surprises don’t have to be calamitous or even major events to add to the fun. Occasional little surprises are a part of everyday life, and can add reality and tension to our hero’s quest. Bumping into someone unexpectedly, discovering a surprising relationship between characters in the story, etc. can provide telling information about someone, or just create an awkward moment for the hero to deal with. Still adds to the fun for the reader.

As I’ve been working on my latest Bobby Navarro mystery, I’ve had a few surprises of my own as a writer. That happens, and I usually enjoy it when it does. In this work-in-progress, I dropped a character Bobby knows well onto the scene of his latest investigation—his mother. The thing I hadn’t anticipated was how much it would impact him and how it would shape his personal growth in this novel. He also has several other unexpected encounters in the story, which hopefully will add to the readers’ enjoyment when the work is finally done and the book comes out. So, I think surprises should affect the plot, be ‘predictable’ at least after the fact, and add tension to the story. What are your thoughts?

Hiking on the Lake