Mystery Writers vs. “REAL” Novelists

She was one of those Grace Kelly blondes—elegant and icy, a Manhattan-based literary agent in town for a book festival. I’d waited patiently to talk with her, biding my time as a bevy of hopeful writers did their best to charm and cajole.

When my turn finally came, I launched into my elevator pitch. She was remotely interested. Until I mentioned the “M” word.

“Oh,” she said in a dismissive, this-conversation-is-so-over tone. “You’ve written a mystery?” Her lip curled, as if she’d just smelled cabbage cooking on the main deck of the Queen Elizabeth II.  “I never touch mysteries,” she shuddered delicately, “or other genre fiction. I represent only literary fiction. You know. Real novelists.”

Without another word, she turned away, leaving me to nurse my battered ego.

Real novelists. As opposed to writers of mere mystery novels. A false dichotomy if ever there was one. I was appalled, yes. But surprised? Not really. I’d been warned about the many agents who make that distinction.

They’re completely wrong, of course. Totally benighted. Because as every discerning reader knows, writers of mystery novels have to work far harder than their cousins in literary fiction. Like all novelists, they have to create a compelling storyline and people it with fascinating characters. Never easy. But unlike “real” novelists, they also have to craft and sustain an intricately woven plot of murder and deception—something that often forces them to become minor experts in firearms, poisons natural and man-made, police protocol and the American legal system.

Just one look at the pantheon of mystery greats should be enough to dispel any notion of inferiority. It’s a list that starts with Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe—no strangers to literary fame.  And it continues through modern-day stars like P.D. James, who could write anything—and has—but who chooses to focus mainly on novels of detection.

So to all you mystery writers out there, I say: hold your heads high. You’re a literary novelist… and then some!

For more information about Mantra for Murder
Phone: 734/761-8440 • Email: lindafitz@mantraformurder.com