An analysis of a cozy mystery opening

Hi, today I want to talk about a book I started reading recently because as I first read it, I thought This is a good example of a strong beginning. And then after a few more chapters, I thought This is a good example of a problematic beginning. I want to talk about why today.

I'm not going to name the book because I'm being somewhat critical of it. I will explain a little about the story. It's a cozy mystery, which I know because it said right there in the subtitle, “A cozy mystery.”

It opened with a woman going into a pawn shop, obviously uncomfortable there. It's outside of her hometown because she doesn't want anybody to know she's going there. She's selling some family heirlooms, basically. She's not happy about it, and she blames her late husband.

This is a good start because we're dropped into the middle of a scene. There's enough information to understand what's going on. We start to understand the character a little, her pride because she's going somewhere no one will see her, her anger at her late husband. She's obviously in a difficult situation.

I thought this was a good start. We don't really know what the situation is with her late husband, like how he got her into this trouble, but I'm assuming that it will be explained before too long.

Then the next couple of chapters follow different characters. They had their own issues, things that are challenging them, but those were more ordinary life things, like family and career.

We get back to the first woman and she is dealing with money trouble. She's trying to fix up her big house because she's not going to be here soon. No explanation of why that's the case. She could be planning to go on vacation. She could have terminal cancer. She could be planning to end things. She could be planning to sell the place. We don't really know.

At this point, I was starting to get frustrated because I didn't understand what the story was. It says it's a cozy mystery, but I'm in chapter five, and there's no dead body.

I am not one of the people who believe that a mystery must always have a murder. There are people who say only a murder is a big enough crime to support a whole book. I disagree. I think that there are plenty of crimes that can be compelling even without dead bodies. But so far, there's nothing. Her late husband did something that has put her in this situation, but she can't get justice against him.

I'm not sure where the story is going. I was getting frustrated.

I put the book down because it was really easy to put it down, not because it was boring necessarily, but because it was confusing.

A good beginning will introduce some questions, but then it will answer some of those early questions while adding new ones. They're sort of overlapping questions.

The reader shouldn't have too many questions at one time. If you just pile up the questions – What does that mean? How is this relevant? What is this person trying to do? – it’s not dramatic. It's confusing.

There are a couple of things you want to do in the beginning. One is you're making a promise to your reader, which I've talked about earlier. So if it's cozy mystery, it should feel like a cozy mystery. This was starting to feel more like women's fiction, the personal journey of this character without a mystery to solve.