In addition to book reviews, Dorte has a weekly feature entitled “Thy’s Day” that features photos of the beautiful area surrounding the vicarage in which she lives.
Not only does Dorte read and review crime fiction, she writes it – and very well, I might add. It’s in honor of the launch of Liquorice Twists, her latest collection of Flash Fiction, that I’ve asked Dorte to be my guest here. As much as I enjoyed her first collection, Candied Crime, I think this one is even better! (My favorite story in her new collection was “Catastrophe”)
When I first started following Dorte’s blog I sometimes wondered what attracted her to the genre she so loves. In the following post she shares a little insight into this. So without further ado, please help me welcome Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen!
When the Vicar's Wife Writes Crime Fiction
First, thank you very much to Kelly for inviting me to visit her blog during my launch of "Liquorice Twists" (twenty flash fiction stories).
As some of my friends don´t understand that I even want to read crime fiction, I am sure they must find it even stranger that I´d want to write the stuff.
I think their aversion may come from misconceptions about how broad the genre of crime fiction is. They may think it is all about violence and gore, and of course these are elements of crime fiction, especially hard-boiled thrillers, but not at all what I am looking for when I select books to read. I prefer the more traditional police procedurals or private detectives and sometimes a cosy mystery.
In the very best crime fiction I´d expect an intriguing plot which makes me curious. Not stories that dwell on death, rape or abuse, but an intelligent mystery with clues scattered over the pages, preferably a story you have to read properly in order to guess parts of what is going on.
Furthermore, I will return to series which offer me credible characters who are neither black nor white. People who are so convincing and ´real´ that I can relate to them and who come to mean so much to me that I begin to care about them, biting my nails if they are in danger and wanting to shout at them when they put themselves at risk. Characters who make me long for the next instalment as soon as I have put the book down.
I also enjoy stories which have a strong sense of place, preferably in the country or a smallish town. In the very best fiction the writer pulls me into a world which is new to me, yet so vivid that it makes me forget my own living-room and feel I am there together with the characters.
Last, but not least, I expect a good solution. ´We´ nailed the perpetrator, and we are left with a feeling that order has been restored. So just like romantic fiction, crime fiction offers a fairly happy ending, but crime fiction is even better as it makes you feel justice prevails.
So when I write crime fiction, my first priority is not to shock or offend anyone. I am also a Christian when I write which means my characters tend to swear very little, and though they do end up in a bed together occasionally, it is not those scenes I dwell on. What I want is to give you an entertaining story, and if I can frighten you a little bit along the route, all the better. Not by throwing sawn-off limbs in your face, but by making you care about what happens to the characters my twisted brain came up with.
Thanks so much, Dorte, for visiting my blog today! Dorte has written some other guest posts during that past week on subjects such as e-publishing and writing tips.