A classic mystery revolves around the solving of a murder—literally a “whodunit,” in which the reader doesn’t learn the identity of the murderer until the final scene or at least near the end of the story. Certain conventions or elements are necessary to every mystery. You generally have a body (victim), a sleuth, foreshadowing, a suspect or suspects, clues, and red herrings/misdirection.

I write small-town mysteries, and when I was drafting May Day , the first in my Murder-by-Month series, it became quickly apparent that I was going to have to provide a unique tweak on those mystery conventions for various, readily apparent reasons. Below is my quick and dirty guide to writing a small town mystery series with legs:

Kill mostly tourists. If your series is set in Chicago or New York, it’s fine to off the neighbors. More will move in. However, if your series is set in a town with a population of 792 (and that only because the Swenson family had triplets), you’ll want to bus the bodies in or soon, no one will be left to populate your novels.

No graphic violence. A small town provides an intimate setting for a series, and your readers are going to get to know the people who live there very well. No one wants to read about horrific violence visited upon those they care about. You’ve got to have murders if it’s a mystery, but respect the bond your readers have forged.

The Murderer. In a big city mystery, the reader might not know anything about the murderer or the people s/he interacts with. In a small town, you have your cast of suspects, and they’re your neighbors, your coworkers, and your friends. Let your reader get to know them all well so they spend the book trying to decide which one is wearing the mask.

Sex or no sex? Depends on the location. Up here in the land of long winters and poor TV reception, I tend to believe a little sex breaks up the monotony. Like the murder, however, your reader wants to be spared the graphic details. This shouldn’t stop you from making wild ellipses love, though, as in this example from May Day: “His face was inches from mine and he was looking at me with warm, predatory eyes. I felt fireworks in my pants. I think I may have even smelled sulfur. He leaned in purposefully to finish the kiss, and either my legs buckled or we both decided to drop to the floor and make love like forest creatures…” The end.

Gossip: This is where it gets graphic. Small towns are a wealth of interwoven pasts. As Carolyn Hart writes, “The small town mystery focuses on the intimate, destructive, frightening secrets hidden beneath what seems to be a placid surface…One does not always have to live in a city and wander dark alleyways to be acquainted with anger, jealousy, greed and despair.” And someone always knows your secret in a small town. You can play it for humor, but remember that there is a certain level of comfort in the familiarity in small towns which builds the atmosphere of the novel.

Protagonists: Mysteries are always character-driven. The characters move the plot, not the other way around. The small-town mystery protagonist can be a native, like Kathleen Taylor’s Tory Bauer, born and raised in Delphi, South Dakota. He can be the prodigal son, as is Cork O’Connor in William Kent Krueger’s Aurora, Minnesota, mysteries. Or she can be a transplant, a fish out of water like Mira James in the Murder-by-Month mysteries. With any of the three options, readers have to care about the protagonist, want to be with him/her without feeling intimidated. So, your protagonist has to have flaws and motivation. “First, find out what your hero wants. Then just follow him.” Ray Bradbury

Setting: This becomes a character in itself in a small town mystery. Decide on the quirks, the weather, the storefronts, the feel of the town before you even start writing about it. Visit a real town that reflects your mental image of your novel’s town or set your series in an existing burg. Be detailed and concrete in your description (see Strunk and White’s Elements of Style).

Circumventing or working with the local law. In a big city, it’s easy to work around the law, but in a small town, they’re impossible to avoid. Your protagonist can beat them to the dead body a few times, but not in every book in the series, so her relationship with the law has to be established early. In the Murder-by-Month mysteries, Mira has an antagonistic relationship with the law because that seemed natural to someone who grew up in a small town. There was never any serious crime, so the law was just an impediment to drinking and speeding, right? It creates an extra level of conflict.

And that’s everything I know about writing a small-town mystery. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! “Through joy and through sorrow, I wrote. Through hunger and through thirst, I wrote. Through good report and through ill report, I wrote. Through sunshine and through moonshine, I wrote. What I wrote it is unnecessary to say.” Edgar Allen Poe

Jess Lourey has just released August Moon , the fourth novel in her Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month series. Of August Moon, Denise Swanson, author of the Scumble River Mysteries, writes, “Lourey has a gift for creating terrific characters. Her sly and witty take on small town USA is a sweet summer treat. Pull up a lawn chair, pour yourself a glass of lemonade, and enjoy.”

Jess will be touring the West Coast with mystery author Dana Fredsti in May and hitting the Midwest in June. Check her website for more details. Also, the first person to email Jess through her website and correctly identify the population of Battle Lake, Minnesota, the setting for her series, will win a free copy of May Day. Be sure to tell her the Good Girls sent you!