Edith/Maddie here, looking forward to the New England farm produce season.
For this fifth Wicked Wednesday of the month, let’s finish our riffing on permissions talking about societal permissions and how we use those in our fiction. Obviously, murder and other crimes are not permitted – otherwise our protagonists would have nothing to do!
But what other kinds of actions do societies and subgroups within cultures permit or forbid? What have you found useful for your characters to transgress by doing or not doing? Are some permissions more expectations than hard rules?
Jessie: Because I write mostly historical fiction there is a lot that has changed over the years. I love exploring the way that what is acceptable for women in societies has changed. I enjoy creating characters that are interested in stretching their roles and are reaching towards some of the rights the women of today have, or used to have. I would say that many of the challenges my characters face are more about expectations, although some, like a lack of suffrage, are hard legal rules.
Julie: Jessie, I love reading historical fiction for that reason. I also read novels of the day, for example I reread Jane Austen regularly, and enjoy the exploration of manners in what was for them current day. Austen was especially good at making fun of the rules while showing why they were so draconian for women. Agatha Christie also uses the rules of the day to help explain motivations, and to thwart investigations. As a writer, setting up the expectations of how a character behaves is part of my job. Having them behave differently is part of the story telling. Such an important part of what we do!
Edith/Maddie: I’m right there with both of you in gently stretching the boundaries for the historical women I write. I like to shake up the current era a bit, too. Mac Almeida in the Cozy Capers Book Group series is a female bike mechanic. Aunt Adele in the Country Store Mysteries owns a shotgun and a pistol and knows how to use both. And I always try to make all my characters fully fleshed out, even the bad guys, who tend to have a soft spot for rescue animals, flowers, contra dancing, or reading to shut-in seniors.
Barb: What an interesting question. I do think about societal rules as I write–my characters live in a context after all. In Hidden Beneath, the owners of the homes on Chipmunk Island live, at least in the summer, in a closed society. Real estate never goes on the open market. Houses are inherited or sold privately to friends and family of people already living there. As an outsider, Julia observes the romanticism of the summers these residents enjoy, but also the constraints. She makes judgements, pro and con, that help her understand her own life and goals.
Liz: I do think island living has a whole set of rules, like Barb said. In Maddie’s world, there’s definitely some of that outsider perspective as someone who’s lived a lot of years away. I think she’s able to see things differently than most of the people, including her family, who have lived there all their lives. She understands that helping broaden people’s ideas, especially on what outsiders should and shouldn’t be allowed to do on the island (like run businesses and build new homes) are helping move the people of the island forward rather than stay stuck in the past that will eventually hinder them.
Sherry: In the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries I was able to talk about military life and the constraints on families. It’s a wonderful way of life, but also different with a whole different set of rules.
Readers: Thoughts about what is permitted in society and what isn’t – and what you want to read about?
The Wickeds 
Since there is no perfect mold for people, I say definitely push the boundaries in both people and events. After all, that’s what makes like (and books) interesting – that we aren’t all alike or that events can be seen differently by different folks. I love it when an author does the research to make the people and events of a time accurate, but even in research I’m sure they find conflicting details as told or recorded in different times. Boundaries are like lines drawn in the sand. Wind, water or someone stepping on it changes the boundaries location, but maybe not the intent to start with. So push away! If ever story of mystery was the same, the thrill of reading each book won’t be there. So in the end, just keep doing what you do so well.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
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I like that attitude!
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I still find it unusual to read contemporary mysteries with protagonists with Asian and/or Muslim backgrounds. Ausma Zehanat Khan is one author who I enjoy reading. She writes 2 police procedural series set in Toronto and small-town Colorado, respectively. The books have both male & female South Asian/Muslim police detectives who have challenges working & navigating in a community that expects victims & criminals to follow more typical Caucasian/Western societal norms.
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Agree, Grace. I love Khan’s Toronto series but I didn’t know about the Colorado one. I will go check that out!
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I like pushing boundaries when it is done in a thoughtful and authentic way. Betty Ahern definitely stretches the limits of what a “nice girl” would be doing in the 40s – even with a war going on!
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She does, Liz!
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I agree with Liz. I like mysteries where characters behave realistically, so they can cross social lines and defy the rules of their settings in time and place, but the consequences if they get caught have to be appropriate to the era. Because my books are set in modern Switzerland, where the social rules are not the same as those in the US, I have to explain if I’m going to have people break them. If my police detective Giuliana Linder decides to address a witness by first name, for example, she has to give a reason for this breach of etiquette. Sometimes, I use Renzo, my Italian immigrant detective, to provide a different, often critical, perspective on Swiss ways of interacting.
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Great way to clarify the differences, Kim.
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I get very fed up with not being able to talk about physical and mental issues because it is “uncomfortable “. So many of us feel alone because we don’t realize most other people are going through the same things we are. One of the things I love about getting old is I’m forgiven for saying “outrageous “ things like my mother was a hateful witch, or my bowels are misbehaving. If we all could be open and honest, there would be so much less misunderstanding and misinformation ruling our behavior.
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Thank you, Ginny.
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