Do Old Mobsters Ever Really Retire? Not in the Hammer!

I often get asked if the comedy in my books is anything like the comedy I post here.

So here's one of my favourite scenes from THE GODDAUGHTER CAPER.  I often read this one at events.  It answers the question:  Do old mobsters ever really retire?

(Background: Gina has inherited a chest full of cash and bonds from her great-uncle Seb, who was in the mob.  But when the chest arrives at her store, it has a dead body in it!  This scene is two chapters later.)

Still had time to kill. I picked up the magazine that was on top of the pile. Had to smile at the name on the cover.

Association of Retired Seniors…ARS for short.

I paged through it.  One ad in particular caught my interest. This was because someone had taken a black felt pen and circled it. It read:

Fly By Night Funerals

Need Help? Short on cash?

From Rigor to Removal,

we do the whole thing.

Discreet Burials

Plenty of satisfied customers.

Call 555-PLANTUM

(555-752-6886)

I felt the blood leave my face. I recognized that phone number. It was the number

I had used that morning to reach Jimmy in the retirement home.  Crap!

I quickly speed-dialed Sammy, my uncle Vince’s underboss. It immediately went to voice mail.  I said a very bad word.

“Sammy, call me back as soon as you can,” I hissed into the phone.

I sat for a moment listening to my heart pound. But I’m really not good at sitting and doing nothing. So I phoned the number in the ad. Again, it went to voice mail. A shaky elderly voice addressed me.

“You have reached Fly By Night Funerals…

You plug ’em, we plant ’em. Please leave a number,

and we will return your call as soon as possible.”

The machine beeped at me. I clicked off without leaving a message.

I stared at the phone in my hand. Almost immediately it binged to signal a new call.

“What’s up?” said Sammy.

“Fly by Night Funerals. Spill it,” I said, keeping my voice low.

 “Oh, that,” said Sammy. “Yeah, I figured there was a mix-up. The box with the body in it that got delivered to your place was supposed to go to the Holy Cannoli Retirement Home.”

“The retirement home? Like they need more dead bodies? They don’t create

enough of their own?” This was just loony.

“Easy, sugar. It’s simply a small business we’re supporting. Old Jimmy is the manager.”

I got this cold feeling. “The manager of what small business?”

“A funeral business. Nothing to get excited about. They just run it from the

retirement home so there aren’t that many questions.”

Questions? I had a few questions. But before I could ask them, Sammy said,

“Nobody notices a few extra bodies leaving a retirement home. Get it?”

I was starting to get it. I remembered the answering machine message. You plug ’em—we plant ’em.

“They’re running a business burying people who get murdered?” I said.

“We don’t off them ourselves, sweetheart,” said Sammy. “That’s the joy of it.

We just do the cleanup. We’re actually providing a much-needed service. Or, at

least, they are. I’m only a consultant.”

“Old Jimmy? And Magda? And my great aunt Rita?” I couldn’t believe it. Those

sweet, elderly folk? Okay, maybe they had checkered pasts, but…

Sammy went on. “The key to good business management is to provide a service

that’s got a demand for it. Jimmy nailed it. People are distressed when they have a body hanging around. They pay well. So the Last Chance Club…they got more business than they can handle.”

“But why? I said.  “Why would they do this?”

Sammy’s voice perked up.  “Oh.  Well, that’s easy.  Those old folks at the retirement home - they want to go on a bus trip to Vegas.  You know.  Hit the tables, see the shows.  It costs big bucks to rent a bus to go that distance.  Not to mention hotel rooms and all those buffets. And they need supervision.”

No argument there from me.  “Isn’t this sort of illegal?” I said.

“Embalming and burying isn’t illegal. And Freddie was a licensed funeral worker

guy, although I don’t know that he’s kept up his license. Tends to forget things, what with the dementia.”

“Dementia?” I squeaked.

 “Yeah,” Sammy said. “Once he forgot to dress a guy after the embalming. You wouldn’t believe what a little extra fluid can do to some parts. We don’t do open casket anymore.”

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Comedy ain't so Light (in which Bad Girl explores the other, more serious purpose of humour)

Everyone likes comedy, right?

Wrong.

I’ve written comedy professionally since 1992.  I got my start writing stand-up. In the 1990s, I had a regular humour column in the Toronto region, and I now write humour for The Sage (a Canadian satire magazine.) 

Any seasoned humour writer will tell you that consistently writing comedy is difficult.  What looks easy doesn’t write easy.  The old actor saying, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard,” stands for writers too.  In books, not only do you have to pay attention to plot, characterization, dialogue, viewpoint, motivation, etc. like every other author, but you also have to add an additional element, comedy.  It’s like there is an addition test for you that others don’t have to pass.  And you don’t get paid any more for doing it.

And it gets worse: Comedy writers take risks that other writers don’t.

For here’s the thing:  comedy is by nature dangerous.  It (often) makes fun of things that other people take seriously.  In fact, it’s almost impossible to write comedy and not offend someone, somewhere.

Even the most seemingly inoffensive broad comedy (the sort of thing I write) will attract criticism.  The Goddaughter is the first in a series of five comic capers from Orca books.  These are meant to be humorous entertainment. Nothing blatantly didactic.  No preaching.  I am hoping for smirks and laughter to lift your mood.

It’s satire.  A loony mob family is chronically inept.  A reluctant mob goddaughter wants to escape the business, but is always pulled back in to bail them out.  What results is a series of whacky capers and heists-gone-bad.

What could be offensive about that?

But ah.  The heroine of the story is a mob goddaughter, even if she doesn’t want to be one.  “You don’t get to choose your relatives,” she says.  I’m writing stories about the mob, in which we are actually compelled to want certain members to succeed in their crazy plans. 

I’ve found that even writing about the mob can invite outrage.  Operating outside the law is bad, even evil, a reader wrote recently. How dare I make light of serious crime? 

Which brings me to the point of this post (get to the point, Mel).  Comedy, done well, has a secondary purpose to making us laugh.  (Some would say primary purpose.)  It has the ability to threaten power.  Throughout history, writers have used comedy to satire and gently (or not so gently) ridicule the people who have power over us.

If we were to limit the ability of authors to write about certain subjects or groups of people in light and humorous ways, we would lose the ability to ‘bring them down to size.’  To show their weaknesses. 

My satire is gentle.  But it is there, all the same.  In my humour columns and books, I poke fun at people and organizations that seek to have power over us.  To maintain that power, they must be taken seriously.

And boy, do they hate comedy writers like me.

The Goddaughter books are sold at Barnes & Noble, Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, independent bookstores, and all the usual suspects. Please buy them, so our Bad Girl can continue to go straight.

WRITING COMEDY – A Starter Kit from Bad Girl (Melodie Campbell)

“Is that a broadsword on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?”

<from Rowena Through the Wall>

I hope you smiled at that line.  I think it’s one of my best. My name is Melodie Campbell, and I write comedies.  (This is a self-help group, right?)  Sure I’d like to kick the habit and write a ‘real’ book with literary merit. <author grimaces here>

Okay, so that’s a lie.  Leave The Goddaughter’s Revenge behind?  Not write a sequel?  I’m starting to hyperventilate.  Actually, I love writing comedies.  It’s in my blood.

A GREEK MASK

Some people are born beautiful.  But most of us aren’t, and we look for ways to survive the slings and arrows of life.  Sometimes we choose to hide behind a mask.  That Greek Comedy mask was the one I picked way back.

COMEDY IS TRAGEDY BARELY AVERTED

Always remember this: Comedy has its root in tragedy. Making fun of our foibles is one way we cope.

As a means of self-preservation in the cruel world of teenagers, I looked for the ‘funny.’  More often than not, I made fun of myself.  This was easy to do.  I knew the target well and there was a wealth of material.  And it didn’t hurt anyone else, so people liked it.

When I left school and had a ‘real’ job, I started writing stand-up on the side.  I rarely delivered it – usually I wrote for others. That led to a regular newspaper humour column, and more.

So when it came to writing novels, I fell back into ‘safe mode.’  Write it funny. 

You can too.  Here’s a starter kit:

The rule of ‘WORST THING’

(aka: Never go easy on your protagonist.)

Comedy writers take a situation, and ask themselves ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen now?’  <that’s the tragedy angle> And then, ‘what’s the funniest?’

What’s the worst thing that could happen to The Goddaughter when she is reluctantly recruited to carry hot gemstones over the border in the heel of her shoe?  Predictable would be: she gets caught at customs.  But I don’t want predictable.  I want funny.

Instead, the shoes get stolen. By a complete amateur! It’s embarrassing, that’s what it is. How is she going to keep this from her new boyfriend Pete, who thinks she’s gone clean? And what the heck is she going to tell her uncle, the crime boss?

Nothing, of course.  She’s going to steal them back.  Or die trying.

And hopefully the audience will die laughing.

TIP 1 – Adding Comedy via your Plot

Now take your novel:  Create a confrontation for your protagonist.  What’s the worst thing that could happen to her?  Then ratchet it up: what’s the most embarrassing thing, from her point of view?

Alternate between worst and embarrassing.  This keeps your reader intrigued, and raises the stakes.  They don’t know whether her next encounter will be deadly or hilarious.

TIP 2 – Adding Comedy via the way you put together Words

Now let’s step it up.  Add wordplay. Have a member of the cast says funny or clever things.  It doesn’t have to be your protagonist.  Sometimes it is best to make this character a side-kick. Examples: surprise, unexpected, sarcasm, exaggeration, words with double meaning

                                                         i.     Surprise or unexpected:

“I had the flu once.  It was terrible.  I couldn’t eat a thing for three hours.”

<from Rowena and the Viking Warlord>

This works because we expect to hear something else at the end: “I couldn’t eat a thing for three days.”  Instead, we hear “three hours.”  This is an example of the surprise or unexpected, plus exaggeration, giving us a chuckle.  But wait a minute: this is also self-deprecating.  Three in one.

                                                        ii.     Example 2: Remember how this post started?

“Is that a broadsword on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?”

This is an example of wordplay that requires the reader to have some prior knowledge or education. We know the original May West line, where the gun substitutes for something else.  This exaggerates the gun into something bigger.  The reader feels clever for getting the joke.

So…do you really want to join me in this reckless trade? Read below.

THE TROUBLE WITH WRITING COMEDY 

When people ask what I write, I say ‘comedies.’  Then I give the genres (crime capers and time travel fantasy.)  My books are comedies first and foremost.  I look for plots that will lend themselves to laughs. 

This is different from authors who say they write humorous mysteries, for instance.  In this case, they would peg their books mysteries first.  The humour is secondary.

It’s tough writing comedy.  Here’s why:

1.      Everyone expects your next book to be just as funny or funnier than your last.

Example: Janet Evanovich.  Readers are complaining that her 20^th Stephanie Plum book isn’t as funny as her earlier books.  They are giving it 2 and 3 stars.  Twenty books, people!  Think about that. I’m on my fourth book in two different comedy series, and I’m finding it tough to sustain the humour in book four.  Believe me, this woman is a master.

2.     When you write something that isn’t meant to be funny (or is mildly humorous but not comedy) people are disappointed.  But it’s not funny, is what I hear most.  Talk about type-casting.

3.     You will never be taken seriously for most awards.

Again, comedy – particularly in crime writing - is rarely taken seriously for awards.  This drives some writers nuts.  It seems to be endemic that books on the short lists are usually ones written with gravitas, on subjects that are ‘important’ or grim. To quote a colleague, “It seems to me, the more grim a book, the more merit is ascribed to it.”  Blame the Scandinavians.

4.     It’s hard to get published.

This is lamentable.  It’s hard to get a publisher for comedic novels. Many seem to be afraid of funny books.  Again, it may be the part about not being a ‘serious’ book, and thus not seen as an ‘important’ book.

Film suffers from a similar stigma.  How often these days do comedies win Oscars?

5.     The expectations are HUGE.

Not only will you be expected to produce a book with great plot, characterization, viewpoint, motivation and dialogue like all the other writers, but along with that you also have to make people laugh consistently throughout it.  It’s like there is a sixth requirement for you, an additional test that others don’t need to pass.  And you don’t get any more money for it.

Sucks, right? So why do it?

1.     Because good comedy is magic to some readers.  They love you for making them smile. 

2.     Because not everyone can do it. There is talent as well as craft.

3.     Because making people laugh is what you do.  You’ve done it since you were in high school.  Most of us who write comedy were the class clowns.

4.     Because you’re mad, like I am. Well at least, madcap.

We do it for readers. Hopefully, we’ve lightened their day with laughter, and in some cases given them a story they can escape into, over and over again.

Postscript:  THE GODDAUGHTER’S REVENGE broke the rule and won both the 2014 Derringer and the 2014 Arthur Ellis award for best crime novella this year!  Author is still in shock.

THE ARTFUL GODDAUGHTER - Now Available in Paperback!

THE ARTFUL GODDAUGHTER  - Now Available in Paperback!

 

The third novel in a hilarious series featuring Gina Gallo, who is having a hard time leaving the family business.

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First Industry Review: 

The Artful Goddaughter is a novella with legs and laughter. International award winning author, Melodie Campbell’s  third Goddaughter mystery is the best of a winning trio of stories. The second one, The Goddaughter’s Revenge recently took home Canada’s Arthur Elllis award for best novella and America’s Derringer award. 

Strong plot, great zingers and imagery that draws you in and just doesn’t let go. Gina Gallo, the leggy beauty, about to wed inherits a stash of cash from her deceased uncle that comes with a condition…reverse an old crime with a new one and get him to his final reward. And she’s off with her crew of relatives anyone would love to hide. The scam is delightful, the plot, setting and dialogue move with page turning intensity which makes the Artful Author’s third crime ride a blast and a laugh. 

Reviewed by: Don Graves. Canadian Mystery Reviews.