An Equine Mystery with Heart and Humor
But it didn't start out that way...
From Andromeda: Need something less distressing in your inbox this week? Consider these glowing early reviews for Pony Confidential, a comic novel in which a “hilariously grumpy” pony solves a murder, released Nov 5 and already racking up honors as an Indie Next, Amazon, People Magazine, and Good Housekeeping Pick. From Kirkus, “Ever wished for ‘Black Beauty, Private Eye’? Wish no longer.” Publishers Weekly said, “Lynch has a potential series on her hands. Cozy fans looking for something out of the ordinary should saddle up.”
Even more surprising than this novel’s use of an “equine gumshoe” is the fact that Lynch didn’t set out to write a mystery at all. But that is only one part of an unusual origin story. The author explains her long route—yes, an odyssey—to writing an unexpected book.
Speak, Muse Pony
Guest-post by Christina Lynch
The first thing anyone says when I tell them I wrote a mystery novel about a pony inspired by The Odyssey is “why?” After all, The Odyssey (and yes, I am talking about the 8th c. B.C. Greek epic poem composed—maybe—by Homer) is not a mystery. There are plenty of deaths (all of Odysseus’s shipmates!), but no question about who done it. It’s not exactly current fiction, either. But it is the most enduringly popular story in the Western canon (canon being a debatable thing, but that’s an essay for another day). “Gilgamesh” is older, and The Iliad is bloodier, but The Odyssey is still genuinely entertaining to read—or even more fun to listen to. Odysseus floats around the Mediterranean, a decommissioned soldier just trying to get home after the Trojan War. All he wants is to see his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus again, but obstacles keep getting in his way.
The story reads like an action movie: our hero and his men get blown off course by storms, drugged by the Lotus Eaters, eaten by the Cyclops, attacked by cannibals, ensorcelled by Circe, take a side trip to the Underworld, face down monsters, steal a magic bull, get kidnapped by super sexy Calypso, and finally, finally, when Odysseus alone makes it home, he finds his palace has been overrun by his wife’s avaricious suitors whom he has to take out one-by-one in hand-to-hand combat worthy of “Game of Thrones.” And then his dog dies.
The Odyssey has it all, from hilarious scenes of human folly to edge-of-your-seat action to floods of tears (see dog, above). But still, a mystery it is not. So how did I happen to take it as my model for Pony Confidential?
I was teaching World Literature for the first time at College of the Sequoias when I started writing what was then called Christmas Pony. I had a character, a pony who has changed hands many times, as happens with almost every pony because their kids outgrow them (and ponies live a long time—35 is not unheard of). I didn’t have a story yet, but when my students and I fell in love with The Odyssey, I found myself thinking that maybe the pony was, like Odysseus, trying to get back home but waylaid by the whims of the gods. But it’s kids who ride ponies, which meant if he was nearing the end of his life, it could have been a long time since he last saw his favorite little person. And probably she would not be living in the same place as when he last saw her…
Instead of the five-act Shakespearean structure or the three-act movie structure, or the four-act sitcom structure, all of which I am intimately familiar with (another essay for another day), I went with the free-flowing, start-in-the-middle-and-let-crazy-things-happen structure of The Odyssey. Odysseus is extremely clever, but also at times passive, and then very active. He makes some bad decisions and some good ones. It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen next, because the story doesn’t follow any of the familiar rhythms that shape almost all the stories we read today. But it very much works because the emotions that were true three thousand years ago are still true today. We still love, make mistakes, and want to get home. That was all I needed—Pony was off and running!
The mystery part actually came later, after the novella was bought by an editor at Berkley. The sale was conditioned on me turning the pony’s journey into a murder mystery, which was a daunting prospect.
The mystery part actually came later, after the novella was bought by an editor at Berkley. The sale was conditioned on me turning the pony’s journey into a murder mystery, which was a daunting prospect. My mystery experience was limited but not nonexistent—I wrote for The Dead Zone, I have read a ton of mysteries in the course of my life and watched even more, and the first two novels I co-wrote, City of Dark Magic and City of Lost Dreams (written under the pen name Magnus Flyte) were technically murder mysteries.
But still, taking a non-mystery based on The Odyssey with a pony for a hero and adding in a murder plot was not easy work. I used up a lot of index cards mapping various plots, I wrote at least four drafts that did not work, and I had a lot of villains, a lot of victims, and even a lot of detectives before I landed on the story that finally clicked in its own madcap way.
All along the way, I took guidance from Homer: At pivotal moments, shift the POV to Penelope (Penny, in my version). Give her a suspenseful story to match his. Keep the world of the story recognizable (America in the 21st century, humans cannot talk to animals) but add in just enough magic to keep it interesting (animals can talk to each other). I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the most important priority was to keep the emotions real—Homer’s emotions—the love of a parent for a child, the pain of heartbreak, the desire for revenge, and the longing to get back home.
I’ve tackled many writing challenges in my life, from covering underwear fairs as a reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, gangwriting scripts for a bunny puppet in Hollywood, to writing a comic novel about living under Fascism (!), but this book was one of my trickiest challenges—keeping the tone funny but not letting it tip over into cold satire, keeping it moving towards positive but never letting it get sappy. Every page, every sentence had to move the mystery forward, deepen character, and provoke emotion. And because it’s humor, it had to feel easy, not labored, as if it were improvised in front of a fire over a glass of wine… I leave it to readers to decide if I succeeded in my mission.
I like to think “Homer” (or all of the Homers who made up Homer) would smile at the little equine soldier who floats on the sea of life, tethered by an invisible thread to a hero so long ago. To them, I raise a toast of gratitude: εὐχαριστῶ.
Christina Lynch is the author of Pony Confidential, Sally Brady's Italian Adventure, and The Italian Party. Visit her at www.clynchwriter.com.
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