Benjamin Stevenson: On Combining Humor with Mystery
Award-winning comedian and author Benjamin Stevenson discusses solving 11 mysteries at once with his new mystery novel, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.
Benjamin Stevenson is an award-winning stand-up comedian and author. He has sold out shows from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has appeared on ABCTV, Channel 10, and The Comedy Channel.
Off-stage, Benjamin has worked for publishing houses and literary agencies in Australia and the USA. He currently works with some of Australia's best-loved authors at Curtis Brown Australia. He is also the author of Greenlight (shortlisted for the Ned Kelly First Fiction Award) and Either Side of Midnight. Find him on Instagram.
In this post, Benjamin discusses solving 11 mysteries in one story with his new mystery novel, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, how the classic mysteries helped inspire him, and more!
Name: Benjamin Stevenson
Literary agent: Curtis Brown Australia
Book title: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release date: January 17, 2023
Genre/category: Mystery
Previous titles: Greenlight (shortlisted for the Ned Kelly First Fiction Award) and Either Side of Midnight.
Elevator pitch for the book: When a serial killer starts picking off members of a family reunion, it’s up to Ernest Cunningham, crime fiction aficionado, to solve the mystery. The problem is: Everyone in his family has killed someone. In a family of killers, how do you find the murderer?
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What prompted you to write this book?
I was getting a bit sick of how grisly crime books were getting (during the lockdown here in Australia I found them all so dark) so I found myself reaching for Golden Age detective fiction: Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ronald Knox. I wondered how these books would work in a modern setting.
The great thing about murder mysteries is that they have rules—and so then came the idea to have a main character who had actually read all these famous books and was very aware that he was inside one of those mysteries itself.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
This book took me about two years to write, and it was a long process with plenty of rewriting. In the book there are 10 family members, each who’ve been involved in at least one death, and one who is a serial killer. So, I had to solve 11 mysteries all at the same time, while the clues for each murder unspooled together.
Adding to this, Ernest has a habit of talking to the reader directly, including mentioning on which pages certain things will happen, and that was excruciatingly complex to edit! I wasn’t even sure such a big running gag would make it into the final version of the book, I was sure my editors would have a heart attack and take it out, but thankfully they trusted me to pull it off.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The biggest surprise is that so many people around the world have connected with my Australian sense of humor, and they are enjoying the wit and the mystery equally, I wasn’t really expecting such a risky novel to explode in the way that it has! I was also surprised how engaged people are, there’s always a risk of sullying the classic when you portend to take on something as well loved as Agatha Christie, but the response has been incredible.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
As I mentioned, I have 11 mysteries in the book to solve, and at the start of writing I had about seven or eight of them plotted out. One of the murders in the book genuinely surprised me when I got to it. I was writing out the scene and I realized that a certain character could only have committed a certain crime, and it truly surprised me.
The other thing that surprised me was just how much my publisher let me get away with! I wrote this book by throwing the rule book out the window. And I got away with it! If you want to know more about what I’m talking about: Read Chapter 9.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Honestly, I want them to have a rollercoaster of a time: a few laughs, a few gasps, and to feel both rightfully smug when they figure a clue out for themselves and satisfyingly hoodwinked when I manage to pull the wool over. Mystery fiction is a team game, which lots of writers forget—yes, you have to withhold the answers from the reader, but you’re also solving it together.
So, most of all, I hope my readers feel that I’ve played fair the whole time, and haven’t cheated!
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Write the book that you want to read, and others will be drawn to how genuine and unique your work is, they’ll naturally want to read it. If you write only what you think other people want to read, it’s guaranteed heartbreak.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
