To Pandemic or Not To Pandemic

Authors at Cozy Cat Press have been dealing with an artistic problem that many writers have been experiencing recently: whether to include the pandemic in their story line. Since the pandemic began over a year ago, long -running series on television have had to scurry to decide whether to include the pandemic into their story lines or ignore the facts of the virus altogether. Some TV series, quickly jumped aboard and made the pandemic part of their stories. For example, a number of medical shows incorporated pandemic-related plots soon after the pandemic began ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” was one such show that quickly had its fictional hospital filled with COVID-19 patients. The problem is, of course, the pandemic has continued on, probably longer than the television writers have been able to produce new material that explores the pandemic. In movies and downloadable series, there has been less pandemic fare. In fact, most fictional content on Netflix and other similar streaming services seem to be saying that they would like to forget the fact that the pandemic is even a fact of life these days; maybe they sense that viewers want to forget the pandemic when they watch movies and television.

With fiction, there also seems little pandemic-related material. This has certainly been the case at Cozy Cat Press. The authors are continuing to produce cozy mysteries throughout the pandemic but most write as if the pandemic has never happened, let alone that it is over. Of course, there are a few exceptions. Glen Ebisch, who authors several series at CCP, immediately changed direction with his Madison Revere series when the pandemic began and had his young lawyer in New Jersey confront the pandemic and its effects on her life head on in the last few books of this series. Madison deals with mask-wearing and social distancing. She experiences how the pandemic affects her personal life as well as the business where she works.

Another series that has embraced the pandemic at CCP is the Essie Cobb Senior Sleuth mysteries by Patricia Rockwell. In the latest book, ZOOMED, Essie and her friends at the Happy Haven Retirement Center are lonelier than usual because they are all stuck in their own rooms because of the pandemic. Essie introduces them to Zooming and the four gals soon are having more fun, exciting, and mysterious adventures just as they did when they could meet in person.

These, however, are just two authors, out of 50 or so, and only a few books out of hundreds that include even a mention of the pandemic. Obviously, some authors cannot include mention of the pandemic because their books take place in a different era. But for those whose characters are present-day, it seems at Cozy Cat Press, there is no pandemic.

What have you experienced? Do the shows you watch and the books you read incorporate the pandemic or do they go on with contemporary plots just as if there were no pandemic?