The problem of voice in fiction

I was about 10,000 words into a new novel and a bit stymied when I put it aside for other projects--some office work for the press, an editing project for another press, some book reviews, and life in general which, happily, always gets in my way. During that time I read a couple of mysteries by Nancy Martin about the Blackbird sisters, who are zany beyond belief and lots of fun. Aha, I thought--see light bulb going off in my head?--I need to make my characters funnier, more zany (like that word). So this week I've gotten back to the novel and guess what? My characters have told me they don't want to be zany. The grandmother who raised them has just died suddenly, possibly under suspicious circumstances, her inheritance is at stake, and each of the twin sisters has an agenda--their agendas don't come anywhere near meeting. Besides, at three o'clock one morning I figured out who murdered Gram and why, and I could see the whole novel in my head. Well, sort of. It's a long way between 10,000 words and 80,000.
But it's a truism of fiction, repeated to me by many successful authors, that if you listen to your characters, they'll tell you what's going to happen. Elmer Kelton talked of it with The Wolf and the Buffalo, a novel he intended to be about a buffalo soldier, freed slave, just after the Civil War. But a Comanche chief kept working his way into the story, and eventually the novel was about both--one on the rise in the army and the other losing his way of life and his culture. Elmer also said the characters in The Good Old Boys took over like a "cold-jawed horse grabbing on to the bit and about all I could do was hang on for the ride." I've even had it happen to me, notably in Mattie where as I neared the end I was astonished to realize that the man in her life was going to ride away and leave her (it also proved to be a forecast of the man in my life at the time).
Point of all this: I'm not writing a humorous cozy. Yes, it's a cozy, but the characters, while sometimes light-hearted and fun and even rebellious, aren't zany. I guess that's just not my voice.
I talked with my agent today, an encouraging talk--he has sent my manuscript to his top four picks (I forgot to ask when) but he said the good news is that he hasn't had a rejection yet. We also talked about getting some of my older books into e-book format for all the different platforms out there--not much money in that, but I think the name recognition would be good.
Thanks to the anonymous reader who posted a comment about yestrday's blog and how our children are statistically mch safer today than years ago. It's just that the media focuses on every kidnapping, every case of bullying, etc. I'm sure it's true, but I'm still a bit worried about my grandchildren. But I want to thank the reader, whoever, for adding that nice comment about my children. Yes, they are indeed wonderful. And that blog sparked a long Facebook conversation with an old friend I never see any more--fun!