First-Time Writer Mistakes to Avoid So Readers Love Your Story
How to create a great protagonist, smooth dialogue, keep readers engaged, and trim info-dump to write a novel readers love.
How to create a great protagonist, smooth dialogue, keep readers engaged, and trim info-dump to write a novel readers love.
Don’t overlook time elements in your story. From time of day in a scene to the timeline of the entire story. Tips to keep time in your mystery.
As you build your mystery chapter-by-chapter be prepared for characters arrive with unexpected actions. Evaluate these actions in relation to the chapter and to the story vision. Trust the process.
Readers and Tropes Drive Mystery Endings Readers have expectations about mysteries. In order to give readers a satisfying mystery, your mystery needs certain elements. A baffling crime, usually a murder. An investigator committed to solving the crime. A concealed killer. The killer’s cover-up. Discovery process and elimination of suspects. Evaluation of clues, sorting the true…
Character context defines their role in the story. Use context as your primary guideline as you create a character background.
As you build your story alternate between action and reaction. Before you write a scene you need to know the basic structure of the type of scene that comes next in your mystery.
Tips on using characters, twists, and clues to keep your mystery reader guessing until the end.
The Victim is The Center of Your Mystery The victim in your mystery is more than just a dead body. The victim is the fulcrum for your entire mystery. Without your victim, your sleuth has no mystery to solve, no clues, no suspects to interview, and no killer. Everything in your novel pivots around the…
How to gather story setting details and use them in your mystery to keep your reader engaged.
When Characters Try to Take Over The Story Every writer has the experience of characters acting and speaking in unexpected ways. With the most detailed story outline, once you begin writing a scene, characters do something that you hadn’t planned in your outline. When the protagonist or the antagonist speaks pithy words or acts in…