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Find The Victim’s Secrets in Your Mystery The victim is a strategic character in your mystery. Spend just as much time developing this character as you do your protagonist and the villain. Even though your victim is dead or soon dead, they are the character around whom the story revolves. The crime against the victim…
Basic Mystery Tropes and How to Start Writing a Mystery I had fun with the first Mystery Monday. With an Ask Me Anything base, I answered a few questions as well as covering the topic for the day – Basic Mystery Tropes. Links to Today’s Episode Ten ways to hide clues in your mystery. The…
Mystery Monday: Ask Me Anything Join me on Facebook Live on Mondays for Ask Me Anything chats about writing and reading mysteries. Great place for mystery lovers to get together. http://bit.ly/MysteryMondayAMA
The Word and Syntax Writer Wake Up Nothing is perfect, especially when it comes to writing. You can always tweak for better wording. The time to tweak most is before publishing. Yes, it seems self-evident but searching for the mot juste that isn’t quite yet or refining the language of a sentence are part of…
When Friends Become Enemies and Enemies Become Friends Challenging your protagonist with obstacles adds intrigue and engagement for readers. Reversals, where what appears to be one thing turns into something else are great obstacles to throw at your protagonist. Just when the reader thinks they know, a reversal pivots the story. The protagonist experiences an…
Fallacies in Logic and Rhetoric Errors in logic and rhetoric are a great basis for characters misrepresenting themselves, obfuscating the truth, and creating dialogue based on false information. Especially in mysteries where the protagonist uncovers the truth using fallacies by placing them in the mouths of your characters will set your protagonist down false paths….
Politics and People: Story Conflict Root Character and conflict are at the heart of story. These story elements are as important in historical fiction as they are in any other genre.Characters are modeled on human beings. Because human nature is a given, as an author you have a wide spectrum of character traits to play…
New Year Roman Games: No Lanes. No Rules STEPPING BACK IN HISTORY TO ANCIENT ROME WITH AUTHOR ZARA ALTAIR Zara Altair writes traditional mysteries set in the time of Ostrogoth Rule in Italy in The Argolicus Mysteries. Learn more about her and her books at her website. The New Year: A Time for Games In Ancient…
What can seem like writer’s block can be a story structure problem. Learn how to get going again.
so you want to be a writer? Charles Bukowski so you want to be a writer? Charles Bukowski, 1920 - 1994 if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your…
