Derek Pacifico conducting Homicide School for Writers Real Cop Details in Your Fictional World Unless you have worked in law enforcement, writing realistic cops for your mystery involves getting to know law, law enforcement procedures, and a realistic picture of how cops think, act, and work. Reading and online research will give you a general…
Get Past The Stuck Place Sometimes your story seems to throw up a big wall and you don’t know how to fix it. You’re stuck. It happens to all writers. Don’t despair.With all the character development and story planning you’ve done, your story seems stuck and you don’t know where to go next or what to write. Take action to root out the problem so you can continue writing if you know what to do. The first thing to do is not consider your story […]
Subplots in the Story Subplots add depth to your mystery story by giving readers a deeper vision of your protagonist, the detective. They can Add dimension to the main plot Test the protagonist’s motivation and ability to solve the puzzle Create different points of view on the central murder victim and suspects In a mystery,…
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!– Ray Bradbury The Writer’s Surprise Gift Writer’s know when they are in the zone and the story flows. If you use an outline to hit the main beats of your story, you’ll know what you want to accomplish in the scene.Your characters may be…
Playing with Writing A writer who wants to write good stuff needs to read great stuff. Ursula LeGuin says in her book Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story. The book is a guide for writers. Each exercise is prefaced by examples from writers followed by a writing exercise following…
Story Shop has Closed. The concepts still work but I am unable to share examples. Master Mystery Outline Template I am using Story Shop to create a master outline template for mysteries. The software is still in development stage with a generic outline. The developers have plans for outline templates in the future, but in…
