Mystery Monday 1 – Basic Mystery Tropes Readers Want
Basic Mystery Tropes and How to Start Writing a Mystery
Links to Today’s Episode
The One Important First Step to Write a Killer Mystery Have a question? Post it here in Comments.
Zara
Zara
The Detective Finds Clues in the Killer’s World Let the complications roll! Your detective screws up, asks for help from the wrong people, stumbles over his weaknesses. If it’s bad, bring it on. In the final section of Act II (Four-Act Structure) your detective dives deeper into the killer’s world as the ultimate exploration of…
Editing & Writing I’ll be publishing The Peach Widow soon. One editor was away and is now back working on the second half of the story. In one way, I’m enjoying the time to work on suggested edits before the next round appears. Rephrasing, augmenting, and rewriting is tedious work for me so I am…
The Counterintuitive Show Clues make up small details in your mystery that point the detective and the reader toward the villain. Detective, crime writer and mystery writing adviser, and Murder.con host Lee Lofland says, Tiny clues are often the ones that bring a case to a close. You want to plant those clues…
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…
Explore how ‘inside out’ writing enhances character depth, setting, plot, pace, and suspense.
The Writing Process with Jo Nesbø Interview with Jo Nesbø by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association detailing his beginnings in childhood as a storyteller and his writing process.My favorite quote is the one above: You don’t really know your characters until they start speaking. Tweet: You don’t really know your characters until they start speaking….