How to Write a Mystery by Mystery Writers of America

Author:Mystery Writers of America [America, Mystery Writers of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

TIM MALEENY

A great plot isn’t propelled by things going as planned, but by things going horribly wrong.

Great opening lines, like great stories, don’t start at the beginning. They start in the middle of the action and dare the reader to catch up.

Suspense is what happens when ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Love your characters, but treat them like dirt.

ROBERT LOPRESTI

When a new friend learned that I have a full-time job and also write fiction, she asked: “How do you find the time?” I gave my usual answer with a shrug: “If you write a page a day, at the end of the year you have a novel.” That does not mean you have a first draft ready to send to a publisher. My stuff tends to go through at least five edits, and more often ten. Because I know that no sentence in my first draft is likely to go through the editing process unscathed, I give myself permission to write in a rush, dumping words from my brain onto the keyboard as fast as possible. As bestselling mystery writer Harlan Coben said: “You can fix bad pages. You can’t fix no pages.”…

Should I outline my book or fly by the seat of my trousers? I’d like to offer an alternative. I call it the Rising Island method. Picture a mountain range stretching for many miles, but all of it underwater. Now the mountains start to rise. A few peaks start breaking the surface, appearing as isolated islands. Time passes and more islands break the surface, and they start to link together until finally the entire mountain range is visible. The mountain range is my novel. The highest peaks are the parts I know best. I start by writing the book’s high points (ha ha) and each new chapter teaches me about the sections still to come. The islands slowly begin to show their shapes.…

If you write fiction you have probably considered the motives of your characters. But what about the motives of your readers? If you want them to finish your book—and especially if you want them to buy your next one—you have to make them care about what you write. You have to give them a reason to turn the page. You have a lot of competition for their attention.

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