Taking the Mystery Out of Writing a Mystery
For the last twenty or so years, I have been writing, editing, and critiquing mystery stories. Every subgenre has its own particularities, and standards, but for the most part, they bring one familiar thing to the table, and that is, who did it? Or, "whodunnit" as we are prone to say.
Of course, there are difficulties in writing anything at all, but writing the mystery has a realm of considerations such as, clues, red herrings, villains who won’t behave, and sub or secondary characters that take over the story. I hope to be able to help the writer understand the construction of mystery plots, the development of characters, including heroes and villains, sidekicks and mentors, and how to get from beginning to end without giving away the whodunnit portion of the story until the appropriate time.
I will delve into the world of series writing as a considerable amount of mysteries on the shelves today are serial and readers find themselves drawn back to the same author over and over again because they love them so much.
Also, I hope to be able to bring analytical reviews of popular mysteries so that researching these author’s works can help us become better writers ourselves. I will offer interviews of newer, lesser known authors to illuminate our writing/reading world so that every mystery gets its chance to shine.
If there are new subgenres being brought out, I will try to be on the cutting edge, to bring to you all the latest news in the world of mysteries and what writers are up to.
Many readers follow short story authors preferring a smaller version of mystery. There are several good short mystery venues available today and I hope to introduce them in this space as well.
I hope you will share this exciting world with me, and together we can take the mystery out of writing the mystery novel.
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