by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig Unpleasant characters are tough for any genre. But for mysteries, they present special challenges. My editors from Penguin would often bring up concerns they had with unpleasant characters [...]
by Patrick Kelly, @pkfiction For two and a half years I slaved over my first novel, arranged and rearranged the plot, constructed and deconstructed the characters, and polished each sentence twice. Then [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig In the past month, I’ve had three writers reach out to me. They were all writing mysteries for the first time. They asked me about outlining with arcs [...]
by M.K. Tod, @MKTodAuthor What do The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig, The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian, The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro, and The Lost [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig What makes a solid mystery? What is it about murder mysteries that draws readers to the genre? How good are mystery writers at picking out the killer as [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig This is the last post in my series on cozy writing. (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6.) Today I thought I’d wrap up a few things that are, [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig If you’re just joining us, I’ve been running a series on writing cozy mysteries. (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Today I thought I’d cover a few problem [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig One of the most important aspects of the cozy mystery is the puzzle itself. Aside from character development, the puzzle is the most important part of the mystery. [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig This is the fourth part in my series on writing cozy mysteries. Today, I’m covering two important elements of our story: the setting and our sidekick. Most cozy [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig This is the third in my cozy mystery writing series. Today I’m taking a closer look at our victim. Parts one and two can be found here and [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig This is the second in my cozy mystery writing series. Last week I focused on writing better sleuths. Today, I thought I’d take a look at another vital [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig I’ve had a few people emailing me asking questions about starting a cozy mystery (or, really, any type of mystery involving an amateur sleuth). I promised to write [...]
by Carolyn Haines, @DeltaGalCarolyn In real estate, the old saw is that location is everything. For me, the same is almost always true in fiction. My reading and writing preference is that the [...]
by Harrison Demchick, @HDemchick Have you ever read a mystery where the culprit’s motivations made no sense at all? Or how about one where the culprit is caught because he did something he would [...]
Thanks for French writer Frédérique Molay for guest posting today. A quick note that I’m posting on the Writers on the Storm blog today on Making Our Content Work Harder for Us. Thanks! by Frédérique [...]
by Kathryn Jones, @Kakido The Secret of the Old Clock…The Bungalow Mystery…The Mystery of Lilac Inn… I was twelve-years-old when I began reading Nancy Drew mysteries by Carolyn Keene. Nancy not only drew me [...]
by Dori Butler, @Dorihbutler I write mysteries for kids. I don’t write for this audience because it’s easier than writing for adults. (It’s NOT easier!) I write for this audience because I like [...]
by D.J. Swykert, @djswykert The Death of Anyone (Melange Books; February 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats) is a fictional story in which a Familial DNA search is a key investigative component. This is [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig One thing that I love about writing mysteries is that they’re so much fun to write. In my guest post today for Mason Canyon at the Thoughts [...]
By Dan Morse, @morsedan, author of The Yoga Store Murder In 2011, as a reporter for The Washington Post, I covered the most violent of murders in the least likely of places. Someone had slashed, [...]
by J.J. Hensley, @JJHensleyauthor As most of you, I’ve read hundreds of mysteries and thrillers. And as most of you, I’ve recognized that many of them can be formulaic and use characters that [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig I recently read an interesting novel—I won’t say which one, since I’d be spoiling the ending. The most important character in the book was killed in an ending [...]
by Joe Benevento Anyone familiar with mystery knows the “femme fatale,” a character who can prove literally lethal to the man she seduces away from clear thinking. Bridget O’Shaughnessy in Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon [...]
by Barry Knister, @barryknister When I first decided to write a mystery series, the initial problem I faced didn’t have to do with writing. It had to do with the crime business. I’m [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig Mystery writers that I’ve met tend to fall into a couple of different groups—writers who have picked their killer before they start writing their story (or early in [...]
By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig There’s an interesting phenomenon when you comb through your RSS reader—even if you have a large number of blogs that you’re following. Sometimes it’s as if everyone got [...]
by Joe Benevento In Edgar Allan Poe’s third and final story featuring C. Auguste Dupin, “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin explains to the narrator why the police were unable to find the letter in [...]
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