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Research Before You Write The Story The first round of research is background material for your story. You may look for settings, hidden alleys, a great beach. Murder weapons or poison. The psychology of being a mistress. How to clean a Glock. Pharmaceutical drug research lab procedures. Base your research requirements on your story premise….
Character Dimensionality Mystery is all about puzzle. Deeper characters provide more puzzling challenges to your sleuth. Your sleuth is challenged by the obstacles the other characters throw his way. One of the best ways to create a puzzle for your sleuth is to give each character a secret and a lie. Or more than one….
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…
Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash Body Details to Improve Your Story Most writers don’t think of anatomy and physiology when they are creating a story, but you can enhance reader engagement with body part details. If you find your characters all nodding in agreement or sighing in resignation, try expanding your view of the…
Bring your mystery setting alive with details. How to use them without overloading your reader.
Why Read? You read long before you started writing. You probably started writing because you are a reader. Jane Friedman, writing and publishing coach/blogger underscores reading as the basis for good writing: Establish a reading habit that matches roughly what you hope to write and publish. Make it as important as anything else you schedule…
Why Casting Your Characters Helps Your Mystery To make your character function in your story world, you need to create details that set each one apart from the others. While the most important feature of your character in the story is the context, how they serve the story, help your readers identify each character with…
No Mystery Without a Puzzle Mystery readers love a puzzle. More than one is more enticing. While your developed detective leads the reader on discovery search, the puzzle is the draw of a mystery. All the work you do in developing your characters, creating suspects, and planting clues has one aim to create a mystery….
What’s A Red Herring? In logic, a read herring is a fallacy of distraction bringing up another point to distract the argument. In the financial world, a red herring is a prospectus of an upcoming business that is not complete but indicates the future stock. In a mystery, a red herring is a false clue…
Scene Checklists Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction. When you go through the first edits of your story make certain that all scene components are in each scene. You’ll take your reader by the hand to lead…
