DO YOU LIKE TO READ MYSTERIES?
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF WRITING ONE?
SOME ADVICE FROM AN ADDICT.

 

                        WHAT NOT TO DO IN YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL

 

 

 

 

Mystery writers are an interesting breed and have special skills which they develop at the expense of the reader.  I think it’s because they have to plot and to fill  up the 300 or so pages needed for a novel, they need more plot than they can arrive it.  So, they go to extraordinary lengths to manufacture a private life and to insert chapters of domestic bliss, domestic violence, the lack of domesticity, etc. etc. purely as filler. However, there are limits to a reader’s acceptance.  Over the years I’ve had to wean myself from finishing every book I begin.  I now allow myself to stop reading if certain characteristics appear. Conversely if you are writing a mystery novel, please take the reader’s wishes into consideration.   I have tried to make a comprehensive list of the telltale signs of bad writing, bad characterization, bad plotting, in order of their irritation value: 

 

YOU DON”T HAVE TO FINISH THE BOOK

>When the author introduces 17 characters in the first chapter.

 

>The characters are described by their brand names i.e. wearing a Prada handbag over her                                         arm, she twirled her Bulgari bracelet watch on her thin elegant wrist.  Her nose job

by one of the city’s most skilled plastic surgeons, centered a face with a Bermuda tan.

 

>No corpse is found by page 30.

>There are four or more  references to events from previous books in the first two chapters. For example, “because there was a bullet lodged close to my heart fired by  my devious partner who shot me in my first novel, BLOOD ON MY GUCCI’S,  I could not pass the airport screening and had to voluntarily stay in the country except the time I stowed away on a Carnivale Line ship while following a felon in BLOOD ON MY BIKINI ATOLL.

 

>More than half of the opening chapters are spent driving hither and you across vast boring stretches of the:

            upper peninsula

            Arapahoe reservation

            Connecticut

            Martha’s Vineyard

Tony Hillerman’s novels are an exception to this rule.  Chee and Leaphorn can drive anywhere they want to and so can Joanna Brady.

>The detective/hero/heroine (solver, main character, etc.):

            raises dogs

            raises cats

            raises herbs

            writes for a fashion magazine

            cooks  (recipes are great page fillers as well as belly fillers)

            runs a bookstore

 

>Has just

            lost her husband/lost his wife

                        by divorce

                        by death

                        by girlfriend/boyfriend

                        by golly          

           

>Doesn’t get along with her/his

            sister

            mother

            father

            brother

            boss

 

>Has an appropriate relative/long time friend/exhusband/exwife who is

            a cop

                        local, municipal, county, state

            a private detective

            FBI agent

            CIA agent

Or who works for the

            insurance company

            telephone company

            DMV

            fingerprint university

           

>Or knows how to operate a computer.and is called upon with the promise of dinner, drinks, etc. to provide appropriate information the detective is unable to get because

he/she doesn’t know how to use one.  The debt is never paid.

 

>Has some character flaw which makes her/him the perfect detective:

            inability to get along with others

            is an introvert/loner

            congenitally nosy

            congenital liar

            tricks old ladies

            paws through the effects of strangers

            breaks in to homes illegally (burgles)

            One clue which will help you decide who is guilty – if the heroine sleeps with him, he’s ok.  He wouldn’t do it.  In cozies anyway.  The detective doesn’t sleep with killers.   If the hero sleeps with her you can’t be sure.  That may be a sign – of sexism anyway.

And finally, the heroine/hero is so dense she/he doesn’t/can’t put together two huge clues you already picked up on back in the second and third chapters.   When she/he finally does get it together,  you’ll want to strangle her/him thus becoming the murderer in the next adventure - BLOOD ON THE BOOK CASE. 

I do like my detectors to be sharp and smart and tell me something I didn’t already know.   And not necessarily about  dogs, cats, herbs, recipes, old etchings, antiques or should I say collectibles, etc.

            And now that Mizz Plum (Evanovich) has gone to work for Ranger what can we expect to happen to his fleet of SUVs.