This week: A Real Character! Edited by: Carol St.Ann  
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| Not all Mysteries have a innocent victim, a blood-thirsty killer, or a weapon; gun, knife, poison or other means to end someones life. Some mysteries lie in the way a person lives their life. |
| ASIN: 1945043032 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 13.94
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I’ve been in hospital. All is well, but it messed with my schedule, so I’ve got a treat for you! Reading through some of my favorite newsletters from yesteryears, I decided to recycle one from former WDC member “milkman”.
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TITLE: Characters
Author: themilkman (June 18, 2003)
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“Helpful tips in writing a good mystery story are to sit down and first decide on the sequence of events that you want to take place. Set the tone, mood and setting at the beginning. You can even act like you are reflecting back on an incident that happened in the past; you want to do a narration at the beginning of the story to give the reader some idea of how the story will go. A good mystery story needs to have several conflicts and plots going at the same time. This keeps your readers hooked to what you're writing. You do not want your readers to become bored with your story before you ever begin. The key is to keep them wanting for more.
Be very detailed and deep. Hey, you want your readers to be baffled and wondering where it is going to take them and how it is going to end. Be creative and throw several dead-end monkey wrenches in there to throw them off the scent. That is the whole point and it keeps drawing them back to your portfolio. And above all, have some fun with it and your readers. You're the one who is in control.” debbiezedlit
These words were written over two years ago, in fact this excerpt is from the very first Mystery Newsletter. Her words still ring true for those of us who partake in writing the suspenseful "Whodunit" and even for those of us who just like to read a good murder mystery.
In my opinion, not all Mysteries have a innocent victim, a blood-thirsty killer, or a weapon; gun, knife, poison or other means to end someones life. Some mysteries lie in the way a person lives their life. For instance, in my home town of Erie, PA there was a house that on one upstairs window were bars. Occassionally the neighborhood kids would see someone in that window and say that the "Wolfman" lived there. Much like in the movie "Jack" where the kids thought Jack(Robin Williams) was a monster because he was 10 years old but looked more like 40.
Mostly our imaginations take over when we see something out of the ordinary, like the barred window. As writers we either play into these unusual circumstances or we can chose to put our own twists on the truth. I never found out the reason behind those bars or the person behind it, but do I still believe it was the "Wolfman" in that room? No, but wasn't it a great character in my life to build a story around?
As writers of Mystery do we need to explain the backdrops of our characters? Can we describe them in such a way that even if the person were to read your story that they wouldn't know you were writing about them? Do we need to be honest with our characters that we create?
You answer these questions in your next Mystery story...
Again: this was written in 2003 by the milkman, and I’m thrilled to resurrect it to share with you today. I hope you enjoyed it.
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Thank you for reading!
One Last Thing!
Remember to nominate great mysteries!
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If you’ve got a mystery in your head:
Try out your mystery chops here:
Flesh it out here:
Workshop it here with dedicated, in-depth reviews:
In the meantime, enjoy this great short and feel free to write in about it.
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We’ve all met someone who’s got a mysterious air about them. We wonder what makes them tick…
Tell us about that person who got you to wondering what was up with thrm. |
| ASIN: B07B63CTKX |
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Mystery: November 02, 2022 Issue [#11642]
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