  Mystery
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| Mystery writing is the art of the plot and the creation of unforgettable characters. Each month this newsletter tries to address an area of mystery writing for you to think about as you compose your next mystery masterpiece. |
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Your fingers are flying across the keys and the words are flowing effortlessly onto the page. You know your mystery story will be grabbed up by a big publishing house and made into a television mini-series like “Monk”. You hand your finished story over to your loving spouse for an honest read, and your spouse says, “This is boring.”
What? You know your story isn’t boring! After you have cooled down a bit, you take a critical look at your story to see why it is ‘boring’.
The plot is gripping, your characters jump off the page, and the dialog sounds perfect in your ears. Wait, what is this chunk of information about your main character’s family doing in the middle of an action scene? And what is this rambling block of stuff about the history of the artifact doing at the beginning of your love scene?
Back-story. Something to look out for in your mystery writing that is necessary, but can slow down the flow of your story and make the reader drop your book in mid-paragraph when they fall asleep.
Back-story is the history behind the situation the characters find themselves in. It is a literary device to add some background information and add depth to a story. Too much back-story, however, and your characters will drown in it.
How can you use back-story to your advantage yet not cause snoring? Like medicine, back-story is best in small doses, so as not to cause a comatose condition. Little bits of back-story smartly intertwined with the plot will help the reader understand the “big picture” or can even be something the writer creates as research for the main story, but is not published (unless the writer is someone very famous).
Examples of famous back-stories include The Silmarillion by Tolkien, the ultimate back-story for the ultimate epic, The Lord of the Rings, and the notes of Mr. Frank Herbert, which included a massive back-story for his epic work, Dune, allowing writers to complete his Dune series after he died with pre-quells based on his books.
Using back-story in small doses will also help keep the suspense in your mystery. The reader wants to learn about the killer or the PI in steps, along with the other characters in the book. What is to keep the reader reading, if he knows everything from the beginning?
So next time your spouse says your mystery is ‘boring’, spare the frying pan, and read it again to be sure you don’t have a lethal dose of back-story hiding in its pages!
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wildbill  :
Good insight on dialogue and dialect. IMHO the best American dialect writer since Mark Twain is George V. Higgins from Massachusetts who wrote about the criminal side of South Boston. He also wrote a book on writing which should be on every writers shelf. Like you, he notes that real dialogue has many unfinished sentences, ers, huhs, etc. which make reading a legal deposition a painful experience! Real life dialogue shouldn't be duplicates--but you can pick up on cadences, regionalisms, and tone to give your characters that 'realistic' conversation.
Thank you for sending some feedback! I will have to check out the book by Higgins since I am from MA originally and can tell a phony MA accent from a mile away!
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Mystery: September 20, 2006 Issue [#1274]
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