“How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook by Mystery Writers of America” (April 27) Seventy of the most successful mystery writers in the business answering the question: What writing advice do you wish you’d had at the beginning of your career? “How to Write a Mystery” continues the Mystery Writers of America tradition of helping authors tell—and sell!—their stories, from the rank […]
Struggling with a work-in-progress? Well, the MWA-New York Mentor Program is back to help. The 2021 program will start on March 1 and run for the month of March. Active members: Look out for our call in February to serve as mentors. For all writers: Now’s the time to pull out those pages that just won’t seem to work and get them
Join us on Nov. 11 for the first in a series of Zoom chapter meetings that shine a spotlight on members that, because of geographic location, find it difficult to attend meetings in New York. The November meeting features three notable authors from the states of Pennsylvania. And, we do mean states. John Vercher won accolades for his first novel
Part III: The Courtroom—Guilty Plea and Trial Part I and Part II of this series explore police procedure and constitutional rights during the investigation phase. Now, on to the really fun part! The courtroom. Writers: Your fictional perp is caught and indicted. It’s time to deal or go to trial. Arraignment and Bail Hearing First stop, arraignment on the indictment.
Part II: Stop & Frisk, Arrest, Identification Procedures, Indictment Last week in Part I: Search and Seizure, I asked (and mostly didn’t answer) the question of whether you should worry about getting the law right in your stories and novels. It’s up to you—after all, we’re writing fiction! For the sake of realism, if you want your fictional perp to end
Part I: Search and Seizure For my novels about a female prosecutor, much of the “legal research” is in my head from a career in criminal justice and the court system. Police work and courtroom drama are great for building suspense. I also strive for accuracy under the law. Authors: Should you be concerned with accuracy? After all, you’re writing
Sometimes, on panels or at book club visits, I’m asked, “Why mysteries?” Other than that I love to read them, that I grew up spending hours in the company of yet another Agatha Christie or Dick Francis, I like to reply that mysteries, and crime fiction in general, provide the satisfaction of structure. Crime fiction demands a beginning, middle, and
While it is possible to find mysteries, from fluffiest to darkest, that take place in the author’s version of never-never land, I prefer mysteries set in some semblance of the real world. There, diversity equals reality. How do we incorporate the varied world around us–races, disabilities, sexual identities and so on–into our storytelling? And how do we do it accurately
Never end a sentence with a preposition? That is the sort of pedantry up with which I shall not put. (Winston Churchill) Sometimes it’s okay to savagely split an infinitive. (Me) And if it sometimes seems right to start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but,’ do it. Subject, predicate, object is almost always the right order. Until it gets boring.
When I tell people that I’ve never written a query that didn’t result in a request for pages, they can’t believe it. When I tell them I only ever sent out three (or six if you count the random assignments I was given to pitch to at conferences) queries, they are shocked. But here’s the thing: I researched before I
