How to Write a Mystery

by Mystery Writers of America

  If you would prefer to avoid profanity, you must find a way to make its absence unnoticeable. Avoid expletive substitutes. Please don’t have your teens saying “darn” or “heck,” unless your story is set in the fifties. If you have a fantasy world, you can make up your own profanity if you’re more comfortable with that. You can also scale it, choosing a level of profanity you’re comfortable with.

  For most aspiring YA authors, though, the question is “Are there certain words I can’t use?” The answer is: it depends. At one time, we were cautioned to avoid “the F-word” because apparently Walmart wouldn’t carry YA books with it. That’s no longer the case. I’ve polled teens on their word choices and “the F-word” is tied with “shit” at the top of the list, with softer profanity (like “hell” and “damn”) running a very distant second.

  You absolutely do not need to use strong profanity, but you may feel free to do it and open that dialogue later with your editor.

  Violence

  When I was a teenager, I worked in a movie theater box office. It never failed to astound me how many parents, when considering whether an adult-accompaniment movie was appropriate, were uninterested in the violence level. (What they did care about is in the next section.) That was thirty years ago. As someone who wrote a horror/fantasy trilogy with serious violence, I can attest that this has not changed.

  When it comes to violence in YA mysteries, it is neither necessary nor discouraged. You make the choice depending on the story you wish to tell.

  Sexual Content

  So, what did parents care about all those years ago at the movies? Sexual content. Even mild nudity was enough to make many change their minds about bringing their kids. That remains largely true for the book gatekeepers.

  I mentioned my older-YA horror/fantasy trilogy. While I do not hear about the violence, I have fielded complaints about the sexual content… which is one non-explicit scene of respectful and consensual exploration. All those complaints have come from gatekeepers.

  Explicit sex is still rare in young adult fiction. It’s more commonly found in new adult, which is a term given to fiction with college-aged protagonists. When it comes to YA mysteries, I can’t recall having seen any on-page sex, though I’m sure it’s been done.

  While explicit sex is rare, having characters dealing with sex is very common because it’s part of portraying realistic teen experiences. For example, if you have two characters who have been dating for months and have never even discussed the subject, that is inauthentic to the modern teen reader. Your characters certainly may have decided not to have sex, but they need to have discussed that, even if you only include a passing reference to their decision.

  Didacticism

  As I’ve said, YA can be mistaken for “children’s” fiction. That leads authors to believe they need to impart a lesson or “teach teens something.” Don’t. Remember yourself at that age and think of how much you enjoyed having adults lecture you.

  If YA “teaches” anything, it does so obliquely, by providing examples of characters making mistakes and dealing with difficult situations. While readers may learn from that, instruction is not the author’s goal. Instead, this is a positive side effect of handling issues carefully and sensitively, and of having characters learn or model coping strategies.

  “Getting” the Teen Voice

  How do authors long past their teen years capture the voice of teenagers? Well, first you need some teens to study in their native environment. If you lack teens in your everyday life, I wouldn’t suggest kidnapping any. Highly illegal. Instead, take advantage of natural situations where you are around teenagers—perhaps at a neighboring table in a coffee shop—and pay attention to their conversation. Trust me, if you’re over the age of twenty—and not an authority figure—you’re invisible to them.

  You may be surprised that their conversation is as varied and thoughtful as any adult one. Sure, there’s goofing around and silliness, but they talk about far more than school and dating and cruel parents who won’t let them stay out past midnight. One of my favorite unintentional eavesdrops involved a group of middle school boys debating how to make the best cup of coffee and discussing coffee bean origins. Another was the group of teen girls in Catholic school uniforms whose profanity proficiency impressed even me. What were those girls discussing with such vigor? Politics.

  You can also watch movies or shows aimed at teens, but be aware that the actors are not teens and the screenwriters aren’t, either. If those shows are popular with actual teens, though, it suggests that the story lines and characters resonate with them.

  And, of course, you’re going to be reading YA novels, right? Ones written in the past five years? The Outsiders and A Wrinkle in Time don’t count (you’d be amazed how many people name these when I ask what modern YA they’ve read). Classic YA novels are excellent for understanding the origins of the genre, but to understand the current market, you want YA novels that are popular with actual teenagers (teen choice award winners, for example).

  One more quick tip on the teen voice. When I started in YA, my daughter was a young teen. In my first book, she circled high-vocabulary words in dialogue. When I asked whether these were words teens wouldn’t know, she said, “Oh, they know them—they just don’t say them unless they’re showing off… or talking to adults.” It was a reminder to (a) not underestimate teen vocabulary, (b) remember to keep interteen dialogue casual, and (c) remember that many teens code-switch when speaking to adults.

  Show a Little Respect

  Before I close out, I have one final question for would-be YA writers. Do you genuinely like teens? Respect them? Find them interesting people, and enjoy the chance to hear their thoughts and listen to what they have to say?

  I’m always shocked by how many would-be YA writers admit they don’t really care for teens, don’t understand them, and aren’t interested in getting to know them. They only want to write YA because they’ve heard it’s popular.

  As someone who writes both adult and YA, I can tell you it is far easier to get published—and stay published—in adult fiction. Those who write YA do so for the love of writing teen fiction. If this isn’t you, then this isn’t the age group you should target.

  Final Words

  When writing for teens, we don’t dumb anything down. Nor do we censor ourselves to the point of being inauthentic to the teen experience. We write our casts to reflect the diverse world, but we largely stay in our cultural lane when it comes to narrative voice.

  That’s about it. Oh, except for my very first point, which is all-important: don’t be boring. And have fun. This is a truly unique market with a truly unique audience, who will blow you away with their enthusiasm and their passion. As readers, we all look back on the unforgettable stories that shaped our young lives. Writing YA, you have the chance to tell that story. Take it.

  PAT GALLANT WEICH

  My mother was a writer. I was sixteen when she began her mystery novel. I knew when she got that glazed-over look that she was lost in one of the chapters. I asked to read them as she churned them out. I sat, mesmerized, begging for more, till finally, two years later, the book saw its way to a spellbinding conclusion.

  Tragically, my mother got sick and died before being able to submit her manuscript. It was willed to me. I placed it in my closet, where it remained as the years wore on and circumstances changed. After eight years it was as if an alarm sounded in the closet: The birth of my son pushed me to my mother’s manuscript. The moment my son was placed in my arms, I felt a continuum, a link to my past, present, and future that I had never before felt in quite the same way. And at that moment, I ached for my mother—I ached at her losses, for my loss of her, and for her to see my son. With those thoughts, the seed was planted: It was time to reread her mystery. I knew I’d be facing the pain of reading my mother’s words and emotions, of witnessing lost dreams. It would bring me back, but it was a way I could be close to her again. I took out the manuscript and read all 325 page
s in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down. It was as good as I had remembered; no, it was better! I knew I couldn’t leave it in my closet any longer. It was ready for a new home. But time has a way of running away. Another move, the baby, work… so, the manuscript was placed in yet another closet.

  But I didn’t forget. From time to time, the book would call out to me. I decided to submit it. Everyone I knew in the field discouraged me. There could be no second novel, and no editor would buy a mystery without the chance for follow-up books. I wasn’t daunted. I stuck the manuscript in an envelope, said a prayer, and sent it off to Doubleday with a cover letter not mentioning that the author was deceased. I wanted to give it its best shot. Six months passed and I had forgotten about the submission. After all, everyone had said it didn’t have a chance.

  Then the doorbell rang. A messenger delivered a letter to me: Doubleday wanted the book! Just like that! Stunned, I ran to my grandparents’ house to let them know a piece of their daughter, my mother, would live on. It was the first time their eyes had lit up (save for the birth of my son, three years before) since my mother had died.

  Then came the nerve-racking ordeal of having to tell the editor who had accepted the book that the author was no longer living. I was afraid my mother would lose her dream once again. Terrified, I called the editor to thank her. “Who are you?” she queried, “an agent?” I didn’t answer, asking only if we could meet and talk in person. Puzzled, she acquiesced, agreeing to a meeting the following day. My legs were jelly as I entered her office. Before I even sat down, I explained the situation. “I love the book,” she said. “I still want it.”

  Living Image, by Gladys Selverne Gallant, was published by Doubleday in 1978. I notified everyone my mother had ever known. Fortunately, my grandparents lived to see the work published. It was printed in America, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Australia. It also ran as a condensed novel in Cosmopolitan magazine. My mother had given both love and life to me and, at last, I was able to give her something in return, something that, perhaps, gave her a touch of immortality.

  Graphic Novels

  The mystery within the panels: your conversation with words and pictures.

  DALE W. BERRY AND GARY PHILLIPS

  DALE W. BERRY:

  It should be a simple five-step process. You pencil pictures of the words, an inker darkens the pencils for print, a colorist paints it, a letterer pastes in captions and dialogue balloons, and you’re done. Voilà, a comic book. Once upon a blissful time, perhaps, but no more.

  Over the years, comic books have evolved from their humble beginnings as cheap, disposable reads into Big Business, able to power global entertainment franchises. But as intimidating as that might seem as a potential marketplace to many writers, there has also emerged right alongside this a wonderful by-product: a place for stand-alone works of every kind.

  Developing parallel to their high-profile counterparts, independent, non-superhero comics have established themselves as diverse graphic storytelling vehicles that can elevate prose to sophisticated heights, where almost anything is possible.

  Now read by all ages, the graphic novel format works and sells in any genre, any theme, and for any writing style. The reasons for the medium’s coming of age are many, and already fill entire books by themselves. (As a solid jumping-off point to bring any curious writer up to speed on what graphic storytelling is, why it works, and how far it has come, I’d start with the fun and invaluable Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud.)

  So, why do they work, and why do they sell? The addition of artwork to tell a story can help immerse the reader in the time and the place, the physical expression of the characters, and the emotions of the plot. At their core, by combining a script with all the visual tricks of sequential storytelling, plus the catalogue of illustration techniques currently available, graphic novels become a unique way to enhance a story’s potential, generate added impact for the reader, and expand an author’s footprint.

  Limited, as ever, only by budget, labor, and imagination, even the most mid-range, black-and-white graphic novel can make for effective storytelling. And this is especially true when it features a strong, positive fusion of writer and artist. A book’s success comes from the level of detail and depth provided by their two approaches.

  In comics, roughly speaking, every panel on the page equals one story beat (though this varies widely). Each beat can be expanded or contracted by the number of pictures used to illustrate that action of the scene.

  Because the pictures can show one thing while the captions say another, different—and multiple—levels of narrative can be told at the same time. As a scene switches, dialogue can continue in captions into the next scene. Writers can effectively create “voice-overs,” continuing and overlapping narrative points of view, as needed. In this way, different moods can be evoked by contrasts in what you’re seeing versus what you’re reading.

  GARY PHILLIPS:

  The best advice I once received on how to write a comic book was to keep in mind that each panel on a page is frozen action, the single story beat, as Dale stated. Basically you describe one thing at a time, though more than one thing can happen in a panel. From panel to panel, as the story moves forward, the reader’s mind will fill in what happens in between. Each page of a comic book consists of a number of panels, the sequentials. A given page is a series of shots taken as a whole; close-up, medium distance, pulled back, three-quarters downward-angled, and so on—the language of film and television applied to the medium of comics.

  That’s only natural given that storyboarding, where an illustrator draws the series of camera shots depicting the actions of the characters, has been utilized for decades in movies and TV. For just as television has given us the likes of The Untouchables to Breaking Bad on the small screen, and the Godfather saga played out at the movies, the medium of comics and crime fiction have a long history together. The first issue of Detective Comics in 1937 (Batman wouldn’t be introduced in its pages until the twenty-seventh issue) was an anthology featuring the likes of Speed Saunders of the River Patrol, Bret Lawton tackling the Peruvian Mine Murders, and Gumshoe Gus’s case of the stolen Gotlotz Jewels. Ace Harlem, Bonnie Hawks, and Sally O’Neil are another three among many original investigators from various comics publishers who also faced down gangsters, mayhem, and murderers. Several literary crimefighters and criminals, from Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Honey West, The Saint, Shaft, professional thief Parker, Perry Mason to Mike Shayne, have had their comic book or comic strip adaption outings as well. Even I, the Jury’s Mike Hammer was derived by Mickey Spillane from his unsold comic book character Mike Danger.

  It’s been observed the job of the comic book writer is akin to being a film director. Maybe. Of course, any fiction writing in general is intended to provide the reader with the pertinent aspects of the story, advance the plot, illuminate character, and hopefully have all three of these elements working in concert.

  The main difference from prose is that in comics, the writer doesn’t let the words get in the way of the art. The writing, no matter how evocative, is secondary to the images. Write, then chop and hone the words. Cut away with your figurative scissors. My personal style is a relatively minimalist approach to descriptions, and I write dialogue as if drafting a television script, pared down to the essence.

  As my esteemed colleague Dale Berry has pointed out, the artwork is the vehicle upon which time and place, the expressions of the characters, and the mood and emotion of a given scene are conveyed. In a recent comic book produced by one of the Big Two (titles from Marvel and DC account for roughly 70 percent of month-to-month market share of sales), featuring the blind costumed vigilante Daredevil, I randomly opened the issue to a two-page spread of Jorge Fornés’s well-composed sequentials.

  In a particular sequence of just three panels, Fornés initially uses a three-quarters downward-angled shot to show a sedan driving along a Manhattan street. A word balloon is coming from one of the
occupants of the car. It’s established the action is taking place in a certain part of town, as we can partially see Chinese lettering on a sign. The next panel is a close-on shot of a younger man and an older woman in the rear seat of that car as they both gaze out at their destination. They do not look happy. The third panel is another three-quarters downward-angled shot of the two of them, now standing on the sidewalk outside the parked car. The woman shouts one word, the name of the gangster inside the building they’ve arrived at, a corner tavern. How do I know she shouted? Her word balloon is like an explosion, all pointed spikes, not round. And clearly a donnybrook has gone down in the bar, as glass, wood, a busted table, and debris litter the front of it, and the door to the place is missing. Light spills from within onto the sidewalk as well.

  The other aspect to note is that panels one and three are a single tracking shot. The car is in different places, but when you take a second look, you see that the buildings and sidewalk shown in the first panel are part of the concrete landscape ending at the bar. In those three panels the artist has visually demonstrated what Dale wrote about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking anything away from the script by Chip Zdarsky, but the fact remains: the three panels have impact, conveying movement and the tenseness of the situation, amplifying what the words are communicating to the reader. Elsewhere in the story, captions are used to give us those multiple levels of the narrative. Clearly Zdarsky and Fornés, having worked together over a period of time on this series, have developed a shorthand for the look and feel, the pace of events they’re portraying with these characters.