How to Write a Mystery

by Mystery Writers of America

  Regarding humor, here is my unequivocal opinion: Whether your suicidal bereaved father protagonist occasionally makes a witty remark about smoking too much, or the cat solving your cozy is a laugh riot, humor is essential. Our genre cracks open the cruelest acts of which humans are capable, taking responsibility for shining light into dark crevices. So does comedy. You needn’t be Janet Evanovich to incorporate jokes into your manuscript, and they needn’t even be jokes. Wry observations, sarcasm, creative insult—humor can be as heavy or as light as you choose. But writers who take their voice too seriously, without that crucial hint of self-deprecation or clever viciousness, will rarely wind up with a memorable result.

  So you don’t think you’re funny? You’re probably wrong. But you at least know what makes you laugh. Expand the range of stand-up comedy you enjoy, or watch a stand-up special for the first time. Write down bits you admire and stare at their structure. Comics survive on twist endings. A premise, a setup, and then boom, the punch line is the last thing you expected them to say. What better education for a genre writer who relies on the element of surprise? And as free an educational experience as a breeze in June.

  Doughnuts require a pinch of salt. Salt enhances the other flavors, making them shine all the brighter—or the darker, as the case may be.

  How to Read

  A writer who hates to read would be like a pilot who detests flying—possible, but highly unlikely and probably less competent. I’m going to assume that you love to read. I’m going to further assume that what you read influences what you write, if only subconsciously. In my final plea that you take advantage of the world around you, even if you’re concurrently spending tens of thousands of dollars being taught how to perfect your art: when you read, pay attention to style. Style isn’t some ineffable quality possessed only by the brilliant. It’s a learned skill that will eventually mold itself to fit the shape of you.

  Meanwhile, identify aspects of your favorite novels that are deliberate stylistic choices. Here is a passage that could have been written by no one other than Raymond Chandler:

  I looked at my watch once more. It was more than time for lunch. My stomach burned from the last drink. I wasn’t hungry. I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief.

  —Farewell, My Lovely

  And presented for comparison, one written by international suspense superstar Tana French:

  That night. I know there are an infinite number of places to begin any story, and I’m well aware that everyone else involved in this one would take issue with my choice—I can just see the wry lift at the corner of Susanna’s mouth, hear Leon’s snort of pure derision. But I can’t help it: for me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colors and leaves everything on the other luminous, achingly close, untouched and untouchable.

  —The Witch Elm

  Chandler and French wrote vastly different passages above, but to say that one is better than the other would be senseless. Chandler is caustic, dry, amusing. French is lush, brooding, sensual. Chandler is playing a different song than French is; their humor will make itself known in different ways; and at the end of the day, because both are consummate professionals unafraid of revealing their true selves, we can point to these quotes and know exactly which author is which.

  I’ve made an extreme contrast here. But my hope is that if you felt at a loss when people discussed “voice” before, you are more confident after having instantly recognized the difference. If you’ve been trying to master style for some time, please keep trying. It will happen, and the harder you work, the sooner that day will come.

  Meanwhile, please buy yourself a doughnut. You’re attempting to better your writing, which improves my chance of being able to read what you wrote one day. You’ve earned it just by picking up this book.

  STEVE HOCKENSMITH

  Dos and Don’ts for Wannabe Writers

  DO write. That means putting words together to form sentences that you actually hope other human beings will one day read. (For the reason an explanation is necessary, see below.)

  DON’T spend more than three months “researching” or “brainstorming” or “outlining” or “creating character bios” for your novel. All this might—might—count as work on your book, but it’s not writing. (See above.)

  DO read.

  DON’T spend too much time reading about how to write. The best way to learn to write is to write. (See above again.)

  DO keep reading this book. I didn’t mean for you to stop reading our writing advice.

  Always Outline!

  The why and the how of planning it out first.

  JEFFERY DEAVER

  The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been written.

  —Joyce Carol Oates

  The world is divided into two kinds of authors: those who outline and those who don’t—the “plotters” and the “pantsers,” as in seat-of-the-.

  Now, nothing is more subjective than writing, and if your technique works for you, wonderful. There are superb writers producing superb novels and stories by starting with a blank page or screen and seeing where the journey takes them.

  I don’t work that way. I am an ardent outliner, spending six to eight months planning a novel (or a week or so in the case of a short story). The outline is finished before I write a single word of the prose. I tell my students—that is, you, at the moment—that they don’t need my obsessive level of planning, but I strongly encourage them to know where they’re going, and in general how to get there, before they set pen to paper or pixel to screen.

  I’m going to pitch my case for the outlining process now. There are four reasons why I’m a fan.

  One, why should a work of fiction be any different than any other made object? We authors create products for consumers, don’t we? Would you get into a car or board an airplane that has not been built according to carefully planned-out engineering diagrams? No. An outline is an author’s manufacturing blueprint—geared to creating the best, and most appealing, end result we can, and allowing us to construct it in the most efficient way possible

  Two, crime novels (maybe all novels) are about structure as much as fine prose. I’d even say structure is more important. Look at my favorite composer, Ludwig van B. His pieces are structured to elicit the highest emotional response within the listener (our goal, too, for our readers). For instance, you don’t find two adagio movements together; the second one would put you to sleep. You don’t see two andante sections side by side; the second one would lose excitement. You need to pace the symphony, just like you need to pace a tale.

  Yes, one can create a smart structure on the fly, but that often means huge amounts of wasted time as you go back to rewrite what you’ve already generated to take into account a new direction you steer your plot in after months of writing. Outlining allows you to create an overview of the structure of the story in an easy and efficient way before writing.

  Three, have you ever read a book that should not have been written? Yes, I guarantee you have. And one of the reasons for that unfortunate occurrence is this: Let’s say you have an idea for a bang-up first chapter. You’ve thought up compelling characters and thrown them into a pressure cooker of action. Naturally, your energy up, you sit down to write. Out comes that scintillating chapter, in a matter of hours. Your juices are flowing, so you keep at it. You rip through chapter 2, then—a bit slower—chapter 3. Then you slog through chapters 4 and 5 and then, a month later, at 6, you’re stuck in the mud.

  You look at the two hundred pages you’ve written and consider the blank middle and, beyond that, the equally missing-in-action ending. You wrestle with the conundrum for a while. But you just can’t see anything but a cliché-ridden middle and a contrived, deus ex machina ending.

  You have two choices at this point. First, the intellectually dishonest, cowardly, and shameful approa
ch (can you guess my opinion?): you write the bad middle and contrived ending and put it out for your readers. Or second, the courageous, noble, and honest thing: you throw the whole damn manuscript away and start over. (I’ve done both and they are equally painful.)

  But if you outline, look at what happens. You don’t write the first chapter. You stick a Post-it note on your wall, saying “Big Exciting Chapter 1.” Then you step back and start filling in plot points on other Post-its. You’ll realize within two or three weeks that what you’ve been working on isn’t a book worthy of your—and your readers’—time. You pitch out a dozen Post-its and start on something else.

  Finally, outlining greatly facilitates the process of writing the book itself. Let’s face it, crafting fiction is an arduous, frustrating task. There are certain scenes that I dislike writing (action, for instance). Maybe I wake up looking forward to four or five hours at my computer, but the last thing I want to write that day is another car chase. Well, since the book is outlined, I don’t have to write that scene, even if it comes next in the chronology of the story. I can put it off for as long as I like. I can, in fact, write the book in any order. Middle or end first, beginning last. And those violent action sequences? I can write those when I’m in the mood to kill somebody because, for instance, my cable’s out and the company says they can’t get anybody out to the house for a week. Die, cable guy, die!

  Two caveats on outlining. First, such fine writers as George R. R. Martin and Lee Child reportedly don’t outline, and we can see what superb books they produce. But in general I do believe that most writers will find it easier and more efficient to know where they’re going ahead of time.

  The second caveat: My own novels and stories are very fast-paced thrillers, which take place over a very short time frame and include several subplots. That’s the sort of genre that benefits greatly from outlining. If, however, you write more character-driven stories, with less emphasis on plot, then you don’t need much of an outline (but, Professor Jeff says, your job will still be easier and your final product better if you have some).

  So, that’s my case for outlining. Now let me turn to how I create an outline and what it looks like. By the way, I craft outlines manually, but I understand that software programs like Scrivener have outlining functions that can be quite good.

  For a novel, I begin with Post-it notes and a blank wall or bulletin board. (Short stories don’t require such expansive overviews; I create those outlines directly on the computer.) The Post-its represent everything that happens in the novel: character introductions and departures, plot points, backstory and flashbacks, research. Note that at this point they’re not chapters or sections of the novel. Some examples might be:

  Rookie finds victim.

  Victim’s husband meets with his mistress.

  Mistress is revealed to be cop working with Sachs and Rhyme.

  Car chase that ends in deadly crash.

  History of tanning operations in New York.

  Subplot 1. Doctor tells Rhyme he has unexpected illness.

  Reveal: commissioner’s son is on the take.

  Clue is found in trash barge, NY Harbor.

  Commissioner’s son about to shoot Rhyme, but they’ve set up a trap. He’s caught.

  I paste the notes up as the ideas occur to me, adding some, discarding others, and rearranging them constantly.

  Over the course of, say, a month I will end up with about one hundred of these. Because I have several subplots in my books, I use a different color Post-it for each subplot.

  I know where every character is introduced, where they leave the book (under their own steam or on a medic’s gurney), where every clue is planted, where the payoff of each one comes, where each reversal appears, and where the surprise endings occur.

  At this point I transfer the contents of the Post-its to the computer, and now I organize the outline to represent chapters or, if I divide chapters into sections in which I shift time or perspective, those sections.

  Now, I call what I do an “outline,” but it doesn’t resemble Sister Mary Elizabeth’s seventh-grade English class outline:

  I.

  A.

  1.

  a.

  I use bullets points. I’ve written a macro in Word (the View tab, easily done) so that when I hit the F9 key, a bullet is inserted automatically. I’ve found it’s helpful to begin each bulleted entry with the location and time of the scene (as is done in movie scripts). I also set custom margins—with the right one being very large (set to four inches), so the outline takes up only the left-hand half of the page. I’ll explain why in a moment.

  Lincoln Rhyme’s townhouse, 10 a.m. —Sachs enters with evidence from tannery.

  —Suspicious officer (Jones) arrives and reports that a hired killer has learned of Rhyme’s involvement.

  —Sellitto reports that the commissioner wants to take Rhyme off the case.

  For the next several months I continue this process, adding, removing, and adjusting entries.

  As for subplots, I don’t use colored typeface or highlighting—that’s too slow and complicated—so I begin each subplot bullet point with a notation like this:

  SSS1. Doctor’s office, 11 a.m. —Rhyme is admitted. Assistant seems suspicious.

  I can easily move right to the subplots by globally searching for “SSS1,” “SSS2,” etc. In this way I can make sure the subplots progress seamlessly in their own time and place.

  When I’m comfortable with the outline, I’ll print it out and mount it in a three-ring binder.

  But we’re not finished yet.

  Let’s talk about research. At the same time I’m creating the outline, I’m doing the research for the novel. I enjoy research and know that readers love to learn information, whether it’s about police procedure, history, some esoteric trade or business, geography, psychology, or one of thousands of other topics. (I’m writing about outlining here, but I want to add the caveat that however fascinating you think a subject you’ve researched is, you should only include in the novel as much as is necessary to further the plot and inform the characters. A novel should never groan under the weight of interesting facts—which become far less interesting if an author diverts from plot to throw in superfluous details.)

  I mount all my research notes and printouts in three-ring binders as well, all paginated.

  I then return to the outline binder and insert to the right of each bullet point a reference about where to find the research that is to be included in that section. For instance, let’s say there’s an important clue in one scene about eighteenth-century leather-tanning operations. All the research I’ve done on tanning in New York City in that era is found on pages 120–22 in my research notebook. I’ll jot that reference in the outline to tell me where to look when I write that scene.

  Lincoln Rhyme’s townhouse, 10 a.m. —Sachs enters with evidence from tannery.  Research 120–122

  —Suspicious officer (Jones) arrives and reports that a hired killer has learned of Rhyme’s involvement.

  —Sellitto reports that the commissioner wants to take Rhyme off the case.

  Now it’s time to make a book.

  I decide what scene I want to write and put the outline and research notebooks in front of me. I read through them and begin.

  You can write the book quite quickly this way. I can write a 110,000-word novel in two months, because I know where the story’s going.

  I’m often asked whether the final book varies from the outline. Only in small, not structural, ways. Usually I find I’ve killed too many people (hate it when that happens). Too many corpses results in a lessening of the emotional impact of the story. So I pull back. Occasionally I might have an unexpected moment of inspiration and go in a slightly different direction.

  One final word: A criticism I’ve heard leveled at us plotters is that using an outline means taking a mechanical approach to what should be a fluid creative experience.

  I disagree, for two reasons. F
irst, you can see from my sample outline entries above that they are very sparse directions as to what needs to be in the scene. You will bring your considerable creative talents to deciding exactly how to craft that scene, what language to use, what metaphors and other figures of speech will work, whose point of view to inhabit, what details will make it come alive.

  And second, coming up with the organization of the story is every bit as creative as deciding what words, grammar, syntax, and punctuation to use in telling it. All art works best when the left brain complements the right.

  Let me leave you with another of my favorite quotations apropos of outlining:

  Books aren’t made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids. There’s some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks of stone are placed one on top of the other, and it’s back-breaking, sweaty, time-consuming work.

  —Gustave Flaubert

  ROB HART

  The art of forgetting, and how it relates to writing stronger outlines and not getting lost:

  Allow yourself the space to forget things. I use this specifically for outlining. When outlining a new novel, I write the outline, then trash it. A few days later I do it again, and trash that. I do this three or four times until I feel good about it. The idea is that, in the time in between, I always remember the good stuff, I forget the stuff that doesn’t really work or interest me, and the shaky stuff will work itself out.…

  During the editing phase I always do one pass starting with the last chapter and moving backward through the book. The idea being—you start a draft with a ton of fresh energy and by the time you get to the end you just want to be done, which is why endings can sometimes just trail off. This way you’re putting fresh energy into the ending, plus you’re seeing things out of order, which can sometimes help with plot and pacing issues.