I'm a newbie mystery novelist . . .

Hi

Welcome to writing mysteries. I write mystery with a hint of the paranormal and some paranormal romance. During Nano there isn't much time for thinking and worrying, so just give it a try and write whatever you can then fix it later. Even when I'm not doing Nano, I usually don't have all my mystery clues in place and working right until the second or third draft. The first draft is usually just for playing with the plotline.

Mare

Welcome! I love writing mysteries. One book that's great to check out is Write Away by Elizabeth George. She's a fablous mystery writer and she gives great tips in this book. You can probably find it in the library.

This is my first comment on this site, and I'm dedicating it to you =D

I'm just a thirteen year old boy, but I've tried writing some of these, and I'd say that mystery is just about the only thing you really NEED an outline, or at least a list of clues, and red herrings, murderers, etc ... Because you need to work them in somehow, and it's gonna be hard if you don't plan what you're going to insert into the text, and where you're going to put it.

I find that the best mysteries are ones that are subtle in their clues, that you don't realise until you go back and read and see the clues staring at you in the face. There are some brilliant books I've read in which you're hoodwinked into thinking that you know the solution, and the only reason you keep reading to the end is to confirm you're right. But when you get to the end, you're shocked to find that what you thought was totally different, and the author has played their words cunningly, slyly, to manipulate your thoughts towards a particular person, place, object, etc., when it was really something else all along.

My main advice is this: know what's going to happen before it happens, and don't make anything glaringly obvious. Part of the beauty of Harry Potter is the apparent ease in which JK Rowling seems to slip bits casually in which you think nothing of, yet have big repercussions later on and affect the story. I love mysteries most of the time (except at night, because it's too spooky sometimes), and if they're well written there'll be many people wanting to read it, I daresay.

Hello to all,
I also write Paranormal Mystery with a touch of Suspence and/or Horror. For my first time at NaNoWriMo I thought I would try to write a Horror or Suspence novel.

This is all new to me and I'm still trying to figure this out here. But I've always found it easy to just start at the end and work backward. Maybe it'll help you to know how you want to end it first.

snow :)

"Today is a good day to learn something new"

I have that issue, too. This is the first time I'm really gonna try on a mystery. All I can really say is plan, possibly plot out the hypotheses and twists on chart paper or something so you can see where people slip up on their assumptions.

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'Sorry' isn't an excuse when you do something stupid on purpose.

Wow, thanks for all of the responses everyone! I'm kind of excited now. I have plans to work on my outline and main characters this weekend. With any sort of luck, I'll be on my way to figuring out how little I know before Monday! LOL

* coughs, nervously *

I don't plan. At least, I didn't, but I am getting better. I just charge straight in there and make my MC meet people, eventualyl someone gets mad enough about something so they kill someone, but often I won't have much of an idea who until towards the end. The 'How' of the crime, and how it is solved, is also very much up in the air.

Thisdoesn't always work. First ime I did nano, I got so sidetracked by a sub plot that I forgot to kill anyone! That is a significant failing in a novel that was supposed to be about a serial killer. Still, I hit 50K and learned a heck of a lot about writng.

In my second nano, I killed someone, but couldn't decide who did it, or why. Still, I hit 50K and learned a heck of a lot about writng.

In my third nano, I made a brief plan - literally a couple of paragraphs. I started writing, ended up telling two different stories. Still, I hit 50K and learned a heck of a lot about writng.

Subsequently I managed to disentangle one of those plot strands and fashioned into a complete story, 62,000 words long, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Even then, however, I was pretty much freewheeling, I wasn't sure until the last 15,000 words or so who was behind it all.

One thing I have noticed is that some people who plan end up killing their stories -they know what is happening but can't be bothered writing it. Others don't plan, and sit staring at their monitor, wondering why they can't think of anything to write!

One reason I'm here a month out from kick-off is because I want to give some terious thought to my narrative before I write it ... yes, I will be planning. Having winged it, and semi-winged it, I want to try a more structured approach, try to tell a more cohesive story. But that may not work for you.

So you need to be honest about what will work for you. If you are a planer, go for it. If you are a non-planner, don't feel stressed. Whtever you do, remmember, this is probably not about writing your great novel - it is about learning the craft. If you write like heck and hit 50K, and kill your passion for writing, then you've lost. If you don't hit 50K, but gave it a good shot, and still want to try again, then you've won.

Actually, I do better when I plan than when I don't. I've participated in NaNoWriMo 3 times and have finished twice. The two successes came with having a definite plan. I think I am interested in trying a mystery because they lend themselves so well to planning. They start with a definite problem and then end with a definite goal being achieved. This thread has gotten me excited, now that I know I'll have some people to bounce ideas off of and some people who are willing to nudge me along. I fleshed out my idea a bit more today and did some development on the main character--the idea is really beginning to come together!

With luck, this novel will be successful enough to submit to a couple of publishers (with sufficient revision, of course). There is one in particular that I have in mind. Now I just have to uncross my fingers long enough to write the darn thing! LOL

This is my first year writing in Nanowrimo. I don't know why, but I'm stuck on writing a mystery.
I thought that since I love watching them (House, Monk, Life...) it'd be fun to write them also. I'm been freaking out off and off since I decided. I've never written a mystery before, and I haven't written in so long, but I'm going to take a chance with this. It's just for fun anyway.
I'm not completely sure what my story will be. I like the idea of figuring out how the story will go as I write, but I'm a planner at heart. I think I'm just going to lightly plan everything out, and then build on to the notes later as I begin to write.
I bought the "No Plot? No Problem?" book, and I will keep it by my side constantly during the month. I'm also doing some research by reading some short story mystery. I plan to read some information about how the Law works with robbery later, but I'll be mostly making things up.

...

My third year at NaNo (with two wins!) and my first attempt at a mystery. I find I do better with planning. And, since this is new to me (writing a mystery, heaven knows I've read plenty of them!), I've been doing some reading, too.

I HIGHLY recommend "Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel" by Hallie Ephron. Even though the title sounds cheesy, it is a great get-started guide and I'm doing my planning by it.

Good luck, writers! Meet you at the finish line!

I can and I will. So there.

This is my third NaNo, and every year I tell myself "wouldn't it be nice if I had some mystery elements?" I've always loved mysteries, since I was a little girl, but I can never seem to write them well.

But, well, this years NaNo sort of intruded with an image that screams "mystery!" at me. The sad part is, that and one other mental image is all I have of my current NaNo plan. But it's enough to know that I need to start spreading my wings (since I typically only write queer preternatural fantasy). This time, I'm hoping it'll be a queer, preternatural mystery. Heh-heh.

The image isn't exactly one that leads to a cozy, which is what's difficult. I don't like to talk about my plot too much before I start writing (it's bad luck, or something like that), but I can say that I may have to start learning more about police procedure and bones. ^^;; Or maybe I've just been watching too many "forensic crime solvers" shows as of late. ^^;;

Anyways, thanks for the book tips everyone, and I thought I would intro on this thread since others seem to be, as well.

<-- Click The Banner To Read My NaNovel

This is my second year at Nano, and the first attempt at ever writing a mystery. Last year I tried my luck with a fantasy-esque novel which turned out in the end not to have much fantasy in it all all. I was mainly trying to write a story in a real-life setting, but add in fantastical elements to it as well. Somewhere along the way, the story ended up turning into a kind of mystery leading up to the conclusion when you find out about what's been going on with the MC and who he met in his new town.

After realizing that the story turned into more mystery than fantasy, I decided to really try my hand at mystery this year, but truthfully, it's mainly going to be mystery mixed with horror and suspense. I want my readers to be scared (and my characters too) as they try to solve the mystery.

A funny story: In my first Nano, when I got to the end of the story, I still had about 2000 words left to go until I hit 50K, but the story was over, so I was trying to figure out what to do. I skimmed back through the novel searching for a place to include more detail, and I settled on a scene that the characters described later on as being scary, but at the time I just glossed over it without giving any detail. So I wrote this 2000 word or so side-story horror scene somewhere about 75% through the novel, and I found out that I not only liked writing in this style, but I felt there was more substance in that little 2K additional blurb than there was in the other 48K words that made up the entire novel. Maybe this was because I was so tired with my plot and my characters by that time, but it was a very enjoyable little piece to write.

So in partly due to that, I want to also add in horror and suspense to the mystery novel I'm going to be writing. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, but haven't really gotten anywhere. I'm sure I'll think of something...

Looks like I'm in good company!

This is my third time doing NaNo and my first time attempting anything remotely mysterious. I don't think I've even really ever read a mystery novel. I'm sure I'll be on this board a lot, asking tons of questions and hoping for answers and inspiration.

I have a vague idea of where I want to my story to take place, but no clue what the mystery will be.
Can't wait for November 1st!

http://christinehennessey.blogspot.com