Acclaimed mystery and science fiction writer G. Miki Hayden brings her experience and reverence for the craft to readers in this authoritative guide to creating a compelling and commercially viable mystery.
Writing the Mystery begins with a thorough exploration of the genre, and then proceeds to take the reader step-by-step through the writing process, starting with character and plot development, the nitty-gritty of word choice, grammar, and sentence structure, maintaining pace, revealing killers, and tying up loose ends. G. Miki then goes one step further in guiding the reader through the post-writing process, explaining manuscript preparation, cover letters, acquiring an agent, and methods of successful promotion.
Writing the Mystery concludes each section with in-depth exercises, putting the lessons of the chapter into practice. The book also includes a special collection of interviews featuring such mystery major leaguers as Elmore Leonard, Sujata Massey, Dale Furutani, Laura Lippman, Seymour Shubin, and S.J. Rozan, who discuss the craft and offer their own valuable advice for the aspiring author.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
The Mystery of Mystery Finally Revealed:
Revealing the Secrets of Writing the Mystery is not an easy task. First, "mystery" must be defined. That starts the trouble since mystery can be any of several categories, depending on the nature of the mystery. According to Hayden, two broad categories of mystery, a cozy and the hardboiled include many of the other genres. Essentially, the cozy involves amateur detectives, of the type "Murder She Wrote" and the second one is referred to as hardboiled, in which professional detectives are paid. The cozy... more info
No middle ground:
The interviews with published mystery authors are worth some time, but this book suffers greatly from a "tell, don't show" inversion of the classic advice to authors. Lots of direction, though it's very general (make sure your characters are interesting), and lots of "but not too much" (make sure you characters are interesting, but not too quirky). Very little direction about how to accomplish those goals. It falls into my category of yet another "craft" book that is more personal reflection and/or memoir... more info
Still a Big Disappointment:
I have been trying to help a friend critique her mystery novel and get it ready to publish and thought that a published author would be able to help. Unfortunately, this is not the right book for it. I passed up other lesser known 'How-To' authors in favor of this one, and I regret it. You know you are in trouble when the guy who writes the Foreword spends all but the last sentence of it talking about himself instead of about Hayden's book. The first third of the book is not too bad. Those pages are... more info
Big Disappointment:
I have been trying to help a friend critique her mystery novel and get it ready to publish and thought that a published author would be able to help. Unfortunately, this is not the right book for it. I passed up other lesser known 'How-To' authors in favor of this one, and I regret it. You know you are in trouble when the first page is a FOREWARD (instead of a FOREWORD) and the guy who writes it spends all but the last sentence of it talking about himself instead of about Hayden's book. The first 80 or... more info
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