Pace Your Mystery, Sustain Tension
Every story requires the writer to pay attention to pacing, but none more than the mystery novel. Your literary novel might get away with...
Why Do Readers Love a Mystery?
We've said it recently: Every story has an element of mystery. In a recent interview with the Creative Penn podcast, Jonah Lehrer discusses his...
Know Your Enemy…and Beat the Crap Out of It
Writing fight scenes between two human characters is difficult enough. We've all marveled at the way action movie protagonists can take massive amounts of...
Using Fear as a Weapon and a Hill to Conquer
Fear: a vital element for thriller and horror fiction, but also an emotion commonly found in stories of all types. Mastering the expression of...
Suspects are the Frame to Your Mystery’s Puzzle
A murder mystery needs a victim, a perpetrator, and a sleuth, but your other suspects are the glue that holds your novel together. They...
Every Tale is a Mystery
A sense of mystery is at the heart of every story, regardless of genre. At the outset, you don't know where the story is...
Does Your Villain Mean Well?
In a post for CrimeReads, Kerry Anne King takes a look at 10 characters who do bad things for good reasons. Whether motivated by...
More Than Invisible Ink: Advice for Writing About Spies
In an article for Writer's Digest, author Stephanie Marie Thornton offers her advice for creating believable spy characters.
Notably, she reminds writers that spycraft isn't...
Do You Really Really Know Your Villain?
In a post on the SFWA blog, writer Michael Moore (not that one), says that SF writers can create stronger villains by thinking like...
Noir and SF: A Complimentary Pairing
Classic examples of SF/mystery mashups include Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its resulting film adaptation, Bladerunner, as well as...
