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#Storywriting interrogation tips how to

And more often than not, there’ll also be a love interest who either helps her solve mysteries or tries to curb her sleuthing ways. She’ll often have a best friend who helps her with her sleuthing. For example, if you’re writing a cozy mystery, your main character will probably be a female amateur sleuth who runs a shop or eatery of some kind.

These will also depend on your chosen subgenre. Get them asking the following questions (or some variation thereof): Give them a reason to care about your story’s characters. Entice them with the promise of surprising revelations. Keep their interest with something familiar (the story structure they’ve come to expect) along with something new and captivating. The basic mystery plot follows the overall storyline mentioned above but each story fills in the blanks differently - based in part on your subgenre and in larger part on your specific story and its characters.Īs a murder mystery author, you want to keep your readers guessing about the murderer’s identity without straying from the basic murder mystery story structure. Make them care about what’s happening with the mystery and with your main character’s life and relationships. In other words, lead your reader through the chapter with moments that make it worth their while to keep reading.

Key moment #3 (at the end of the chapter).

Key moment #2 (somewhere in the middle) - optional.

Key moment #1 (at the beginning of the chapter).

Make it easier to include these hooks by writing an outline like the following for each chapter: You want them to feel conflicted about putting your book down - even when they have to. If you have to choose one or the other, though, definitely hook your reader at each chapter’s end. Others simply number their chapters and rely on tantalizing hooks at each chapter’s end. Some authors enjoy crafting chapter titles that tease the reader. It’s up to you whether you want your chapters to have titles related to their content.

An outline helps keep everything sorted by providing a timeline for all the key moments and clues in your story. How does the outcome of this case affect your sleuth and their relationships?Īfter answering these questions, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what happens in your story.

#Storywriting interrogation tips how to

It’s on you to make sure the reader doesn’t regret buying your novel instead of someone else’s.Īnd there’s plenty of work involved in not only writing your mystery but also editing and revising it - not to mention everything you’ll do to get it ready for publication.īut when you’re done, and your first reader tells you, “You kept me guessing until the very end! I LOVED this story! This is the first of a series, right? … Right?” you’ll know it was worth it.Īnd the more you learn how to get that kind of response from a reader, the more fun you’ll have cranking out one murder mystery after another. Writing a murder mystery can be just as fun as reading one. Let’s cover the basics before we get down to business. And the more you learn about how to write mystery, the better sense you’ll have of which subgenre you want to focus on.

In this guide on how to write a murder mystery, we’ll show you what makes mystery a great choice for your first debut as a fiction author - especially if you enjoy reading and watching them. And with all the subgenres, you have loads of opportunities and choices when writing a murder mystery.Īlthough there’s room for a LOT of variety in this genre, the overall structure is pretty consistent. Congratulations! You’ve picked one of the reading world’s all-time favorite genres.