Category: Feature
Categories:
Feature
Did You Meet A Killer Today?
By Tina Whittle |
Agatha Christie once opined: “Every murderer is somebody’s old friend.” It’s a reality we mystery writers exploit every time we plot a whodunit. We insert our guilty party into scene after scene with people who once dated this person, who ...
Feature
What Does a Crossword Puzzle Have to do With Mystery Writing?
By dwagner |
Crossword puzzles are about words, as is writing, so they should be connected, right? It’s time to revisit this topic, which I touched on a few years back. Regular readers of this blog may recall from that post that I ...
Feature
A Lifetime of Networking
By Charlotte Hinger |
Last week I attended the Western Writers convention in Cheyenne Wyoming. My first convention was in 1982. It was a brave, brave move on my part. I had just finished writing a historical novel about homesteading in Western Kansas. Ironically, ...
Feature
Writing to the Headlights
By Tammy Kaehler |
I keep trying different processes for writing mystery novels like some people try new diets. Someone tells me about another writer’s great book on how to write a mystery, and I inevitably buy it. I read three chapters…and then ...
Feature
No Need to Stumble While Naming Names
By Ann Parker |
Ann Parker here, musing over the February post of PPP author Charlotte Hinger, How to Keep Track of Characters. It’s a great post, and I encourage you to take a look if you didn’t catch it first time around (or ...
Feature
How Do I Choose a Great Title?
By Donis Casey |
Tell me, please! I, Donis, have just finished the first draft of a new manuscript, and I am having some trouble coming up with a great title. When my friends and family hear that a new book is underway, one ...
Feature
A Writer’s Most Important Book
By Jeffrey Siger |
I’ve had the great joy in recent years of twice teaching an intense college level course on mystery writing. On the third day of class I gave my students the only objective test in my course, one based on The ...
Feature
Plot Construction Advice From Edyth Fermoy-Jones
By mreed |
I recently finished reading the country house murder mystery Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon, a British Library Crime Classic reprint published by Poisoned Pen Press, and was amused to see it included advice to writers on the same topic ...
Feature
When Events Go Wrong
By Charlotte Hinger |
Last weekend I witnessed one of the most glorious examples of how to recover when an event goes astray. My granddaughter was married in Manteo North Carolina and the bride, groom, and the parents had worked hard to create a ...
Feature
From Research to Writing in Three Days
By Tammy Kaehler |
Stephen King has written a lot of wonderful words, but it’s his quotes on the process of writing that resonate with me the most. Most months, I most appreciate his thoughts on reading: “If you don’t have time to read, ...
Feature
Faces from the Past
By Ann Parker |
I’ve decided to return to my little collection of images from the past, including many faces that have provided inspiration and guidance of one type or another for my fictional forays.
Feature
It’s a Mystery: Wise Words About Writing
By Donis Casey |
I recently received in the mail a copy of the 70th Anniversary Edgar Allan Poe Awards Dinner Annual publication from Mystery Writers of America. I’ve never made it to the Edgar awards dinner, but I always read the Edgar Awards ...
Feature
Building Blocks for Mystery Writers
By Jeffrey Siger |
I’m flying high over this post. Literally, because when it goes live I’ll be in the air on my way to Mykonos and the start of my writing summer. So, what to write about on the cusp of such ...
Feature
Plot Construction Advice From Dr. Tom Greenslade
By mreed |
In The Three Hostages, Dr. Greenslade has useful advice on constructing plots and he offers it to Richard Hannay, protagonist of The Thirty-Nine Steps and several other novels by John Buchan. The First World War is over and Hannay, now ...
Feature
Walk-Up Songs for Mystery Detectives
By Michael Kahn |
Time for my annual baseball post. Last year I wrote one on the Top Ten Baseball Walk-up Songs in Literature. For the uninitiated, a walk-up song is that hard rock, hip hop, or country tune that blares over the speakers throughout ...
Feature
Understanding Literary Collaborations
By Larry Karp |
The great Fats Waller said it all. “One never knows … do one?” Way back in 2010, when I finished writing my ragtime historical mystery trilogy, I had an idea for my next book: a mystery set in ragtime history ...
Feature
Can Tattoos Be Crucial to the Story?
By Tina Whittle |
I got my first tattoo when I was thirty-seven. It’s a simple infinity heart, inscribed in black lines on the inside of my left wrist, right at the pulse point. I got it during a particularly rough summer, one of ...
Feature
Another Journey to the Next Mystery
By dwagner |
If there is such a thing as writer’s block, that may be what I’m going through now. My next book, Return to Umbria, is being copy edited as you read this, and is scheduled for November publication. It will be ...