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So You Want to Write a Mystery
My "overnight success" took eight years, so an argument could be made that I'm the last person in the world to be doling out advice to writers. On the other hand, I managed to learn a thing or two in those long years that you may find helpful. What follows are tips, thoughts, and secrets that I wished I'd known back in 1994, when I first started doodling around with the ideas that eventually became Murder Off Mike.
| The heck with the advice. Just take me to: |
"There are three rules for writing a novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
W. Somerset Maugham
You've got to do it every day. "It" being writing, of course. There's no getting around that need to park your butt in a chair and put those words flying around in your consciousness onto paper (or, more likely these days, onto your hard drive). Instead of committing myself to a specific word count or number of pages like all those "advice for writers" books recommend, I like to think in terms of the next scene in the story. "Okay, all I need to do tonight is write the scene where Shauna J. meets Pete Kovacs. . ." Somehow, committing to a scene, just one little scene, tricks me into keeping the momentum going.
Don't just write about what you know. Take "what you know" and then write about what you're passionate about. Write about characters you care about, settings that fascinate you, issues that stir you. If Tom Clancy had simply written about what he knows, he'd be penning thrillers about the insurance industry.
Just because something really happened doesn't necessarily make it a good story. Murder Off Mike is based on my experiences working in talk radio, yet I ended up deleting almost every scene that "really happened." Why? The scenes just seemed contrived, not believable, or didn't do anything to advance the story. If it doesn't feel "real" to the reader, out it goes.
Conferences are helpful -- up to a point. If you truly are a newbie at this writing game, attending one or two well-chosen conferences can be helpful in jump-starting your education on things like manuscript preparation, pitching to an agent, and fundamentals of the publishing industry. Conferences can be lots of fun, especially if you can afford to travel to an exotic locale, and it's inspiring (and scary!) to be mingling with hundreds of people who share your dream. The problem is, you can fool yourself into thinking you're a writer just because you attend lots of conferences. Same goes for belonging to critique groups and reading Writer's Digest. They're no substitute for actually parking your butt in the chair and writing. I mean, how many panels on finding an agent do you really need to sit through?
"But he doesn’t know the territory!"
Charlie in The Music Man
Your local library or favorite bookstore may shelve everything from John Grisham's latest courtroom thriller to Agatha Christie classics in the general category of "mystery," but the New York publishing world doesn't paint with quite so broad a brush. A mystery is not the same as a thriller, or a novel of romantic suspense, or a FemJep (female-in-jeopardy a la Mary Higgins Clark), or a spy novel.
If you tell an agent you've written a mystery, she'll have a fairly specific set of expectations: 60,000 to 90,000 words, the body dropped in the first chapter, a lone wolf-type protagonist (private eye, amateur sleuth, maverick cop) who solves the crime using her own wits and special skills, clues planted fairly throughout, the killer unmasked in the last chapter, all loose ends tied up. Not only that, there are subcategories within the mystery genre: hard-boiled, soft-boiled, cozy, private eye, police procedural, historical, among others.
You gotta know what you're writing, the traditions and expectations thereof. You gotta know the territory.
But my novel is different. My novel breaks all of the rules, defies categorization. The good news is, commercial publishers are looking for new voices, a fresh spin on the same old-same old. The trick is to be "different" while still adhering to the rules of the genre. Painting a masterpiece while still coloring within the lines. For years, I insisted that my manuscript was different, daring, not really a mystery at all. All it got me was a pile of rejection slips. Then I decided to follow the rules for the St. Martin's contest. When Ruth Cavin called to tell me I'd won, she said my manuscript stood out because it was "different." So go figure.
How do you learn the rules of the mystery game? READ! If you want to write a mystery, read mysteries. But don't just read for pleasure. Read with a critical eye: what is it about Stephanie Plum, or Travis McGee, or Kinsey Millhone, that makes them intriguing protagonists? What techniques does Tony Hillerman use to make the Four Corners country come alive? How does Michael Connolly introduce details about the inner workings of a big city police department? Read for structure: How are clues planted, suspects introduced? How far into the book is the body dropped? At what point are the sub-plots resolved, and the final confrontation with the villain begins? Get yourself a library card, and start checking out mysteries by the arm-load. It's the best free education you could give yourself. Anyway, isn't this what made you want to write a mystery in the first place, because you love reading them?
Following the rules applies to approaching agents, too. The key is to be professional. No cutesy-poo fonts, pictures of your cat on your letterhead, manuscripts wrapped in scented pink tissue. Puh-leeze! There's a fine line between coming off as intriguing/creative versus eccentric/scary. You want to present yourself as confident, enthusiastic, and upbeat, not arrogant, paranoid, or bitter. If the agent says he wants to see your first ten pages, send the first ten pages, not the entire manuscript. Unless the agency listing specifically invites e-mail queries, use the traditional dead-tree format. If the listing says no phone calls, don't annoy them by calling. How do you find out what agents want? Study the agent listings in Literary Marketplace, the Writer's Digest directories or Jeff Herman's Insider's Guide. At least one should be available at your local library.
Oh, yeah. At this point, I should insert a warning or two about scams. No legitimate agent will ask you to pay him for the privilege of reading your manuscript, or expect you to front "marketing fees," or refer you to a book doctor. Run like the wind in the opposite direction! Real agents make their money and cover their operating expenses by the commissions they collect against sales, not by fleecing wannabes. There are lot of not-very-nice characters out there just waiting to exploit the desperation of the unpublished writer. Don't be the next victim!
"Never give in--never, never, never, never."
Winston Churchill
During those eight years of rejection-rewrite-rejection-rewrite, did I ever consider giving up? Only almost every day. There were months at a time when I couldn't even bear to look at my manuscript. Yet, somehow I managed to keep the flame burning, telling myself, if it were easy . . . if anyone and his uncle could write a book and get it published . . . then it wouldn't be special, would it? Or as the Tom Hanks character said in League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard! If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."
Don't give up, okay?
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
The St. Martin's Contest
This has got to be the best deal going for the unpublished mystery writer. St. Martin's has been sponsoring an annual contest for around ten years now to find "The Best First Traditional Mystery." There's no entry fee, you get to bypass all the usual gatekeepers keeping out unsolicited and un-agented manuscripts, and the grand prize is the brass ring we're all so desperate to grab--publication by a real, big time, New York house.
The catch is, you do have to have a real, full-length, completed manuscript to enter. No outlines, no first chapters. Yep, you've actually got to write the sucker.
You enter by sending an SASE to St. Martin's and they send you the official entry blank, rules, and name and address of a reader to whom you are supposed to send your manuscript. This reader isn't someone at St. Martin's, but a volunteer from the fan organization Malice Domestic. There's a whole team of readers, each selecting one manuscript to send on to St. Martin's for final consideration. From that batch, St. Martin's chooses the winner.
I don't know of any secrets to winning the contest, other than just writing the best damn msytery you can. Rewrite, and then rewrite again. Get your most persnickety friend to proofread your manuscript. Print out a clean copy, mail it on or before the deadline, then let go of it and start working on something else.
One suggestion I can toss your way is to think in terms of a series, whether you're planning to enter the contest or go the usual agent-to-editor route. Publishers of mysteries love series. (So do readers!) So, in creating your protagonist and setting, have some plan in mind as to how they'll "wear" over a half-dozen books or more. When you get a nibble from an agent or editor, they'll undoubtedly ask about a series. Be prepared.
What happens after you ship your manuscript off to the contest? About five months later, you'll get a letter from your volunteer reader letting you know whether you made the cut. If you did, then maybe, just maybe, you'll get that phone call from Ruth Cavin at St. Martin's, and your entire life will change . . .
For a straight shot to St. Martin's and Malice Domestic, do a tap dance with your mouse on the logos below.
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
Essential Reading for Writers
There's quite a cottage industry these days in advice books for writers. If you're anything like me, you've probably purchased at least fifty over the years, and checked out at least another fifty from the library. How to write a mystery. How to land an agent. How to make an editor fall in love with your work. Yet if I had to choose the works I consider truly essential, I come up with just three. Yep, three. The following volumes did more to develop my skills as a fiction writer than all the rest combined. Last time I checked, they're still all in print and available from the usual suspects.
- Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. The classic that started the whole "advice for writers" craze, and still the best. Witty, wise, encouraging, and just plain laugh-out-loud funny.
- Christopher Vogler: The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Don't let the bias toward screenwriters throw you. You'll find nuggets galore for us book writers too. Christopher Vogler unlocks the secrets of creating a compelling story and a larger-than-life hero.
- Renni Browne and Dave King: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. Browne and King will help you rid your manuscript of the gaffes and goofs that brand you as an amateur. You'll never again consider using an adverb with quite the same enthusiasm, I promise.
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
So You Want To Self-publish
Sooner or later, you're going to consider it. Your spirit has been crushed with yet-another snotty rejection slip. Meanwhile, one of your writing buddies has a short story coming out in an anthology of regional writers. Okay, she put up her own money to have her story published, but at least she got a review in the local paper, the book is appearing on the "local authors" shelf of your hometown bookstore, and she didn't have to deal with all those mean people in New York. Anyway, isn't this how best-sellers like The Christmas Box and The Celestine Prophecy got launched?
I'm not necessarily against self-publishing. I just think you have to be very clear about your own needs, expectations, and resources, and to go into the project with your eyes very wide open.
Yes, there are self-published works that go on to be picked up by commercial publishers and sell millions. But if you study their success stories, you'll pick up a common thread. There's usually an irresistable title or concept (Sugar Busters) or an infrastructure in place to jumpstart sales (the New Age network for Celestine Prophecy and the LDS Church in the case of The Christmas Box). Wayne Dyer schlepped around the country selling copies of Your Erroneous Zones from the trunk of his car. Are you prepared to make that kind of commitment?
There's self-publishing, and then there's self-publishing. The most legitimate is where you set up your own publishing company, apply for your own ISBN number, and hire a printer to create the books for you. The finished product looks pretty much like what's coming out of the big New York houses. Only problem is, you're on your own when it comes to marketing and distribution. The new on-line publishers, the print-on-demand technology, iUniverse and Xlibris, are getting some buzz. I don't know that much about them, but I'd suggest chatting with a lot of writers who've gone that route before putting up your money. Then there are the traditional "vanity" presses that advertise in the back pages of Writer's Digest, The New Yorker, and the like. Don't even think about it. You aren't that desperate!
The bottom line: you've got to be very clear about what you want out of this writing game. What does "success" feel like to you?
I like to use the analogy of community theater versus Broadway. If all you care about is getting a review in the local paper, and seeing your name in the cast list of a program, any program, and having your friends and relatives applauding from the front row, then all you need is community theater to keep you happy. All you need is that self-published book, that review in the neighborhood weekly and the signing at your favorite bookstore. Well, like Mama Rose belted out in Gypsy, "That may be okay for some people, but some people ain't me." I knew I'd never be satisfied unless I made it to Broadway, even if only in the chorus line, and even if the show closed after a week. That's what success feels like to me, and that's why I never seriously considered self-publishing.
But you may be, and probably are, less neurotic than me. And only you can decide what feels right for you.
Take Me Home
Take Me to the Top
