Five Things You Need in Writing a Mystery Novel - Anne R. Allen's Blog ... with Ruth Harris

Panzer decided to clean the windshield on the Panzermobile today. While he was washing it, he discovered something stuck under the windshield wipers. Pulling it out, our fastidious kitty boy discovered it was a wadded up post from Anne R. Allen's Blog about mystery writing..

 

Ready to write one?

According to the guest post by author Melodie Campbell, there are five things that make up a mystery novel. The first three sections of her post explain what a mystery is and isn't. She then moves on to the five actual parts of a mystery. These parts involve the characters (both good and bad) and their motivations.

 

Panzer says, "Hmm ... She makes it sound easy to write a mystery novel."

 

Note: This is a long post. Bring a large cup of tea and two muffins for today's reading selection.

 

To read the post tootle over to mystery novels

Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Plan a Novel without Actually Outlining: 3 ...

To outline or not?

Panzer was over at Anne R. Allen's blog today. He found a guest post by author Nathan Bransford How to Flesh out a Vague Novel Idea Before You Start. My bad boy was doing the happy cat dance because he's always wondering about how others write their novels.

You see, when Panzer writes he outlines the first third of his story. He already has an idea of what he wants the end to be. So after he starts the actual writing and reaches the end of the one-third outline, he has a good idea of what needs to happen to get to the end. But my bad kitty knows that many writers don't even outline that much.

Turns out Mr. Bransford is one of them. No outline for him. In Mr. Bransford's post he explains the three steps he uses to expand the story idea into a full fledged framework (not an outline!) to base his novel on.

To find out how Mr. Bransford writes a novel, tootle over to Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Plan a Novel without Actually Outlining: 3 ...:

Creating Suspense in Your Stories

Creaking doors?

Today Panzer was out in the Catosphere and stopped in at Venture Galleries blog. He's been searching for help with editing the novel he wrote for NaNoWriMo. While it's not strictly about editing, he found a post there by Rayne Hall about how to put suspense in your stories. My bad boy's novel does need a little infusion of suspense so he spent some time studying Rayne's post.

If you need help putting suspense in your work, tootle over to Creating Suspense in Your Stories

How to Pace a Crime Novel

How important is pacing?

Panzer was out in the Catosphere today and stumbled onto a site called Now Novel.

He found a post there about how to pace a crime novel. The post starts off with the easy don'ts in pacing. We've posted here before about the "info dump" which leads to the "too much information upfront" and the "too little payoff." So ... Panzer knows none of you need to worry about that part of the post.

The obvious don'ts are followed by three less common ones and that's the important part for Panzer's friends because he hasn't covered them here before. There's the "begin with a bang," "solving too easily" and "revealing too soon."

If you're interested in learning the don'ts of crime novel pacing, tootle over to Pace Your Crime Novel

National Novel Writing Month

Panzer's claws are down to little bloody nubs, but we are winners in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

Happy Cat Dance!

We wrote a 50,000 word novel in November! That's 50,000 words in one month!

Now starts the hard part. The rewrite/revision. Grrr!

How to write a novel

Failure ... Me?

For all you novelists out there, Panzer and I went to Salon today and found a post about How to write a novel by Cary Tennis. It's done in the style of answering someone's questions about novel writing. Now, Panzer and I have some novel writing questions of our own. We have three novels in various states on their way to completion: one in outline, one in first draft, and one in third draft. So, we were very interested in what he had to say.

Tennis admits he's not a published novelist, but does give some good advice and resource reading. He also delves into the risk of failure we face and the excuses we make so we don't have to face that risk of failure.

So, all you inquiring novelists, tootle over to How to write a novel

No More Excuses—Write That Novel

Short post today. Panzer and I have been sick for the last few days. We're starting to feel better today!

Panzer and I stopped in at The Editor's Blog. Panzer found a great post to get you working on your novel. You'll have no more excuses because they're all addressed and disposed of here.

Tootle over to  No More Excuses—Write That Novel  and, when you finish there, get to work on that novel.