  Mystery
This week: Bending the rules of Mystery Writing Edited by: The Milkman  
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While preparing to write this editorial I was perusing, Writing Mysteries" edited by Sue Grafton with Jan Burke and Barry Zeman. In the index I saw a chapter titled,
The Rules and How to Bend Them" Jeremiah Healy. I got excited because I thought there are rules; set rules, for writing a great mystery story and how we could bend them without fear of being a victim of our own imagination.
Then I read the article and realized that most of the rules no longer apply to our times. Since the rules have mostly been broken let me give them to you and skip the explanations from the original author, whom I've already given credit to, and insert some of my commentary.
1. The Plot is Everything I do believe this rule does transcends time and to prove this let me repeat those four underlined words... The plot is everything. All other aspects of the mystery story are slaves to the story line. We read, we write this genre for the joy of the actual story. We find solving the problems and seeing the wrongdoers punished as our guilty pleasures. As Jeremiah Healy recommends, and I agree with, I wouldn't try to bend this rule.
2. The Hero must be Male Obviously this rule hasn't only been bent, but it has been manipulated back and forth to the point where I don't think it classifies as a rule anymore. In today's Private Investigator novels there are plenty examples of females in this role like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, Linda Barnes' Carlotta Carlyle and Sara Parentsky's V.I. Warshawski. The previous examples are modern-day sleuths but let us not forget Miss Marples created by Agatha Christie. I also think it goes without saying that your hero need not show the manliest character traits either.
3. The Setting will always be Los Angeles Here I'm going to take on the persona of a Discovery Channel duo and bust the myth. Your setting does not have to be LA, Chicago, St. Louis, New York City, or any other large city. Your character may find his journey to the most money and notoriety in the big metropolis but the small farming community, the oil rig in the Gulf and the small town all have their crimes that need solving. I suggest you pick the locale that you are comfortable in and write what you know of it whether it to be real or in your imagination.
4. Some Violence is required Sounds like this rule is a no-brainer, afterallmurder is a violent word in our vocabulary. The reason behind this rule, according to Jeremiah Healy, is that without violence our knight errant is neither tested nor confirmed in his or her physical character. However, the trick is to make the violence rational and advance the story line. In other words the laws and regulations that apply in your city, state or country should create the morale boundaries for your character. Also be sure your violence, particulary if committed by your hero, is proportionate to the provocation involved.
5. Certain Violence is Prohibited There are some forms of violence not acceptable, even in fiction. For the sake of the stipulations to the rating of our newsletters, I'm not going to say what these areas are other than caution your pen in the art of common decency.
I'll conclude this topic in my next monthly newsletter... |
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I thought I would do things a little differently with the Ask and Answer segment... I'm going to start asking you questions about the highlighted items. The first person to correctly answer these question will win Gift Points and since this is the Mystery Newsletter, the mystery will be how many points I will send you...
In "Invalid Item" what was the mystery to the main character?
In "Invalid Item" what time will the world end?
In "Invalid Item" what does the main character squeeze? |
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Mystery: October 06, 2010 Issue [#3997]
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