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Mary Rosenblum
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Hello all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I hope you had a very nice
Thanksgiving yesterday.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And i hope you didn't get
trampled in the malls as everybody rushed off to the Thanksgiving sales.
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Mary Rosenblum
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(Not me)
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Mary Rosenblum
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I thought I'd talk about the
Mystery genre today.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I've published in it, both
novels and short stories, and it's a very big genre
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Mary Rosenblum
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with a strong readership.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Mystery tends to be a series
genre, like fantasy.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That is, the publishers prefer
a series to a stand alone novel.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is because mystery
readers are very loyal. Once a series has hooked them, they stay with it
and can become quite fanatical.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Unfortunately it, like
Romance, is not really a short fiction genre.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That is, you don't have many
markets that will bring your work to the attention of mystery publishers
and editors.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Ellery Queen and Alfred
Hitchcock's Mystery Magazines are the big ones.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So the competition is high.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You have some small press/ezine
markets like Mouthful of Bullets, Mysterical-E
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Mary Rosenblum
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but publication there is not
going to get you critical acclaim (ie published reviews).
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's a very good question,
barb.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Boundaries between genres are
simply blurry.
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Mary Rosenblum
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One editor's dark fantasy is
another editor's horror.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And it matters because that is
where you book appears on the bookstore shelf.
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Mary Rosenblum
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In mystery part of the 'fun'
for the readers is the unraveling of the whodunnit.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The readers try to figure it
out before that 'drawing room scene' where the author reveals the perp's
identify.
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Mary Rosenblum
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In action/suspense the perp is
often known to the readers from the get-go and it becomes
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Mary Rosenblum
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a high-stakes race between
good guys and bad guy. Will they good guys stop him before the bad guy does
it? Whatever that 'it' is.
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Mary Rosenblum
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So there is no mystery.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you have a mystery and
we're trying to figure out who did it along with the sleuths, it's probably
gonig to fit better in the mystery genre, but not necessarily.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If it's action packed with
multiple characters, try the suspense/thriller markets first.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Mystery does have some
subgenres and if you fall between the cracks there -- that is your book is
sort of an amateur sleuth mystery and sort of a cozy
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Mary Rosenblum
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you may have trouble selling
it to the big publishers. Those are two different grops of readers and what
one likes the other doesn't.
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rae
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Can you have a short suspense
story?
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can have any type of short
story, rae. :-) It's just a matter of length, that's all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Hitchcock publishes short suspsense.
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barbiq
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Mary what do you feel is the
fine line between action suspense and mystry?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oops...this was the question I
was answering that I thought I had posted and had not. Sigh. I'v
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charie'
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Please define "cozy"
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Mary Rosenblum
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A cozy mystery is one that is
set locally and the victim, the villain, and the sleuth all live within
this community. Sex and violence occurr offstage although they can be part
of it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think Miss Marple and Murder
She Wrote.
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tree
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do you consider the cat who
mystery series a cozy
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'm sure it is, Tree. It's not
a series I personally read but the blurb sure seems to put it in the cozy
category. No pun intended. :-)
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info
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What if you have an idea, say
someone kidnaps three or four people but isn't the real bad guy. He only
kidnaps these people, who are a part of a small group of mystery solvers who's
life is in danger. This kidnapper reveals the danger to the small group and
one of their other friends still running around town. So the reader gets
the idea of who the real perp is. Would this be more suspense then mystery?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Probably info. In mystery you
really don't want the readers to know whodunnit until your sleuth reveals
it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think Sherlock Holmes. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Amateur Sleuth is just that...someone
who is not a cop or detective solving the crime.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Nevada Barr has a park ranger
as her amateur sleuth.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Dick Francis often uses his
jockey character.
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Mary Rosenblum
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These mysteries tend to be 'harder'
than cozies. People get hurt, the violence can be ugly, the villains can be
really nasty.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That hard edge is probably the
biggest difference between cozy and amateur these days.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then you have police
procedurals where your main character is someone in law enforcement. Might
be a forensic scientist or a forensic anthropologist like Kathy Reichs'
character.
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tree
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so then is a cozy considered
amateur
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Mary Rosenblum
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No, a cozy, while the sleuth
might be and usually is, an amateur, is quite separate from the Amateur
Sleuth mysteries.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They are a much harder
version, as I've described.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Besides police procedurals you
have the 'hard boiled' detective novels.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Think Maltese Falcon, Sam
Spade, Raymond Chandler.
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Mary Rosenblum
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These tend to be first person
and tough in tone. The main character is a private eye.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That has a sub sub genre
called 'noir' which is simply a hard boiled that is very dark and often
slides over into paranormal, including vampires or whatever.
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tree
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where you putPD James' novels
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Mary Rosenblum
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She uses an inspector as her
main character for most of her books, so that puts her into the police
procedurals. The Inspector Morse series is another good example of that,
set in the UK.
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geezer
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How do you plot a mystery?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Start with the crime is a good
way.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The difficult part in mystery
is that you have to lay out clues so that when you reveal the perp, the
readers realize that they
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Mary Rosenblum
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should have figured it out for
themselves. Of course you work VERY hard to make those clues hard to spot.
And mystery readers have VERY sharp eyes!
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charie'
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Are most mysteries about murder
these days?
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Mary Rosenblum
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They almost always are, charie.
That's because death is the highest stake.
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Mary Rosenblum
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One of the things that mystery
publishers look for is a strong hook.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That does not mean an opening
scene.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It means that your main
character has something that will entice readers to read THIS series,.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It might be a cool job, as
with Barr's park ranger, or Dick Francis's steeplechase jockey.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It might be an exotic place as
with John Burdett's Bangkok mysteries, my current favorite.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But a regular guy with a
regular day job is not likely to stand out from a very well written slush
pile.
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is a highly competitive
field with a lot of payoff. It includes a LOT of readers and
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Mary Rosenblum
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amateur sleuth and police procedurals
are the two biggest of the subgenres.
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charie'
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Or set in another world or time
like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files.
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Mary Rosenblum
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yeah, but he's not really in
the mystery field. He is paranormal and has become one of those stand out
successes that are their own subgenre.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Although paranormal mystery
has begun to catch on in the past few years.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Ten years ago none of the big
NY houses would touch it...it got relegated to the small press.
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charie'
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Would the "cat"
mystery solvers fall into that category?
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Mary Rosenblum
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What category? Paranormal?
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Mary Rosenblum
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They probably end up with the
cozy publishers, Charie.
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rae
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Does that mean my Detective will
not stand out?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I don't know Rae. :-) I don't
think I've met your detective.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The paranormal tend to be
dark, often have a vampire or other not-quite-human sleuth.
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rae
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She is homicide detective in Salt Lake
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Mary Rosenblum
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Make her stand out, rae.
That's your job as writer. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Kat Richardson, my recent
guest, has a paranormal mystery series.
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butterfly49
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where does a series like Nancy
Drew fit in?
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's a young adult mystery.
Young adult is a whole separate area of publishing, including all the
regular genres
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Mary Rosenblum
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such as mystery, fantasy, SF
and so on.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What I have found to work best
over the years is to add many of your clues after you have finished the
first draft.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I usually know a couple of
places where I want to plant clues, but once I'm done with draft one, I
know where I can go back and slip in a clue for readers to overlook.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Those clues have to be in
plain sight so to speak, but you don't have to let your readers see them.
:-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You draw attention to
something else in the scene so that readers don't notice the real clue.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And of course you use red
herrings. You plant a lot of circumstantial evidence that certainly seems
to point to a couple of different
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Mary Rosenblum
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characters (who of course are
not your guilty party).
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Mary Rosenblum
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What readers will not forgive
you for is letting your main character point out the guilty party when you
have planted NO clues and there's no way anyone could have figured out who did
the crime.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's 'cheating'. :-)
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charie'
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Do you have a minimum of clues
or usual suspects that you try to fit in?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Nope. There's no rule. Too few
will annoy readers, too many will allow too many people to guess.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I can usually guess who did
it...when you get good at laying in clues you also get good at spotting the
clues other writes lay in.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And when I'm wrong, that
writer REALLY impresses me.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I have one chapter left in my
current Burdett book and I can't decide if he's going to pull one over on
me in the final chapter or not. I don't think so, but he might do it yet.
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info
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What's the differences between
setting clues in a mystery and something like my example? I assume the
reader isn't necessarily going to be mad or upset that the real perp is
identified before the ending.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, in the story you
described it sounds as if it's going to be one of those stories where it's
a race between the good and bad guys more than a mystery.
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Mary Rosenblum
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In a mystery it's more of a
contest...can you figure out who did it before the author reveals it?
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ginas
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It sounds like you can't learn
to do this, have a talent for
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh, goodness no! While a sense
of story is something that you either seem to have or not (and if you don't
you probably don't enjoy reading fiction anyway)
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Mary Rosenblum
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that's about all you get 'born
with'. Anyone can learn to plot mysteries. You're just klunky at it at
first. You get better.
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charie'
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Suspense would be "Can you
figure out how to prove it before Columbo does"?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yeah, exactly. I'd call Columbo
a 'cozy suspense' to coin a genre. :-)
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tree
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which writers impress you?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Let's see. I like the writers
who combine strong characters with powerful stories.
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Mary Rosenblum
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James Lee Burke is excellent.
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Mary Rosenblum
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P D James of course.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Andrew Vachs although he is
VERY dark, I warn you.
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Mary Rosenblum
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John Burdett for his depth of
Thai reality.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Lots of others.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You have quite a lot of good writers
in mystery.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Dick Francis is good.
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johnw
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How about Thomas Perry's Jane
Whitefield series?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Haven't read it.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's a very big genre.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Let's face it, many many plots
in other genres are mysteries.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They may not feature a murder,
but how many plots are all about finding something out? :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Curiosity is a powerful human
drive and mystery plots work nicely in romance, sf, fantasy, you name it.
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quixote
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John D MacDonald's travis McGee
- sort of sneaks up to the suspect gently - usually revealed befor the end
- mystery? action?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh yes...I meant to mention
him. He's another very good writer.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And I have to say that writing
short mysteries is just about as hard as writing a novel. You have to get
an awful lot layerd into those few words.
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johnw
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Don't forget Elmore Leonard
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Mary Rosenblum
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He's popular, but I"m not
as impressed with his writing, to be honest.
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charie'
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How important is capturing the
bad guy?
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Mary Rosenblum
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The bad guy can get away. But
it's hard to pull off. Somehow justice needs to be done.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now it can take a twisted
path.
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rae
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Is it better to leave out the
court scene when writing short
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Mary Rosenblum
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No kidding, rae! :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Although another mystery
writer and I collaborated in a novelette of about 10,000 words that was
nothing BUT a court scene. :-) It ended up getting reprinted several times
including in a law journal of all places.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Anything is possible.
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charie'
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I'm remembering "The Fugitive."
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yeah, but he wasn't really a
bad guy, charie.
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Mary Rosenblum
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One central theme even in the
darkest and most violent of the mysteries is 'justice must be done'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That one is hard to violate successfully.
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charie'
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But he was after the real
killer.
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Mary Rosenblum
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yeah and that was TV which has
its own rules that don't necessarily overlap with those of the prose
universe!
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, this has been a fun discussion.
Give mystery a try. It's an enjoyable exercise, weaving all those clues
into the action.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And it's certainly a popular
genre.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Do join me this Sunday for our
casual chat.
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Mary Rosenblum
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We get together in the same
place and time just to talk about whatever.
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charie'
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Without justice it feels more
like horror.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Very much, charie.
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butterfly49
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How well does it pay?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Quite well, butterfly. They
tend to sell in the 30,000 - 100,000 copy range from the NY publishers.
That means decent royalties and advances.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The big and well established
names will sell well over 100,000 copies.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, I'll post the
transcripts in the usual place; Writing Craft, Forum Transcripts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You all have a good weekend
and I'll see you on Sunday!
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