How to write a mystery novel
To learn how to write a mystery novel firstly you must understand that a mystery novel has to be just that ‘a mystery’ your reader needs to be wondering the whole time about the ‘crime’ that has been committed.
How to write a mystery novel must begin with selecting your protagonist, you can do this by choosing their occupation, policeman, shopkeeper, nurse or through their personality, inquisitive, moody, avenging.
Then the next step of how to write a mystery novel is to choose the kind of mystery you will be writing, is it going to follow police procedure or is it going to be a more easy going affair?
You need to decide which ‘voice’ you will be writing in, first person, third person or a combination. Choose the tone, funny, sad or both together.
Work out the other characters to include within your mystery novel, good guys & bad guys, their relationship in the story. When learning how to write a mystery novel you will find that setting the tone of your novel is a very important stage.
This is essentially done on the first page, as your reader will learn a lot from this page; it builds the foundation of the story. Write it as though the character you are writing about at the time is actually you, the success of how to write a mystery novel is not to rush telling the story.
Introduce each individual character slowly & ensure that they have a wide array of traits & personalities between them. How to write a mystery novel & to keep your reader enthralled is to play on the characters habits & moods, trying to say that any single one of them could have easily committed the crime.
Set the scene for conflict to occur so that you have some of your characters actually standing in the way of the crime being solved, to be able to learn how to write a mystery novel you must ensure that the main character of the story experiences danger. He/she is placed into a dangerous situation & we then ‘see’ how they cope with it.
Your knowledge of how to write a mystery novel will need to include setting up leads & placing red herrings throughout the story, send your reader on false trips. Make sure that the first ‘murder’ happens within the first fifty pages of your novel this then will create a purpose for the main character’s mission.
To achieve how to write a mystery novel with flair you must devise a clever ending, not one that just ends with a thump back down to reality. How to write a mystery novel & how to end it well is quite an accomplishment, you wish to leave your reader shocked or fulfilled.
Shocked in the discovery of who committed the crime, fulfilled because everything was answered but in a good way & not in the least bit boring.
