The Art of Writing a Mystery

The art of a mystery is just that, the mystery. Many writers have tried writing a mystery novel or a short story, some have succeeded and some have not. The art is in the composition of the mystery itself. The more intriguing and hard to figure out, to a point, the better the mystery usually is. Those who try and construct intimate details about their characters or the environment they are in usually end up losing readers who get bogged down by the monotony. Quick paced action and a moderate amount of detail so as too keep the reader interested and want to keep turning the pages is one of the main things that sells books.

The secret is to get the right amount of atmosphere, along with character development, setting, and dialog. In this writer's opinion one of the best at this is Tony Hillerman. There are other types of mysteries of course, depending on what you like. Some mystery types are classic whodunits, police procedurals(although I have to say I don't think these are real mysteries as much as they follow the police detective as he looks for clues and interrogates suspects until he gets the suspect). There are several amateur detective types some involving animals who help solve the crime.

Of these I believe Lillian Jackson Braun's the cat who series is the top of this category. There are authors who have the pro-tagonist a chef, a bookseller, a bail bonds person, a burglar, a journalist, etc. The point is there are many to choose from. There have been many a soul that has tried the mystery or suspense genre and if you look at their popularity and sales you see that they were not really popular nor did they sell very much. That is due in fact to the type of book they wrote, or how the content was written.

It takes a very special person who can manage to get all the aspects of a mystery together and make it work. Some of the old time writers, who by the way are also some of the most prosperous, all seem to have different methods. They all do have one thing in common though, they all say to write what you know or have experiences with. Reading some of their books on writing they say to keep persevering and don't give up if you don't succeed right away.

Writing can be a very tedious task, it is not easy and for those who think it is might want to try it and see just what it entails. It is a very long and trying task even for a short story. Trying to come up with the idea, format it, get all your information correct and finally the finished product. Next comes the process of trying to get someone interested in it, which in and of itself is no easy task. Finally if you do and you have all your ducks in a row so to speak you may actually have a sale and see your product in print somewhere.