Customer Reviews

Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel

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While Carolyn Wheat and James Frey's books are excellent, Hallie Ephron's book is even better, spending lots of concrete and practical time on planning before you begin writing. Her examples are contemporary and clear, and her interactive worksheets are even better. Since I need to do lots of outlining before I start writing, this book gave me specific ways of strenthening my own process and planning, especially plotting, my personal weakness. Her advice on queries, synopses, and finding an agent or publisher were also clear and realistic--I have some of the same rejection letters she shows, maybe from the same agents. She also lists several references and websites as other resources, many of which were new to me. All in all, this is the best book on writing mysteries I've found, and I know I'll wear it out going back to re-read it.

Writing instruction books penned by writers are a dime per every two dozen. Most of their advice amounts to a re-packaging of every writer cliché available for free: Show, don't tell; write a character bio; use he said/she said; conflict, conflict, conflict. Rarely does anything write-home-worthy come down the pike that we haven't read elsewhere. So it is with a mix of openness and skepticism that I picked up WRITING AND SELLING YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL by Hallie Ephron.

The result? A good primer for beginners, but mostly just another rehash of generic advice to the more seasoned writer. Ephron covers everything in this book: Characterization, dialogue, selecting a title, setting, plotting, suspense, revision, marketing, polishing, selling--I mean she covers it ALL. She also includes copious charts and graphs that illustrate her points for the reader's personal use. This is what makes it such a good, comprehensive tool for someone just getting into writing who could benefit from an all-in-one resource. But as much as that's a strength of the book, it's also a weakness. The book is too busy with charts, and Ephron breezes through every imaginable subject so quickly that she rarely scratches past the surface. In this way, WRITING AND SELLING is malnourished inasmuch as it's comprehensive.

For intermediate to advanced writers, there are a few good chapters in here. I particularly enjoyed the ones on plotting and suspense, and Ephron's itemization of different plot twists and turns, when coupled with the chapter on suspense, is almost worth the price of the book alone. So, if you're just starting out, feel free to buy WRITING AND SELLING YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL to get your beak wet. Then go deeper with DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY or SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS.

At the heart of every mystery novel lies a puzzle for the story's hero, and the reader, to solve. In the beginning the mystery seems to be about one thing, but in the end it turns out to be about something else.

To make it work, the writer develops a string of events and presents them in a series of twists and turns. The main story is tangled with sub plots and complicated by characters that may or may not have something to hide.

Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel takes you from planning a mystery novel to targeting potential markets and agents.

Beginning with the premise and continuing through to title selection, Part I provides a step-by-step guide to the process of planning a mystery novel. At the end of each Chapter the writer is instructed to add to the blueprint at the end of the section. The blueprint is the basic framework for a novel. By the end of the planning section the writer has a completed blueprint and is ready to write.

From the mystery novel's opening scene to its coda, Part II provides a guide to the writing process. It discusses crafting scenes, introducing characters, creating mystery and maintaining suspense. This is where the real work begins -- writing the first draft.

Part III suggests a range of techniques for polishing a novel. No one writes a publishable first draft. This section guides the reader through revision, pacing and characterization.

The final section gives tips on finding an agent and a publisher. Part IV shows how to prepare a query packet and send a manuscript out into the world. If the mystery is a good one it will find a home.

With Hallie Ephron, you get a wise mentor, a compassionate and savvy best friend, and a secret weapon: insight and instruction from a successful pro and her impressive posse of mystery-author stars. It's like having your own personal writing teacher and coach--every question you have is answered, as well as the ones you wouldn't know to ask. Fun to read, innovatively and imaginatively organized, and as interactive as the reader chooses to make it, this is sure to become a keep-on-your-desk classic, and a much-used, well-worn reference book. This is definitely not just for newbies--but word to the wise: Mystery-writer wannabes will want to be the first to read it--so their competitors in this demanding market won't get their hands on the good stuff first.

So many writing books talk in general terms. Not this one!

He has his charts followed with blank "Now You Try" charts: "Making the Leap from Idea to Premise," "Appearance: Conveying and Hiding," many different character charts for sleuth & victim & suspects & innocent people, charts for settings, planning & plotting charts, charts for picking a title, scene sketch.

He gets into POV--with some charts! He has a good chapter on clues and red herrings. Charts for action scenes and "introspective" scenes.

And great stuff about the final write wrap up scene he calls "coda."

This is a great book for beginners and advanced alike!

Now, I'm off to put some of these on my computer.

Hallie Ephron's new How-To book is one of the best books on writing mysteries that I've ever read. Ephron, one half of the best-selling mystery duo G.H. Ephron, knows exactly how to construct interesting, twisty, and effective plots and characters, and she doesn't hesitate to divulge her secrets.

The book is divided into four sections: Planning, Writing, Revising, and Selling Your Mystery Novel. She provides apt examples, excellent charts, and interactive exercises that will help both the neophyte and the long-time practitioner. She includes an appendix of resources as well.

As SJ Rozan writes in her introduction: "The map in this book will make the process of writing your novel controllable, understandable, and as close to fun as it gets. You'll still have to do the work; this book won't write your book. But it will show you what work to do, so you can plan, structure, and write. And revise, rework, and rewrite. It will show you how to start, what to do when you're mired in the middle, and how to come to a triumphant finish. And, if you're still standing, it will help you market it to an agent an editor so that your book can end up, finally, in the hands of those most elusive, legendary, and desirable inhabitants of this loony Land: readers."

If you've ever wanted to write mysteries or if you seek merely to improve your mystery-writing craft and technique, this book will help you get there. Run right out and get this one. I can't recommend it highly enough. ~Lori L. Lake, Midwest Book Review

I bought this book because I recently had an idea for a historical romance with a strong mystery/suspense plot. I've never tried to write a full-on mystery before and I felt intimidated. The idea of having multiple suspects and subplots and dropping (and hiding clues) felt overwhelming to me.

When I looked through the books offered on Amazon for mystery writing, I saw many reviews that said the books were less about mystery writing and more about writing in general, which was not what I wanted. I already own books on writing and I've studied writing, so I just wanted a book to explain the particulars of the mystery genre. This book was perfect.

The book is divided into four main sections: Planning, Writing, Revising, and Selling Your Mystery Novel. Each section includes several chapters. The first section covers the basics: The premise, the sleuth, the villain, the crime, the suspects, etc. The Writing Section explains dialogue, point-of-view (POV), how to insert clues and make them seem unimportant next to red herring clues. There is also a chapter on how to write the action/suspense scenes.

As other reviewers have stated, this book contains a lot of exercises. Some of the exercises relate to using examples from your own work-in-progress and some exercises are based on excerpts from other books that Ephron presents and you have to continue the dialogue or write another version of the scene.

I enjoyed this book because it broke things down in a way that was easy for me to understand. I found Chapter 17, Writing Investigation: Clues, Red Herrings, and Misdirection, to be very helpful. Page 157-158 in my edition explain how to distract the reader from realizing the significance of a clue. The chapter on the villain is basic, but useful. One important question it asks is: is the crime appropriate for the villain? Is the villain strong enough, smart enough, dumb enough for this crime? What kind of villain would commit this type of crime? Why would he or she choose this method?

There is also some useful stuff on POV: examining the way different characters talk and using tone and sentence structure to highlight the difference between characters.

One of the things that came through clearly in this book is that no one ever writes a brilliant first draft. There is always going to be something that has to be layered in or re-worked later. It was a relief to me to really understand this. I mean, I have done it (completely reworked a plot or a scene after writing a first draft), but somehow, I forgot that during this process of planning out my historical mystery.

Ephron is very thorough and includes information on picking out agents, publishers, critique partners, and even book doctors. She even includes a checklist to see if a small press publisher is reputable, which is useful for the novice writer. Writers who have been around a while or who are active in writers groups may already know some of this information, but it's useful if you're new to writing or new to mystery writing.

There is also an example of a query letter and cover page and what formatting is required. This is a selling point in my opinion because when I first started writing, I found that many books gave you advice on how to write but not on proper submission formatting. Where should your contact information be on the title page? What font or spacing should you use? The only thing that would have made it better would have been an example of a synopsis.

This is an excellent book because it gives a lot of advice for 248 pages and if you only have money to buy one book on mystery writing, I think this is a great one to start with.

If you don't know how to write, this book won't teach you; however, it is an excellent review, a good pattern, a genre-description. If you're a writer and you're WONDERING if you can write mysteries, this would be a good book for you to read.

I am writing a romatic suspense novel, and I've found this book to be a fantastic resource for developing a deep understanding of my own characters. Now I feel like I know exactly how each of my point of view characters would act, feel, and speak in each situation I throw them in (or they throw themselves into as they've now taken on a life of their own!!). I've also really appreciated the exercises on structuring the plot to keep the readers guessing--how to structure suspect analysis (motive, lies, secrets, etc) and the supporting cast.

If you're serious about structuring a good mystery (even if it's a subplot like my own), this will be a great resource.

If you, reading this review, believe you have a mystery novel in you just waiting to be written but you're not quite sure how to start, go get this book. It will tell you what you need, how to start, how to get to the end, and how to finish. Then it will tell you what to do to revise your novel, who to get to read it before you market it, and how to start the process of getting an agent or an editor. If you believe you have a book in you, and you follow the directions, you WILL wind up with a finished product. The quality will reside in your skills as a writer, but the technical aspects will be taken care of.

WRITING AND SELLING not only tells you what to do, it tells you what NOT to do (which is probably just as important), and gives examples. Ephron has exercises in every chapter, specific suggestions for each phase of the writing process, and references for further research. She even gives technical advice on how to use tools already available to you, on your computer, in the revising and editing process.

WRITING AND SELLING is basically a workbook for a first-time writer. The tools and instructions would work, with minor modifications, for just about any genre fiction, and would probably do some good if used by some so-called "literary" authors.