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This lesson focused on elements unique to mysteries and essential to writing a good one: suspense, clues, red herrings, and the process whereby we make it possible, but difficult, for our readers to solve the mystery.
Having mastered the structural and design elements of mystery writing, you are now ready to begin practising revealing clues in suspenseful scene and sequel pairs. Combine enough of these pairs, and you’ll have your novel!
Most beginning authors fail because they don’t know where they’re going. Fifty pages into their long form, they realize they’re lost and give up. But this won’t happen to you! You’ve taken the time to create a detailed road map—one that plots your course from hook to ending. Now it will take concentrated effort to follow your plan and turn that outline into a first draft. But then you’ll find that it’s actually fun to polish your work into a second and perhaps third draft.
The best advice I can give you for successful authorship is to stay with it. Set aside a specific time every day for writing. Even if you feel uninspired, sit down and write. If you only come up with junk, you can throw it away. If you write something good, you’ll be glad you forced yourself to be productive. Writers write. That’s our job. Simply put in your time every day, and you’ll never have to worry about writer’s block.
You’ll need to be persistent after your story is finished, too. Most writers spend years trying to get into print before they succeed. You’re likely to see your share of rejections. But just keep writing to those agents and editors. The only way to win is to stay in the game.
Finally, consider self-publishing. We’re lucky to live in an era of on-demand printing. This makes it possible to economically get your work in front of the public on sites like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Whether your mystery is a million-seller or just appreciated by friends and family, there’s immeasurable satisfaction in having your work read. The biggest payoff of all is when a reader tells you, “I loved your book. It kept me guessing until the very end!”