The Weekend Novelist Writes A Mystery

This seems to be a very well conceived and helpful book. It has a detailed plan for taking one from a blank page to a finished novel in a year's time. I haven't read through the whole book yet. NOR have I worked through many exercises yet, but found the first several exercises very helpful. Already my characters are coming to life. I expect great things in the weeks ahead.

This book got me going, but that's where it ended. It's good for someone who needs lots of structure throughout the process. I found it too confining,but that's just my taste. If you need a step-by-step, here it is.

Writing fiction is like painting a landscape. A lot of artists can do it, and each one has an individual way they do it. It is the same with writing. Many people have written good novels; each one approaches it differently. So when someone like Ray Robert tells you how it's done, don't believe him. I'm not saying that his method doesn't work for him. What I am saying is it probably won't work for you. (It didn't work for me.) You have to figure out what works for you. Check out Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver. You won't regret it.

This was the single most helpful book I found to help complete the process of writing an entire mystery. Its most valuable section is on plotting, devoting the appropriate amount of time and space to each of the critical parts of a novel. Much of the advice here is to be found else where--the back story, the characters, the scene writing--but is better organized and more comprehensible in this volume. So, if you plan to only buy or use one book on writing, this is the one I believe would be the best place to concentrate your time and money.

I bought this book to learn more about creating a suspenseful story (not necessarily a traditional mystery novel). It was successful in that respect, but the biggest benefit I reaped was all the help in plotting (a weakness of mine). High recommended.