Click Here To Purchase Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A

Author: Chris Roerden

ISBN: 1-933523131

In the opening pages of Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A. Chris Roerden makes it crystal clear that she doesn’t consider herself a book doctor. Roerden states that the term book doctor would imply that the writer’s work is sick.

Roerden further specifies that she doesn’t use words like good and bad or right and wrong, as these would imply the existence of rules.

Her approach, which makes for interesting reading, stresses effectiveness rather than rules. As mentioned in the introduction, her goals in the book are to help writers of fiction: “find and fix the clues to those deadly techniques, and survive the first cut of the submission process so plot and characters get a fair reading.” And as she succinctly asserts: why send your manuscript of to commit suicide or dead on arrival?

Don’t Murder Your Mystery is an ambitious technical book complete with considerable detail that includes passages from one hundred and forty published authors who know exactly how to employ the most effective writing techniques. Divided into ten sections, the book begins with the qualifying trials of appearance and category where readers are strongly advised that without having a professional appearance, their manuscript submission is doomed and will be shoved back in the envelope you sent it in. You can expect the same retort if it is the wrong category or genre. In other words, don’t send a mystery to a science fiction publishing house. From here readers are given a brief summary of the various terms employed throughout the book.

Roerden then proceeds to scrutinize diverse elements of the novel as character, scene, setting, action, image, description, detail and dialogue and how to make them more effective. Entire chapters are dedicated to dissecting twenty-four fiction writing skills such as hobbled hooks, perilous prologues, fatal flashbacks, bloody back-story, toxic transcripts, deceptive dreams, time elements, dastardly description, poisonous predictability, disappearing bodies, changing of venue, the usual suspects, rogues gallery, and loose ends. As an example of the tips Roerden hands out, let us look at “crazy time,” where writers are advised to go beyond an initial scene-setting or weather report but to suggest time’s passage throughout the story. Sensory details should be used to lend authenticity and depth to the story and accurately reflect its time span.  Practical advice, such as entering every event in your story on an actual calendar, together with the whereabouts of each character, are likewise proffered that help writers organize their writing to achieve maximum effectiveness.  

At the end of each chapter there are find and fix clues that point out what writers must watch for and correct in order to avoid rejection of their manuscripts. The concluding chapter contains information pertaining to a standard manuscript format as well as a comprehensive bibliography and suggested readings.

For a book rooted in the minutiae of effective writing, this book is surprisingly readable and well laid out. Roerden has over forty years experience as an editor, writer and teacher and Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A. was the recipient of the Agatha Award as the best non-fiction book in 2006.

The above review was contributed by: Norm Goldman, B.A. LL.L, Retired Title Attorney and Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com. Norm is also a travel writer and together with his artist wife, Lily, the couple meld Norm's words with Lily's art. To check out their travel site click on Sketchandtravel.com   Click here to view Norm’s Reviews & Interviews.

Click Here To Purchase Don’t Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A