Outlined the next several chapters of the WIP this morning. Went into great detail about Chapter 4 and then just roughed in up to Chapter 10, which is the first turning point. Realized something as I was doing this. My novel has a mystery at the center of it.
That wasn’t the case with Gypsy. The players knew who their enemy was, they just had to find the evidence to put him away. This time, I’m keeping that information from the reader. Which takes a certain kind of skill. One I’m not super confident around. So naturally, I went to find my copy of Elizabeth George’s Write Away. And it’s nowhere. I found every other writing book I’ve ever bought but not that one.
I clean out my bookshelves all the time, culling books I may have enjoyed but just don’t have room for anymore. I bet George went thataway. Because I remember reading about her way of writing. How she takes her time pre-writing. How she uses character analysis to come up with plot. How she makes detailed outlines. How she made the mystery mysterious. How she inserted suspense. It was interesting reading, and I learned a lot, but at the time I thought “I’ll never write another mystery.”
Never say never.
Of course, I could just wing it. I already wrote one mystery (a practice novella called Murder in the Key of C) while I was a secretary single mom. I wrote it while my boys were with their dad and during slow times at work. Also, I read a zillion cozy mysteries for RT. I’m still addicted to Stephanie Plum and Kinsey Millhone.
So I should be able to pull this off. But I’ll probably go buy another copy of Write Away right away.
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