Read Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Hallie Ephron Books
Read Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Hallie Ephron Books
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Solve the MYSTERY of how to write and sell a KILLER story!
With the help of interactive exercises, mystery author and crime fiction critic Hallie Ephron gives you the momentum you need to turn a kernel of an idea into an intriguing mystery novel. You'll learn to capitalize on your writing strengths and shore up your weaknesses.
This comprehensive guide covers every aspect of mystery writing, including
- planning, twisting the plot, and constructing a credible surprise ending
- creating a compelling sleuth and a worthy villain
- deceiving and revealing with red herrings and clues
- writing investigation, spine-tingling suspense, and dramatic action
- revising - from sharpening characters, to optimizing pace, to smithing words
- engaging the reader
By the time you finish reading part one of this book, you will have a blueprint for your entire story. Parts two and there take your blueprint from idea to well-polished novel. Part four is an insider's guide to getting it into an agent's or publisher's hands."
Read Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Hallie Ephron Books
"The book wasn't bad, but I can't say I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to anyone. The author has written another book on writing that I own called The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel; while I'm not sure which of the two came first, I could tell that after reading The Everything Guide and then Mystery Novel, there were chunks of the books that were identical to one another. I felt like I was reading a re-hashing of the same stuff from The Everything Guide, and that I wasn't getting a whole lot of new stuff out of Mystery Novel, which was a shame, since I have never written a mystery story before now. Most of the book focuses on stuff you would find in other books on writing, with a few things specifically on writing mystery here and there.
What I like, though, is that there are little work-sheet things in the book that you can do to plan out various aspects of you book, such as suspects, the crime scene, your hero and villain, setting, etc. It's helped me be a little more organized than I would have been otherwise in planning my book.
If you're like me and this is your first time writing a mystery, I'd say you should check out a different book before this one. It's not a bad book, but I just don't think it's enough for people who are new to the mystery genre. The charts for the planning process are what saved this book from my Goodwill box."
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Tags : Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel (0035313110047) Hallie Ephron Books,Hallie Ephron,Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel,Writer's Digest Books,1582973768,Writing Skills,Authorship - Marketing,Authorship;Marketing.,Detective and mystery stories - Authorship,Detective and mystery stories;Authorship.,AUTHORSHIP,CREATIVE WRITING,Composition Creative Writing - General,Detective and mystery stories,GENERAL,General Adult,How-to/Do-it-yourself,Language Arts Disciplines / Composition Creative Writing,Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy,Literary Linguistic Reference Works,Marketing,Non-Fiction,REFERENCE / Writing Skills,Reference,Techniques,United States
Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Hallie Ephron Books Reviews :
Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel Hallie Ephron Books Reviews
- The book wasn't bad, but I can't say I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to anyone. The author has written another book on writing that I own called The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel; while I'm not sure which of the two came first, I could tell that after reading The Everything Guide and then Mystery Novel, there were chunks of the books that were identical to one another. I felt like I was reading a re-hashing of the same stuff from The Everything Guide, and that I wasn't getting a whole lot of new stuff out of Mystery Novel, which was a shame, since I have never written a mystery story before now. Most of the book focuses on stuff you would find in other books on writing, with a few things specifically on writing mystery here and there.
What I like, though, is that there are little work-sheet things in the book that you can do to plan out various aspects of you book, such as suspects, the crime scene, your hero and villain, setting, etc. It's helped me be a little more organized than I would have been otherwise in planning my book.
If you're like me and this is your first time writing a mystery, I'd say you should check out a different book before this one. It's not a bad book, but I just don't think it's enough for people who are new to the mystery genre. The charts for the planning process are what saved this book from my Goodwill box. - I was pleasantly surprised by "Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel." Many how-to books try to cover too much information in one book. I feared this one would have the same problem. My fears were soon allayed.
As the founder of Agile Writers (a writers group that helps the first time novelist create their first draft in 6 months) Part One was a great overview of Planning your novel.
Part Two on Writing covered important writing topics such as point of view and dialog.
I was pleasantly surprised by the advice given in Part Three on revising.
I consider Part Four on getting published and self-publishing a welcome bonus. As I am a new independent press (Agile Writer Press) I found this advice very welcome indeed.
I gave the book four stars because I got more from it than I had expected. However, to garner 5 stars it should have been 2 books One on the writing of a mystery with more detail for Parts One and Two, and another with more detail on finding publisher and selling the book.
Still, if you're going to write a mystery novel, you cannot go wrong with "Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel." It is filled with examples from popular mystery authors and novels. I felt very instructed and ready to put pen to paper to craft my first mystery. Many thanks to Hallie Ephron and her co-authors. - This book offers a method for getting your plot outlined, characters solidified and scope of a mystery novel planned out by organizing all the elements through worksheets before beginning the first draft. Additionally, there is sound advice about submitting manuscripts to literary agents and small publishers. A lot of it is elementary, but for a young writer it should be very helpful in terms of getting organized to write a well balanced mystery.
- I undertook this book among with a few other "craft" books after completing the second draft of a mystery novel, to help clear my head and clarify what I would need to accomplish in the third draft. I found it among the most useful craft books I've ever encountered. Clear, concise, clever, and accurate. Ephron writes from experience and respects writers willing to give novel-writing a go; she does not talk down to her readers or fill her pages with useless advice such as "don't forget to do XYZ, but don't do it too much." The exercises and instructions she includes will not write a book for you, but they will help you understand what you will need to successfully accomplish to write a book of your own. I find most craft books barely more useful than doorstops - thinly veiled memoirs, for the most part - but this is a true gem among the huge number of "how to write a mystery" books you could choose from.
- I started this book thinking I might pick up a few things like I have in most other writing books I've bought. However this book is different, at least for me. I forced myself to do every exercise in the book using the story I had loosely created in my mind and a few days later I had pages of character details, victim secrets - the book basically walked me through a deep dive of my stories details, which helped me get the writing process going. True I am a beginner, those more experienced may not need something like this but if you are learning the craft this book could definitely help.
- 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.
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