Mystery novels are a great way to get into the minds of your readers. However, writing a mystery novel requires dedication and creativity. You need to be thorough and creative, and you need to know how to keep readers engaged over the course of a whole book.
Writing a mystery is challenging because you want to make sure the reader stays interested throughout the whole story. The complex characters, the twists, and turns in the plot, the way a single sentence can make you think again—all of this makes a great mystery novel. But how do you go about getting there?
Whether you’re writing your first mystery novel or you’ve been writing murder books for years, there are some fundamental aspects of mystery writing that you should consider when creating your story.
In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know in order to write great mysteries that readers will love!
What Is the Mystery Genre?
The mystery genre is often referred to as crime fiction or police procedural fiction. It’s a broad category that can include any story with an element of mystery—whether it’s about a detective working on an unsolved case.
However, these books are not always set in a police station or detective agency. They could instead take place at an embassy where spies (or secret agents) are trying to keep their identities hidden from other countries while carrying out missions around the world without getting caught!
The Keys to Writing a Successful Mystery Novel
Here are some tips on how to write mystery novels that keep your readers entertained. Keep these tips in mind when you’re writing your next mystery! They can help you create a better story and make your readers feel involved from beginning to end!
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Introduce Your Protagonist.
You’ve got to start somewhere. The first chapter of your book should introduce your protagonist and the setting in which they live. It should also give readers a reason to care about this character. So that when you reveal their dark secret, it’s not just another boring crime story about some other detective on assignment (or vice versa).
If you want to write a mystery novel with a strong opening, here are three things that will help:
- Give readers enough information about who your protagonist is so they can empathize with them immediately when they meet them.
- Don’t make him/her perfect; he/she might have flaws too!
- Show how unusual or different your main character is from everyone else around him/her.
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Introduce The Crime As Early As Possible.
The first thing that you need to do is introduce the crime as early as possible. This means that you should avoid keeping it secret and instead reveal it right away, or even before your main characters meet each other. This will make their reactions more realistic and keep them on edge in anticipation of when they’re going to learn about what happened.
You shouldn’t also start with a lot of backstories either. Instead, give us enough information so we can understand what’s happening without feeling bogged down by unnecessary details or explanations. Readers need to be invested in the story, so make sure they know why they should care about the events that take place.
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Create Suspense
One of the most essential elements of creating a great mystery novel is suspense. In order to keep readers guessing and interested, you must create tension and build up the suspense gradually. You need to create enough tension that the reader wants to know what happens next, but not so much tension that it makes them want to stop reading.
You can cliffhangers to keep your reader engaged. Cliffhangers are sections of a story where something happens that makes the reader want more—and that desire keeps them reading until they get it! To create a good cliffhanger, you have two options either take assistance from a ghost books drafter or try using one of these techniques:
- Have an unexpected character appear at the end of one chapter (like Sherlock Holmes’ Moriarty)
- Have a character reveal something important (like who killed the victim).
- End a chapter with a question that will make readers want to read on (like “Who was that?”).
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Use An Omniscient Narrator.
An omniscient narrator is a storyteller who knows everything. They can reveal the secrets of the characters, which helps you to develop them in your novel.
An omniscient narrator can be annoying if they’re just there and don’t do anything for your story. But if you’ve chosen an interesting character or event to include in your mystery novel, then using an omniscient narrator will help bring it all together. As well as giving readers insight into how things work behind the scenes.
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Incorporate Red Herrings, But Not Too Many Of Them.
Red herrings are false clues that are introduced to mislead the reader. They should be used sparingly, as they can confuse the readers and can ruin a mystery if overused.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to use red herrings when you introduce new suspects or motives for your villain’s actions; this helps keep them from being too predictable.
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Make It Believable
A lot of mystery novels rely too heavily on coincidence—they don’t seem like they are true stories because they’re so unbelievable. But this is not an ideal way of writing a great mystery novel.
It’s important to make your mystery plausible. The crime, the clues and everything else in your story should be believable. The protagonist needs to have a clear motive for wanting revenge. If they don’t have one, it will be hard for readers to connect with them as characters or sympathize with their plight.
The crime should also seem realistic—not just from an intellectual standpoint but also from an emotional one. If you can’t imagine committing such an act yourself (or if it seems too easy), then why would anyone else?
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Create A Few Suspects.
You need multiple suspects so that readers don’t get bored with just one person’s actions being investigated over and over again!
When writing mystery novels or murder books, create at least three suspects. Make sure they’re all different, plausible and interesting in their own way. You want your reader to want to figure out who did it.
The second thing you need is a detailed account of everything that happened leading up to the crime (the “precipitating event”). If this isn’t included in your narrative then it’s possible for readers to not understand what happened and also why it happened. As a result, they’ll have difficulty following along with the story because there won’t be enough information available for them to understand what’s going on!
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Conclude With An Unexpected Twist.
You’ve done your best to build up a solid case and ensure that your reader believes what they are reading. Now it’s time to end the book with an unexpected twist. It should be believable, but also surprising—not unbelievable in any way.
This is where the climax of your book comes in. It’s the most important part of your book, and you want to make sure that it’s memorable and believable. To make this happen, use suspenseful dialogue between characters throughout each chapter. So that readers want more information about what happened during those events till the end of your story.
The suspense builds up throughout each part of the novel until we reach our climax where everything comes together at once within one paragraph—and then BOOM! The reader gets an ending worth waiting for!
End Note
If you’ve read through all of these tips of book printing services, I’m sure you can tell that writing a mystery novel is a lot like solving one: you need to keep track of the evidence, follow leads and make sure your mystery is believable. We hope this post has given you some tips on how to write a great mystery novel. Remember that it’s all about the story, setting, and characters. So take your time and enjoy the process of creating your own version of a wonderful crime thriller!