Zara Altair's Blog, page 3

How to Show Your Mystery Character’s Emotions

In your mystery story, depict your character’s reactions to moments. It’s not enough to state what transpired; building a connection with the reader involves showcasing how your character reacts to the unfolding events.

Don’t assume that the audience automatically understands your character’s feelings. While it may seem like everyone would react in a way under circumstances, that’s not always the case. As a writer, part of your job is to introduce elements that challenge reader expectations. Even if most people would respond in one manner, your character might have a different perspective. Your task is to illustrate the journey.

Transitioning from screenwriting to narrative fiction presented me with hurdles. In scripts, writers outline. Leave the nuances for actors and directors to interpret. However, in narrative fiction, you play both roles. Writer and director.

It falls on you to convey how your character emotionally navigates through each scenario.

Get Acquainted with Your Character

To capture the emotions of your mystery character effectively, understand who they are beyond surface traits. Characters, in mystery tales, often confront situations where their emotional responses add depth to their persona, fostering reader empathy.

Here are some steps to better understand your character’s world;

1. Develop a Detailed Background

Each character has a past that shapes their view of the world and how they engage with it. Before delving into your character’s responses, know their backstory. What past experiences have influenced their fears, desires, and reactions? For instance, a character who has faced betrayal might exhibit wariness and caution in their interactions and emotions. By outlining your character’s history, you establish a framework for maintaining consistency in how they respond 

2. Psychological Complexity and Personality Traits

Digging into your character’s framework adds depth to their expressions. Are they naturally hopeful, finding linings in any situation or are they more pessimistic, always preparing for the worst? Personality assessments like the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or Enneagram can be tools for authors to define their character personality traits. These insights offer guidance on how your character might react when confronted with challenges in your narrative.

3. Impact of External Influences

Consider elements such as surroundings, relationships, and current living conditions, on your character’s emotional well-being.

Living in isolation influences how a person reacts emotionally to a break-in compared to someone surrounded by a community. These factors bring perspective. Consider too how your character processes and displays emotions.

Understand Emotional Triggers

Everyone has triggers. Events, words, or actions that elicit strong emotional reactions. Recognizing your character’s triggers adds authenticity to their responses. Perhaps a harmless remark throws off your detective, offering readers insight into traumas or vulnerabilities. Being mindful of these triggers enables you to craft charged scenes that unveil layers of your character’s persona.

Developing captivating storylines necessitates a strong groundwork. This foundation is laid by investing time in understanding your character’s background traits and the emotional triggers influencing their behaviors and responses. 

Your audience will become more engaged in the mystery as the characters unfold through their landscapes, within the narrative. This connection is what transforms readers into fans eagerly anticipating the chapter in your series.

The Range of Emotions

Creating characters involves going beyond simple happy, sad, or angry reactions.

The human emotional spectrum is intricate and rich, encompassing an array of feelings that enhance your storytelling. This spectrum enables you to craft characters who are multifaceted and captivating.

A. Explore the Entire Emotional Spectrum

Start, by broadening your lexicon. In addition to basic emotions there exist tertiary layers of emotions that furnish your characters with a deeper emotional landscape. A character may not simply be sad; they could be melancholic, despondent or wistful. Each of these nuances a hue of sadness tinged with undercurrents and implications. By choosing the nuance, you infuse depth and specificity into your character’s responses.

B. Steer Clear of Predictable Reactions

One of the hurdles in portraying emotion is avoiding cliché or expected reactions. Readers are accustomed to the fear responses in a mystery story or the typical displays of anger. 

To captivate and surprise your audience contemplate how your character might uniquely react to a situation based on their background, personality, and the circumstances surrounding the event. This could entail a detective responding with composed calmness, in a scenario where panic is anticipated unveiling layers of their character and past encounters.

Emotional Expression, with Subtlety

Not every response has to be loud or exaggerated. Sometimes subtlety speaks volumes hinting at conflicts or impending turmoil. A slight tensing of the jaw, a momentary pause before replying or avoiding eye contact can convey a character’s state without stating their feelings. This approach encourages readers to engage, deciphering underlying messages and fostering a stronger bond with the characters.

Use Secondary Emotions

Secondary emotions arise in reaction to emotions. They enrich your character’s emotional journey. For instance, guilt may follow anger expressed in a way that the character later regrets or loneliness may emerge after a display of independence and defiance. Delving into these emotions leads to an intricate narrative where characters confront the intricacies of their emotions, making them more relatable and their choices more impactful.

By grasping and using a range of emotions, your writing becomes emotionally immersive and captivating. Exploring territories empowers your characters with authenticity and depth that resonates deeply with your audience.

The deep emotions add to the sense of mystery in your story, making the journey more captivating.

Tips for Expressing Emotions

Effectively portraying the emotions of your character elevates a story into an unforgettable one. The following methods can assist you in explicitly stating the emotions guiding your characters.

A. Show or Tell

Body Language and Actions; How a character moves or behaves in a situation can reveal a lot about their inner feelings. For instance, a character might nervously play with an object, pace back and forth, or cross their arms defensively. These actions offer cues to the character’s emotions without needing explanation.

Interactions with the Environment; The way a character engages with their surroundings can also unveil their state. For example, slamming doors or gently touching a family photo could indicate anger or sadness 

B.. Inner Thoughts

Dialogues; What characters say and how they say it can be an indicator of their emotional condition. A conversation filled with responses might signal irritation or impatience. On the other hand, lengthy explanations or off-topic remarks could imply nervousness or avoidance.

When characters converse you can also bring out conflicting emotions between them, adding complexity to their interactions.

Thoughts; Allowing readers insight into a character’s musings gives a direct path to their emotional world. Inner dialogues can uncover uncertainties, worries, aspirations, and motivations behind behaviors providing a look into the character’s state.

C. Sensory Descriptions

Incorporating details triggers emotions in both characters and readers. Depicting the icy clammy feel of a character’s hands or the oppressive, dense atmosphere in a room during a moment amplifies the resonance. Engage the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. You’ll make your story more vivid and relatable.

D. Divergent Responses

Emphasize Progression or Conflict; Demonstrating how a character’s emotional responses evolve in situations over time underscores development or mounting conflict. A character who once confronted challenges with fear might gradually exhibit bravery as they mature. Conversely, escalating unease or irritation in scenarios could indicate increasing external pressures. 

Supporting Characters, as Emotional Reflectors or Contrasts; The reactions of the supporting characters either intensify or contrast the emotions experienced by the main character.

A companion’s bold approach can highlight the character’s unease while a partner”s composed demeanor can bring stability to a situation easing tension.

Use storytelling techniques to strike emotional chords. A subtle touch allows readers to engage deeply and bring their interpretations. Mastering these techniques helps in crafting mystery novels that connect with readers emotionally drawing them into the characters’ minds and the essence of the mystery.

Steer Clear of Common Mistakes

To ensure the success of your mystery narrative, incorporate depth while steering clear of pitfalls that compromise authenticity and impact. Understanding these errors ensures that your character’s emotions enhance rather than detract from the storyline.

Refrain from Excessive Adverbs and Adjectives

A misstep when depicting emotions is relying heavily on adverbs and adjectives. Sentences filled with words, like “angrily ” “sadly,” or “joyously” may come across as contrived and tell more than they show.

Focus on physical actions, dialogues and internal reflections that naturally convey the character’s feelings. For example than saying “She angrily slammed the door ” you could write, “The door slammed shut behind her its echo reverberating through the house.” The latter implies anger without stating it letting readers interpret it themselves.

Authentic and Cohesive Responses

Characters should react to events in ways that align with their established personalities. Inconsistencies in reactions can confuse readers and weaken the credibility of your characters. If a character usually deals with stress, an unexpected and unexplained outburst could feel out of place unless it’s clearly justified by the story. Regularly review your character’s emotional foundations to ensure their responses remain coherent or develop based on their experiences within the narrative.

Craft Depth

The ability to convey emotions effectively elevates storytelling, transforming it from a mere narrative into a reading journey that resonates deeply with the human experience.

Charged writing goes beyond narrating a story; it gives vitality to your characters making their challenges victories and mysteries profoundly felt by readers. As a writer, your task is to intertwine these elements allowing emotional journeys to complement narrative twists in a captivating manner.

Let the fears, desires, and inner struggles of characters reverberate throughout the narrative.

The goal is not to ensure that your audience is content with how the story unfolds, but to touch their hearts with the rollercoaster they experience throughout the narrative.

Challenge yourself to view expression as an ever-evolving component of your storytelling technique. Mastering the art of conveying emotions is a process that involves learning, experimenting, and growing continuously.

The ability to effectively depict emotions in writing breathes life into words on a page, creating moments for readers to immerse themselves. The ultimate objective is to craft narratives that captivate, surprise, resonate deeply ,and linger in the minds of readers long after they finish reading.

Join Zara Altair’s Write A Killer Mystery course. Tailored for mystery writers this program provides expert guidance, on infusing depth into your mystery plots. Learn how to enrich your character’s emotional arcs to heighten suspense and captivate your audience throughout the story.

Before You Write A Scene

Scene Preparation Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction. Before you write a scene
you need to know the basic structure of the type of scene that comes next in your mystery. 

After you’ve written your scene use checklists to make sure your scene meets story requirements.

​ Two Types of Scenes You’ll use two types of scenes—action and reaction—to build your mystery. Alternate between Proactive and Reactive to build your story in increments. 

First, your protagonist sleuth does something. That’s the action. Then your sleuth has to deal with the consequences of taking action. That’s the reaction.

Both types of scenes incorporate conflict. But, the conflict is different depending on the type of scene.  Let’s take a 
look at the difference.

​ The Proactive Scene ​ Challenge your protagonist. I call these trigger scenes. They move the story forward by involving your sleuth in a problem. 

He has a goalShe tries to achieve the goal but obstacles challenge her as the scene moves forward At the end of the scene, he has a setback 
By the end of the scene, the protagonist has not only failed to reach his goal but has a setback that leaves him worse off than at the beginning.

​ Checklist for the Proactive Scene ​ Who is the primary point of view character? Stay with her throughout the sceneWhat is her goal? Keep the goal simple for this one small part of the story Create the objective of the goal so the reader can visualize the success Make the goal worthwhile otherwise cut the scene Make the goal achievable in the protagonist’s view Make it difficult to achieve Create the conflict that keeps your hero from reaching the goal Even with obstacles, don’t let the protagonist give up Make the obstacle unexpected, but keep it logical within the story 
Put your hero or heroine in the worst possible situations as they seek what seems like an obtainable goal at the beginning of the scene. 

​ The Reactive Scene Now that your protagonist is thwarted, it’s time to give him some space. This scene is where your heroine makes a decision about what to do next. Begin with the protagonist’s reaction to what just happened Now, get your hero to figure out what his options are. If the setback was significant he may have no apparent options and he needs to look at his dilemma and choose an optionIn the final portion of the scene, the protagonist must make a decisionThat decision is the goal for the next scene ​ Checklist for the Reactive Scene These are the basic elements to include in the Reactive scene when your protagonist makes a decision:
.

Clarify the protagonist’s vision of the problem. She needs to know what the problem is before she can make a decision Keep the reader with the protagonist by visualizing what the character will do next The decision for the next action should be in line with your character’s personality and values Show how the protagonist sees success from his decision Make the decision
difficult enough that the reader has doubts about whether your character can do what she decides 
Reactive scenes provide a way for your character to make really bad decisions which will create even greater conflict later on. She may be blind to the motivations of another character. He may find that getting into the boardroom isn’t a slam dunk. Reactive scenes are your opportunity to build conflict and tension because the following action scene may be based on a very wrong decision that seemed right at the time for the character. 

​ Why This Scene Structure Helps ​ Alternating of scenes may seem forced. I know, I was a beginning writer and thought the same way. But my stories went nowhere and lacked tension. Readers want and expect your characters to have problems and overcome obstacles. Unless you are very compulsive, you don’t need to write these lists down. Just know which type of scene you are writing, create the obstacles either to action or decision making, and write the scene. 

Conflict physical, psychological, or mental in each scene will keep readers engaged and move your story.

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Keep Your Mystery Reader Guessing

The Puzzle Creation Challenge Mystery readers have an expectation to be challenged. Unlike most reading most novels where readers follow along with the story, mystery readers like the challenge of trying to guess who the villain is.

Along with regular story construction in order for a mystery to satisfy a reader, they want a story where they keep trying to guess the killer until the final reveal. Planning helps you keep the suspension until the end.

​ Steps to Keep the Puzzle Puzzling A bit of work before writing, will help you plan and sustain the puzzle as you write. Three main planning areas will help you keep the puzzle going.

Characters
As you develop your characters, give each suspect reasons to hide secrets from your sleuth. The secret may have nothing to do with the murder, but the suspect has a personal reason to keep information from your sleuth.

Your sleuth must untangle the misrepresentations and lies of all the suspects including the villain. Give your sleuth and your reader opportunities to overlook details or focus on misleading statements. 

Use suspect replies to provide a variety of details. Your sleuth and your reader must sort through all the information. Make your sleuth sort through the details and evaluate the reliability of each suspect. Create questions in your sleuth’s mind. These create questions for your reader to consider.

Twists
Plot twists in mysteries help keep your reader guessing. Just when a suspect seems the most likely, create a minor reveal that demonstrates that one character could not be the villain. Or, make that suspect the next victim.

Relationships between and among various suspects create opportunities for reversals. One character may reveal the least likely suspect to have powerful motivation. 

Use setting to thwart your sleuth. Simple setting details create obstacles that prevent your sleuth from getting to the right place at the right time. Missed opportunities keep your reader in suspense.

Clues
Use evidence, clues, and red herrings to create questions around the murder and the suspects. While evidence is factual, not all evidence points to the killer. Clues can be physical items, statements from suspects, and even a change in the weather.  

Scatter clues throughout the story. Hide them among other details. 

Your aim is to provide information for your sleuth and the reader and yet keep them guessing as to the importance of any one detail. 

Keep Your Reader in Mind As you work on your story keep your reader in mind. While building character background consider what points you will keep from your reader and which points can be red herrings. In the same way, plan twists to surprise your reader to send them in a new direction of thinking. As you plan your clues, consider where you will place them in the story to intrigue readers.

If you plan and write with the reader in mind, your mystery will keep them guessing until the end. 


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Do You Know Your Mystery Victim?

The Victim is The Center of Your Mystery The victim in your mystery is more than just a dead body. The victim is the fulcrum for your entire mystery.

Without your victim, your sleuth has no mystery to solve, no clues, no suspects to interview, and no killer. Everything in your novel pivots around the victim. 

When you create your Character Bible add the victim to your characters. If your story evolves to more than one victim, make sure the other victims are in your character list. 

​ What to Know About Your Victim Like any other character, you want to know both basic details and background information. 

Context in the story. Much of the context besides the death is the victim’s relationships with suspects
Physical details. Details that attracted and/or repelled other characters
Emotional makeup. Likewise, what attracted or repelled other characters
Specifics of how the victim impacted the killer 

The victim’s social and emotional ties impact all your suspects.

​ How to Use Victim Details In a traditional mystery, the puzzle pieces the sleuth uncovers are based on the relationship between the victim and the villain. As you construct your story, you reveal the layers of the victim’s life as your sleuth learns more and more about the victim’s world. 

The first time your sleuth and your reader encounter the victim is often at the crime scene. The sleuth notices not just the physical details, but the place and anything around the victim. Basic details like clothing, height, weight, sex, and even hair color are details that bring the victim into the reader’s world for the first time. 

What the reader learns through the sleuth’s eyes is their introduction to the victim and the puzzle that must be solved. 

You need background to fill out each suspect’s impressions of the victim. As your sleuth interviews the suspects he tries to put each piece of information from the various suspects into place to form a picture of the victim. How they related to other people on and off the job, how they occupied their time, usual hang out places set against a one-time visit. All of this information is ample background to filling in a picture of the victim through other people’s eyes.

Sometimes a suspect’s description corroborates what others say, and sometimes a variance in description—a quirk, an angry outburst and the reason, a specific time. Somewhere in all of these pieces of information clues point toward the villain.

The villain, as one of the suspects, presents their own set of information. The more you know about the victim, the easier it is to wrap lies with truth as the villain tries to hide guilt.

Knowing your victim’s background enables you to write about the victim’s world, especially if it is a world unfamiliar to the sleuth. It doesn’t matter what the world is—bicycle racing, military boot camp, seedy underworld. In every case, what you know about how the victim lived in that world supplies you with clues and the secrets and lies suspects use
to defend their personal life.

 Aim for Rich Victim Background The character background work you do on the victim will help you flesh out your novel as you move through the scenes. Suspect alliances will feel realistic. Clues relating to the victim and the villain will be hidden
among details. You’ll end up with deep relationships that ultimately point to the villain.

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Location Scout for Your Story

Set the Stage with Setting Setting is a novel element that grounds your reader. Without it, your characters are floating in space. It acts like another character in your mystery, providing physical clues. But it also creates atmosphere, reveals character personal traits, and gives your reader a sense of place.

Filmmakers know how important setting is. They scout for the right location for each scene in the film. You can do the same thing for your story.

Every scene in your story takes place somewhere—a busy street in the afternoon, a dark and empty street at night, the protagonist’s kitchen, a suspect’s office. 

When you plan out the action of a scene, don’t forget to plan the location. 

Author P.D. James believed setting was the spark for a novel. ​

Something always sparks off a novel, of course. With me, it’s always the setting. I think I have a strong response to what I think of as the ‘spirit of a place.’

You may not start with setting, but you need it every scene. How to Scout Your Locations Filmmakers hire people to find the perfect location for story scenes. You can do your own footwork. 

Footwork

If your setting is local, get out with your camera and start collecting images for settings in your story. If friends have the perfect bedroom or kitchen for a scene, be brave with your writing life, ask if you can take photos. 

Ask friends, both in real life and online like social media, for location ideas. Independent filmmakers do this with regularity. It works for authors, too.

Online

You may not have physical access to a location, but you can search online for images. 

Google Earth can take you just about anywhere for outdoor settings
Google Images is a resource for ideas and specific images for both indoor and outdoor settings
Scour real Estate sites like Redfin can supply both indoor and outdoor images for a character’s home
Hotel websites have images of rooms as well as
lounges, restaurants, bars, etc. along with details about amenities
Local maps
The Story and the Scenes Once you have a good idea of the overall setting for your story and know the location of each scene, use details to make your settings part of the story.

Rather than long descriptive passages focus on details. Your protagonist notices two or three items as he enters a room. Characters react physically to the setting. Let them feel the oppressive heat, or shiver uncontrollably on the icy street.Use setting details to trigger emotional reactions.Plant physical clues among the details.Use setting details to create obstacles for your protagonist sleuth.
Details bring the scene alive for your readers. They will empathize with the physical and emotional responses your characters experience. Your focus on the details enriches your reader’s sense of place. The details bring them into the story.

Long descriptive passages take readers out of the story. Practice breaking up a long paragraph and, instead, scatter those details throughout the scene. Your reader has a sense of being there, in the scene. Your setting will have a stronger impact than a long description.

Setting Research Pays Off In Your Story The research you do for settings adds verisimilitude to your story. The details emphasize the unique place—not just any kitchen, but this character’s kitchen. 

Setting pulls your reader into the story. The details make each scene come alive. Take the time to locate your settings and add specific details. Your readers will appreciate your work
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Control Your Characters

When Characters Try to Take Over The Story Every writer has the experience of characters acting and speaking in unexpected ways. With the most detailed story outline, once you begin writing a scene, characters do something that you hadn’t planned in your outline.

When the protagonist or the antagonist speaks pithy words or acts in a surprising way, you are on the way to enriching your story and deepening your character. But sometimes a supporting character will grab the baton and try to run with the story.

Like a stage actor stepping in front of the lead to gain the upstage position, while you are writing, a character takes the center stage away from your sleuth. 

Then your story gets derailed. 

​ How to Put A Character Back on Track You question your story, your character choice, and wonder how to get control of your character. 

You don’t have to go back and rewrite the first part of your novel.

You don’t need to switch character roles to give the character a more prominent place.

You do need to notice the character’s scene grab and consider your next action.


Examine the scene and its place in your story. The beginning, middle, and end of the scene need to move the current story forward. Does the character’s unexpected action fulfil the scene requirements?Double-check the character’s context in relation to the story—a suspect, a sidekick, a love interest. Does the action or dialogue fit their story role? Is there another place in the story where the unexpected character action would be a better fit? Can you break up the action into smaller bits, keeping the most important and tossing the others?Is the character telling you an important part of the story, you had not considered? Will the character’s action change what follows? Will you need to change villains, making a suspect the killer, and retiring your previous choice of a villain?Do you love the character, but the action doesn’t fit the story? Take a deep breath. William Faulkner said, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” Cut the action. If you like the character, save them for a bigger role in another story. Balance Intuition and Rationale Take action before you write more. Your intuition created your character’s action. If what the character does overpowers the scene, trim the action to keep balance in your scene. Add another action for your main character to give your protagonist the main thrust in the scene. Then continue on with your story.

Your story is the guideline to making every scene work. And it is the reason all your characters are there. They are the agents that move your story. Let them do and say what comes into your head as you write. Just make sure they are acting within the story construct. 

Whether you are a pantser or make detailed outlines, expect your characters to do the unexpected. Then fashion those actions to fit within your story.

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Want to Write a Mystery? You Can!

Join The 3% That Finish Their Mystery It’s a long journey from a story idea to writing The End of a novel. One story idea needs to grow with setting, characters, and plot to reach a satisfactory conclusion. 
Because a mystery novel is a large writing process, most writers who start a novel in any genre do not finish. Just three per cent
of writers finish the novel they thought started with a great story idea. 

A mystery needs certain components to satisfy mystery reader expectations.

Mystery ComponentsA baffling crime, usually a murder.An investigator committed to solving the crime.A concealed killer.The killer’s cover-up.Discovery process and elimination of suspects.Evaluation of clues, sorting the true from the false.Identification and apprehension of the killer, the reveal. 
A sound process will help you turn your story idea into a full-fledged novel. Let’s look at how the process works.

​ Story Idea A naked dead body in an Amsterdam hotel. A quirky creator of handmade soap. A newly promoted police detective on her first case. You could start with a name, a place, or a situation but then you need to create a story that intrigues readers.

You’ll need to build on that idea to create a basic story situation which you can write in one sentence.

This story sentence has three parts:The protagonist’s roleThe protagonist’s situation The opposition that keeps the protagonist from his goal
This is the acorn from which you build the great oak of your story. All the conflicts, characters, and scenes you create relate to this story core.

​ Populate Your Mystery Characters create the interaction, tension, and puzzle in your mystery. Your story needs characters to tell the story through action and dialogue.

Create a background for each character. The sleuth, the victim. the villain, suspects. And you may have subplots that require a sidekick, a mentor, a love interest. The more you know about your major characters, the better you can create realistic scenes.

​ The Setting Your mystery happens in a place and time. The setting is like another character in your mystery that adds both realism and drama to your story. Use setting to ground your reader and create conflict in your story. From a wiped brow on a hot day to a cliff for the final confrontation, you’ll need to use setting details in your mystery to create realism.

​ ​The Story Structure
A structure builds your story scene-by-scene. Basic structure keeps your story from wandering and builds tension to a climax when your sleuth reveals the killer. Along the way, your sleuth becomes committed to solving the murder, discovers clues, interviews suspects, and finally pierces through the killer’s screen to reveal their misdeed. 

Structure helps you write 60, 80 or even 100 thousand words or more to create a complete mystery novel.

​ Writing Your Mystery Once you know your story, populate it with characters, base it in a specific setting, and have a basic idea of the structure, you’ll spend hours writing your story one scene at a time. 

The story doesn’t write itself, you need dedication and discipline to create the flow that sends you through writing scene after scene.

​ The Big Mystery Picture A mystery is a puzzle that your sleuth solves. Your readers follow along with the sleuth checking evidence, questioning suspects, to organize the puzzle pieces into a complete picture. You want to keep the puzzle challenging for your readers so they don’t guess before your sleuth. 

First-time writers can struggle with all the pieces that compose writing a mystery. Now you have a solution. Write A Killer Mystery is a course designed to walk you through the steps.  to lead you from your story idea to writing The End and beyond. 

I based the course on years of helping writers struggle with completing a story and fixing stuck places. If you are ready to write your first mystery or have one that got stalled, This course will help you get to The End.

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​

How to Work Backstory into Your Mystery

What Came Before Every character arrives in your story with backstory. Backstory is what came before in their lives before the story begins. Long ago or maybe just last week, something happened that impacted your character.

In a mystery, you need to know the backstory of your sleuth and each of the suspects, including the perpetrator. If you have additional characters like a sidekick, a mentor, or a love interest, you’ll want backstory for them, too.

All of that backstory goes in your character bible. Most of it stays there. 

Backstory helps you, the author, understand your character’s fears and motivations, but you don’t need to tell your reader most of the backstory information. In the same way that only 20 per cent of your research ends up in your story, only a small percentage of backstory shows up in your mystery. 

​ Why You Want Backstory for Your Mystery A mystery is a puzzle. Your readers are there to try to guess whodunit before your sleuth. You need backstory to create the puzzle. You need to know each of your suspects and what their relationship to the victim was.  

Giving your sleuth a backstory deepens the relationship with the reader. Old wounds affect how your sleuth responds to present events in your mystery. Events in the sleuth’s backstory can color his responses to information, causing him to overlook important clues. 

The backstories of the suspects (and the villain) are the layers that your sleuth peels back as she ventures into the victim’s world and encounters each of the suspects. Suspects have relationships with each other as well as their individual backstory that can hide or reveal.  

Backstory is the foundation of the secrets suspects want to hide and the lies they tell to keep those secrets hidden. Backstory for suspects makes an intriguing mystery as the layers are revealed.

​ Why You Need to Leave Backstory Out of Your Mystery ​ Backstory slows down the story. But, backstory colors your character actions. You keep your readers engaged by moving the story forward.

So, how do you get backstory into your mystery?

You may have a suspect who is shy and reticent because her father and all her subsequent boyfriends used emotional bullying. When your sleuth attempts to question her, you describe her actions and her hesitant dialogue. You don’t need to go into a long explanation about her childhood wound. However, if that suspect is the killer because she couldn’t take any more abuse, then you can hint at the backstory as the sleuth gets close to the revelation.

Your main characters—sleuth, sidekick, mentor—bing everything that happened before with them, but you only need to share pertinent backstory as it impacts the story. A good rule of thumb is to wait with backstory until you are about 25 percent into the story. 

Even then, backstory comes out the way it does in real life—in bits and pieces. Refrain for dumping long paragraphs of explanation. A sidekick or mentor may mention a point from backstory as it relates to a moment in the story. Or your sleuth may briefly mention a backstory event to build rapport with another character, like a suspect. 

​ You Need Backstory More Than Your Mystery Does Backstory helps you understand your characters better. What you know adds dimension to the actions and dialogue of your characters. Your main job is to move the story forward. Backstory holds back your story. 

When in doubt, leave out backstory.

​This will keep your story focused on solving the mystery.

​

Get Ready to Be a Mystery Author: Part 3 Social Media

Reach out to ReadersAs a new author, you can take advantage of social media to get your writing out in the world and find new fans. 

Social media are websites and applications where users create and share content and participate
in social networking. These platforms are a great place for readers to discover you. You can share your author life, your progress on your book, and other “authorly” tidbits about writing and the challenges you face.

You are probably on one or more social networks now as an individual. As an author or soon to be author, your focus is business. Your author shares on social media are about writing and you as an author. Your best strategy is to have separate accounts for your writing life. That way you can continue your personal shares but focus your professional shares on your writing.

​Social Media PlatformsEach social media platform has a unique audience and a different way of sharing. You’ll need to experiment to find which platform gives you the most traction. 

​FacebookAn author page is the place to focus on your works and anything about your genre. This is a Facebook business page and tends to be the choice for most writers. 

Later on, when your book is published, your author page gives you control over marketing and using Facebook to promote your email newsletter list and your book through advertising. 

In addition, your page allows you to create a group for your fans where they can meet and chat with you and other fans.

​TwitterThe twitter feed moves fast. Tweets are short. Use hashtags to target readers interested in your genre. Twitter posts do best with an image, so stock up on your images. 

Twitter is also a great place to meet other authors and editors. 

​[object Object]Instagram is imaged based. And, you can use multiple hashtags to garner new followers. 

If you have a Facebook author page, you can connect your Instagram account and your page. You’ll give both an added boost.

Instagram attracts young people. If your book is targeted
toward younger readers, it’s a great social platform.

Instagram is a mobile app, you’ll be posting and responding on a mobile device like your phone or tablet. 

​YouTubeYes, YouTube is a social platform. If you like making videos or going live to chat with your readers, YouTube is the second largest search engine. You can connect with readers with tags for every video and share information in the video description. 

These four social media platforms are the most productive for authors. Other choices include Goodreads as an author and Pinterest. 

​How to Choose A Social Media PlatformIf you are already on one or more social platforms, you have an idea of how comfortable you are working with posting and responding on those platforms. You also know that social media can be a time suck. You could spend all day on any one social media platform. 

Starting your author social media life can feel overwhelming if you spread yourself over several social media platforms. The best way to begin is to choose one and focus your writer promotion there. Remember that you are promoting your business. Have fun, but keep the focus professional. 

Consider how you are most comfortable. If you like
sharing text Facebook is your best social medium. If you love sharing images, you may want to focus on Instagram or Pinterest. If you love video and connecting with viewers, YouTube or going live on your Facebook page may be your preference. 

As a writer, you want to spend your time writing. Social media takes time. Use discernment and discretion to steward your time. Yes, marketing is part of being an author, but don’t get caught in a social media
time suck.

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

Get Ready to Be a Mystery Author: Part 2 Email

Connect with Your Readers While you are writing your mystery novel, your work on your author platform improves the success of your book launch once the story is finished. Your website gives readers a place to discover you and your work. An email list gives you a way to communicate with these readers and build enthusiasm.

When you send an email to a reader, it’s a personal note from you to that particular reader. You want to bring them in on the story of your book success. 

There are quite a few steps to setting up a successful email connection with your readers. Take them step-by-step. You don’t have to do them all in one day. 

​ Create A Giveaway Create a giveaway for readers who join your email list. This is your gift to them for connecting with you. You give the reader a free gift for signing up for your email newsletter. You want to make it something related to your mystery. You will build interest in your story, before it is completed. 

Make your giveaway as a first-time author simple.  The main objective is to build a stronger connection with you and your story. 

A preview chapter from your book.A character background of your detective. Use the information you create in your character bible to fill out a 1-5 page background. Add a graphic or two. A gun, a crime scene tape, the location of your story. Graphics make it easy for readers to remember your giveaway.A character interview with your sleuth. Answer questions readers may have about your character. Use a graphic.A short novella with your sleuth as the main character.If your setting is exotic or historical, create a brief about the setting. Tell readers how the setting influences the story. 
Format your giveaway to make it easy to send as an email attachment.  For short pieces use a PDF. If you wrote a novella, use BookFunnel to distribute the story in the reader’s preferred format. BookFunnel distributes your book in .mobi, .epub and PDF files according to the reader’s choice.

​ Set Up Your Email Provider An email provider does the heavy lifting of sending emails to subscribers. Using an autoresponder, the email provider automatically sends a sequence of emails and delivers your giveaway. This saves you the time of responding to each reader individually. 

When you start out there are email providers that are 
free for small lists. Many authors use MailerLite which is free for up to 1000 subscribers. 

Set up your email list. Add yourself to the list to check that all your emails go out. Write a sequence of welcoming emails for your autoresponder. 

Create your invitation to join the list (landing page). Most email service providers also offer a landing page. Entice people to join with your free giveaway. Send people to your landing page from your website and social media. 

Create a sequence of emails to go to people who join your list. Write a sequence of welcoming emails for your autoresponder (MailerLite, MailChimp, Aweber, etc.). Here are prompts for creating your sequence and the timing to send out. 

Thank. Introduce yourself and your books. Link to the free giveaway. 1st day.  Did you miss the download? Short and sweet. My quote. History is different people are the same. 3 days after 1st.  3 days after previous. A bit more about how you started writing the book. Social media connection links (Part 3) as well as Amazon Author page and your website. Later, after you publish, you can add your Amazon Author page.  1 week after previous. Personal what I do. Pets. Activities, Photos of life. Later, an invitation to read one of your books with link to the book.  1 week after that.  Invitation for free books forever by joining the beta readers group. (You’ll set up another list, usually with tags from your email provider for this special group of advance readers.) Write to One Person Always compose your email message as if the reader is the only person receiving the message. The more personal you are, the better your email reader feels about your message. You care about your readers. Let your email messages show you care about the person who is reading the message. 

​ Decide on a Communication Schedule Once you have created your autoresponder introductory messages, you want to keep in touch with your subscribers on a regular basis. Consistency is critical. It’s better to write one message per month every month than promise weekly updates and skip a couple of weeks. 

Timing is up to your personal choice. Every day is too often. Readers will feel overwhelmed and unsubscribe to stop receiving your messages. Consider all the time you have and make a commitment to including your regular messages. 

​ What To Include in Your Email Newsletter Keep your regular newsletter friendly and informative. Share your something of yourself as a person as well as writing progress. 

Talk about your progress on your mystery.
Share a short excerpt.
Tell a story about your personal life as an author. Share things like your children, pets, cooking life, vacation adventures.
Ask for feedback on a character idea.
Give a taste of current books you are reading. 

Your message doesn’t need to be long. Readers are busy. Always ask a question at the end, like what books are you reading? Or who is your favorite detective? Encourage engagement and communication with you.

Most authors agree that getting responses from readers is exciting. Reply to each communication you receive. Build rapport and trust with just a simple reply.

​ Your Treasure Trove of Readers People who subscribe to your email list, want to hear from you. They care about your writing journey. 

Your email list belongs to you. Email is the best way to stay in touch with readers and build your fan base. 

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash


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