Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 40

The Pleasures of Dialogue

Q: Share your tips for writing believable dialogue. What separates good dialogue from poor, and how do you strike a balance between too much and too little in a scene/book?

 

-from Susan

 

I love to hear my characters talking. In a way, I’m eavesdropping on them because I don’t always know exactly what they’re going to say when they (I, I guess) open their mouths! Good dialogue has to sound real even though it isn’t. Why not? Because we salt our conversations with words and phrases that give us a co...

Creating mood through setting and ecology in 1920s Bangalore - Harini Nagendra

This week's topic is a fascinating one. 

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

My books - The Bangalore Detectives Club series, set in 1920s Bangalore - are all about the setting. For me, the place and setting - 1920s Bangalore in the times of the British Raj - in a princely state, at a time when women were begin...

Opening Salvos from James W. Ziskin

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series has some of the most compelling openings I’ve ever read. They’re visual, gritty, and poetic. The writing is beautiful, and I confess to being envious. I love all seven of the Sean Duffy books, set in 1980s Belfast and Carrickfergus in North...

Openings Salvos from James W. Ziskin

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series has some of the most compelling openings I’ve ever read. They’re visual, gritty, and poetic. The writing is beautiful, and I confess to being envious. I love all seven of the Sean Duffy books, set in 1980s Belfast and Carrickfergus in North...

In the Mood

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

by Dietrich

My idea is to set the mood for a scene with as powerful a description as I can come up with, using the fewest words possible, and always keeping in mind that the story needs to keep moving forward.

To my mind, the master of setting mood was Cormac McCarthy. A...

Setting Sets the Mood

 

Terry here, answering our question of the week: Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Give an example from a book that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it. 
 Setting is more than just place. It’s nice to know a few details about immediate surroundings. Is the action taking place inside or out. If it’s in a room someone is in—are they sitting on a chair or on the floor; is there fur...

Setting the Mood

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

Brenda starting off the week.

Using setting to set a mood is integral to crime fiction but it's also key to all good writing. When done well, the setting and mood seamlessly flow into the story, like a movie set.

I used to love Gothic romances set in sprawling, dark mansions w...

How to Write a Query, an Outline, or a Synopsis, by Josh Stallings & friends

Q: A query, an outline, and a synopsis walk into a bar, and a writer/bartender has a panic attack. Publishers and agents often want one or all of these thinga-ma-jobbies. Any advice for writers who are flummoxed by how to create them?

A: Truth time, I wrote this question hoping I wouldn’t have to answer it. I have skated by never having to learn how to write a good query, outline, or synopsis. The entire idea flummoxed me. A smart person is one who knows a lot of facts, a wise person is one who k...

Two out of three ain't bad, by Catriona

A query, an outline, and a synopsis walk into a bar, and a writer/bartender shoots themself. Publishers and agents often want one or all of these thinga-ma-jobbies*. Any advice for writers who are flummoxed by how to create them? 

*In Scotland,"jobbie" means turd. An extra layer of meaning to the question, I say.

And onto the question - which is three separate questions. Or rather, it's one question about writing and two questions about not-writing. 

The question about writing is "how to outline...

To sum up… by Eric Beetner

A query, an outline, and a synopsis walk into a bar, and a writer/bartender shoots themself. Publishers and agents often want one or all of these thinga-ma-jobbies. Any advice for writers who are flummoxed by how to create them? 
 So this is the post where I fear I make a lot of enemies. I don’t mind synopses. I outline all my books, and I’ve rarely had to query. Still with me? The synopsis can be a daunting task to many writers, but I feel like most people overthink it. It’s really just a boil...