ELEMENTS of WRITING MURDER, MYSTERY & SUSPENSE
Some Necessary Essentials for any Author
By Gene Grossman, author of the popular 15-book series of Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries
©MMX Gene Grossman
All rights reserved
Smashwords edition 1.0 – August, 2010
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DO YOUR HOMEWORK
I was too busy being a criminal trial lawyer for quite some time and didn’t have time to start writing fiction until after the AARP officially considered me a member – but even having a busy schedule practicing law never could stop me from spending a lot of my spare time reading every detective, crime, murder and mystery book I could get my hands on.
It even got to a point where I had to keep a log of every book I’d already bought, so when I browsed through the CRIME section of bookstores, I didn’t make the mistake of buying a copy of a book I’d already digested some time ago.
Here’s something I learned from all that reading: the mere fact that a book is on the shelf in a bookstore doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a ‘good’ book. Sure, publishers are pretty picky when it comes to spending money on an author’s royalty advance, printing costs, marketing expenses, etc., but every once in a while a well-known author will just ‘phone one in,’ to meet a contractual deadline; a book that just doesn’t meet with the high standard we’re used to expecting from that author.
You can often see those same mistakes in motion pictures, and you’ll have more opportunity to catch them there, because the majority of people see a greater number of movies than books they read.
BOTOM LINE: Read every book in your preferred genre that you can get your hands on.
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