by Tess Gerritsen It invariably happens to me about halfway through a manuscript. Inspired by an intriguing premise, I launch straight into the story, set my characters into action, throw in a few initial twists…and then I smack into a wall. Because I have no idea what happens next in my story. Or I don’t […]
Category Archives: Writing Tips
A Writer’s Inspiration: How to come up with new ideas…
A Writer’s Inspiration: How to come up with new ideas… I’m often asked whether my writing is inspired by real life. And by real life, people usually mean my life. Occasionally, I do lift small details from my own life and use them directly in my writing—the way my sister’s hair falls, the taste of […]
Character Motivation and Beyond
Character Motivation and Beyond Motivation drives the decisions both of the characters and the writer throughout a plot. Books on literary analysis, such as the Norton Anthologies, often lump motivation with character and identity, whereas mystery readers have long regarded motive as a full and separate category in its own right. Carolyn Wells devoted a […]
See What I Say? The Power of Descriptive Writing
See What I Say? The Power of Descriptive Writing Once, describing the silly little Argentinian films starring Eva Duarte years before she became Evita Perón, Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote that those movies were so bad; they seemed to have been filmed before the invention of cinema. Oddly enough, though, at some point, the film […]
Story Trumps Structure
Story Trumps Structure Twelve years ago, I had an idea for a series of mysteries featuring a one-armed detective. At that time, I attended a seminar by a well-known novelist who taught us to outline our fiction carefully and meticulously and then stick to the outline as we crafted our stories. In some cases, he […]
This path isn’t for you: How to Persevere as an Author
This path isn’t for you: How to Persevere as an Author I was twenty years old when I presented my senior thesis to a room full of English majors and professors. Said thesis was a culmination of three years of creative writing efforts, fully informed by an obsession with the Romantics and Virginia Woolf, a […]
How Important is Setting to a Novel?
How Important is Setting to a Novel? One of the great pleasures of a mystery story is its setting—choosing a locale and soaking up its ambience, learning about new places and the people who live in them. When I decided to write my debut crime novel, The House on the Cliff, I set it in […]
Scott Turow’s Writing Tips
Scott Turow’s Writing Tips Scott Turow is the author of bestselling legal thrillers Presumed Innocent and Time magazine’s Best Fiction Novel of 1999 Personal Injuries. He has won multiple literary awards, most notably the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers’ Association. Scott Turow’s writing tips: 1) Write every day. The muse only visits if you’re ready for her to […]
Sandra Brown’s Ten Rules of Writing
Sandra Brown’s Ten Rules of Writing 1. Rewrite the first sentence of your book a thousand times if that’s what it takes to make it perfect. 2. Stop writing before the end of the scene; then you always have a place to start the next day. 3. If your characters need to move through time […]
Fourteen Writing Tips
Fourteen Writing Tips 1. Strengthen your writing muscles by writing for an hour every day, without distractions and without stopping. Then, if your other work schedule permits, go to two hours, then three. If you have trouble sitting still that long, write for twenty minutes, get up and stretch/exercise/have a cup of coffee for five […]
Like Mother, Like Son: The Charles Todd team on writing bestselling novels
Like Mother, Like Son: The Charles Todd team on writing bestselling novels You just never know what to expect when you go into business with a relative. There are horror tales about the plumber, the lawyer, the ironmonger, where plain Jones has become Jones and Son, or even in some cases, Jones and Daughter. It […]
Why the Short Story?
Why the Short Story? I’m currently working on my seventeenth (or is it eighteenth?) novel, and I’m struggling with plotting out a manuscript that will be at least three hundred pages, with a number of characters, plot twists, setbacks, and perhaps a flashback or two. Once the outline is done and I’m satisfied, then it’s […]