Writing Mysteries
Lesson 2: Elements of Fiction
Where will your story take place? What is your main idea that you hope to get across to readers? How about your characters? What kind of characters will you develop in your stories? How will you develop the structure of your story? All of these questions are basic elements of writing. You will learn about these elements and how to develop them in your stories.
Introduction
Where will you have your story located? That's an important question. You need to have a familiar location so that you will be able to write your story. We will be looking at different authors and what they have to say about settings.
Once you have your idea and your setting, then you need to think about your protagonist. Who will he or she? Will it be a detective, amateur sleuth, private investigator, or uniform police officer, etc.? Who will be the villain in your story? What type of character will this person be? What crime will he or she commit? Will this person escape or be caught? What about the other characters? Who will they be? What will they be like? Are any of them going to be suspects? It is important to know who your characters are going to be and what their personalities are like. You need to develop these personalities according to how you have developed their past.
What about the structure of your story? How will you develop it? Will it be a suspense, detective fiction, or thriller? Knowing the type of genre or subgenre is important to the development of your plot. You also need to know what clues you will be using in your story and how you will be planting them.
When your themes, settings, characters, and plots are well developed, readers will not put down until they have finished reading the last page.
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