A Good Mystery Is Hard to Write

Given that my criticism was uncharacteristically pointed in the previous post: I am very much aware that writing a half-decent mystery, much less a good or outstanding one, is a feat of talent, time, and endless revision.

And I learned this the hard way, by writing a full first draft of a novel a couple of years ago and then realizing–with mounting dismay–that my domestic thriller lacked thrills. This is entirely my own fault, and notwithstanding the excellent advice of my writing partner, who is an actual factual author, as well as a terrifically supportive friend. She read the whole thing, commented profusely, and, two years later, I’m still attempting the fixes she suggested.

Two other friends requested a first look: one noted, in reply, that it was “very long” and the other . . . abstained from any comment. So the word from the beta readers is not encouraging.

Today I’m re-reading it, and alternately sighing, laughing, and suppressing sobs at the many, many things that need to be fixed.

Plot.

Character development. Round or flat? How about flat and flatter?

Narrative voice and possibly point of view (because my first-person narrator is, heaven help me, an academic, and yet she has less sense than du Maurier’s famously unnamed Girl as she wanders into Rebecca’s home and unearths her life.

Setting. Gothic, but not good gothic. The secret club, with its classical antecedents, is transparently influenced by my reading (and re-reading) of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. No Bacchanalian rites, murderous or otherwise, but a too-close approximation of other elements. My current theory is that I have not yet mastered enough ancient Greek to write this section and need to spend more time on declensions. It is possible that this is a procrastination strategy.

Structure. It needs one.

So in the spirit of full disclosure, in this, our confessional age: writing a good mystery is hard, and I’m not sure my first effort is salvageable. But I have a half dozen other (possibly better) ideas, and I’m going to pick one and start, if in the next three months I can’t pull together a decent revision.