Wednesday's Writer's Tip - On Villains #amwriting

Not all stories have true villains but some have characters who for some reason oppose the hero or heroine or both. There are several things the writer needs to watch their stories for that might change the story. These are gleaned from How To Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork.

The first one is my favorite and that is making the bad guy more interesting than the hero or heroine. Doesn't mean this character is likeable or even wonderful but he or she becomes the one who sparks the reader's interest. In a mystery, for the writer to spotlight the villain means the reader will stop rooting for the hero or the heroine. This can also spoil the ending. There have been times when as a reader I've known the bad guy the instant he appears on the scene and this makes me want to put the book aside. One book I recently read there were 200 pages after I knew who the murderer was and I also wanted to know why the main characters didn't know.

Some of the advice I found was interesting. Give all your characters a flaw and this can misdirect the reader's view.Let the bad guy remain in the background. Concentrate on the hero or heroine, or what needs to be solved and forget about wondering who did the crime. Give the hero and heroine lots of problems to solve. If a murder, or some other crime, give the victim a good sign.

Do these ideas flow to other genres than mystery. They can, if you have the opposer to the hero or heroine's gain of their goal as a seeming minor character in the story. I hope I have learned how to do this and will continue to work on adding a bit of uncertainty to my stories.

Wednesday's Writer's Tip -#mysteries taken from How To Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork - Plot

What I found of interest here appeals to me since I am a plotter, sort of. There's always a situation that triggers my thoughts on a story. I'll talk here about what triggered The Micro-manager Murder due out in March 2013 from DiskUs Publishing. I knew the older heroine Katherine was marrying Lars who has made appearances in the other stories. But the scene of her leaving her wedding to go to the rescue of a friend who has been accused of murderrted the story rolling. That scene didn't start the book only my creative juices.

Situations often pop into a writer;s head and b twists and turns this situation could become a romance, a mystery or any other genre, but the situation isn't the plot. It's only a starting point in creating a story.

"A plot is a situation carried through to a fitting conclusion." Shannon OCork from How To Write Mysteries.
The plot is the story but therore to a story than plot.

All stories neand this is what a plot is. That doesn't mean you need to follow this outline slavishly. Changes happen. Characters make different decisions. Research sends you in new directions. The setting adds a bit of difference. The plot takes the situation and adds goals and motives of the characters, or their reasons for reaching the goal.

So don't just sit down and write thousands of words without having a goal. In the beginning you need a map, Once you've written a lot of stories, the plotting can be done in your head. When I wrote my first story years ago, I didn't know about plot and that story was written and re-written over and over again. It wasn't a mystery though there was an element of mystery in the story. That was the trigger sending the heroine to leave her home and find love elsewhere. My first mystery was better planned and the writing went much faster because I had a map to guide me along the way. The same for the first paranormal I wrote. For me having a map, even if it wa only in my head helped.

How about you? Do you plan your story ahead of time, either in your head or on paper?