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leethet...trying to beat my Sherlock Holmes pastiche plotline into something vaguely usable. I feel like Barbie-writer. "Mysteries are HARD!"
I made the mistake of starting writing before I had a plot. Then red herrings and legitimate clues and suspects and aliases all sprang up and I realized I was in the middle of a freshly mopped floor with nowhere to go without making a mess. Sigh. I find it's best if I work backward, but that means knowing exactly who did what, when and why, before I can put in a single clue or develop a character.
Never start a mystery without a THOROUGH outline first. Sigh.
I made the mistake of starting writing before I had a plot. Then red herrings and legitimate clues and suspects and aliases all sprang up and I realized I was in the middle of a freshly mopped floor with nowhere to go without making a mess. Sigh. I find it's best if I work backward, but that means knowing exactly who did what, when and why, before I can put in a single clue or develop a character.
Never start a mystery without a THOROUGH outline first. Sigh.
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Date: 18 January 2004 02:38 pm (UTC)As for mysteries, I usually start with a general idea, but don't outline. Sometimes I envision the end but leave the middle vague, and make it up as I go along. So far that works for me.
And, btw, I just read your "Lily of the Valley" over on the MFU e-zine -- wow! That's one of the best I've read in a long time.
Thanks!
Date: 18 January 2004 02:45 pm (UTC)The SH pastiche is original fiction (it occurs to me that SH is one of the few genres -- if not the only genre -- that's technically really fanfic, but can be published as original fic) that has the dubious distinction of being the first bit of original work I've transferred from my old shareware wordprocessor to Word. That was a pain in the ass. So it's what I'm working on, because I DREAD transferring the hundreds of pages of fantasy novels over. Gah...