How to Write a Mystery Novel Series

It is easy to start a novel if you know what you want to write about and have a robust imagination. This article is my way of showing everyone how I started and where I got my ideas. Writing a Mystery novel series sounds a bit tough, but if you start out with imagination, the ideas are endless.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Quiet Place (if Needed)
• Paper or Notebook
• Pen or Pencil
• Computer or Word Processor
• More Than One Way to Store Your Stories
• An Imagination

How to Get Started Writing Your Novel

1. Find a quiet place. Some people don't need a quiet place, and can work with a gaggle of children around them. Find what works for you.

2. Relax and jot down ideas that pop in your head. Ideas for writing a mystery can come from right in your own back yard. Jot down everything you think of, from any silly ideas to the more elite ones. Sometimes the silly ones turn into something more interesting than the fancy ones.

3. After jotting down ideas, start typing your introduction to your first story. Just type a draft to get started, making sure you save everything on disc or burn it on a CD.

4. After you write the introduction, read it back to yourself. Get others' opinions on your ideas and maybe get some new ones from them. Children have great imaginations and can contribute to almost any story.

5. Correct any errors and add to the introduction if you need to. An introduction does not have to be long, but it can be very long if you have a lot of characters to introduce.

6. Take some more time to jot down names of characters for your story. It helps to know ahead of time what names you are going to use. Picking the right name can be one of the keys to an interesting story.

7. Start your first chapter. Make sure you write material that captures the reader's interest. Sometimes the first page can be one of the most important ones.

8. As you get into your story, keep your reader's interest by leaving them hanging on one event and giving them details on another. Always leave some things to the reader's imagination and keep them on the edge of their seats wondering what is going to happen next with another event.

9. Write your story keeping more than one age group in mind. The wider you cast your net, the more readers you'll attract.

10. If you have an artist in the family, it really helps to illustrate your story. Children can also help in this department.

11. Write each chapter like you are watching a series on television. It's best to take up where you left off in the last chapter in some ways, but still leave them hanging in other ways.

12. You can also write it as if it has several mini-stories within it. People use different forms of writing. You can make yours be like a television series, but other writers can actually combine several stories into one.

13. Write your novel in as little time as possible, if you are writing a series.

14. Conclude your novel with an intriguing ending. Since this is a series, you can even leave the reader yearning for more and begging to read the next novel in the series. In other words, leave them hanging.

15. Make sure you always write an epilogue that sums up the story but effects the reader in such a way that he just has to read the next one.

16. After you finish your novel, check for errors and edit the book to see if you have any mistakes or need to change your wording. I like to check it chapter by chapter. This makes it easier to spot mistakes.

17. As soon as you finish one novel in your series, start on another. Follow the same steps, carefully making sure you add changes in people's ages as the story progresses and making adequate changes that reflect on the past novels in the series.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure you have a comfortable space to write your novels.
• Be sure you have adequate memory to store them on your computer.
• It is best to have more than one copy of your novels.
• If you can add graphics as you write, do it.
• Write your novels to capture more than one generations' interest.
• Do not copy other people's work.
• Never try to steal someone's elses' ideas, you have your own!
• Do not repeat the same type story over and over again.
• Use your imagination and expand on it as much as possible.

[akknox]

on 11/29/2007 Thanks for your article. It gave me some ideas I wouldn't have thought of.