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 enlarge | Author: Carolyn Wheat
Publisher: Perseverance Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $8.32
You Save: $5.63 (40%)
New (25) Used (18) from $5.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 97076
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 191
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 1880284626
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.3872
EAN: 9781880284629
ASIN: 1880284626
Publication Date: March 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Finally A Book on Mystery & Suspense! July 27, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Pros: A great book on how to craft mystery & suspense.
Cons: If you don't care about suspense, then this book isn't for you. But I'd say you're crazy.
Thoughts: There don't seem to be many writing books dedicated to the specific techniques of genre. The book is split in two parts. The first half is mystery, and the second half is suspense. The author does a good job of explaining how the techniques used can often be very different. The suspense half of the book is just plain old Good Storytelling, and the tricks explained in that section would work for almost any story. Who doesn't want a suspensful story?
Summary: I wish more books on storytelling were like this. Just buy it.
 AWESOME RESOURCE FOR MYSTERY/SUSPENSE WRITERS - A MUST HAVE!!!! July 25, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I really thought I knew all there was to writing suspense, but I wanted more insight to mystery. So at the Murder in the Grove conference, I had the honor to meet Carolyn Wheat and buy this book.
On the plane ride home from the conference, I found myself immersed in this book like it was a real life page turning suspense roller coaster.
Carolyn's insight on this genre is amazing and she should have said this was a foundation guide for mystery and suspense writing because anyone who picks up this book will no doubt after reading it, know how to write in this genre.
With easy to understand terminology, lots of examples and references, How to Write Killer Fiction is the bible for how to write mystery and suspense.
I myself will treasure this book for years to come and will highly recommend it to any writers out there. Of course no ones touching my copy because its signed by the author. nah-nah!
Sylvia Hubbard, Author of Stone's Revenge http://sylviahubbard.com
Killer Recommendations April 17, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I saw this book on the website of a local bookstore. I've been interested in learning more about the mystery and suspense forms for a while. The summary caught my eye, so I went down to the store and picked it up.
I found the prose direct and to the point. Wheat organized the book in a format that is easy to follow and brings the reader the sought after information rather rapidly. The book does not skimp on details though. She is thorough with providing examples, explanations and reviewing information to reinforce her point.
Wheat addresses the forms of mystery and suspense separately, dividing each into four arcs. Once she is through talking about the two genres, she talks about different writing styles: Outlines and Blank-Pagers. The strengths and weakness of each are discussed in detail. I found this section to be particularly enlightening, as I have tried both forms in my effort to find my own rhythm. Her insight hit home.
This is a great book to add to a writer's library. I would not limit it to mystery or suspense writers, but those who seek to understand these genres for their own enrichment. For me, the book was a good buy.
 Great for Mystery Writers; So so for Thrillers October 2, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book covers writing for the genres of Mystery, Suspense, and Thriller.
Mystery: I'd recommend this section to anyone writing a mystery. The mystery section is excellent and well done. It gives great examples, describes the genre elements necessary to a mystery, goes through various subgenres, and gives examples.
Suspense/Thriller: Then I get to this section. Suspense and thriller are done together, with the focus on suspense. Where I got excellent examples of mysteries, for Thriller, I got "once upon a time" fairy tale stuff. Little was discussed about core elements of a thriller, no real examples given, and only a few subgenres were even mentioned--one of which, even at the time of this book's publication--is no longer selling well (techno). The section made me wonder if the author actually read any Thrillers.
So for Mystery writers, it gets 3 stars; for Thrillers, I wouldn't recommend it.
Worthwhile June 7, 2005
10 out of 17 found this review helpful
I write primarily for the theatre, but I believe that all writing needs suspense. Like a novel, a play has a story to tell, so I believe that much of what Ms. Wheat writes in her book is applicable to the dramatic form as well as to prose fiction. Most valuable to me were those parts dealing with the "arcs" of a story, which could just as easily describe the "acts" of a play. For that alone the book was worth reading. Ms. Wheat is very good at analyzing a work's structure. She has increased my ability to recognize what is and is not a turning point. She's also excellent at explaining how and why a book that starts off thrilling can be a disappointment at its conclusion. This is where Wheat has something to say.
However, there were several irritating things about the book that I must mention. First there are several pages that in a magazine would be "sidebar" stories, clearly delineated from the main text. This book is laid out in such a manner that one page will end in mid-sentence. When the page is turned, one sees a list of points the author is trying to make. What happened to the rest of the rest of the sentence? Did Amazon send me a defective copy? No, just turn a page or two more and the sentence will resume. The other, and far more serious, issue is the author's misuse of pronouns. She clearly has an axe to grind against men and the English language. (I offer her picture, which resembles Janet Reno, as supporting evidence.) Ms. Wheat obviously does not like it that the English language uses "he" to mean "he or she" when the antecedent is hypothetical. Most of the time Wheat uses "she," which there is nothing wrong with. However, there IS something wrong with using a feminine pronoun when the antecedent is masculine. A "hero" is a "he;" a "heroine" is a "she." I could even forgive this if only she were consistent in her usage. I offer the following paragraph from page 116, wherein the antecedent changes sex from sentence to sentence within the same paragraph:
"One of the tests a suspense hero must deal with is the increasing isolation from his or her usual support system. This is a vital element in a good suspense novel. Your hero can't go to the police; they don't believe him when he complains he's being followed by a man who is never there when they come around to check on his complaint. Your hero's friends and lovers tell her she has to "get over it" and refuse to believe that she's been threatened by a man no one else has ever seen. The hero's isolation may begin earlier, but it is deepened to the point where she is wholly alone in the middlebook [sic]. One by one, her supports fail her. One by one, the social structures she has always depended on disappear or turn actively hostile."
Such usage undermines Wheat's clarity. It serves no purpose other than to expose the author's discomfort with issues of gender.
The last twenty pages were not very interesting to me, as I have read similar information before in other "how to write" books. But this is a good book. I found parts of it quite valuable. I will read and study those parts again. However, I am not this book's target audience, as I am not an aspiring mystery writer. But for the true would-be mystery/suspense writer I would heartily recommend the book, although I'd have to add the caveats already mentioned. Three and a half stars, but let's round it off to four.
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