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| ![Don't Murder Your Mystery [Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51W1yZbedRL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Author: Chris Roerden
Publisher: Bella Rosa Books
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $11.68
You Save: $6.27 (35%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 14780
Media: Paperback
Edition: Nominee for Macavity & Anthony
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 1933523131
Dewey Decimal Number: 070
EAN: 9781933523132
ASIN: 1933523131
Publication Date: April 30, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New Book! Delivered direct from our US warehouse in 3-6 days (Expedited) or 10-14 days (Standard). Expedited shipping recommended for speedy delivery. Over 1 million satisfied customers.
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| Customer Reviews:
For a book rooted in the minutiae of effective writing, this book is surprisingly readable and well laid out. September 11, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
In the opening pages of Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A. Chris Roerden makes it crystal clear that she doesn't consider herself a book doctor. Roerden states that the term book doctor would imply that the writer's work is sick.
Roerden further specifies that she doesn't use words like good and bad or right and wrong, as these would imply the existence of rules.
Her approach, which makes for interesting reading, stresses effectiveness rather than rules. As mentioned in the introduction, her goals in the book are to help writers of fiction: "find and fix the clues to those deadly techniques, and survive the first cut of the submission process so plot and characters get a fair reading."
And as she succinctly asserts: why send your manuscript of to commit suicide or dead on arrival?
Don't Murder Your Mystery is an ambitious technical book complete with considerable detail that includes passages from one hundred and forty published authors who know exactly how to employ the most effective writing techniques. Divided into ten sections, the book begins with the qualifying trials of appearance and category where readers are strongly advised that without having a professional appearance, their manuscript submission is doomed and will be shoved back in the envelope you sent it in. You can expect the same retort if it is the wrong category or genre. In other words, don't send a mystery to a science fiction publishing house. From here readers are given a brief summary of the various terms employed throughout the book.
Roerden then proceeds to scrutinize diverse elements of the novel as character, scene, setting, action, image, description, detail and dialogue and how to make them more effective. Entire chapters are dedicated to dissecting twenty-four fiction writing skills such as hobbled hooks, perilous prologues, fatal flashbacks, bloody back-story, toxic transcripts, deceptive dreams, time elements, dastardly description, poisonous predictability, disappearing bodies, changing of venue, the usual suspects, rogues gallery, and loose ends. As an example of the tips Roerden hands out, let us look at "crazy time," where writers are advised to go beyond an initial scene-setting or weather report but to suggest time's passage throughout the story. Sensory details should be used to lend authenticity and depth to the story and accurately reflect its time span. Practical advice, such as entering every event in your story on an actual calendar, together with the whereabouts of each character, are likewise proffered that help writers organize their writing to achieve maximum effectiveness.
At the end of each chapter there are find and fix clues that point out what writers must watch for and correct in order to avoid rejection of their manuscripts. The concluding chapter contains information pertaining to a standard manuscript format as well as a comprehensive bibliography and suggested readings.
For a book rooted in the minutiae of effective writing, this book is surprisingly readable and well laid out. Roerden has over forty years experience as an editor, writer and teacher and Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A. was the recipient of the Agatha Award as the best non-fiction book in 2006.
Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor Bookpleasures
If you're writing a book, read this book May 20, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a great book that tells you not how to present your book for sale, but how to avoid the newbie pitfalls that yank your book out of the reading pile and back into your return envelope. I am learning a lot.
It's Both Informative And Fun April 2, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a great book for any fiction writer. It describes the many pitfalls and perils of writing and does it with a wonderful sense of humor.
The Second Book You to purchase if you're serious about publishing your mystery April 1, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Ever since Don't Murder Your Mystery has come out, I have been telling wannabe mystery writers that this is the SECOND book they will want to purchase if they are serious about having their book being taken serious by either the New York Publishing World or all those small presses that seem to pop up across the country. These first time and novice writers always ask: Well, then what is the FIRST book I should read, and I tell them it can be any old How to Write Your Mystery-type book because you need to understand the structure of the story you are telling. But when you become serious about having an agent or an editor look at your masterpiece, you must use Chris Roerden's Don't Murder Your Mystery to EVEN GET A SHOT at being read, past the first page, by agency or by editor. This is how solid Don't Murder Your Mystery is. Gobs of information and filled with tricks of the trade, and pages and pages of examples and details no lecturer could possibly give you. Don't Murder Your Mystery will be on your reference shelf for the duration of your writing career and whenever you hit a snag, it will be the first book you pull off that shelf, but only after you have hit those difficult-to-take bumps in the road. Make this difficult process easier and pick up Chris' book from the get-go. It is like sitting at the feet of a master and trying to soak up all the wonderous knowledge that this woman knows.
Very Helpful March 9, 2007
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
Takes a lot of the mystery out of mystery writing. Went back and re-edited my ms, made it better.
Takes some of the mystery out of this genre. A good read, too.
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