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Medical Thriller
Medical thrillers are based around hospitals, doctors, nurses, EMTs, paramedics — any and all medical professionals. These thrillers can be quite a bit quieter than other thrillers, tending more toward mystery or suspense pacing at times as the doctors try to figure out the pathogen that will destroy the world or the murderer who is stalking their patients, but
Should I Write Literary Fiction?
Do you tire of the silly tricks and the same old plots in genre fiction? Does it all just feel like a cheesy action movie to you when you would rather be watching an art film? Then literary fiction might work for you. If you read a lot of literary fiction, then you already know that it is all different, and there aren't a lot of standard tropes and cliches. If you haven't read much literary fiction, but...
Literary Fiction Guide
There is some argument over what literary fiction really is, but you know it when you see it. It’s high brow stuff. Driven by rich characters and settings rather than a page turning plot line. It tends to deal more often with the mundane, but presenting that mundane life in ways that are unique. It is anything that we might call “literature” rather than genre fiction. Literary fiction is harder to describe than other genres because it’s subject matter, settings, themes, and voice, can be nearly anything. As long as it is finely crafted, polished until it gleams, and doesn’t...
Legal Thriller/Mystery Guide
This is a rare combo guide for a subgenre for two separate top tier genres, thriller and mystery. Legal thrillers and legal mysteries are mostly the same thing, and in fact both will almost always be called legal thrillers. Amazon only has a legal thriller category, no mystery one. The only real difference is that mysteries often lack the ticking clock and constant action of the thrillers.
Historical Mystery Guide
Firstly, and possibly most importantly, the entire canon of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is now in the public domain. That means that you can write any Holmes story you want. (Since Winnie-the-Pooh and Cthulhu are also now public domain characters, I have seen some really weird mashups.) There have been anthology collections of Holmes stories published in the last few years.
Novelitist
Welcome to my review of Novelitist. I’m actually writing it in the software itself, which just tagged the word ”Novelitist” as a spelling error. Other than that, the site works really well. So well, in fact, that I’m considering using it for some of my writing in the near future. What Is Novelitist? It’s a writing tool for novelists. It also has short story and a few other formats, but it’s primarily designed for writers of long form fiction. Novelitist lives in the cloud, so you can log in from anywhere and get right to work on your next book,...
Mystery Story Builder
For this exercise, you should have a document open where you can write. Now copy the text in the box below and paste it into that document. This will be the blueprint for your story. You'll fill it in as you go through the exercise and end up with a basic outline for your mystery novel. You may want to post your story outline in the forums to get some ideas from other forum members.
Heist/Caper Guide
Originally, our meta-genre was called crime, with mystery and thriller being two sub-genres underneath it. Very recently (2020+), thriller has been pulled off and become its own top-level BISAC code. Mystery remains, but caper (the Heist category on Amazon) falls into a strange corner case that you need to be aware of. Heists are crime stories, where the main characters (the heroes, if you will) are the criminals committing the crime, rather than the folks trying to stop it or investigate it. Classically, they tend to have elements of thriller in the pacing. And comedic moments as well. Donald Westlake...
Mystery Blueprint
Please note that there are a number of famous mystery novels that don't follow this blueprint exactly, and most don't follow it perfectly. If your book still keeps readers guessing with a few pieces missing or added, or with some of them done differently or in a different order, feel free to do your own thing. This blueprint is just so that you can understand the basic format that readers expect from a mystery novel.
Novel Writing — Revising
The thing you need to know about revising is not to fear it. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s necessary work and, when done right, can be both enjoyable and rewarding. The first trick I learned is to think about the etymology of the word revision: re – vision. You had a vision when you started the book and now you have a chance to envision it again. This is a time of polishing, of perfecting, of insuring your original vision is as pure and beautiful as it can be before sending it off to be read. Don’t...