From Mr. Bean and Hitchcock … to Rearview Window and A Beautiful Mind… Mystery plays a big part in our entertainment… so for today’s writing prompt we are going with Mystery… even if you don’t consider yourself a mystery writer, there is a lot to be said for adding just a touch to your normal genre…

do you need a death scene that isn’t immediately solved… here are a Murder riddles that should be easy to work into your novel…

After you have brushed up on mystery elements and vocabulary… I have found this helpful worksheet, your own personal cheat sheet to writing your mystery… one thing that I heard over and over when I first started writing… ‘try what you think you will enjoy, and then try genres outside your comfort zone’… because you never know what you will like… and if you try multiple genres in short story format, you’ve lost nothing… and very little time… consider these shorts appetizers that have to the ability to wet the palate of potential readers…

and as always… read, read, read… so that you can get a feel for what works in the community of reader for that genre… most writers will tell you that they accumulated a stack of rejections before they managed to start to gain readers/an agents/or a publisher… today it is insanely easy to publish what you write… but we still need to find people willing to read our work.. no matter if you are an indie writer, a traditional writer, a self-published writer, or a hybrid author… we need readers… I don’t know near enough about PR but I do know one thing… your book must be worthy of the genre, otherwise no one will get past the first few pages… so find your style, try different things, and then get someone that has been in the game a while to help you label your genre… (Omg… do I hate picking the exact genre and sub-genre for my novels…) there are a number of choices out there these days, and that is great for readers, but my head hurts just thinking about typing… grrr…

alright, alright… I am being less than helpful… maybe a couple of you guys can write in and tell me what genre you think I write (if you’ve read one of my books… Shocking Finds, or an ARC for one of my upcoming novels)… I could soooo use the help peeps… but back to our Mystery Prompt… though reading the genres you enjoy writing is important in my book, I also think that you should check out movies from mystery genres… sometimes the visual can be even more helpful than the written…

and my final mystery suggestion… have fun with your learning… throw a murder mystery party… or go online and play one of the many mystery hunt games… soon they will be nicknaming you Sherlock… muahahahaha

and here is a pinterest writing prompt to kick off your mystery writing… start you story with a misunderstanding that leads to the unknown… happy wordage, tracey