Writing a top rated mystery novel can sometimes be very challenging. You need to integrate a keen sense of characterization, plot, and suspense. A mystery novel that’s going to engage your readers in solving the mystery or in trying to piece together the various narrative threads that you’ve integrated needs to include 3 important elements:
1. Use Red Herrings
In fiction writing, the term ‘red herring’ is often used to denote clue of information that’s always intended to be distracting or misleading. Red herrings need to be scattered throughout your mystery novel to keep your readers guessing the true culprit of a crime or an explanation of a disappearance. Using red herrings serve to not only escalate tension and suspense but also make your novel more riveting.
2. Structure your Chapters attentively
Considering that the fear of the unknown is one of the pillars of best modern mystery books, it is crucial to structure your chapters around unfolding discoveries professionally. Strive to alternate rising actions in various chapters with shifts in unknowns and knowns. You can end your chapters with new discoveries that create fresh questions or bring mystery-solving characters closer to finding solutions or clues. It is this push and pull between suspense and clues that makes a great mystery novel.
3. Satisfying Climax and Resolution
Mystery novels tend to be more end-focused than other novel genres. Generally, you should build your plot so as to satisfactorily answer primary questions such as ‘Why? Who? or What?’ Many mystery authors suggest that the ending of a great mystery novel should always come with an ‘a-ha” moment. This means that your readers should be able to go back to some of your novel’s chapters and say, “I didn’t realize this, but it makes sense” or ‘I suspected this”. The cause of a disappearance of a character, explanation of a mystery, or identity of a killer should never feel like a red herring itself. Ideally, endings of some of the best modern mystery books have the following characteristics:
• Answer some of the pressing questions that the readers have been asking
• Reveal the true identity or truths about characters that may have been falsely suspected
• Relate clearly to claims or elements in the beginning of the novel
• Leave the reader eager to reading your next novel
Conclusion
Compared to other genre writing, mystery writing tends to follow certain standard rules because readers of mystery novels are looking for particular experiences. In most cases, readers are scouting for intellectual challenges of solving crimes before detectives does, and are eager to know that things will come together in the end of the novel. To write a good mystery book, therefore, you need to pay attention to the important ingredients: convincing plot, mood, characters, and overall involvement of the reader.
