Writing a Classic Mystery
The classic mystery story contains many key parts, and some of these are present in my
novel, while some are not.
I think the major and most important similarity between mine and that of a classic is the
fact that they both deal with murder. Homicide. Assassinations. The ole' bump-off.
Killing. Manslaughter. Anyway you look at it, both my novel and most novels from the
Hounds of Baskerville to Murder on the Orient Express. My novel deals with this murder
in a more dramatic sense, as a publicly loved figure and a heavily celebrated actress who
has won many Oscars for her wonderful performances.
I would say that my novel is untraditional in the fact that it is not a pure bred
detective story, or a police procedural, nor romantic suspense nor or a gothic novel. I
would say it is a mixture of detective story as the person who is seeking who killed her
sister is in no way a detective, but she is the main protagonist, as a detective is. The
other half of the story is a romantic suspense, as a romantic atmosphere starts to occur
between Liz and Ted as she starts to realize that Ted is not the killer, and they end up
as a couple right at the end of the story.
To get into more detail about the mixture of these two classic and celebrated styles, I
will use the sheet I was thankfully given by Ms. Milliorn to nit-pick at the details of
these two styles. If I would have to pick one of the styles that my book more closely
resembles it would be the detective story. The main character and protagonist is Liz,
the sister of the recently slain movie star Lisa. She does in fact interrogate suspects
and ferret out clues, but the difference is that she does not even recognize that she is
getting some juicy clues, while the detectives do not let on that they have identified a
clue, but in truth they have and already trying to use it to solve the case. Another key
difference is the fact that the detective finds his criminal by a process of elimination,
while Liz does none of this. The only reason they actually found the killer was the fact
that he tried to kill Liz, but Ted was there to hear her screams. He came to her rescue
and apprehended the killer all at the same time. What a guy! She had no clue about who
had the motive, opportunity or means to kill her sis. I would explain her as a
happy-go-lucky half-detective who was more lucky than happy.
But, after reading through the whole paper, I have found that Clark does exhibit some
glaring qualities of a classic writer. Techniques such as using several suspects,
additional murders, red herrings, threats of violence were all used habitually, until it
got to the point where I was sick and tired of all these different suspects and a new
murder at every corner.
As for the basis of the romantic suspense, I have only based this on the fact the Liz
always had a love for Ted, and it could not be shown until her sister was out of the way
and the killer had been found. As there is no literature that I have found which explains
the term "Romantic Suspense" in layman's terms, I do not think that I should try and
elaborate as if I am dead wrong on what a romantic suspense is, I will just be making a
fool out of myself.
Finally, I believe that all new authors are trying to get away from classic writers, and
that is why authors like Clark have only shown bits and pieces of the lost art known as a
classic mystery, so I believe that is why I had a little more trouble researching this
topic before writing it than any other.
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