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anienham:
Hello Mystery Writers Forum from Anie,
I am new here. This is my first post. I'd like to hear your thoughts about the novel I'm working on. My novel is an amateur sleuth humorous style murder mystery.
Think of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, Laura Levine's Jaine Austen series, Kyra Davis' Sophie Katz series.(1)I'm looking for a critique group. What's the best way to find other murder mystery writers seeking critiquers?
(2) I got feedback from an agent who advised me to "foreground" my murder. The murder to my mystery doesn't happen until the 8th chapter.
She advised to either do a prologue or something at the very beginning. I hear some folks say they don't care for prologues but I still see
prologue coming up in mysteries and I certainly read them.
So, I wanted to do the prologue from a different POV. The chapters are all first-person PoV. I was thinking of doing the prologue in a third-person omniscient PoV. What do you think?
I rarely see 3rd person omniscient these days. I prefer first person PoV when it comes to amateur sleuth. I also like 1st-POV-past tense.
Anie
Dave Freas:
The best course of action would be to move the murder to the front of the book - probably no later than Chapter 3.
Take a hard look at what you have in the first 7 chapters and ask yourself:
1/ Is any of this information critical to the story or can it be eliminated?
2/ Is any of it backstory that can be deleted or worked in elsewhere in the story? If it's just to introduce your main character, you definitely need to do this.
If you absolutely can't cut or relocate any of the info in the first 7 chapters, then you will have to go with a prolog. You're right in doing it in a third person omniscient POV. That will make it distinctive from the bulk of the story.
Can't help you with finding a critique group. I found the one I joined by asking for books on writing at my library and being told about a local writers' group.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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