The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit by William G. Tapply Page B

surprising things and come to life as they emerge on the page, urging the writer forward.
    Those who feel they don’t need to know where their stories are going when they begin, who rely on their intuitive judgment, unquestionably have powerful instincts. As the words they have written push them along, schemes and concepts that reside in the fuzzy area between conscious and subconscious thought pull them forward. They develop and refine plans as they write. They need to get their story underway before they
can fully imagine it. As they write, their minds begin to buzz with ideas, options, fragments, and images.
    Other writers take the opposite approach. They will not write a single line until they have meticulously planned and outlined every scene in the story. They know exactly how the story will begin, how it will build to its climax, how it will be resolved, and how it will end. They know the life histories of all their characters and everything they will do and say. In effect, they finish all the creative work before they sit down to write the first page.
    Planning and creativity
     
    For beginning writers of mystery fiction, the most sensible approach emphasizes thorough planning and structuring while welcoming creativity and spontaneity. Think through and carefully organize the shape and development of your story, but always remain open to new ideas as you proceed. If you prefer to work from a long detailed outline, be willing to shift directions and alter it once your story is underway. Nothing fires the imagination like unleashing characters on the page. You should always listen to your imagination.
    You can begin writing once you have asked all the “what if” questions, so you know how and why the crime was committed; you have thought hard and long about the dynamics between villain and victim; you know who your key characters are and how each one will either help your hero or complicate his quest—or, in some cases, do both.
    At this point, your writing plan is a sequence of several key scenes that proceed according to cause-and-effect logic. These are the confrontations and major turning points that change your story’s direction and are essential to its progress.
    You know where you’re going. You have a destination in the form of a climactic scene where the pieces of the puzzle will come together.
    Don’t begin writing until you have fully imagined these elements—sequence, the key scenes, and the climax. Write them down, expand them, give them detail. Before you try to write the first line of your story, construct a narrative outline. There may be plenty of gaps—unimagined scenes and bridges that you know must occur between the key plot points, characters you have not thought much about, subplots that you trust will grow organically from your story’s central spine.
    Outline and plan until you’re sick of it. You’ll know you’re ready to start writing when you cannot bear the thought of planning and outlining for another minute.
    By then your first scene is vivid in your mind, and you’re eager to get it down on paper. You are confident that you will find the route to your story’s first plot point, and from there you’ll find your way to the second, and so on to the climax.
    No matter how fully you’ve imagined your scenes or how excited you are about executing them, don’t write scenes out of sequence. Let your key plot points work as writing goals for you. Let them pull you forward. They’ll motivate you and make you eager to keep writing.
    Know where you’re going, and have at least a general idea of how to get there. But remain open-minded. Listen to your characters and follow the new ideas that emerge as your story unfolds. Be prepared to follow the new directions that did not occur to you in your original plan.
    As you gain experience, you’ll develop your own ways of combining planning with spontaneity. You may, for example, write your climactic scene first. Or you may write