10 Things We Learned in 20 Years of Writing Mysteries ‹ CrimeReads

3. Be a storyteller. What makes a good story? "A story!" That simple, staccato answer, given by the late, great film director Samuel Fuller may appear vague, but it hit us like Tony Soprano on amphetamines. If you want to write mysteries, you better enjoy telling stories-and stories within stories. Stare at this Escher painting and you'll begin to get the Penrose triangle picture. You are creating the equivalent of optical illusions inside the reader's mind. The mystery novel demands not one but multiple such illusions. Stories on the page. Stories off the page. Narratives that come together only in your readers' heads as they put together motives and clues and deduce imaginary outcomes. But how do we begin?