Sleuth: Gail Bowen on Writing Mysteries

by Gail Bowen

Overview

A smart, practical, and often funny guide for those who aspire to write mysteries, Sleuth reveals the secrets behind the curtain from a bestselling and award-winning master of the genre

Gail Bowen shows how to map out a plot, how to plant page-turning clues, how to develop fully-rounded characters, and how to create the scene of the crime. She also looks at the psyche, the power of story, and cultural appropriation, allowing writers to communicate the truth about the human condition.

Digging into the works of Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Sara Paretsky, Ian Rankin, Louise Penny and a score of others, Bowen explores all the possibilities the mystery genre offers writers with a story to tell.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780889775244
Publisher:	University of Regina Press
Publication date:	03/17/2018
Series:	Writers on Writing , #1
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gail Bowen is the author of the Joanne Kilbourn mystery series. The seventeen novels have met with critical and financial success, and the first six were produced as made-for-TV movies. Bowen has also written the Charlie Dowhanuik mysteries, four novels targeted at reluctant readers.  For over twenty years she taught English and Creative Writing at First Nations University of Canada. She and her husband, Ted, live in Regina, Saskatchewan.
 

Table of Contents

Chapter One: How I Became a Writer

Chapter Two: Getting Started

Chapter Three: Pre-Writing

Chapter Four: What's Left Behind

Chapter Five: Point of View

Chapter Six: Setting

Chapter Seven: Characterization

Chapter Eight: Plot

Chapter Nine: Style

Chapter Ten: Strategies That Can Give Your Series a Length and Robust Life

Chapter Eleven: Editing

Chapter Twelve: Getting Published

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Gail Bowen's previous works:

“Bowen has a hard eye for the way human ambition can take advantage of human gullibility.” — Publishers Weekly

“Bowen is one of those rare, magical mystery writers readers love not only for her suspense skills but for her stories’ elegance, sense of place and true-to-life form… A master of ramping up suspense.” — Ottawa Citizen

“Gail Bowen’s Joanne Kilbourn mysteries are small works of elegance that assume the reader of suspense is after more than blood and guts, that she is looking for the meaning behind a life lived and a life taken.” — Calgary Herald

“I love this series.” Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

Editorial Reviews

03/05/2018
Bowen’s slim, useful guide expertly takes writers through the craft of writing mystery fiction. She is the author of 17 novels in the Joanne Kilbourn series (including A Colder Kind of Death, which won an Arthur Ellis Award), and her three decades of experience make her an insightful mentor. Drawing on her own work as well as novels by Raymond Chandler, Gillian Flynn, and Rex Stout, Bowen discusses the importance of research, elements of plot and characterization, and the extra work that goes into creating a series. What makes this guide rise above similar ones is Bowen’s appealing personality. For every note of solid instruction, there’s a memorable aside: “A fly in the soup doesn’t spoil the soup, but it does spoil the experience. Don’t spoil your reader’s experience. Don’t stint on the research.” She takes pains to stress that there is no magic spell to creating a great mystery; it’s a process that she follows for every single book but remains fascinated by. “I’ve had 5,580 pages in which to discover my protagonist,” she writes. “I still think I don’t really know her.” Writers will benefit from her advice if they are willing to put their shoulders into the effort she describes. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Bowen’s slim, useful guide expertly takes writers through the craft of writing mystery fiction.... She takes pains to stress that there is no magic spell to creating a great mystery; it’s a process that she follows for every single book but remains fascinated by." - Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher