How To Write Your First Mystery Book - 5 Tips When Writing Mystery 

Yeah, these tips are mostly for crime mystery.

I think thats a fair point. Although I think its always nice to have a bit of personal interest for the book; when reading a book you get sucked in, so if the detective has no personal interest in solving the mystery then what is the point of the book besides a story with an end point.

@@shaylaanderson870 Isn't that Murder on the Orient Express? Does Hercule Poirot have any real personal motivation beyond being a detective on the scene? Keep in mind, I've only seen the film

@@Reggie2000 Poirot's character and personal motivation is that he refuses to let a murder go unsolved because a murder is a crime against humanity and the correct person must be brought to justice. In the case of Orient Express, while the victim wasn't a good person and insulted Poirot he still, if he deserved to die, should have faced a trial for whatever crimes he committed. Additionally once, he starts investigating and finds out about the other, older murder (being vague to avoid spoilers in case someone hasn't read a 90 year old murder mystery), his sense of justice pushes him to continue digging. It's a personal motivation but it's not what we would think when we think of the phrase. Additionally, he has ego. Poirot is, in-universe, the most famous detective. He wouldn't want someone to say there was a murder, Poirot was there, and he *didn't* solve it. Because then someone might speculate he *couldn't* have figured it out.

@@johnmartin4900 Thanks for that info. 👍 The following is not an argument. Just comments and a discussion. I see what your saying now on Poirot. I guess I never thought of it that way. So if your only point is to clarify who Poirot is, thanks. 👍 I guess two films was not enough for me to really understand him. I haven't watched the third yet, so I will look for that when I do. I do like what you said about his motivation, and will use some aspects of that to a lesser extent in my juvenile deceive series I want to write forvthe lead detective in 5he gang. That being an innate dogged determination and sense of ego. Nice. But, one, I don't think that can be every detective. Otherwise the detectives all blend in. And sadly, the mostly seem to. Which is why on the other hand, my female cozy mystery detective I created is thankfully none of those. No drive, ego, desire, or morals. Unscrupulous and lazy to a fault. ☹️🤣 But, are those traits enough to justify the idea that all detectives must have personal motivation. Because for me, what you said about Poirots personal sense if justice, and ego, are not really what I think is "personal" motivation in this day and age. It's like the old action star cliche. They killed his second cousins best friend... this time it's personal! Uh...... no. No it's not! You barely knew him! You meet him once in passing! LIAR!!! For me personally, personal motivation has to be tangible and relatable. And I'm not sure that I personally think of Poirots motivation as being those two things when someone says, "always make it personal". To me, those, and this is just my personal opinion, feel like cheap cop-outs to a modern more sofisticated reader. Probably not in the 1940s, but I don’t feel that can cut it in the 2020s. It's like, Murder She Wrote Jessica Fletcher was obviously Miss Marple. In the 1980s. No one wants to see that today. Right? The one most important thing I ever read on creating a mystery series, was that it's all about "how interesting is the detective." I 100% agree. I LOVE the visuals of Kenneth Branaghs films, and his acting. But I guess I don't personally find Hercule Poirot to be all that interesting to me. Once more, I have never read the books. Thoughts?

@@Reggie2000 For me, Poirot is super interesting. For different detectives, there's different quirks. I think you're judging him from the perspective of modern times, in that you've been exposed to many detectives throughout fiction. Poirot/Marple are some of the originators of the style of detective that focuses on Motive more than Means and Opportunity. Poirot likes to understand how people think. People fascinate him, even if he comes across in a very standoffish way. He's an observer of people first and foremost. He's not a technician like Holmes who will tell you how some mud on someone's shoe indicates something. The fact that the angle of the bullet had to come from a man doesn't interest him, because he's more inclined as to why this person would pull the trigger in the first place. I'm working on a series myself, and the first one involves pregnancy. The idea being that different people react differently when they find out they or someone close to them is pregnant. The detective, being married and his wife being pregnant, is struggling to determine whether he'll be a good father. Part of his personal motivation is figuring out why someone would murder a pregnant woman and whether there's some connection in the thought processes.

We are really excited to get into the Mystery genre this month!

@@AutoCritEditing I've been waiting!!! Thank you for offering this for us mystery writers.