What Is Narrative Point of View?

When you choose the point of view (POV) for your mystery novel, you create the perspective of how the story is told. Point of view determines the narrator’s relationship to the story.

The way the narrator tells the story drives the reader’s connection to your novel. To make a decision on point of view, you need to understand the choices. Each point of view method has limitations and positive storytelling approaches.

First Person POV

The first person uses the pronouns I, me, and my. A single character describes his or her experiences. …

Surprise and Satisfy Your Readers

“The ending was a surprise.” “I never would have guessed.”

Mystery authors love feedback like this from readers. Today’s readers are savvy and well-read in the genre, so they are not easily fooled. Keeping readers in suspense is a challenge for mystery writers.

You want to keep the villain hidden until the end but plant enough clues in the story to create a satisfying reveal at the end. And along the way, your story sets your sleuth in opposition, making wrong choices and following leads that go to a dead end.

Creating a surprising twist comes from controlling the flow of information. You want to hide clues while at the same time foreshadowing events. When your story arrives at a twist, your reader doesn’t see it coming, but at the same time, realizes that you’ve prepared them for the story event.
Author Brian Andrews said in an article at Career…

Large and Small Hero Flaws

Everyone has flaws, and some are more appealing than others. Flaws and weaknesses keep your hero from being unrelatable. An all-good character isn’t believable. And an unbelievable character keeps your reader from empathizing. If your reader doesn’t empathize, they won’t care. They won’t want to follow your character through 300 pages of the story.

Without flaws, your character is either flat and uninteresting or too good to be true. Either way, you won’t capture reader interest enough to care enough to learn their story.

Flaws and weaknesses in your character allow them to make mistakes and bad choices that lead to a compelling story. A protagonist who never makes mistakes never gets scared and doesn’t misread a situation may end up relying on outside forces to drive the plot. That protagonist ends up reactive, doesn’t lead the story action, and leaves readers cold. …

Readers Need to Know Where They Are In the Story Timeline

As a writer, you set the timeline for your reader. Time is part of setting, and you need to let readers know what time it is in your scene. In the same way, you ground your reader with setting details like the room in a house or a desert valley; you need to help them understand the flow of time in your story.

If there’s a scene jump, did an hour pass? A day? A month? How do readers know?

Create a Story Calendar

To reference time markers for your readers, you need to know the time in your story. …

The Character Base for Your Story

Unlike most novels with a hero and a villain, protagonist and antagonist, a mystery requires three main characters: the victim, the sleuth, and the villain. These three characters form the base triangle for any mystery novel.

Each of these characters plays a major role in a mystery. As a writer, you must have all three for the mystery to work. And unlike most other novel genres, in a mystery, two of these characters are hidden from the reader. …

What to Do When Characters Go Rogue

You create a strong, coherent character that has enough interest for you to include them in your story. And then, they do more. They take action and run with the story. They barge into scenes. They interrupt dialogue. As a result, the characters and the storyline get bumped.

Last week I talked about letting characters take action when your story seems squeezed into a structure. But characters can take the reins and gallop away with the story, especially if they are secondary characters.

The Good Problem

A rogue character is a sign of your ability to create a strong character, so don’t be discouraged. Strong characters are a good problem. …

When It Feels Like You’re Squeezing Your Story

Story planning helps you write faster. There’s no doubt about that. Planning is why writers who start as pantsers convert to planning. It really does help. You can focus on each scene and know how it fits into the overall story.

Story structure helps you navigate the highs and lows of your story and plan for major turning points that move the story in a new direction.

Depending on which story structure you choose to use, you’ll find a list of must-have story events. The Hero’s Journey has 12 points, Save the Cat has 15 beats, John Trub’s Anatomy of Story has 22 steps. And, the 7-Point Story Structure has seven. …

A Major Mystery Writing Challenge

Mystery writers have a unique challenge, keeping the villain hidden. In most novels, the antagonist is front and center, challenging the protagonist and creating conflict and obstruction as the story progresses. But the mystery’s antagonist remains hidden until the end.

Here are some tips for creating your villain and then hide them from your reader until the reveal when your detective exposes them.

Background to Know Your Villain

To maintain control over where and how you add information about your villain, first, you need to know your villain well. …