Welcome to The Novel Experience®, the podcast dedicated to the craft and art of fiction writing. Listen, enjoy and improve your chances of getting published!

The Novel Experience Podcast

Episode 3: Date with a Sheesha Part 2

Just launched the third episode where I continue my conversation with the award-winning crime writer Anthony Bidulka, the pride of the Canadian prairies. (Duration: roughly 15 minutes)

Listen (above or below) to Part 2 to discover Anthony’s Five ‘Cs’ of author promotion and help your own book marketing…oh, all right. I’ll give you a hint. The first three are: Confidence, Communication and Capitalization.

Of course, to learn the last two and to hear Anthony’s terrific insight on Capitalization, which he describes as capitalizing on your strengths and dealing with your weaknesses, you gotta listen.

If you haven’t heard Part 1 or would like to hear my other interviews, click The Novel Experience Podcast.

The Novel Experience Podcast Ep. 3 – Anthony Bidulka

The information is gleaned from my little non-fiction e-book primer called Youdunit Whodunit! How to Write Mysteries and offers my tips, techniques and information suitable for crafting of all types of genre writing.

STORY STRUCTURE (PART 7 (b))

This is it. You’ve driven your story and your readers headlong towards the final solution (as described in earlier posts.) The occasion when all is revealed. The moment your audience has been waiting for…so make sure that your story’s Ending:

• Winds up all the sub-plots first and achieves the bits and pieces necessary in order to attain the main goal
• Gives everyone what they deserve, good or bad
• Arises logically through the action and detection of the lead character isn’t obvious but is believable, bestowing that much-sought after “Ah ha!” moment for your audience
• Ends at the very end; sounds ridiculously obvious yet it’s not always pulled off, and

And finally, once all is exposed, everything else is a reader’s let down. So, quickly tidy up any loose ends and beat a hasty exit. Leave your audience wanting MORE not less.

If you found this post of interest, you may wish to see the previous posts starting here.

…MORE how-to write a mystery tips and techniques continued in the next Friday post as we begin exploring character development! Ready for my close up, Mr. Demille.

Find out further information or how to purchase this e-book, jam-packed with ways to immediately improve your writing, click Youdunit Whodunit (only $2.99US!).

Welcome to The Novel Experience®, the podcast dedicated to the craft and art of fiction writing. Listen, learn and improve your chances of getting published!

The Novel Experience Podcast

Episode 2: Date with a Sheesha

Just launched the second episode where my erudite and entertaining guest is the pride of the Canadian prairies, award winning crime writer Anthony Bidulka.

Listen to Part 1 below to discover Anthony’s excellent tip for character development and to find out why Anthony ‘plays God’ now and then.

Come back soon for Part 2 to learn Anthony’s five ‘Cs’ of author promotion and help your own book marketing. (Duration: roughly 14 minutes)

The Novel Experience 2

A Hemorrhaging of Souls cover

Clare Swindlehurst, of the excellent review site bluearchipelagoreviews, has just given my dark psychological suspense mystery a five-starred review.

(BTW, Clare defines this rating as…these books were gripping and thoroughly enjoyable. If I award a book 5 Stars it gets to stay on my bookshelf so that one day I can read it again. )

Her review:

This is a story of skeletons in closets and betrayal, with so many twists and turns you’d be forgiven for getting dizzy!

I was drawn into this book from the very first page, and Nicola does a wonderful job of weaving a tale with so many twists and turns, that I didn’t know whodunnit until the last page. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what happened in this book as it is so wonderfully complex, yet simple to follow along as you read it.

The characters are quirky and believable, and it’s always good to throw in a little romantic tension in a “will they won’t they” fashion!

If you have a few hours to spare and you want to escape from the world then download this book to your Kindle and get reading.

You may read this review and many others at bluearchipelagoreviews.com.

For more about A Hemorrhaging of Souls, including an excerpt, other reviews and links to buy here.

The information is gleaned from my little non-fiction e-book primer called Youdunit Whodunit! How to Write Mysteries.

STORY STRUCTURE (PART 7 (a)

This is it. You’ve driven your story and your readers headlong towards the final solution (as described in earlier posts). The occasion when all is revealed. The moment your audience has been waiting for…so make sure that your story’s Ending:

• Occurs at the height of suspense, conflict, life or death situation for the Protagonist or someone she loves

• Is driven by action, often a chase scene

• Involves high emotional drama among the players

• Answers all the main questions (usually), especially those involving the solution to the crime. If you want to leave some of the soft stuff — relationships, life details, whatever — unfinished for the next in the series, go for it.

To be continued…

If you found this of interest, you may wish to see the previous posts starting here.

…MORE how-to write a mystery tips and techniques continued in the next Friday post!

Find out more information or how to purchase this e-book, jam-packed with ways to immediately improve your writing, click Youdunit Whodunit (only $2.99US!).

The information is gleaned from my little non-fiction e-book primer called Youdunit Whodunit! How to Write Mysteries. .

Don’t forget to slip in the Sly Bits:

• As mentioned earlier, a good mystery must follow the Rule of Fair Play. This means the audience should receive the same information as the Protagonist, thus giving the reader a chance to solve the crime by the end of the story
• Your job also involves developing these all-important sly bits — clues to the solution and red herrings to cause reader confusion — and then scattering them throughout the story
• Clues and red herring may be tangible (like a bloody glove) or intangible (like a character’s behaviour).
• Intensify suspense with a chase or a villain who escapes until the last possible moment or page
• Place the Protag or someone close to him or her at risk.

If you found this of interest, you may wish to see the previous posts.

…MORE how-to write a mystery tips and techniques continued in the next Friday post!

Find out more information or how to purchase this e-book, jam-packed with ways to immediately improve your writing, click Youdunit Whodunit (only $2.99US!).

Cover for mystery writing primer, Youdunit Whodunit!

LOOSE THE HOUNDS INTO THE MIDDLE:

Other mid-story development tidbits:

• Never introduce the guilty party late in the book; that’s betraying the rule of fair game

• Generate more complications resulting from the criminal’s efforts at concealment or escape; these often result in a really big problem: a second murder or crime

• Remember that the strongest stories are intertwined, so construct your main and sub-plots to resonate or reflect one another. Perhaps your main mystery is a missing child; then a strong sub-plot would be to have one of your character’s searching for their birth family.

• Make it personal: have someone the reader likes be affected by the first murder or crime: maybe as a suspect? Or is in love with the suspect? Or their life’s changed by the crime?

Remember how MURDER SHE WROTE’S Jessica Fletcher always had some relationship with the victim or the suspect? So much so that no one would ever really want to be close to her!

• Develop and show strong motives for at least three characters and you’re off and running

…MORE how-to write a mystery tips and techniques continued in the next post!

Find out more information or how to purchase this e-book, jam-packed with ways to immediately improve your writing, click Youdunit Whodunit (only $2.99US!).

The Novel Experience Podcast

Episode 1: Footprints in the Butter

My guest is my good friend and funny gal Denise Dietz, best-selling mystery and historical romance author.

Discover some key elements to mystery writing, learn a terrific tip to improve your fiction writing and find out what happened to Deni at The Dallas/Fort Worth Airport…it’s every author’s dream! (Duration: ~14 minutes)

The Novel Experience Podcast Episode 1

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-36ee8632873275dbd640afbf42b05186}

The podcast’s goal is to provide tips, tricks and techniques for fiction writers. Deni offered a terrific idea to improve your fiction writing. After completing the first draft, temporarily change the name of your main character by doing a search and replace.

Re-read your manuscript. You’ll be amazed at how often the new name jumps out at you and could/should be changed to ‘him or her’ or ‘he or she’. Much less intrusive to the reader resulting in a better book.

Thanks, Deni!

More great tips like this coming soon in the premier podcast of The Novel Experience.

UnnaturalStates

It’s from Groovy Writer who’s posting on a mobileread forum.

Wow, impressive. Great job, Nicola. Interesting premise, too. You put a lot of work into the multimedia site. Bet it kept you busy through the long BC winter!

Thanks, Groovy Writer!