Now Write! Mysteries: Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers

This book is very helpful to get going on the writing I want to do. Helps with topic ideas and fleshing out my ideas

I love this book! Short essays and writing exercises by more than fifty mystery writers add up to a powerful writing course! The suggestions are succinct, useful, to-the-point and very intriguing. This is a good book for all aspiring writers whether or not mystery is their genre. Yes. Like!! Kim Burdick Stanton, Delaware

I am a fan of the Now Write series in general. The concept is so solid and the contributors have been ace and you could use each book (particularly the nonfiction one) as a miniature writing course, just working through the exercises. The bone I'd pick with this is that research is fun, but not sure it should be frontloaded as the first item in the headings. I found exploring character and relations and casting and then setting the crime to be more interesting, and to be honest, it was doing those things that made me realize WHAT I needed to research. Then again, this isn't a 'read from a-to-z book. You're free to jump around. Some of the exercises lack a direct line to the topic: the 'sex scene' one gave good advice--It HAS to move the plot forward!--but the exercise could apply to any kind of scene at all. Which is a good exercise, but it seemed a bit out of focus to me. All in all some gem exercises for all stages of mystery planning.

Great content if you're writing mysteries or just writing in general. Borrowed it from the library when I read it and then bought it as a present for one of my little brothers. I almost kept it for myself.

While this had the possibility to be a unique and valuable work, so much of the content is repetitive. As an anthology of advice from different writers, I wish there had been more cooperation and attention paid to which author writes about what aspects of novel creation. The reader is left with numerous chapters about protagonist conflict, developing character, etc., much of which is basic, repetitive, and pitches their own series. I gave up on this book, and I rarely stop reading a book until the end. I'm not very happy I spent money on this book and missed the window of opportunity to return it.

The book is very helpful. The exercises are great and makes you think about different ways to tell your story. Thanks

I recommend this book for beginning writers who sometimes need story prompts and short instructionals to help spark the imagination.

I had read the SF & Fantasy version before and found it quite useful. I feel this volume will give me clues to writing crime stories and mysteries, as well.

It'ts not really about writing a mysterie, its about general writing advice. Stuff like Show don't tell. Basically everything you have read in other writing guides, but not really HOW to write a Mysterie novel. These questions are still unanswered: 1. How to THINK like an detective(cause that's your job as a mysterie writer). Better get a book about thinking like sherlock holmes or deduction. 2. Forensics I'm German if you are German there is a book called Aren bis Zielfahndung. Basically what I expected from this book is all in that german one. But I got this one first so nevermind. It's an overall general and shallow writing advice book. No coherence either. Cause it reads like 100 diffrent blog articles. Which it might even be. There are 50 something authors in that book, might be the problem.