The Writing Process
Process is where the genre stops being a matter of taste and becomes a matter of mechanics. A crime novel is a machine with a proof at the end, and how you build it — blueprint first, or discovered in the writing — is still disputed among working practitioners. Pick a method and commit; then let the genre’s one non-negotiable constraint govern the draft: the clues are planted backward from a solution you must already know.
§ 7.1 Outlining vs. discovery writing
The Mystery Writers of America handbook stages this as a direct standoff between two working professionals, and it does not resolve it. The choice is the agent’s to make before drafting.
Jeffery Deaver: 6+ months and a 100–150-page outline, a manufacturing blueprint; crime novels are about structure as much as fine prose; it prevents writing a book that shouldn't be written.
Lee Child: write with no outline at all — the argument for spontaneity and discovery.
Jeffery Deaver & Lee Child, in How to Write a Mystery (Mystery Writers of America, ed. Child & King, 2021)
The genre imposes a caveat on the right-hand side. Because a mystery depends on planted clues that must pay off fairly, even most discovery writers concede they have to know the ending before they draft — the spontaneity is in the route, not the destination. Two middle-ground positions are worth imitating directly. Patricia Highsmith plotted the first third and the last quarter, leaving the middle deliberately “foggy” so her characters could surprise her. James Scott Bell compromises further with three “signpost scenes”: brainstorm only a gripping opening, a climactic ending, and the villain, then write toward those fixed points.
§ 7.2 Establish a daily process
Volume and rhythm beat inspiration. Walter Mosley’s rule sets the floor: produce every day, reread yesterday’s pages with only the most superficial edits, then continue forward. Target roughly 600–1,200 words a day and let the first draft be imperfect on purpose — polishing while drafting stalls the machine.
Write each and every day of your life… read what I wrote the day before, making only the most superficial changes, and then continue. Walter Mosley, This Year You Write Your Novel, 2007
Mosley’s genre-specific caution: a novel is not a play. Do not try to carry the whole plot in dialogue — the investigation lives in narration, action, and interiority as much as in what characters say aloud.
§ 7.3 Revision strategies specific to mysteries
General revision tightens prose; mystery revision verifies the proof. Run these checks as discrete passes, not a single read-through:
- Clue placement and fair play. Reread specifically to confirm every clue needed to solve the case is on the page by roughly the 75–80% mark, and that the killer was introduced early rather than sprung late.
- Read the story backward. Move from the reveal to the opening to catch timeline inconsistencies and confirm each planted clue lines up with the solution.
- Time the beta reader’s guess. Note when a fresh reader guesses the culprit; if they land it too early, adjust the misdirection.
- Read it aloud, or record it. Mosley suggests recording yourself reading the book aloud to catch what the eye skips.
Highsmith’s standard for the rewrite is blunt and useful: when you suspect a story could be better, assume it can, and write it over rather than patch it. Then read the finished draft straight through as a reader, without stopping.
When one thinks a story could be better… it is best to write it over. Patricia Highsmith, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, 1983
§ 7.4 Common beginner mistakes to avoid
These are recurring failure modes, each stated as something to detect and correct:
- Front-loaded exposition. Do not open with three chapters explaining the village and its history. Drip-feed information; open on the crime or the detective at work. (“Drip-feed your information” — Julia Crouch.)
- Sloppy procedure. Do not learn police work from television. Jurisdictional detail is what makes or breaks authenticity.
- Over-complication. Too many twists, subplots, and red herrings confuse rather than intrigue.
- Stereotyped detectives. The maverick-loner-drunk and the genius-who’s-bad-with-people are defaults to subvert or deepen, not to reach for.
- Research smothering story. Mysteries are about people; science and law are structures for exploring human relationships, not the subject.
- The everything-must-tie-up reflex. You need not explain every dropped thread. Trust the reader to live with some unresolved edges.