Monday, December 15, 2008

What Drives Your Mystery? by Morgan Mandel

I prefer mysteries that delve into the minds of the characters, be they good or bad. The further into their minds I as a writer go, the further my readers can travel.

That means at any given time when working on a novel, I'm a good guy or gal solving a crime or trying to survive in a world gone suddenly bad, or I'm a villain creating chaos.

In my Chicago based vengeance novel, Two Wrongs, there's a further complication. One of the good guys turns bad. I enjoyed doing that switch.

In another of my mysteries, Deadly Dreams, as of yet unpublished, a famous mystery writer and his victims become trapped in a deadly world because he can't distinguish truth from fiction.

I know there are plenty of mysteries which are plot driven, such as police procedurals, but I enjoy reading and writing those that are character driven.

What's your preference?

Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com

5 comments:

Mark Troy said...

I think of plot and character as being two sides of the same coin. The plot is how I learn about the characters; the characters drive the plot.

Morgan Mandel said...

I did remove a comment today because of virus concerns. Any blogger listing www.walmart.com as one of his blogs seems a bit strange to me.

Morgan Mandel

Jean Henry Mead said...

All my novels are character driven and, although I agree the plot must be well conceived, good characterization can carry a bad plot, but cardboard characters will ruin a good storyline.

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

I love great and unusual characters. Just finished reading The Unseen by T.L. Hines with one of the most unusual characters I've ever followed. The plot was one of the strangest I've ever come across.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Dana Fredsti said...

Characters! Plot is, of course, important, but without engaging characters to drive it along, it doesn't work for me at all.