Writing A Mystery-Thriller Series: Part 1
A Jigsaw Puzzle Without A Picture
An essay in five parts
by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements
You can sign up for the occasional Elements newsletter, follow Mark David on Twitter @authorMarkDavid. You can read more about his fiction on The Elements homepage or here on medium.
Introduction
This essay examines the reasons and processes in the writing of the beginning of an epic series, exploring in the process a number of thoughts, ideas. I am writing this essay for myself and my project community on Google Plus. My community is my audience before having a book published. This essay on Medium is being developed, as that community audience enters into the discussion, with me, as I write this essay.
So why write an essay about a book that has yet to be published? Fancy marketing exercise, right? Er, no. I’m writing this for three reasons:
1. To clarify my own thinking as I polish final product, one that has taken a long time to make
2. To engage in dialogue with my community, one I value and something that is providing great contact with people with a genuine interest in what I am trying to achieve
3. To find out a little more how Medium works and if I can also engage with people here
So, that is: For myself, for the members of my community, and in the process of wanting to connect with other people through Medium, a new platform that is different, since it focusses on writing alone.
About Writing A Series
A series has different requirements than writing a book that stands on its own: A series has continuity, can in essence, be regarded as one, very large book, broken into sequences, each with their own antagonists, protagonists, questions and resolutions. This is not the same as a serial, where, as a TV, we see stages on the road to climax and resolution. A series then, is a chained sequence of books each offering its own a story universe that feels complete, not fragmented, while being related to a continually developing back plot.
I make these distinctions, since a book in a series can also be partially resolved — not all elements in the story require resolution, since the series as a whole has continuity and connections adding layers to back plot, mystery and answers to questions raised along the road of reading the books. Now concerning this, my first book in a series, it is time to take a stand back and appraise the whole.
Fire is not the element Fire, but a prologue
Getting this far, it is the understanding of the journey of writing that is important when we assess ourselves what we have done – and – how we can do it better. Beyond The Light Of Reason, or ‘Fire’, as I call it, is a result of the journey of writing it and the process of growth along the way. It is what is because it is the prologue — it raises many questions and only answers some. The series is called The Elements. The prologue, while focussing on Fire, gave birth to the whole Elements concept.
Intentions for product
Fire was written to be disconnected from greater external events and this will be the book’s strength as well as its weakness. Love it, hate it, or be completely indifferent. It is my first book and it is this author’s intention that the reader plays the role of observer. I will not, therefore, be serving the usual points of plot in any detail – other than what the characters themselves can know, think, or feel. This has been my intention from the start.
So what’s so different then? Maybe not such a great deal, perhaps a subtlety of focus and the feeling of identification from a distance. The Writer’s Holy Grail is the emotional connection with a main character. Some will argue, this is the only way to have a reader engage in the story. I want to challenge that view of writing in Fire. Not only do I challenge it, I also hold the premise that if the story itself is intriguing enough and the momentum of events can create a snowball effect, then the traditions and holy grails of writing can be bent to the artistic will of the writer. I want to write a book that is significantly different from the rest, while still offering something that is good reading entertainment.
What I want, is for a reader to piece together a puzzle, while experiencing what the characters experience, not with the comfort of distance, or the comfort of knowing, but forced to experience the same as the characters experience, even at the cost of character identification.
Jigsaw puzzle Metaphors
I have conceived of Fire as a jigsaw puzzle, the picture being something that is both fragmented, but also created by the reader as drawing by dots — perhaps more black and white than colour, but a picture never the less, one created by the reader. The first part of putting this intention into effect, is to serve ‘elements of mystery’ — starting with a crime. Each element of mystery is a piece of the puzzle, though each piece is still being identified by the reader who is, at the same time, adding an idea of picture to that piece.
The first piece in the puzzle is a figure, hanging from a tree: Enter stage left, The Hangman of The Gallows, Alföðr. All father. Algingautr, the aging Goth and Hangatýr, the god of the hanged. All of these are part of The Elements. None of these are going to be explained in Fire.
by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements
You can sign up for the occasional Elements newsletter, follow Mark David on Twitter @authorMarkDavid. You can read more about his fiction on The Elements homepage or here on medium.
If you want, contribute to developing the collection Stories To Imagine, working with elements of the imagination from the real world.
