The Chopping Blog

Mysteries look backward, while thrillers look forward.

Our brains are incredibly powerful tools, but they’re like muscles: they only stay strong when we keep using them.

Listen to your characters, follow them, rather than forcing them to follow you. Get to know them and let them tell you what they’re planning rather than the other way around. 

This will be the third year in a row that I have made a strange New Year’s resolution: I plan to get 100 rejections this year.

Don’t be afraid to find out that something isn’t working. It’s rare to stick the landing on your first draft.

While most agents and publishers want a first book to stand alone, it’s a bonus if your mystery novel (or any novel) has series potential.

If the protagonist is going to succeed, then you want to bring them closer and closer to failure. If they are going to fail, you want to bring them closer and closer to victory.

Plot is the transformation of the internal by the external.

Coincidence works when it ignites trouble, not when it puts out fires.

The charm of the amateur sleuth lies in contradiction: they don’t belong in the world of crime, yet somehow they thrive there.

Intentionality is how you earn readers’ trust.

If your novel wants to break the fourth wall, go ahead. Just make sure you have something to say when it does.