Writing popular fiction

competent. A first person narrative by such a hero, in which he must regularly comment on his own prowess and cunning, may seem ludicrous to the reader. He may dislike the hero and, therefore, the entire novel. A very sympathetic, very human hero makes a good narrator for a story, as in Donald E. Westlake's comic crime novels,
God Save the Mark, Somebody Owes Me Money
, and
The Fugitive Pigeon
.
    2.
How close to the end of my suspense novel should the climax come
? The nearer the end, the better. Do not resolve the main plot problem on page 200 and continue to page 220 before typing "The End." When the reader knows what happened, he doesn't want to read on while the characters gab about how awful it was. If your plot contains an element of mystery, the explanations should be given throughout the climactic scene and not as an afterthought when all the action strings have been tied and cut. On the other hand, try to leave a couple of pages after the climax to let the reader settle down from that peak of emotional involvement—a thousand words, no more.
    3.
Can I build a series character into my suspense novel
? A spy will be sent on more than one dangerous mission in his career; a detective will handle more than one case; a criminal will pull many robberies in his professional life; a soldier may be assigned to several different campaigns in one war; an explorer will most likely tackle one of Nature's challenges after another. All of these make good series characters. It stretches credulity, however, to imagine that any ordinary citizen will have bad enough luck to become the protagonist of more than one sudden terror story in his lifetime. Likewise, few scientists experience major crises more than once or twice in their careers, if that often. Remember that the nature of your hero's occupation must generate dangerous situations.
    That's it. If you read Chapter Nine, especially the section dealing with style, you're ready to try your hand at providing vicarious thrills for the vast suspense audience.
CHAPTER FOUR    Mysteries
    The mystery story is the oldest of the seven categories discussed in this book. Oh, certainly, some fantasy was written centuries before Edgar Allan Poe created the first fictional
detective (C. August Dupin, in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," published in
1841), most notably
The Iliad
and
The Odyssey
. And erotica has been around nearly as long as the written word: even the Bible contains subdued erotic passages, stories of outlandish orgies, incest, and lascivious women. The Gothic novel pre-dates the mystery, but in its early form, the Gothic was much different than it is today: it contained little or no romance and was closer to what we now think of as the straight horror story. In any event, though all of these things existed prior to the mystery story, none of them achieved a steady, solidified audience or form strong enough to let them be thought of as categories until after the mystery emerged, as the first easily identifiable category of modern fiction.
    Although very few mysteries provide a good vehicle for social commentary or important observations on the human condition, they
do
make for fine escape literature, and they are always being published. Because the mystery—as we discussed it the previous chapter—is most concerned with
Who did it
?, with the solving of a puzzle, and is very little concerned with the morals of crime or the themes of human suffering that crime is tied to, its function is more therapeutic than that of any other form of category fiction. Most people pick up a mystery novel when they want only to relax. The mystery reader
doesn't want the slightest reminder of his workaday world. Unlike science fiction, fantasy, suspense, and occasionally the other genres, the mystery deals almost exclusively with lightweight material. Indeed, the only mystery novelist I can think of, after considerable cerebration, who writes
meaningful
mysteries is Ross MacDonald; and in his Lew Archer books, the reader actually becomes less concerned with the traditional mystery question—
Who did it?—
than with another question
—Why was it done;
with what social maladjustment does the fault lie
?
    You can, of course, attempt the Ross MacDonald sort of story; but, as with all category work, you will achieve acceptance and recognition much sooner if you begin within established limits before breaking out into less-tried territory.
    In every genre, there is a single element of