Writing popular fiction

other suspects, and launches the reader on the trail of the solution.
    2.
Does your hero appear in chapter one
? He should. In most mysteries, he will be, by title and/or circumstance, a detective: policeman, private detective, a private citizen caught up in a situation only he can unravel (Agatha Christie's Jane Marple mysteries are good examples of this form), a scientist sorting through clues to a disaster only he can explain, a soldier-detective, a spy-detective—and his entire role in the story will be that of the sleuth seeking and evaluating clues. If the crime is
committed at the outset, then, you'll have a good reason to focus on him from the first page.
    Some mystery writers favor the first person viewpoint for telling a story—that is, telling it through the eyes and the mind of the lead character. In fact, the mystery genre supports more first person narratives than any other. Though this makes the early introduction of the hero almost no problem at all, it should be avoided; the vast majority of published novels are told in the third person. A great many editors and, apparently, readers as well, share a prejudice against the first person. Since your chief goal is to please first the editors and then the readers, you should not tackle a first person narrative until you can do it well enough to squelch any editorial dissatisfaction with the method.
    In Rex Stout's enormously popular Nero Wolfe series, even though the initial crime is usually committed offstage, the heroes are onstage in the first chapter. With only a few exceptions, the Wolfe stories begin with a client who comes to Wolfe's 39th Street townhouse in an attempt to get Wolfe and his trusted associate, Archie Goodwin, to take on a case. We know our heroes straight off, and we soon learn the nature of the puzzle, and from there on, it's easy reading. (Some of the Wolfe novels, by Rex Stout, include
The Doorbell Rang, Plot It Yourself, Death of a Doxy, The Father Hunt, The Mother Hunt
, and
Might as Well Be Dead.)
    3. Does your hero have a sound motive for becoming involved in the investigation of a case
? He should have some other reason, outside the most obvious—i.e., it's his job. For example, Stout's detective, Nero Wolfe, is quite often motivated by a desperate need for cash. Wolfe lives lavishly, with a full-time chef, a half-day orchid specialist who helps him tend his hundreds of greenhouse orchids, and other expensive accouterments of the "good life." Naturally, there are times when he is desperate enough for ready cash that he will take on even the most unpleasant cases. When it isn't money that motivates Wolfe it may be curiosity, because that overweight private investigator is as much a puzzle fancier as any mystery reader. Or he may be motivated by self-preservation, to the extent that Wolfe must preserve his rich lifestyle by preserving his reputation as a private investigator.
    Occasionally a writer creates a mystery novel protagonist with more depth to him than most. Donald E. Westlake's ex-detective, Mitch Tobin, the focus of a series of novels
(Kinds of Love Kinds of Death, Murder Among Children, Wax Apple, A Jade in Aries
, and
Don't Lie to Me
), is a man with a monkey on his back: the monkey is guilt. It's like
this: Tobin was once a respected detective on the police force. However, when he arrested a burglar named Dink Campbell, he met Campbell's wife and fell for her at once. The attraction was mutual. While Campbell was serving his sentence for burglary, Tobin and Linda Campbell carried on an affair; since Tobin was married, the affair had to be during working hours. Tobin's partner covered for him, during their tour of duty, when Tobin wanted to see Linda—until one afternoon, while Tobin was in bed with the girl, the partner was killed. Tobin was disgraced, thrown off the force, and left with a load of guilt he was almost unable to bear: guilt that he had cheated on his wife, guilt that he had embarrassed his son, guilt, most of all, that he had shirked his responsibility and had not been there to back up his partner when the partner arrested a heroin pusher. In each of the novels, one of Tobin's motivations, either unspoken or quite evident, is this guilt, a need to make up for what he's done, to repay the debts, to help other people and thereby even his own moral record a little. In some cases, he actually would prefer not to be involved at all, but does get involved, out of this sense of
duty
to his family, his