Free How to rite Killer Fiction by Carolyn Wheat

superior to Goldy instead of those two steps behind that the writer wanted'us to be.
    Midpoint
    Arc Two ends—where? What marks the Midpoint of the book, the beginning of Arc Three?
    Something should. The danger is that the middle continues with detection, with Q&A, with speculation, all of the same variety and intensity as in Arc Two. This is what reviewers mean when they say a book sags in the middle.
    So what changes?
    A second body is always good— but only if the body is more than a body.
    Only if the second body changes everything does it really make a good Midpoint.
    How does it change everything? In The Christie Caper , the body changes everything because, contrary to the reader's expectation, it isn't Bledsoe's. The man we love to hate, the man whose murder we've been expecting since page one is still alive and breathing and someone else, someone we gave no thought to, is lying dead instead.
    The second body, or in this case, the first successful murder attempt, changes everything by knocking the detective's theory into a cocked hat. For this to happen, the detective has to have a theory in the first place, and he has to be pretty well convinced of it, or knocking it down won't mean much to him. Setting up the impact of the second body, then, requires that our detective have done a fair amount of work in Arc Two, that he's eliminated some suspects and zeroed in on others, and that he's got what he thinks is a clear picture of events. He's narrowed the suspects to one or two, he's proved certain alibis and uncovered certain motives. He's exposed lies and revealed inconsistencies, and he's feeling pretty good about himself.
    The impact of Body Two is that the one or two suspects he's focused on couldn't possibly have committed this crime. One good reason for being unable to kill Victim Two is that the prime suspect is Victim Two. Another good reason is that Victim Two apparently has no connection to Victim One, and yet they were both clearly killed by the same person. Or Victim Two is a person no one has an obvious motive to kill, yet there he is, dead, and his death is a reproach to the detective for not having solved the crime.
    Emotional resonance can be added by having the second body be that of a person we actually liked. This gives the detective even more motivation to get to the truth of the matter.
    Does the Midpoint event that changes everything have to be a second body?
    No, but it helps. The essence of the Midpoint is that shift from one investigational direction to another. Being warned off the case might change everything if the warning comes from someone who shouldn't have a deep interest in the original murder. Violence or danger to the detective in and of itself is not really a Midpoint event if all it does is add more pressure without changing the direction of the investigation. The essence of Midpoint—of the shift from Arc Two to Arc Three—is that the detective must double back, must rethink, must re-examine everything he's already done.
    And if the writer has done his job, the detective is not only back to square one, but also worse off than he was when he began the investigation. For one thing, he probably knows now that at least one of the witnesses he questioned was lying. He may even know which one—the one lying on a slab at the morgue. How will he get the information that witness had now?
    Arc Three: Waist-Deep in the Big Muddy_
    Law and Order moves to the lawyers for its Arc Three, and what usually happens is that a case that seemed straightforward suddenly develops more holes than the Titanic. A confession is thrown out, physical evidence is suppressed, and the person we thought was guilty turns out to be covering up for the real killer.
    Back to Square One—or is it? Isn't it "back a couple of steps before Square One"? Because now the cops need evidence independent of that smoking gun the judge suppressed. The best evidence they had is gone; the witnesses they already talked to aren't