By African American Writer Denise Turney

Mystery books for adults range from romance suspense to mysteries of the unknown to real life detective stories. Despite the differences, it’s the pace and plot that drive these books. Let these two elements be off and you might put classic and modern suspense novels down. Yet, pace and plot aren’t the only must haves that readers look for in a good suspense novel.

7 Elements in Mystery Books

If you’re a writer who’s looking to engage readers more deeply, consider these 7 elements readers love about mystery books. And yes – at the front of the pack are pace and plot. More about those elements that can turn a manuscript from a hidden gem into one of the top selling mystery books.

• Characters – Believable characters resemble real people. They may remind your books’ readers of themselves. That means that characters in mystery books have strengths and weaknesses. These characters also have one or more childhood or adult experiences that shape them, that may make it hard for the character to change, overcoming a weakness that threatens to cost her everything.
• Dialogue – The dialogue in a mystery has to fit the character. It’s not believable if a quiet, reserved woman with strong religious beliefs curses her boss out-of-the-blue for undermining her promotional opportunity.
• History – Street and business names may change in historic mystery books. But dates and core history events can’t change too much, if at all when making these events part of mystery books for adults. Opt for pivotal history events, the very events that elicit strong emotion. It’s this strong emotion that can create a deep connection between readers and your books’ characters.

7 Elements in Mystery Best Sellers Continued

• Setting – Akin to events, setting can surface strong emotions and memories in readers. Effective setting examples include New York City, Paris, the rugged West, especially during the early 20th century, an isolated island and a barren mountain or forest area.
• Pace – Here’s an area that writers of award-winning mystery books get right. These authors know when to reveal secrets. They also know when to reveal key character motivations, fears and regrets. As tempting as it may be, revealing secrets and motivations too soon can make your story feel forced. Also, make revelations too late and modern mystery novels may feel like they’re unfolding at a snail’s pace.
• Plot – Of course, captivating modern mystery novels have the type of winning plot that makes for a hit movie. To develop a winning plot, try creating a three-page outline for your mystery books. See if the outline moves you. If it doesn’t, keep tweaking it. After all, you’ve got to have a great, engaging plot.
• Secrets – Fortunately, secrets are easy to create. In fact, you could use a secret from your personal life (a secret you’ve already shared) to drive modern mystery novels. Just make sure the secrets in mystery books fit the books’ characters.

Award winning mystery books are so compelling, well-paced and engaging that they can keep readers up until the wee hours of the morning, turning page after page. Right from the start, authors reveal one or more key points about the book’s major characters, the type of details that either find you rooting for or against the characters. What you won’t do is not care about what happens to the characters.

Loving Mystery Books For Adults

And it’s that simple. After readers are put in a position of wanting to know what happens to a character, they may find it hard to put mystery books down. Dialogue, setting and connections to real life events are other elements that readers love about mystery best sellers.

Also, think about it. Don’t your favorite suspense books unfold so vividly that you can actually see scenes in the books happening? So, writing that flows, a superb pace and visual strength are musts. However, if you’re an author looking to pull readers deeper into suspense books that you write, don’t forget the power of history.

Modern Mystery Novels

Ramp mystery books for adults up with key historic events and you could surface strong emotions in readers, powerful emotions that are connected to the historic events. And isn’t emotion the primary reward offered by good books? An example of a book that offers this emotional rush is Spiral.

Set during the 1940s, Spiral is a mystery book that digs into tensions that surface in America even as the country is deep into World War II. Dark secrets threaten to expose the city’s underbelly. And prominent people will do anything to keep the truth hidden. As with other page turning mystery books, it’s the combination of history, characterization, pace and setting that arrest readers’ attention. Read the book’s description and see if the feature elements, many covered in this article, don’t pique your interest.