Selected plotting and planning techniques from Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘Em Dead with Style by Hallie Ephron

In May 2016, I gave a short presentation on plotting and planning techniques from Hallie Ephron’s book Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘Em Dead with Style at the monthly Power of the Pen Meetup in Vancouver, Washington.

The techniques we discussed were

• A “blueprint” for planning a mystery novel
• The shape of a mystery plot (chart)
• Scenes, chapters, acts (“as seen on TV”)
• The scene-by-scene outline (and its uses in a pacing or continuity check).

I also gave a quick overview of how to use Scrivener to generate a scene-by-scene outline. Attached are the files from the presentation.

• Presentation – MS PowerPoint
• Presentation – PDF
• Blueprint for planning a mystery novel – MS Word