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The mystery genre ‘is alive and well and living in an on-line bookstore just a mouse click away. How is it that this over-use method of storytelling is still as fresh and appealing after more than one hundred years? The answer lies in the fundamentals of writing. Grab Them and their minds where it hurts Will Follow An author must, above all, always tell a compelling story, involving, to one degree or another, three dimensional characters recognized. The fact that the story takes place against a backdrop of otherwise formula, involving the effort to solve a murder mystery is just icing on the cake.

The reader has to worry about at least one of three people: the person who was killed, the murderer, or the person to find the murderer. Unless the reader can identify with at least one of them, history usually do not join. Reading a book utilizes our time, and in the modern world, often our most precious resource.

The author must have a convincing answer to the question: why waste my time reading your novel?

The answer to that question is that the story is about someone the reader will find quite interesting: himself. The reader must recognize the parts of himself in one or more of the characters.

Although the look in situations that are different from their daily life, we need the opportunity to reflect on whether he would react the same way under those circumstances? The Murder Mystery is to be solved only when the story is ending Readers love to guess at the “who done it ‘looks like a murder mystery. But usually they are disappointed if they can find the answer too easily, or at least too early in history. Life is about the dark. We never really know the secrets held by the people around us even greater confidence to our loved ones.

That’s what makes murder mysteries so compelling: in truth, our lives are informed by mysteries that are never resolved. However, unlike real life, in the novel everything is explained by its conclusion. Therefore, we find comfort in the difference between real life and fiction, the satisfaction of finding the answer. Psychoanalysts have a term for this: repetition compulsion. It is the need to duplicate the essence of an earlier trauma and this time, control the outcome. The reader knows there are secrets has been retained by the author, but unlike the traumatic chaos and disorder of real life, if read to the end, everything is explained.

Who can teach, write Some of the best mysteries involving the murder discourses on unrelated esoteric topics. This usually leads the reader to learn something from the dark matter that has nothing to do with the murder itself. The act of reading involves a commitment to inhabit the mind and feelings of another person. Sometimes that person’s experience and scholarship is an integral part of their understanding. Therefore, in the course of reading a murder mystery, one can learn from evolutionary symbiosis between butterflies and orchids, esotericism of military strategy and tactics of the Civil War, or the protocols for DNA identification human remains.

Another example is that in my recent novel, point and shoot, I discussed the subtle intersection of internal and external martial arts, using the Okinawan art of Shaolin Kempo Karate and the Chinese art of Tai Chi Chuan as an illustration: I went to the locker room and put on a Kung Fu uniform is always used for Tai Chi Chuan practice: simple, black slacks and jacket with a white collar. When I taught Kempo, I wear the black uniform of Karate with the rainbow of fighting animal patches and under that, black belt with six bands, but for the Tai Chi, this was discreet dress uniform day. It was a tacit reminder that, while recognizing that both were derived from the same original Chinese Shaolin Temple forms, the two arts had developed quite differently. Divergent branches of the same tree.

My practice of Kempo Karate had been more than enough through my teens. I duly memorized the movements and their names, making my way through the rankings of the belt. In five years, which had reached brown belt level. However, like many martial arts students in that range, I was disheartened by the fact that the moves made so inadequate in comparison with a black belt. I had reached technical capacity, but that was all. There was obviously something more, and I had no idea what could be.

I shared my doubts with my grandfather, and he suggested I learn the 24 basic posture Tai Chi short form and after that, the position of the 108 long form. At first, simply learned the Tai Chi as you would any other form Kempo others. In fact, the postures and strikes were very similar to the shape of crane that I knew so well from Kempo Karate. I implemented the same way: by focusing force, albeit at a slower pace. But eventually, he painstakingly helped me unlearn everything he had taught me about the Kempo.

It was a very Eastern company: a teacher taking his pupil back to the beginning to start again. This was the man who had taught me to move with blinding speed, now urges me to stop, he had taught me to strike with devastating power, focused, now urges me to be soft and gentle with the same movement, I had shown to prevail decisively over my attackers, now urging me to yield to the attack. In short, was the man who taught me the external aspect of the Kempo, now helping me to change the interior. It was the hardest thing I’ve learned, especially since it was unlearning. But I stayed with her, and finally started coming to me.

I started to dive into the river of the Tai Chi form. I began to move with the flow and relaxation I had often read in the writings of the ancient Chinese masters, but never understood. And my martial arts practice finally began to flourish. Tai Chi improves my Kempo Karate into something beyond simple punching and kicking. I began to understand the difference between learning the martial arts and being a martial artist.

I had spent so many years memorizing the Kempo combinations and forms with the head, forming long hands and feet to their execution, which had completely neglected to apply the most important part of my body: the heart. I never related to the martial arts as a passion, a commitment to improving life. Like the grandfather. After that, he proposed to relearn the entire system of Kempo Karate white belt onwards. They were the same Kempo combinations and forms of animals, but now she felt and looked different.

It was like starting to learn a beautiful poem through translation, and then, as so loved, re-learning in the original language. I was finally learning Shaolin Kempo Karate in its original language. Still can not adequately define what exactly changed. But somehow, I was tied to something deep and eternal. He had developed a balance and focus that extended far beyond my practice of martial arts.

I found myself becoming a different person: less angry, less anxious, more tolerant and accepting of other defects, weaknesses. In short, the internal arts enhanced me. Conclusion In essence, a murder mystery should be a story that can stand alone without death and no mystery. The characters must be tangential to the story, but instead the unit forward. They should at least have some features that the reader can identify. In other words, the reader must care enough about these characters to want to stay and solve the mystery.

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