MYSTERY MADE EASY by M. E. Kemp
"How do you do it? I could never write a mystery." I'm sure most mystery writers hear this question often. I teach a mystery writing course at a women writers' retreat in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York -- a perfect setting for a murder, with mountains, a lake and an island a short canoe-ride from the old Lodge. In fact I've written a short story called "Murder in the Boathouse" to be published soon in the Retreat Anthology. I teach my writing students that it's not so intimidating a task if you just break it up into its natural sections. Any mystery must have five ingredients. (1.) a Detective, with or without a sidekick. The detective may or may not be a human. Dogs and cats make popular detective series and I've used a pig named Priscilla in some of my stories -- pigs are really smart animals, particularly the old heritage breed of pig I use. (Yes, I did my research on a