Transitions by Marilyn Levinson

If you were to ask me what aspect of writing a mystery novel I find the most difficult, I would have to say transitions. A mystery requires many changes of time and place because sleuths and investigators are constantly on the move as they check out clues and speak to various suspects. I often manage shifts of this kind by starting the next paragraph with phrases such as "after eating a quick lunch in the diner" or "I spent the rest of the afternoon going over emails" or "the following morning, I decided to talk to Mary Smith again." These simple phrases provide a time and place as well as setting the stage for the next scene.

We mystery writers can't simply introduce a murder, offer up an array of plausible suspects, go on a few wild goose chases, get hit over the head for our troubles, then reveal the guilty party. We are storytellers first and foremost. It behooves us to make sure our readers engage with our characters, building up tension and suspense as we first throw suspicion on Suspect A then on Suspect B, until the final denouement. As the author of cozy mysteries, I'm obliged to cover a lot more territory than just the murders my sleuth is trying to solve.

For example, in my Haunted Library series, my sleuth Carrie Singleton is head of the library's programs and events. I transition from scenes of her everyday work to those of  her sleuthing. Carrie has many relationships, and they are all essential to the series. I need to interpose scenes featuring Carrie and her friends, her boyfriend, her relatives, Evelyn the ghost, and Lieutenant Mathers, the police chief among scenes related to the mystery. These all require transitions. So do scenes of action segueing into passages where Carrie is mulling over some new development in the case or wondering if she and Dylan Avery will ever marry. Then there are the transitions to the secondary theme that appears in each book in the series.

The trick is to make each transition clear, even obvious—perhaps telling why your sleuth is now doing this—so that your reader is never at sea. And that, despite all the various elements you have introduced in your novel, they all dovetail so that your reader has a complete vision of what your sleuth is experiencing as she or he goes about solving the mystery to a satisfying conclusion.