Wes Craven Quotes

'Original Sin' is, for me, a murder mystery with a huge cast that plays out on a grand stage.

Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot.

What would you have if you didn't have a murder in a mystery? You'd have something for the lower-level readers. When you get up into the upper levels, there's nothing that will engage you or compel you or get your emotions churning like a murder. It's the ultimate stakes.

I've been surprised that 'Elizabeth is Missing' has been so well received as a crime book. I love mystery stories, and that is what I decided to write.

I always look for good stories and good characters, and if they're placed in a whodunit, then I'm interested.

I am more of a suspense writer. A mystery writer solves mysteries. I am a 'high suspense' writer.

I do believe that even if you're the most clever person around and you figure out the 'whodunit' and you're not surprised - that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the story.

Crime fiction makes money. It may be harder for writers to get published, but crime is doing better than most of what we like to call CanLit. It's elementary, plot-driven, character-rich story-telling at its best.

A mystery is a whodunit. You know what happened, but not how or who's behind it. A thriller, or a suspense, is a howdunit. You know what happened, and you usually know who did it, but you keep reading because you want to know how they pulled it off.

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!'

Because I read so much nonfiction for work, I enjoy fiction most, especially detective novels and mysteries that keep me awake at night.

I've been in an Agatha Christie called 'The Sittaford Mystery,' which I enjoyed, but 'The Pale Horse' has a real sense of intrigue and the jigsaw pieces fitting together.

There are two ways to approach the writing of a mystery novel: adhere to the rules, or break them with glee.

I would love to do a mystery movie.

...and then a murder mystery will occur.

I had a publishing history of murder mysteries.

I have never been able to read Agatha Christie - the pleasure is purely in the puzzle, and the reader is toyed with by someone who didn't decide herself who the killer was until the end of the writing.

Murder mysteries are puzzles that are fun to resolve.

That's what everyone said attracted them to Lantana - I call it an adult mystery, because it's not a thriller in the sense of that other way, but it is a mystery.

The first proper mystery novel that I read was 'Murder On the Orient Express' with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover. 'Orient Express,' you'll recall, is the one where everyone did it, which delighted me no end, and I was immediately hooked.

I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.

With a thriller, you're going to have your red herrings, as different suspects are thrown up as possible culprits. You can only explore that for so long - if you do that more than a few times, it starts to get a little redundant.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.

I love mysteries on television - the more psychologically complex, the better.