I wrote “Masks, Mayhem and Murder’ in the pulp fiction genre.
By Kevin S. Giles
The other night I watched the original Psycho movie. It features Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, a lonely forbidding motel that a new highway bypassed, and a beckoning second-story light shining from a creepy Halloween-style house.
And there’s producer and director Alfred Hitchcock, the brain behind the 1960 movie’s tense scenes.
I can’t recall watching Psycho all the way through when I was younger. Maybe I stopped at the shower scene.
clearing up the mystery
This time, I paid attention to how Hitchcock crafted the plot. He started with a crime, invented an escape, confused the viewer with some misdirection and, finally, brought a psychiatrist into the final scene to explain what had happened.
When I began writing mysteries a few years ago, I learned it was no easy take to mimic the masters. I learned something else, too.
