Mainstream Murder

Violence serves as an element of suspense. If someone is murdered on the page--in an opening scene or at a plot point--then you have suspense. And please don't think that murders are the province of detective or crime fiction only. Alice Hoffman uses murders effectively in several of her novels. Indeed, William Faulkner uses murder, Charles Dickens uses murder, Wilkie Collins uses murder, Thomas Harding uses murder, and no one would accuse William Shakespeare of shying away from occasional bloodshed in the cause of a gripping tale. [If you do incorporate murder into your fiction, make sure you know something about the subject. Otherwise it will bring ridicule.]

Elizabeth George, Write Away, 2005