Taking a break from critiques... and offering some direction

For those writing mystery and/or any type of suspenseful fiction, this is a fun read: Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories. The list at the end regarding cliche/passe techniques is important enough that all fiction writers should read them.

http://socialpolitan.org/m/articles/view/Twenty-Rules-for-Writing-Detective-Stories-1928

I particularly love #7. "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better."

Note to self: go back through manuscript and make sure bodies are dead. Really stiff. Pokeable. Maybe oozing.