How To Write "Da Vinci Code" Part 4

There's been a lot of random chatter lately on how to be "the next Dan Brown."  Particularly enjoyable is the "Dan Brown Sequal Generator" from Slate, which is hilariously, and unfortunately, accurate.

I started reading "The Lost Symbol" when the book came out three months ago.  I loved "The Da Vinci Code," so after reading that I went back and read "Angels and Demons," which I thought was pretty awful in that it was identical to "The Da Vinci Code."  Anyway, I wasn't going to buy "The Lost Symbol" right away because I feared it would be yet another "Da Vinci Code," but my husband brought a copy home from the grocery store so, what the heck.  Usually I fly through books, so my husband let me read it first.  After struggling through the first seventy pages at a ridiculously slow pace, my husband took it from me.

By the time I finally got it back, it was almost painful to read.  First, because it was ridiculously obvious who the bad guy was and second, because this was now the third time I was reading the same Dan Brown book.  Halfway through, I was livid that I now owned the thing. Since I'm sure Dan Brown will be writing another of these, I thought I'd "reveal" Dan Brown's "secret code" on how to write a book.  Take it and run with it -- beat him to the next storyline so that he can't inflict this punishment on anyone else ever again.  Understand that I am usually very tolerant of other writers and other styles, but this time, I feel like I got screwed out of fifteen bucks for purchasing part three of "Dan Brown's Greatest Hit."

To begin:

1. Introduce the main character, but be careful when doing so.  It is important that he have absolutely no endearing or even memorable characteristics.  He is merely the narrator, the blank slate upon which the rest of the story revolves. 
2. Create a victim.  They should be very powerful, suddenly unavailable, and preferrably mutilated in "symbolic" ways.
3. The victim has to have a close female relative within a romantically-plausible age range, who falls in love with the main character due to circumstance.  (I cannot fathom why else any woman would fall in love with this main character since he lacks a personality.)  She is allowed to have a high-ranking position of power, but she must vacillate between dumb and dumber, except where you need tension at the end of the scene, at which point the woman can suddenly and brilliantly solve the riddle but not tell you about it until at least the next chapter.  Also, the two characters don't need to have any actual chemistry, so long as there is a promise of "hooking up" in some way at the end of the book.  Note:  Do not talk about the chick from the last book.  We don't care about her anymore.
4. There must be an investigator with great power and questionable motives.  Preferably foreign, so we can interpret some of this as cultural divide if we so choose.
5. Oh yes, the bad guy!  You definitely need one of those.  They are seeking something to acquire ultimate world-wide power, and of course they must belong to a cult.  Preferrably a secret religious cult that had at least one artistic member at some point.  Better if they will kill you to obtain something or protect something -- your choice.  Even better if it somehow relates to the Catholic church.
6. You must have an explainer, possibly the victim or the bad guy -- someone other than the main character who knows all the "answers" and can reveal all the "truth."  Then you need pages upon pages of "truth," the preachier the better.
7. Riddles.  You need lots of them, and of course they must involve symbols.  The obvious answer is not the solution.  When your characters do solve the puzzle, do not reveal the answer immediately.  I hear this is called tension and it has something to do with plot.  Every riddle should lead to more pages of explaining and more pages of "truth."  Since, as you know, more tension makes for a better book, you have to keep repeating this over and over again. 
8. Another way of creating tension is to make half-page chapters.  That half-second it takes your reader to turn the page will really build your plot.  (Also, has anyone considered a NaNoWriMo that sets a chapter goal instead of a word goal?  Because your Dan-Brown-type novel will win on Day 2.)
9. Descriptions of architecture.  Pick several well-known buildings in a city, along with a few that have to do with the aforementioned evil cult.  Choose the weirdest "symbolic" portion of the building and focus on that in your description.  I suggest walking through the building and looking for odd art, then making that the centerpiece of one of those riddles.
10. Did I mention pages of preachiness?  You really should add more of this.

The great irony of this post is that this formula is available to anyone who has read Dan Brown's books.  So, it's like a code where the answer is in front of your face the whole time!  Look at that!  Now I will have to go ponder New Age philosophy or something on my way to Half Price Books to get this thing out of my house.

The other great irony of this post is that on some level, I want to be Dan Brown or at least find myself as successful.  Insert sigh here.  I guess I'd better get back to writing some fiction of my own so that perhaps someday, someone I've never met can trash my plot formula in a blog.  After they've bought my best-selling book, of course.