Geri Schear's Blog

So, you have been diligently toiling over that first draft or outline of your novel, and now you’re ready to move on. No, not to approach a publisher — you wouldn’t, would you? — but to read what you have written with a critical eye, and figure out how to fix those inevitable flaws. Address the most important matters first. Save the more cosmetic elements such as spelling until the end. To do otherwise is like hanging wallpaper in a house before you fix the plumbing.

The Process

The minute you finish the story, put it away. Preferably put it somewhere that you won’t be able to get your mitts on it for several weeks. It needs to ‘cool down’. That is, you need to put yourself some distance from it emotionally so that when you begin to evaluate the needed revisions you will be a more impartial judge. Don’t worry, while it’s out of sight you can do some of the following things:

Take a short break for a week or two. You deserve it! Not too long, though; writers can’t be lollygagging.Research elements that cropped up while you were writing your first draft, so you can include those details when you return to work on the manuscript.Review the notes you made while you were writing that first draft or outline. It may be some time since you looked at them, especially the earliest, so you can decide if they are still pertinent, or if you clarified something confusing in a later chapter. Add new notes as other points occur to you.Enlist a friend or two to read the manuscript once you have polished up that first draft.If you haven’t already done so, plan how you will tackle your revisions.The Issues

After about six weeks, when the manuscript has chilled enough, sit down with a pen, a stack of Post-It notes, and a notebook — coffee or tea are optional — and start on page one. Read your story out loud. Somehow it’s easier for your ears to hear problems, than for your eyes to see them. Take your time. All you are doing right now is identifying the things that need to be fixed. The time to make corrections comes later. Some things may make you cringe, but that’s actually a good thing. It means you are now able to be dispassionate, and that you have developed enough as a writer to be able to spot the flaws.

You may find it easiest to colour-code the issues. Use a blue pen or Post-It for something you need to research, for instance, and red for a structural problem.

Here are the most common gaffes you are most likely to find.

Facts

Even if you are very sure, you should check all the factual elements that appear in your novel. Don’t assume you know. Can gunfire be smelled after a shot has been fired? Are you sure? Is that true of all weapons? Is there a difference in a closed room vs the open air?

Queen Victoria was the longest reigning monarch in the UK — or was she? Facts change over time. Records are broken or new information is discovered. Unless you are an expert in a particular field, do your research.

That’s not to say that you can’t have a character who is a conspiracy theorist, a flat-earther, or a person who denies the facts that the rest of us live by. But if you do that, make sure your readers know this is the character’s quirk, not the author being weird.

In addition to the world facts, the facts of the world you have created need to be consistent. Don’t change the colour of your hero’s hair or of another character’s eyes. The same goes — obviously — for how you spell the names of characters and places.

Logic

Similar to facts, but with a compelling difference. Let’s say your heroine, Magda, has just washed her waist-length hair. Five minutes later she leaves the house, clean, dry hair wafting in the breeze. Seriously? Listen, baldy, you might be able to walk out the door almost directly from the shower, but no woman ever could. Apart from the drying of the body, the hair-drying alone could take an easy 30 minutes. Then there’s the makeup, the clothes, making sure everything she needs is in her bag. Don’t roll your eyes. Ask a woman!

Unless your character is a super-hero don’t have him performing superhuman feats. Don’t have him cross Manhattan on foot in ten minutes.

I once saw saw a TV movie in which a character, in a hospital on a ventilator for several weeks, suddenly wakes up, removes the ventilator tube from his throat and proceeds to chase after the villain. Yes, characters do waken from comas, but if they’re on a vent they will probably be sedated. They can, of course, extubate themselves, but that’s unpleasant and painful. To have a conversation immediately afterwards after being on the vent for so long is… improbable. Then leap out of bed and chase after someone after weeks in bed? If you’ve ever been in bed for a week with a bad cold you’ll know how much energy you have when you finally get up.

Logic, my friends. It ain’t just for Vulcans.

Language

Try to keep it consistent. If you have been writing sparse prose for 100 pages, Don’t get all flowery on us in page 101, unless it’s a letter written by a character. Don’t repeat the same word several times in the same paragraph. For that matter, don’t use the same word every time you are describing something. For instance, the girl always has hazel eye. The leaves have turned to copper (really?!), and being nervous sends a frisson down someone’s spine. Unusual words like frisson are memorable, and they stand out when you use them every other chapter. If you have a favourite word, do a search on your manuscript. You may be horrified at what you discover.

Also, there is a fine line between showing off your linguistic skills and treating your readers like idiots. My rule of thumb is this: use the riight word. Always. Know the difference between tiny and miniscule and use the one that’s most accurate. Is your villain hairy or hirsuit? Don’t be afraid to use the more common word if it fits the context.

Language is the writer’s stock in trade. Treat it with respect.

Grammar and Spelling

If you are writing in American English, then you must remain consistent with it for the duration of the story, unless you have some compelling reason to change (such as changing from a US to a UK publisher, for instance). If you use the Oxford comma, then do so throughout. There is one caveat though to making these corrections: Keep them till last. You don’t want to spend several days or even weeks fixing these things, then decide later that you need to cut or completely re-write several pages.

Structure

The most important aspect of the novel is the structure. If you have a dazzling plot that goes nowhere, a sparkling character who disappears without reason in chapter three, or an ending that wilts like week-old cabbage, then these are all structural problems.

While structure is essential, problems with it are probably the hardest to spot. Here, we’re not looking at the odd word or clunky sentence, we’re looking at pages that don’t fit at all, chapters that are in the wrong place, and story threads that go nowhere.

I deal with this as I’m going along by tracking each scene on a spreadsheet. Then, when I get to the end of the draft, I can check that each scene fits into the story, that each thread comes to a resolution, and that extraneous bits can identified and cut or adapted to fit in.

While structure is complicated and you may be tempted to keep it until the end of your revisions, it’s a waste of time to take this approach — yes, I’m repeating myself, but that’s because I don’t want you to forget it. You spend hours or days sorting out your spelling errors, for instance, only to realise you need to delete or rewrite whole swathes of text in order to make sure the structure is sound. Why would you do that to yourself?

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As I said last week, the absolutely best way to learn how to write a mystery story is to read the greats. Below is my list of books that I have enjoyed, and many of which I have re-read several times, and I never seem to get bored with them. More to the point, I have learned more about writing a mystery story from these books than I could possibly learn in a dozen classrooms. Here is my list, and some ideas of the kind of lessons you should learn from each.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Poe’s stories are well worth a read if you enjoy gothic horror. In terms of crime fiction, specifically, he wrote the first ever mystery, The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), featuring Inspector Dupin, a character who may well remind you of that famous detective from Baker Street. He also gave us two great short stories told from the point of view of some seriously disturbed killers:

The Tell-Tale Heart (written 1843)A Cask of Amontillado

Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Crime and Punishment (1866)

I strongly suspect Dostoyevsky’s story was inspired by Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which appeared 23 years earlier. Both stories talk about a man being compelled to kill someone…

While I was researching this post, I learned that Dostoyevsky wrote the preface for the first Russian edition of Poe’s crime fiction. I’d like to give myself a pat on the back for spotting the similarity, but it’s really pretty obvious. Interestingly, Poe’s story was based on a real murder that occurred in Salem, Ma. Other writers, especially Christie, were inspired by crimes or similar events that happened during her lifetime, both Murder on the Orient Express and The Mirror Crack’d are good examples, as is her play, The Mousetrap. More on Mrs Christie shortly.

While The Tell-Tale Heart is pretty short, running to 32 pages, Crime and Punishment is about 720 pages. I don’t remember it being so long — I was a teenager when I read it — but I found it compelling reading.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

I would also highly recommend the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are 56 short stories, and four novels. All of them are excellent, but I do have my favourites. These include:

The novels:

A Study in ScarletThe Hound of the Baskervilles

The short stories:

A Scandal in BohemiaThe Red-Headed LeagueThe Adventure of the Blue CarbuncleThe Adventure of Silver BlazeThe Adventure of the Musgrave RitualThe Adventure of the Naval TreatyThe Adventure of the Final ProblemThe Adventure of the Empty HouseThe Adventure of the Six NapoleonsThe Adventure of the Bruce-Partington PlansThe Adventure of the Devil’s FootThe Problem of Thor Bridge

I have tried to keep the list fairly short, and to the stories I find most enjoyable. Furthermore, each one of these tales reveals the brilliance of Holmes. Unlike Poe — who I also enjoy — the Conan Doyle stories come across as modern and relatable. The relationship between Holmes and Watson is delightful and a great example if you plan to give your detective a side-kick.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958)

You may have noticed that most of the early American mystery writers were male, and Rinehart is often left out of the list of greats. She was best known for her ‘if I’d only known then what I know now’ type of story. They are quaint, but an easy read, in my opinion.

The Circular StaircaseThe Haunted Lady

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)

Best known for the hard-boiled, noir style of fiction. This is far grittier than the ‘cosy’ Agatha Christie novel, and well worth investigating (pardon the pun). He is best known for the Phillip Marlow series, and you have probably already read / seen the film / or heard of his most famous books:

The Big SleepThe Long Good FridayFarewell, My Lovely

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has a worthy rival, it is surely the ‘queen of crime’, Dame Agatha Christie. If you have been reading this series on how to write a mystery story, you will have heard me mention her name often. Mrs Christie is, first and foremost, the queen of the clue hidden in plain sight. I don’t want to give you examples, but if you read even one of her books, you’ll get the picture. She tried a variety of different techniques over her long career, and it’s fascinating to see her progress.

While I’m not a fan of her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, I have to admit that the mysteries he solves have much to teach the would-be mystery writer. I much prefer Miss Marple, and the small town vibe she thrives on.

With over 80 novels, not to mention several collections of short stories to her credit, it’s difficult to select a manageable few, but below are some of my favourites. I have selected them because each is very different from the others, and they are all excellent. I would suggest that after you have read the novel, you might want to re-read it, to note the clever structure and spot the clues.

And Then There Were NoneA Murder is AnnouncedThe Murder of Roger AckroydTowards ZeroThe Pale HorseThe Five Little Pigs

I would also strongly recommend that you see Witness for the Prosecution (1957) starring Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Tyrone Power. There are other productions, of course, and it continues to be performed fairly regularly. However, in my opinion, this version is the pinnacle.

Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957)

Slightly younger than Christie, DL Sayers brought a more psychological approach to her mystery stories. The three novels listed below are among my favourites, but I must confess I like them all. There is wit and humour here, and Wimsey, for all his lordly title, isn’t above associating with a variety of questionable characters. Bunter, his faithful butler, was his batman during WWI, and rescued his lordship from being buried by an explosive. Wimsey later meets Harriet Vane, a very ‘modern’ woman who is accused of murdering the man she was living with (without the benefit of matrimony. Yikes!) and earns an independent living by, yes, writing murder mysteries.

While the first two novels are murder mysteries — in my opinion, Have His Carcase is one of the best out there — Gaudy Night poses a mystery of another kind. Someone is sending poison pen letters to the ‘fellows’ of a ladies’ college, in Oxford no less. Whilst Harriet Vane handles this one almost alone for at least half the story, and is almost killed for her efforts, Wimsey, in a very gentlemanly way steps in to assist once Harriet assents to his help. The mystery is fascinating and all the women in the university are depicted with warmth and intelligence, but it is the relationship between Wimsey and Vane that I find most beguiling.

Murder Must AdvertiseHave His CarcaseGaudy Night

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961)

If Hammett had never written anything but The Maltese Falcon he would be worthy of mention. However, his list of great mystery novels are exceptional. A few of my favourites include:

The Glass KeyThe Thin Man

Georges Simenon (1903-1989)

A Belgian who created the remarkable Maigret series, Simenon was a prolific writer who published around 400 novels, plus many memoirs and short stories. Over 500 million copies of his books were sold. Maigret has been turned into a number of television series and films. I cannot single out any of his novels as being better or worse than the others; he had a consistent style. You can read them in any order, but if you absolutely must start at the beginning, the first in the series is helpfully called, Maigret’s First Case.

Ira Levin (1929-2007)

Levin wrote a number of books in a variety of genres. It’s hard to imagine that the man who wrote a great classic mystery also wrote one of the creepiest stories of the 1960s. While it’s hard to categorise his work, there are elements of mystery in all of them, including his play, Deathwatch. His best (and best known novels are):

A Kiss Before DyingRosemary’s BabyThe Boys from BrazilThe Stepford Wives

Any of the above writers will set you in good stead as you work out your own novels. Don’t forget to read for pleasure too, though. I’m not suggesting you will love all these authors, but even reading a few of your favourites should prove useful.

Also, don’t forget to read short story collections. These can be a great way to introduce you to a wide number of authors you might otherwise have missed. Many of these listed writers have written acclaimed short stories, too, in particular: Poe, Christie, and Simenon.

Finally, not to forget more modern writers, I would suggest the following, with one proviso. Some of these authors are not mystery writers, per se. They include thrillers, police procedurals, humour, andd the whole gamut of crime writing. So here they are, in no particular order:

John GrishamTony HillermanPD JamesRuth RendellDonald WestlakeLiz NugentJames PattersonMichael ConnellyJohn ConnollyPhoebe Atwood TaylorTana FrenchRuth WareVal McDermidLucy AtkinsGillian Flynn[image error]Pexels.com" data-large-file="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." width="1733" height="1300" src="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." alt="" class="wp-image-19235" srcset="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1733w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 150w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 300w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 768w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1024w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1440w" sizes="(max-width: 1733px) 100vw, 1733px" />Photo by Yulia Wulandari on Pexels.com

I carried the idea of A Biased Judgement in my head for a good two years before I surrendered and started writing. In the interim, I wrote short stories and saw them published in literary magazines. That’s the sort of writer I decided I wanted to be. But there’s a funny thing about novel concepts: once they take root in your head they are harder to prune than brambles. Eventually, I thought I’d write a chapter, just to get it out of my system.

It didn’t work. Instead, I became even more obsessed with the idea.

Over the next six weeks or so I continued to write the story until I reached about 30,000 words. At that point, two things happened: I ran out of story, and I knew I had to finish the novel. For a time, I put it aside and focused on other things. Back then, I had enough on my plate as a single mother. Plus, I had a 90 minute commute each way to an intense and stressful job. Oh, and I was in university getting my BA. Writing a novel was the very last thing I needed. I set it aside, but still, the bloomin’ thing kept haunting me.

Several weeks passed and summer arrived. My daughter went away on holiday for a few weeks, and I had a break from uni. During the unaccostomed free time I picked up the pages I had written. It wasn’t bad. Yes, it needed work, and it was way too short, but there was definitely something there. I went through it and faced up to the facts: I might as well continue writing the thing; I’d get no peace until I did. But I would do it properly.

At this stage, I realised that my third person narrator wasn’t going to work. The story needed more immediacy. Also, I didn’t want to write as Dr Watson; I wanted to find a different voice. Besides, the story opened with Holmes being viciously attacked while he was alone. I’d lose most of the drama if the story was narrated by anyone other than the detective himself.

That got me thinking. Conan Doyle had written one or two short stories from Holmes’s perspective. They weren’t his best. But, I thought, we knew that Holmes kept records of his cases. It stood to reason that he would keep a journal. Something where he could express his most private thoughts. Hmm…

I started again, this time completely committed to the story. I set up a spreadsheet and in it I compiled three important timelines: What was actually happening in the world in 1897 when the story took place; what the Holmes’ canon said the Great Detective was doing at that time; and how my story would marry those two things. This was so helpful that I have used the same approach will all my subsequent novels.

One of the key events in the canon for 1897 was Holmes being forced to take a holiday because he is unwell. Watson suggests he’s exhausted, but we know that Watson did, on occassion, trifle with the facts; not lying so much as being discreet. So, what if Holmes wasn’t exhausted but was recovering from his assault? Well, now we’re onto something.

A thorough study of the events of 1897 suggested where the story should go.

I re-wrote my first 30,000 words in the first person, taking care to make sure the pacing remained fairly brisk, but adding some new scenes in order to give the story some rhythm. I dropped in a clue about Holmes’s attacker, and about Jack, the street urchin who rescues our hero. As a result of giving the narration to Holmes, I was able to get under the surface of his relationship with Watson. I made every effort to reflect the friendship between the two men as Doyle had created it. I like putting humour into my writing, and the exchanges between the two men presented several wonderful opportunities to do that.

I wish I could tell you that from that point on the story all but wrote himself, but that’s not the way it happened. All the elements of mystery writing that I’ve covered over the past few weeks came to the fore. I developed a structure, found it wasn’t quite there and adjusted it. I populated the novel with characters as quirky and with as unusual names as Doyle had done — or, at least, I tried.

Since there are many characters in the story, some of whom only make a fleeting appearance, while others are far more significant, I needed to keep them clear in my head. I added a character list to my spreadsheet document. Even Stephen King, bless him, has been known to change the colour of a character’s eyes half-way through one of his novels. That’s not to say I didn’t make equally silly errors, but at least the spreadsheet helped to keep them to a minimum.

Right from the beginning, I knew what the motive behind the assault on Holmes, and the subsequent murders was. Yes, murders. In the plural. I wasn’t yet certain who was behind these events, but eventually it emerged. The other elements, the weapons, the witnesses, the victims, and so on, I already knew — mostly — before I started writing. As I worked on the novel, the other details emerged in the telling. It felt as if the story was telling itself and I was merely taking dictation. Well, when it was going well, anyway. There were still long weeks of struggle and endless rewrites, but I got there in the end.

If I had to name one thing that helped me as I put the story together it would be this: Reading.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a reader. I’ve read classics, mysteries, humour, and anything else I could get my hands on. I’ve read more books about writing than I’ve had hot dinners, and my appetite for mysteries is pretty close to insatiable. One thing that I’ve learned is that the more you read in your chosen genre, the more it will seep into your subconscious. You will find that you don’t have to worry about planting clues, they will fall on the page without much effort on your part. The same applies to things like pacing, structure, and all the other elements of mystery writing.

You can tell me that you don’t have time to read, that your life is too busy, and so on. I get that. But if you want to write, you have to read. Seriously. Many new writers tell me that they want a short cut. Well, friends, hang onto your hats because reading is the short cut. The more you read, particularly of the type of books you want to write, the more your subconscious will absorb. By the time you get around to writing your own story, many of the things you need to do to make your tale work will come naturally. It’s the same principle as pianists learning scales.

Next week, I’ll talk more about mystery novels I have read and loved, and maybe one or two I didn’t care for. I hope to see you then.

In many of the golden age of mystery stories, things returned to normal once the murderer was found. Later stories tend to deal more in the psychological aftermath of the people involved.

It’s up to you how you want to handle this element, and much will depend on your narrator. If your story is told from the perspective of the killer, then you probably shouldn’t expect more than self-righteousness, or cynical amusement. At the opposite end of the scale, if your POV comes from a compassionate side-kick like Dr Watson, or someone who was wrongfully arrested, the aftermath might be very different.

Many Agatha Christie stories end with the denoument, with Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot explaining how they solved the mystery. What happens to the killer is left to the imagination of the reader. However, in Busman’s Honeymoon, DL Sayers tells us about the killer being hanged, and the anguish Lord Peter Wimsey endures as a consequence.

Many people can be impacted by a violent crime, even if the victim was a nasty wretch. The fear, vulnerability, and unease will linger in everyone even remotely connected with the crime. As some of you may know, even suffering a break-in at one’s home can be traumatic. Do you want your story to reflect these feelings? Perhaps not; you may prefer the bad-guy’s-caught-so-let’s-party approach, and that’s fine. The fact that Mrs Christie’s stories continues to sell so well suggests that there are still plenty of readers who prefer a less gory type of mystery.

Another thing that will impact the effect of the crime on the various people it touches is the time-span of the novel. Many mystery stories are wrapped up pretty quickly and, one supposes, the various witnesses and suspects go back to their lives. I’m not saying that’s an accurate reflection of reality, but it tends to be the way some mystery stories work.

But let us suppose that the case isn’t neatly wrapped within a week or two. What happens if the case has turned ‘cold’, and people in the community have to live with the lack of knowing. Not only may they consider themselves suspects, but they will also suspect the people around them.

Perhaps you like the idea of approaching your story from the point of view of one of those people who have been impacted in some way by the crime, someone who is neither criminal nor witness. They may, perhaps, be a relative or the cold-case detective who tries to solve the mystery.

If a crime has been solved, or is at least believed to have been solved, you would imagine most people would just resume their usual lives, but what if you suspect the person arrested was actually innocent? How will that affect your peace of mind? What if your mother was one of the victims and your father was the one arrested?

Suppose the case is re-opened. Suppose the real killer is at large — is he / she just wait until he’s arrested, or is he going to kill off some of the potential witnesses? Or what if the killer is in prison but his lover or a family member decides to keep on killing so the authorities will believe the prisoner is innocent?

I’m making these observations in order to help you find alternate ways of approaching your story.

I’m sure you have realised that these types of stories, the ones that focus on the various people involved rather than just the killer, fall into the category of psychological mystery.

Next week, I’m going to show you how I applied many of the suggestions I’ve given you over the past few weeks to how I wrote my first novel, A Biased Judgement. As always, if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

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One thing that sets a mystery story apart from other forms of fiction is the clue. Giving the reader a chance to solve the puzzle and identify the culprit before the end.

There are three types of clues. The plain sight ones, the subtle ones, and the red herrings — and yes, I know that the red herrings isn’t a ‘real’ clue, but we’ll get to that later.

The plain sight clue

Most mysteries will have plain sight clues, but in particular the police procedural. The official force is, after all, about evidence that can be proved in court, not about hunches or what look like minor inconsistences.

What is a plain sight clue? It is the cigar ash, the fingerprint, or the bloody glove that suggests the culprit. In other words,it is hard evidence. It’s hard to argue with blood spatter or ballistics. In my last novel, Great Warrior, the killer punched one of his victims so hard that he left the imprint of his ring on her face. Indeed, the ring did lead, eventually, to the killer.

There is nothing obscure about these clues; anyone could spot them. Of course, sometimes even an ‘obvious’ clue can be misleading. Perhaps the cigar ash was there long before the crime was committed, or maybe the fingerprints belong to a witness or even the victim.

There are some stories that don’t seem to contain any sort of hard evidence, in particular those that fall into the category of ‘cold cases’. After all, if sufficient evidence had existed when the crime was committed, you’d imagine that the police would at least have a suspect. Then again, it is only in recent years that DNA from old cases has lead to arrests, or at least to identification of the killer who may, by now, be dead.

At the other end of the scale, I am reminded how, in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Hercule Poirot laments that ‘There are too many clues.” I won’t spoil the story by explaining why that is, but I will say that each clue seems to lead in a different direction.

The subtle clue

The subtle clue is the one that only the most astute reader will notice and, even if they do spot it, they may not realise its significance. For instance in A Murder is Announced there are a pair of lamps, a shepherd and a shepherdess. During the evening of the murder, the two lamps are swapped. One character notices, but doesn’t think anything about it. Of course, Miss Marple thinks about it a great deal. Another clue in the same novel is that there are two sisteres, Lettie and Lottie, and sometimes their names are mixed up.

Sometimes, it’s a piece of music that hints at something else. A piece of opera or some forgotten melody might hint at the truth. Perhaps the detective keeps humming it, unable to identify it. Then, when he does, he realises his subconscious was trying to tell him something important. A line from a poem might work, too. Indeed, a line from Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ helps Miss Marple solve The Mirror Crack’d — the novel’s title comes from the poem.

In another Miss Marple novel, a character’s childhood memory is triggered by John Webster’s play, The Duchess of Malfi. If you know your Webster, and if you’re paying attention, you can guess at once who has been murdered and by whom.

The subtle clue, in Agatha Christie’s hands, is a masterpiece. She does a fine job of noticing things that don’t seem very important, until an astute pair of eyes sees them. One part of Christie’s genius is that her subtle clues hide in plain sight. The swapping of a pair of lamps is a good example, misspeaking the name of a character is hardly noticible, especially when there is only one letter difference between them, and why would it matter? Why, indeed.

I once wrote about a (male) character who addressed a love letter to someone called Francis. As Sherlock Holmes observed in the tale, Francis with an I refers to a male, while it is spelled with an E for a female. In other words, the character was gay.

There is an old saying that the best place to hide a diamond is in a bucket of ice. By the same token, the best place to hide a clue is in plain sight. Don’t bury it so deeply that no one will ever find it, just make it seem innocuous, irrelevant. Let’s examine some of the places where we can hide such clues.

Let’s start with mannerisms. Some are specific to a country — think the rude middle finger (US) vs the two raised fingers (UK); a profession — for instance, a magician or a musician might do finger exercises in order to keep their digits limber. A man with a new toupee might touch it repeatedly to make sure it is still in place. Some people have nervous habits, they might belch, twitch, or hiccup when under stress. That doesn’t make them guilty, of course, but it’s worth noting.

Clothing can also drop hints. In one Christie story, Miss Marple observes a neighbour wearing a dress so tight so couldn’t even hide a handkerchief in it. When someone is found shot to death later, said neighbour has to be innocent because where would she have hidden the gun?

A schoolteacher may have stains on their skirts or trousers from the fingers of messy children. A person with a short leg might wear a built-up shoe. Americans tend to wear brighter colours than Europeans. Any of these can prove useful to the writer.

Then there are health issues. An insulin-depended diabetic will be more comfortable with using syringes than many other people. In one TV movie (Gene Wilder’s Murder in a Small Town), Gene realises that the woman who greets him in a wheelchair isn’t disabled because the palms of her hands are smooth. A wheelchair dependent person will develop callouses on their hands from wheeling themselves in the chair. Some people are embarrassed about a disability and take pains to cover it. I once knew a man who had severe colour blindness. I asked how he coordinated his outfits; he said he bought complete outfits at the same time with the aid of the sales staff, and he hung them all together. Of course, if someone messed with his system, he might not notice.

Would any of these odditites work in a mystery? That depends on the story. The point is that things people don’t even notice in their daily lives can make a splendid clue.

Red Herrings

In 1807 an English journalist named William Cobbett, in an article about how to mislead other reporters, suggested that it was akin to using stinky fish to throw bloodhounds off the track of a rabbit. Mystery story writers have gleefully used this device ever since. A ‘red herring’ is deliberately designed to send readers off the right track and down a wrong one.

Any of the clues above, be they subtle or obvious, can lead in the wrong direction. There may be a perfectly innocent reason why someone’s fingerprints are at a crime scene. The cigar ash might have been deliberately placed to mislead detectives.

The red herring is often one of the first things observed in a mystery story. Oh, the way the killer used the blade suggests he was left handed. But perhaps she was ambidexterous. Of course, the detective won’t realise he or she has been misled until well into the story.

The detective — and the reader — can also be misled by experts. Yes, professionals can, and do, get it wrong. An infamous case in London in 2002, the murder of a woman called Sally White was determined by forensic surgeon Freddy Patel to be a heart attack, despite ample evidence of murder, including the dead woman’s bloodstained clothing, blood on the bed, and multiple injuries which included head wound and a bite mark. As a result, the killer went on to murder twice more before finally being caught. And in case you’re wondering, yes, Dr Patel was later struck off the medical register.

While cases like these are not really red herrings, they do have the ultimate effect of misleading the investigation.

Mystery stories would be nothing without clues, and there are few things a reader loves more. As a mystery writer, there are few things I love more than coming up with a really sneaky clue.

Do you have a favourite clue from a mystery you have read or even written? Tell us in the comments.

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Modern television dramas tend to let the camera linger a second or two too long on some specific clue. Unless you’ve never encountered a mystery before, either in book or in film form, this is something that will scream at you the minute you see it. But good clues are the ones that become obvious when you reach the solution.

Agatha Christie reigns supreme where the placing of clues is concerned. Two sisters with almost identical names, Lettie and Lottie, the way someone parts their hair, a long-term physical action, such as acting as if someone were practicing piano scales.

The Plot

You can call it an outline, a draft, or Fred, but a loosely written version of your story is essential. This is where you get to make mistakes. Your writing can be full of errors — spelling, grammar, facts — as long as you learn from those errors and correct them when you start to write your proper first copy. There are a number of benefits to writing that first, ink-stained copy:

You can figure it out as you go. Most of us writers start our draft with as many questions as possible answers. Why does the hero do that? How did the heroine get home at 03:00? Is the dog really necessary to the story? Would it work better if he were a cat? You can make changes as you go — do not start over. Make a note in the manuscript that you have changed something, or leave a Post-It note on the print-out, but keep going. There’s no benefit in ending up with a beautiful first chapter and nothing else. Figuring it out as you go mean, well, you keep going.

You will learn as you write. By the time you get to write ‘the end’ you will find that you are a far more effective writer than you were when you wrote, ‘chapter one’. While your draft doesn’t have to be as long as the average published novel — some writers tend to draft fairly short, while others write huge tomes and cut back. You do you. But even a short manuscript should be several thousand words long. Those are a few thousand words more than you had written before. You will learn by doing. By the time you reach the end, you will see the improvement.

You can make mistakes. It will help you to write a loose and even silly version of your story without being constrained by ideas of literature. You will discover all your mistakes here, where no one but you will see them. By the time you make all the necessary corrections and finally allow someone else to read it, they will think you are a genius!

The freedom to make mistakes is very, uh… let’s say liberating, but that doesn’t mean there are no rules at all. Here are my top three.

Rule number one is to learn from your mistakes. Don’t assume that your first draft is perfect and just send it out to publishers and agents as is. No one, I mean no one writes a perfect first draft.

Rule two is to develop good work habits as you go. Whether you decide to write for a specific period each day, or to write X number of words, stay as close to that commitment as possible. Get used to sitting in the same spot, at roughly the same time every day, and focus on the work. It will take some time, but eventually it will become second- or even first-nature. The most important mark of a professional is someone who treats writing as a job, rather than an occasional, low-priority hobby.

The third rule is have fun. Yes, you need to be serious about your work, but try to enjoy it. Time enough to get fraught about the story when you’ve already finished the first draft. To be honest, I really enjoy the re-writing stage much more than that first draft. I like the honing and the polishing and spending an age looking for the exactly right word. However, I can’t deny putting that goofy first copy together can allow me try all sorts of silly scenarios that no ‘serious’ writer would accept.

Pacing

We think of rhythm as related to music or poetry. Unless you’re a writer, you may not even consider it being part of fiction writing, but it is. We should find rhythm in individual sentences, in paragraphs, and even in chapters.

Look at the following brief line which I have written four different ways. Think of the rhythm is each version of the same bit of dialogue:

“Oh, really?”

“Oh. Really.”

“Oh, really,” he said.

“Oh,” he said. “Really?”

You’ll notice how the punctuation changes the sense of those two words, and also how each version offers a change in the rhythm. I’m not going into things like stresses and meters, but I would ask you to look at where the pause goes in each of these options. Which of these four do you like best? Yes, I know much depends on what goes before, as well as the characters involved. However, I hear cynicism and / or sarcasm in those two words. To me, the last option is the strongest. It emphasises the pause between the oh and the really. The pause is a vital part of rhythm. Remember one of the most famous lines from Shakespeare and think about where the pause goes: ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’

If you said the pause comes with the comma, you are absolutely right.

Another aspect of rhythm is to vary the length of the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters, etc. Check out this brief quote from Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books:

I’d made the vampire cry. Great. I felt like a real superhero. Harry Dresden, breaker of monsters’ hearts.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher can write. Well, if that quote doesn’t convince you, probably nothing will. The content of what hero Harry Dresden is saying is funny but also a little sad. But for the context of rhythm, take a look at the way he changes the length of his sentences: Five words, one word, six words, six words.

Something else to note about that quote (ooh, poetry!), is how he leads to those powerful last two words. Wait a minute, ‘monsters’ hearts’? They’re monsters. They aren’t supposed to have hearts.

Except in the world of Harry Dresden.

Notice, dear reader, how my last sentence, set all alone from the rest of the paragraph, carries more weight and is, therefore, part of the rhythm. Don’t believe me? Have someone read it to you. Notice where they pause, where they add emphasis, and how the words flow. Assuming they are any good at reading aloud, that is.

You can also listen to audio books and see how a talented reader brings life to the words on page. Jim Butcher’s books are available in audio form, as, indeed, are my own. Listen for content, yes, but listen to the rhythm. You’ll be amazed.

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Structure is one of those things that people do not understand. You can read a novel and enjoy it without knowing why. Or you can hate it for the same indefinable reason. In simple terms, the structure of the novel is how it is put together. Things like how the plot builds, the length of chapters, how the ending fits with the beginning. We will get to those things, but today I want to focus on two aspects of structure that impact the entire story: the premise and the voice.

The Premise

This is the heart of the story. If the premise doesn’t work, then neither does anything else. Your story may be a masterpiece of lyricism, the characters memorable, but if the premise doesn’t work then the story will fail.

I started this series about writing a mystery story by talking about the Idea. It and the premise are certainly linked, but there is one big difference between them: the idea is the initial thought about the story and how it might work. It is, if you like, the lightning bulb stage. You need to think about the idea, let it take root and decide if it’s a story worth telling. You also need to do a little research to find out if the idea is feasible. Suppose, for instance, you have a story set in London about a man on death row. Only, the UK doesn’t have the death penalty so you need to either change the location, change the time period (to when the death penalty did exist in the UK), or change the premise.

This is the stage where you need to be most careful. There is a tendency for us to fall in love with ideas. We try to negotiate with the idea when we learn it isn’t feasible. You decide that your source information isn’t accurate; maybe you could set the story in an alternate universe; or just write it regardless and hope no one notices the flaws. Yikes!

Once you are certain — and I mean certain — that your idea will work, you next need to answer all the questions about the who, the how, and the why and all the other elements we looked at last week.

Even if you discover that your idea has never actually been tested in reality, say, using DNA to breed dinosaurs and keep them in a park, it doesn’t mean the idea impossible. It worked for Michael Crichton.

You need to know as much as you can about your premise bore you start to build your plot. The more you know, the smoother your writing experience will be.

The Tone

To get an idea about tone, read even a chapter of two very different novels or, better, read the entire books. Let’s say PG Wodehouse and Dostoyevsky. To find two more opposite tones would be hard to do. The first is bubbly, funny, and tends towards slapstick. The Russian, on the other hand, is dark, somewhat bleak, and deeply philosophical. Take a look at the quotes below an you will see what I mean:

Here is a passage from Wodehouse’s Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves:

“I marmaladed a slice of toast with something of a flourish, and I don’t suppose I have ever come much closer to saying ‘Tra-la-la’ as I did the lathering, for I was feeling in mid-season form this morning.”

And here is a very different tone from Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment:

“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open… that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood… with the axe…. Good God, can it be?”

I’ll give you a minute to recover. Dostoyevsky needs several deep breaths.

Ready. Well, then… you want the tone to match the story. An excellent example is Catch-22. This is a story of a crazy war full of crazy people and a bizarre run of events. As a result, the intelligent, cynical, and somewhat bewildered narrator, Yossarian, views the chaos around him with humour that is 9/10ths acid. By the same token, a children’s story like Peter Pan presents a wistful tone, despite the humour and fun. Dorothy L Sayers Gaudy Night is written in an intelligent, natter-of-fact way, as one would expect of a mystery set in a woman’s university shortly before WWII.

As you can expect, the tone depends largely on the narrator. Think of it this way: imagine you have Christopher Walken telling a story. What would that be like? Or Jack Nicholson? Now, how about Renee Zellwiger? Watch them on talk shows relating some event that happened to them, see how they express themselves. Are they funny, self-deprecating, serious, angry? Now think about who should narrate your story? Should it be someone solemn or someone quite giddy? Perhaps you should opt for more than one narrator and each one has his or her own tone.

Think about the books you have read and consider the tone they present. And don’t forget that the tone can change. A story that seems light and breezy that suddenly shifts into alarming and dark when a dead body is found can make perfect sense. And tone is just as relevant for the anonymous 3rd person narrator is it is for a character telling the tale.

Next week we will get to two more essentials of the structure: pacing and plotting. I hope to see you then.

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As you plot your mystery story, you need to answer a number of questions. The more you know about your story before you start writing the smoother the process will go. Here are the questions I believe are essential and why I think they matter

Who

Who is telling your story? If you are going with the omniscient 3rd person, that is, the writer is simply telling the story, you, the narrator, have all the facts. Consequently, you must decide what to tell and what to withhold. Be careful, though, because if you don’t leave sufficient clues for the reader to figure out the story you may be accused on not playing fair. If you don’t want to go that route, you may go with a limited 3rd person, or a first person narrative. In the former case, while you are writing in the third person, you are limiting the thoughts to just a small number of characters.

You may decide to go with the first person. It does solve a lot of potential problems in that the reader can only know as much as the narrator does. If you choose to tell the story from the point of view (POV) of the investigator, the reader will only know what he / she knows until the story wraps up.

First person narrators can be anyone in the story, of course. It could be a relative of the victim, a witness or even the killer. Just please, please don’t go down the Sunset Boulevard route and have the victim tell the story. I doubt I’m the only reader who gets irked when the story ends with, “And so-and-so murdered me so I’m telling you this story from the afterlife.”

Really?

When I wrote my first novel, A Biased Judgement, I was 30,000 words into it before I realised it would work better if told in the first person. I cried as I dumped those pages, but I learned my lesson. Make your mind up before you begin. Write your first ten pages in a variety of different ‘voices’ before you decide which works better if you’re not sure.

Another alternative is to go with the unreliable narrator. This is someone who is deliberately lying, or is too naïve or misinformed to relate the story accurately. Perhaps the narrator is a child, mentally ill, or educationally challenged. Perhaps he or she is the killer and deliberately misleading the reader.

What

What is your opening, that is both the opening scene and the opening sentence? If words could be weighed, the amount dedicated to the opening sentence would be measured in tonnes. The perfect opening should immediately catch the reader and make him or her want to keep reading.

The perfect opening of a mystery story is not, “It was a lovely spring day and the daffodils were nodding their golden heads in the garden…” Ideally, you want to give us a hint that there is some nastiness to come. If that spring day sentence concludes with, “So it took Mrs Jenkins several minutes to notice the blood,” then you might be onto something. For inspiration, check out this article by Greg Levin about some of the best opening lines of crime stories.

Where

Where does the crime occur? Don’t say ‘the bedroom’ and think that will suffice. The setting — both where and when — are essential to the mood the story creates. They also tell you something about the killer. A premeditated murder will probably take place somewhere secluded. A crime of passion or one of impulse may well happen anywhere at all. A domestic homicide will most likely take place in the kitchen (most weapons) or bedroom (most causes of disagreement).

We shall get to the ‘when’ in a few moments, but let’s think about the where first.

Some writers use the setting, or the ‘where’, to set the tone. A body found on a snowy mountain, especially if there is no trauma or blood immediately apparent will convey a very different feeling from a body discovered battered in an abandoned warehouse, and that is different again from the bloody body discovered amid the daffodils.

Think about your killer. What sort of crime is he likely to commit? Will he mock the dead in how he positions the corpse? Will he hide the body so it is never discovered? Once you understand your culprit you should be able to determine the sort of crime he is likely to commit.

When

By the same token, the type of crime / criminal will to some extent indicate the ‘when’. Is your story set in the modern day? Is it during the medieval period, or World War I? Narrowing it down somewhat, does the crime occur during an average week, or during a holiday? Does the crime happen in broad daylight or in the dead of night? Again, knowing where the body is found — if it’s found — will suggest the when. A body found in the snow suggests winter or, perhaps, a skiing holiday, while a corpse amid the daffodils (interesting title!) indicates spring.

Like the other questions here, your answer should not be arbitrary. All these elements are important and should fit together. There’s no point in setting your story at Christmas unless it is pertinent to the rest of the tale. Poison the gravy, shoot the victim while people are pulling crackers (for the non-Brits in the crowd, Christmas crackers make a loud bang when they are pulled. I’ve put a photo of Christmas crackers below). Your killer might stab someone on Christmas Eve while everyone is asleep–except for one child watching for Santa who sees all and will later blackmail the killer. Or serve as an unreliable narrator. Suppose the killer wore a Santa suit. Hmm…

How

How is the crime committed? The stealthy stiletto? The pistol? Strong poison? The weapon of choice should match the personality of the criminal, as well as realistically represent the sort of tools that are available to him or her. Remember, guns are illegal or at least strictly monitored in many countries around the world. Crossbows are currently illegal in some places, but not all. They also have the advantage of being silent. Strangulation requires some upper body strength and a lack of squeamishness. It also takes some strength and cold-bloodedness to stab someone, plus there is the inconvenient matter of blood.

A burly young man with, perhaps, a military background is going to choose a different method from an elderly woman with some physical disabilities. Furthermore, the killer’s background may also impact their chosen method. Medical people will go with their strengths, that is, their knowledge of medicine and human biology, for instance, while a corrupt therapist might manipulate their patient into committing suicide. A murderous undertaker might hide a body in a coffin with another corpse — I’m surprised this hasn’t been done yet.

Something else to keep in mind is that a person who wants to throw suspicion on someone else might well choose a method of murder that, in their opinion, their patsy might have chosen. In her novel Busman’s Honeymoon, DL Sayers says, ‘Once you know how, you know who.’ In other words, the method is specific to the killer. It’s not something I subscribe to because, again, it can too easily be used to throw suspicion on someone else.

Why

While real-life murders frequently happen for kicks, for petty theft, or for some other bewildering factor, readers prefer a genuine compelling reason for the crime. The most common motives for murder tend to be love, hate, or greed. Of course, these broad categories can cover all sorts of motives. Perhaps greed is for a father’s time, and so the step-mother is killer. Perhaps love means protecting a pet from a nasty neighbour.

Keep in mind that the villain’s motive may only make sense to him or her. If he is mentally ill he may see his victim as a demon or something equally nasty. Just remember you must play fair with the reader: if the motive is weird or doesn’t make sense to most people, make sure the reader knows that before the identity of the killer is revealed.

Finally

While I have broken these elements into individual questions, you have probably already realised that each one impacts the other. Start with why: why did the crime occur, then ask yourself what the crime tells you about the killer and his victim. All the other elements should reveal themselves once you have those primary points figured out. Next week, we’ll continue to look at the mystery novel and how to start writing it.

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Yes, this is what you have been waiting for: the investigator. I am using that word rather than detective because it covers both the professional and the amateur sleuth. If you’ve read a variety of mystery stories you will probably know that the investigator can range from the sweet old lady to the seasoned homicide detective with a wide range in between.

There are a number of things you need to decide about your sleuth before you start writing. The first one is fairly obvious: how did he or she get involved in the crime? If he’s a professional detective, the answer is probably a given; it was assigned to him. The amateur, on the other hand, requires more creativity. Perhaps the victim was her sister or daughter, or perhaps the accused killer is a relative. Miss Marple was very good at inviting herself into cases, but Poirot and Sherlock Holmes were usually hired by a concerned party or a detective.

Another thing worth considering is the time period when the story takes place. Yes, there are amateur investigators around at present. YouTube offers a number of stories about ordinary individuals either accidentally or with considerable effort manage to expose the truth. Often these are ‘cold’ cases, all but forgotten by society. However, such cases are fairly uncommon. These days, investigations are led by seasoned detectives who are aided by technological marvels I probably can’t spell. The age of the amateur isn’t exactly over, but it’s not that common.

You also need to consider the environment where the crime occurs. Whilst the snow-bound country house or train so beloved by Mrs Christie is enticing if you want to plot a story with a limited number of suspects, this age of mobile phones and the internet make that form of isolation less likely. As we have seen from the awful headlines, murders can occur in department stores, bookshops, train stations and, really, anywhere. As you can imagine, that makes solving such crimes a challenge for the unfortunate detective, but also for the writer who wants to ground his / her story in modern reality.

Even under these circumstances you can still bring in the amateur. Perhaps he was a witness to the crime and feels the official police are focusing on the wrong man. Or maybe he, himself, is a the one suspected — that has to motivate a fellow, right? But if you do opt to go down the police procedural route you must, must do your research. I mean, you need to do your research in any case, but you really cannot fudge the details here.

Let’s move on to the investigator’s character. For Agatha Christie and many other mystery writers the puzzle was the focus so the reader didn’t know very much about the detective’s background or personal life. Likewise, it took an age before Conan Doyle revealed that Sherlock Holmes had a brother. As for other relatives, most of what we think we know comes from fans who have developed their own background for the Great Detective. In contrast, Dorothy L Sayers turned Lord Peter Wimsey into a well developed character, though it took several books to reach that point.

During your plotting and drafting you need to decide if the story will lean more heavily towards character or towards the puzzle. If your investigator isn’t a professional, you need to give him or her a compelling reason to get involved in the case. Despite what you might see in your favourite mystery programmes, detective work is exhausting, messy, and often very, very dangerous.

Alternatively, you could go in a very different direction and make the criminal the protagonist. The Talented Mr Ripley and the Dexter stories do this well. As always, it is up to you, the writer. I would caution you to make those choices as early as you can because otherwise you will spent most of your time second-guessing yourself.

Next week we will start looking at some of the other elements of the mystery, no less important than those we have examined so far.

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I know, I know, you were expecting to hear about the detective. Don’t worry, he / she is coming. But I think witnesses are often overlooked not only by writers but by readers, and yet witnesses can provide your story with more twists and turns than almost anyone else.

There are several types of witnesses:

The deceiverThe unawareThe impairedTechnologyThe surprisingly astute

The thing to be aware of when you are introducing your witnesses is that one of them may well be the next victim. This is usually the person who saw or heard something but didn’t realise that it was important. By the time they figure it out, it’s usually too late. Of course, they may have done something foolish before they bite the bullet, so to speak. Perhaps they have tried to blackmail the killer — that never works out well — or maybe they will blurt out that they saw something in the presence of the wrong person, because they haven’t managed to put all the pieces together. Or it could be the classic: leaving a cryptic message for the detective before they are murdered.

The problem with classics, of course, is that they are just an inch or two away from clichés. All the uh-oh scenarios I mentioned have been done to death, if you will pardon the pun. Real life doesn’t work in such predicable ways, but witnesses can still prove misleading. Police officers learn that the red car the witness saw speeding away from the scene was actually a white van. Or the 6’4″ Middle Eastern man is really a 5’9″ white guy. Even the best-intentioned witness can get things wrong. In some cases, they can side-track an investigation with tragic consequences.

The Deceiver

Sadly, there are those who will interevene in a case in hope of gain, notoriety, or just twisted amusement. When a person is kidnapped, all sorts of greedy creeps slither out of the woodwork to send in their own ransom demands. One family’s misery is a monster’s opportunity. Some people will lie because they want to protect the criminal, or they don’t like the victim, or they hate the police. Some people are just wicked. It is believed that the notorious ‘Dear Boss’ letter that was sent during the original Jack the Ripper case was actually sent by a reporter as a way to generate more news.

Nearly a hundred years later during the search for the so-called ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ (1975 to 1980), police were misled by a man nicknamed ‘Wearside Jack’. This fellow repeatedly telephoned the police claiming to be the killer and taunted them about their incompetence. As a result, the real murderer, Peter Sutcliff, was interviewed and released three times because his voice did not match that of the caller, and, in the meantime, other women were murdered.

While deceitful callers and the fake kidnappers don’t count as witnesses, per se, they can have a horrific impact on the investigation.

The Unaware

Fiction is replete with instances of the person who observed something but didn’t realise it was a crime. Perhaps they attributed a loud bang to fireworks and didn’t find out until later that someone had been shot. These things happen in real life, too. Unless you work in a field connected with law-enforcement, you may not think ‘crime’ when you see something happening. We all tend to view the world through our own lens. If you have a jeweller on a train, he’s like to notice someone’s antique brooch, or diamond ring. He’s probably more likely to spot a fake gem than other people, too. An artist will observe colour; a doctor will notice health issues, and thief will spot the easy mark. Sadly, the writer may be so focused on their plot that they will miss much of what is going on around them. The same goes for the harried mother or the lovelorn teenager. People who are in pain, who are worried or distressed are less likely to notice what is happening around them.

That said, there are exceptions. Some people like to people-watch. They distract themselves from their own problems by watching the world around them. That doesn’t guarantee they will witness a crime; they may be looking in the wrong direction, for instance, or taking a phone call at that moment.

The Impaired

Some people cannot serve as good witnesses because of some sort of sensory or other impairment. They are blind or deaf, for instance, or colour blind. People who suffer from delusions may not seem credible, but they can surprise you. Also, someone who is blind might hear things others have missed; or if they are deaf, perhaps they read lips and can relate an important conversation to the detectives. A person with demential or other mental illness can prove unreliable, but, again, they can surprise you.

People in wheelchairs notice things that are below the eye-level of other people. They might spot a weapon or a pick-pocket more readily than anyone else.

Although it is far from being an impairment, people who speak a second language have access to conversations in that language that others may miss.

Technology

Electronics and technology have had a major impact on detective work. CC cameras, mobile (cell) phones, and improvements in forensic science. Even if no human witness is present, crimes can still be solved thanks to technology. Furthermore, technology doesn’t lie or err the way humans do. It’s not infallible, of course. Humans with an agenda with always prove more sneaky than the electronic devices’ ability to speak the unvarnished truth. If you choose to write about techy aids, make sure you do your research. Techy people are notoriously picky about details.

The Surprisingly Astute

Witness come in all ages, shapes, and sizes and who they are will influence how they interpret what they see. The love-struck teenager will see everything through that rosey lens. Then again, the hardened former policeman may see things in an equally tainted and no less inaccurate way. Despite these biases, there are still those who are excellent observers and whose ability to correctly interpret what they’ve seen. Furthermore, they are able to articulate what they have seen or heard. These individuals are heaven-sent to real life detectives, but they can bring your novel to a screeching halt. In other words, use them wisely.

When to use them

In most instances, both in real life and in fiction, witnesses will show up as soon as the detectives start canvassing. There are, as always, exceptions. People who don’t realise what they’ve seen or heard, or who know exactly what they witnessed but are afraid of the consequences if they speak up.

One book I read a long time ago was about a man who had been abroad for a couple of years. When he returns to England he realises that someone he knew had been executed for murder. Unfortunately, he knew the man was innocent and he could have alibied him, but he wasn’t aware that his testimony was needed.

Some times a person is ill and their protective family doesn’t let them know that there evidence is important. And, yes, I know a determined police officer won’t let that stop them from speaking to the patient. But what if the patient is in a coma? Or undergoing surgery? Sometimes information is needed instantly, but it’s not always possible.

At the risk of stating the obviously, let me remind you that witnesses are people first and foremost. They have their loves and their prejudices, their ambitions, and their secrets. The canny writer will use all of these to their advantage.

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