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.

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." data-large-file="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." width="867" height="1300" src="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." alt="" class="wp-image-19058" srcset="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 867w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 100w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 200w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" />Photo by Karen Lau00e5rk Boshoff on Pexels.com