The complexities of a mystery plot can scare off writers. But with organization, you can keep track of the twists and turns and avoid even the smallest holes in your plot. Follow the tips in this guide to tracking the plot when writing a mystery.
Write down characters’ movements–whether they appear in the novel or not.
What do I mean by the above statement? I write from the first-person POV of my amateur sleuth, Rae Riley. Readers follow the mystery only from her perspective. But as the author of the novel, I need to know what all the major characters are doing when they aren’t on the page. It makes the movements and dialogue that do appear in print more realistic and believable.
This is especially true for the culprit of my mystery. I like to write down what he or she is doing while Rae conducts her investigation. Rae can’t possibly know every move the culprit makes before, during, and after he commits the crime. But since I do as the author, I know what’s critical for Rae to uncover during the course of the story.
For example, let’s say I need Rae to see a blue convertible on a particular day. The most plausible way for her to see it is in the town where she works. So I write a scene where she goes to work at the library and has lunch with a friend and spots the car
But how did the car get there? On the right, I write what the other characters have done so Rae can see the convertible in town. Those reasons may not have to appear in the book for readers to make sense of the mystery, but it helps me understand my plot and the motivation of my characters.
You can break this technique down to hours or even minutes if your plotting requires it.
Another example: you’re writing a mystery in which someone had to have been murdered between 11 and 11:30 p.m. Select your day and then the times to schedule what the detective, victim, culprit, and suspects were doing.
Again, not all that action may appear in the final draft, but it helps me keep track of what my characters are doing.
Plot with a calendar.
The seasons of the year my mysteries are set are critical to the story. For example, for my Halloween mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, I knew I wanted it to end on Halloween. Rae’s uncle has a serious riding accident on the first day of the novel, so I also knew I needed a realistic timeline for his recovery. On top of that, Rae is trying to solve a riddle involving a lost inheritance. So her progress should occur over a believable period of time.
Using a calendar, paper or digital, is a great way to track all those points when a mystery that takes place over weeks instead of days. You can see what each character is doing each day and if the story is unfolding at a reasonable pace.
In Riddle, I have something occur every day for about two weeks. Then I jump ahead in time by a week as I build to the climax on Halloween. There were several reasons for the jump: Rae’s uncle needed time to heal, the family is frantically helping Rae’s aunt with the harvest that her farmer uncle can’t perform this fall, and Rae’s dad, the sheriff, is getting nowhere in his criminal investigation. All those facts needed to be addressed, but I didn’t need scene after scene showing them. I summed up a week, and then plunged into the next important scene in the mystery. Having a calendar to make clear where I jumped and what had gone on during that period was very helpful.
Writers, how do you keep track of plot when writing a mystery?
Here are all my tips and prompts for this month’s theme of writing mysteries.