Struggling with First Chapters? My 3 Tips on How to Write a Compelling Mystery Opening

If you love mysteries, maybe you’ve had the dream of writing one. But how do you start the story? Are you struggling with first chapters? My 3 tips on how to write a compelling mystery opening are here to help.

The first chapter does not have to end with discovering a body.

Many cozy mysteries begin with the amateur sleuth meeting the perfectly repellent victim, who is then found dead at the end of the first chapter. Nothing wrong with starting a mystery novel that way, but it is not an iron-clad rule. If that kind of opening isn’t working for your mystery, keep reading. A rule that you usually should follow is …

The first chapter should contain the main problem of the mystery.

What do I mean by the main problem? It’s the problem that fuels the mystery. In my Halloween mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, a lost inheritance leads to all sorts of crimes. In the first chapter, I explain the backstory of the lost inheritance and readers meet two of the people who could inherit it. Right away, readers know what kind of mystery is involved and several of the major characters.

Let’s go back to our perfectly repellent victim. In the first chapter, I could show how perfectly repellent the victim is. In a small town in West Virginia, the victim is a developer of a new ski resort. The town is divided over whether the resort is good or bad for the community. Although no crime has been committed by the end of the first chapter, readers know the developer and his plans will be central to the mystery.

Introduce the culprit early in the story.

Although you don’t need a body at the end of the first chapter, you should introduce the culprit early and before the major crime of the novel.

Here’s an example of how NOT to do it: The murder happens on page 40. The amateur sleuth or cop begins the investigation. The culprit isn’t introduced until page 120. Mystery fans who love fair-play mysteries will call, “Foul!’

Why? Because it seems like the author wasn’t playing fair. For 80 pages, readers were trying to figure out the crime, but there was no way they could because they hadn’t met the culprit yet.

The exception to this rule is if the major crime happens very early in the novel. If a body is discovered at the end of Chapter 1, then readers know they will be spending the rest of the book meeting all the suspects. This seems fair. But you still want to introduce the culprit early so he or she has time to interact with the detective. After finishing a novel, readers love to flip back through a mystery and appreciate how the culprit sparred with the detective.

If you’re a mystery fan, what do you think is the best way to write the beginning of a mystery novel?

Here are more tips on writing mysteries.

October 15, 2026 0

Four Tips for Creating a Teen Detective

I’m guest blogging today on American Christian Fiction Writers with four tips for creating a teen detective.

Since 2018, I’ve spent every day with my teen detective Rae Riley. She’s had a cameo in one short story and been featured in another as well as three novels. My latest novel, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, released October 1. After working with her for so long, here are four tips for creating an engaging teen detective.

Read my whole post on the essentials of a teen sleuth here. And here is my previous guest blog, researching cozy mysteries.

Click the link for more advice and tips for writing mysteries.

October 30, 2025 0

How to Write a Halloween Mystery

My latest Rae Riley mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, takes place, surprisingly, during the month of October with the finale on Halloween. The holiday offers unique features for the mystery writer, and I wanted to share what I learned about how to write a Halloween mystery.

Defining Halloween Mystery

Before I get started, I should define what I mean by Halloween mystery. This is a story that fits squarely in the mystery genre. No matter how spooky the incidents appear throughout the story, by the end, the detective will have proved that everything has a rational explanation.

Sherlock Holmes summed it up best in the short story, “The Sussex Vampire”. A former client asks Holmes to see a man who needs information on vampires. Holmes does some quick research and finds the topic beneath contempt. He tells Watson, “This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”

I know there are paranormal cozy mysteries, but if a book belongs to that subgenre, that should be clear from the cover and back cover blurb. Mystery fans hate to puzzle their way through a story only for the detective to reveal that it wasn’t the butler who did it, but a ghost.

So I’m giving tips on how to write a mystery set at Halloween without any supernatural trimmings.

Take Advantage of the Halloween Traditions

If I’m going to set a mystery during Halloween, then the traditions associated with the holiday have to be critical to the mystery. Otherwise I could set the story at any time of the year.

In Riddle, an outdoor Halloween attraction, The Haunting in the Hollow, is a setting essential to the plot for a number of reasons:

The attraction is set up on a piece of property rumored to hold a lost inheritance.
Because it’s a public attraction, characters can come and go on the property as I need them to.
The abandoned house and the notorious reputation of the man who built it and hid the inheritance add atmosphere as well as critical clues to the mystery of inheritance’s location.

Since it’s October, people have spooks and ghouls on the mind. When Rae’s Uncle Hank is seriously injured in a riding accident, his daughter, who riding with him at the time, says a monster spooked his horse. That statement attracts bigfoot hunters to the county. And people call Rae’s dad, the sheriff, at home, reporting sightings of either a bigfoot or a black bear. And since it’s October, it could also be someone in a costume.

Trick or treating at a nursing home becomes a way to get kids and adults in the same space who don’t usually mix and wrap up several story lines.

Other Halloween traditions that work for a mystery:

Trick or treating, any location. It’s a great way for people to be in places they don’t normally visit. A kid could observe a crime undetected. A mom waiting on her kids at a house could see something suspicious. Or the bad guys could try to escape through streets clogged with kids in costumes.
Jack O’Lanterns: Carving pumpkins as a group can be a way to bring characters together who don’t usually associate with each other. A clue could be hidden in one. Or the particular way a pumpkin is carved could provide a clue.
Halloween parties: Lots of mysteries involving costume parties. See if you can give this old setting a fresh twist. I’ve hosted a family Halloween party for years for my kids and nieces and nephews at our house in the country. Kids running around in the dark can provide all kinds of trouble, clues, and red herrings for a mystery. Actually, adults taking part in a Halloween scavenger hunt would work the same way.

Some areas have very localized Halloween traditions. See if there are some you can use for inspiration in your mystery.

What mystery used Halloween as a setting with no supernatural aspects?

October 22, 2025 0

The Elements of Our Cozy Mystery

Last week, I asked you to pick the victim for a cozy mystery, and each of the four photos got at least one vote. More readers were interested in picking the victim than the detective … does that mean anything? Anyway, we had a tie between photo #1 and photo #4. So I had to make an editorial decision and chose … photo #1. Below are all the elements of our cozy mystery.

Our Amateur Detective

Her job: radiologist
Her setting: a small town in Ohio
The victim: a crabby, elderly woman

Please leave in the comments how you think this cozy mystery would start. Does our amateur sleuth have her first meeting with the victim? Or has she known her her whole life? Are they friends, acquaintances, or enemies? Do the sleuth and victim interact in the first scene or does the sleuth notice something “off” about the victim? I’d love to read your inspiration! Here’s mine.

I hurried through the back door of the clinic and glanced at my phone. Three minutes to spare. I stashed my purse in the break room and walked quickly down the hall to the x-ray room. Didn’t want people waiting on me because everyone in town seemed to want to eat at Sarah’s Subs today.

I looked into the waiting room. Hannah, the receptionist, was in a deep conversation with Ms. Greer.

I stopped with my hand on the knob for the room to the x-ray.

Hannah wasn’t a friend of Ms. Greer’s. In fact, despite living her whole life in Draysville, Ms. Greer didn’t seem to have any friends. She was the most dreaded teacher in the high school. When she retired, any effort at volunteer work ended with either her taking over the work and running off the other volunteers or getting run off herself before she could take over.

Ms. Greer shuffled out the front door of the waiting room, and Hannah turned back to her desk, tears glistening in her dark eyes.

For more ideas for writing mysteries, click here.

November 4, 2024 2

Choose a Victim for a Cozy Mystery

Last week, I asked readers to pick a setting for a cozy mystery and the votes were for a small town in Ohio because that’s where I’m from. Thank you for voting! Now you need to choose a victim for a cozy mystery. Usually a victim is the most obnoxious or nasty character introduced in the first chapters, a character who irritates, hurts, and bullies so many of the other characters that there’s no shortage of suspects when the murder takes place. Of course, to put a spin on the stereotype, we could choose a very mild character, the last person anyone would think would be a target for murder.

So choose a victim from the photos below and tell me whether the character is mean or nice. That description will help form the plot.