Choose a Setting for this Amateur Detective

Everyone who voted wanted our sleuth to have a medical profession. I’m choosing the suggestion that she’s a lab technician working in radiology because that will give her regular time off to investigate. Now we have to choose a setting for this amateur detective. Select one of the following:

Rural community
Small town
Small city
Big city
Resort community
Island community

If you pick big city, you have to narrow it down to a smaller community. One of the requirements for a cozy mystery is that it takes place within a group of people with a restricted membership. In a city, that could be an apartment building, a club, or a small business. And please recommend a state. A small town in Maine is different from one in Indiana or one in Alaska. If you’re going outside the U.S., please recommend a region of a foreign country.

For more prompts for inspiring mysteries, click here.

October 21, 2024 2

How to Use Misdirection in Mysteries

Last week, I wrote about how thinking like a mystery reader helps me write mysteries. This week, I want to focus on playing fair with clues and red herrings. Misdirection is key and I describe below how to use misdirection in mysteries while still presenting the clues readers need to solve the mystery themselves. What is misdirection? Read on!

Mysteries and Stage Magic

I’m sure many people have noticed the similarities between writing mysteries and stage magic. One of the best descriptions of this comparison I’ve read comes from Otto Penzler, founder of Mysterious Press and editor of numerous mystery anthologies. In his introduction to a reprint of Death from a Top Hat, which features the Great Merlini, a retired magician as the amateur sleuth, Mr. Penzler writes about how both arts use ways to snatch your attention from what’s really going on.

In both arts, the audience knows they are viewing a trick. Since they know it, it makes it fun to be either impressed with the ingenuity of the writer or magician or accept the challenge of figuring out what they’re up to. In magic, a magician may wave his left hand so you don’t notice what his right foot is doing. In mysteries, the writer shows you all the clues, but the way she emphasizes them or doesn’t is the misdirection.

“Bovine” in Ohio Trail Mix: Adventures and Inspiration Along the Ohio Literary Trail”

I’m taking a chance here and pointing out the first clue in my short story, “Bovine”. I hope you’ll still read it, but the first clue is a good illustrations of misdirection.

Elite New York novelist Harrison Sharpe stages burglary in the rustic retreat he’s renting in rural Ohio. He’s walking through the home with the sheriff.

Then he [the sheriff] frowned, staring at the fireplace with its hodge-podge pattern of heavy stones. “That’s funny. Since all the items but the TV were very small, you’d think they’d’ve gone for those.”

He stepped around a disemboweled cushion and broken lamp, staring at two flintlock pistols hanging on hooks above the mantle.

“They’re fake,” I said. “Sara told me that because she didn’t want me to think she kept unsecured firearms on the premises. I have no idea why she owns them. I’m sure she can afford the real thing. I suppose the thieves could tell.”

“I don’t know how, just by looks.” The Ox lifted one gun from its hook. “But you can by holding them. They’re too light.”

“Then they must have grabbed them and put them back.” I coughed to cover a smile.

Inferring that most of the male rednecks would possess a deep knowledge of firearms, I had decided leaving the guns in place would bolster the illusion of locals being responsible for the crime.

I present everything readers needs in this scene, but since the story is told from Harrison Sharpe’s POV, I let his thoughts misdirected the reader from the true importance of the guns, which the sheriff explains at the wrap up.

Set Up and Pay Off

Click here for an excellent article on how to set up and pay off plot points. I realized I’ve been doing this for years but hadn’t had a label for the technique. Setting up a plot point and giving it multiple pay offs will misdirect readers.

For example, let’s say the amateur sleuth is a music teacher and plays drums in a weekend band. Readers will expect that skill to play a some kind of role in the story or why else did the author give the MC the skill? During the course of the story, MC goes to a music festival and being a drummer gives him access to a suspect. Since the plot point of love of music has already served the plot, readers will probably think it won’t come into play again.

But the author then makes the MC’s knowledge of drumming a key clue to catching the bad guy. The author misdirected readers into thinking music was a minor plot point when it was both a minor and a major one.

For more tips on writing mysteries, click here.

What examples of misdirection have you seen in books or movies?

October 17, 2024 0

Choose a Job for this Amateur Detective

After counting the votes, I found readers chose the photo above as our amateur sleuth for a cozy mystery. Now she needs a job. What an amateur detective does for a living has a huge impact on him or her. In order to qualify an amateur detective, she can’t have any official standing in law enforcement. No cops or lawyers. My sleuth Rae Riley works as a check-out clerk in a small town library. With the public coming in and out, she gets to learn what’s going on in the county. Since she’s twenty and living at home, she also has time to investigate mysteries. So choose a job for this amateur detective from the list below. I’m keeping the jobs broad so you can specify what kind of a job it is. Such as if you pick “teacher”, tell me what grade and subject.

Teacher
Small-business owner (Lots of these in cozy mysteries)
Medical job
Works with animals

For more prompts for inspiring mystery stories, click here.

October 14, 2024 2

Write Mysteries Like a Reader

I write mysteries because I love to read them. I love following the clues laid out by the authors in a traditional mystery. One of the best pieces of advice about writing mysteries I’ve received came from thriller author Steven James. It made me realize that I had to write mysteries like a reader of mysteries.

Steven James told a roomful of writers at a writing conference that when you are writing and realize a connection within your story or a question rises in your mind, it is very likely many of your readers will have the same realization. When that happens, you need someone in the story to share that he or she has spotted it too.

Plot it naturally

As an example, I’ll tell you about an experience I had when reading a mystery novel as a teen. I’m going out on a limb here because I’m about to criticize the Queen of Mysteries, Agatha Christie. But the clue confused me, and if a character had made a comment within the story, then the book would have been a better read for me.

In A Murder Is Announced, Letitia Blacklock seems to be the target of a murder plot. When amateur sleuth Jane Marple and Inspector Craddock are investigating, they find that Letitia has letters she wrote to her twin sister Charlotte. When I read that, I was puzzled. Why did Letitia have letters she mailed to her late sister? Neither Miss Marple or Inspector Craddock comment on the oddness of this and I thought it would be natural for someone to remark on this strange fact.

So I was confused and made up my own reason. Since her sister was dead, maybe Letitia acquired them with the rest of her sister’s possessions. Eventually the letters are revealed as a vital clue. But if Ms. Christie had had one of the detectives state a possible explanation, it not only would have kept me from being confused, it also would have provided an excellent red herring. As it was, the fact that such a strange discovery wasn’t explained at all drew attention to it. I should have known it was an important clue.

So when I plot, I try to keep in mind how I would receive the information as a reader. If a development is bizarre, a reader will notice, so a character would naturally mention that. If mean Old Man Olsen gives someone a compliment, a character would naturally notice that something’s changed in Old Man Olsen.

It’s tempting to glide over significant clues because I don’t want to tip my hand to the reader. But if the clue would provoke questions if I was reading this book, then, as a mystery writer, I need to address that. I’ll discuss how to guide readers through clues and red herrings so that the mystery is fair-play but without giving the game away in next week’s post.

For advice on writing mysteries, click here.

October 10, 2024 1

Choose an Amateur Detective for a Cozy Mystery

In August, readers and I had a lot of fun creating the basic elements of a YA story. I posted photos and readers selected the main character, the antagonist, the setting, and the plot. So I want to do that again, but for a mystery. So choose an amateur detective for a cozy mystery from the photos below and put your selection in the comments. Who looks like they would be good at sniffing out suspicious circumstances, tracking down clues, and chatting up suspects?

In the coming weeks, I’ll have you choose a job for our amateur detective, a setting, and the victim of the crime. By the end of the month, we’ll have the main ingredients for a cozy mystery!

For more mystery writing prompts, click here.