Writing a Christmas Mystery

Since I’ve been reviewing Christmas mysteries, I thought I’d repost this article on writing a Christmas mystery.

For some reason, Christmas and mysteries go together like silver and gold on a Christmas tree. Christmas mysteries are a very old tradition in the genre. One of the first, and best, is “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”, a Sherlock Holmes story. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple had Christmas cases. So did Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, V.I. Warshawski, Brother Cadfael, and Father Brown. Maybe the mystery of God coming to earth, fully God and and fully human, gives the whole season an air of the unexplainable. If you’d like to try your hand at this very specific sub-genre, here are a two tips about writing a Christmas mystery.

The Story Can’t Take Place at Any Other Time

The best Christmas mysteries take advantage of what the season offers. In “A Christmas Party” by Rex Stout, the boss of an interior design firm is murdered during the Christmas office party. The man who was working the bar in a Santa Claus outfit disappears during the confusion created when the boss collapses from cyanide poisoning. Santa was so heavily made-up no one at the party can describe him.

Christmas gives Agatha Christie the perfect reason for warring members of an extended family to gather at the family estate in the country in Murder for Christmas. It’s hard to imagine another plausible reason for relatives who dislike each other to come into contact with each other, except maybe, a funeral or wedding. In “The Flying Stars”. author G.K. Chesterton uses the English Christmas tradition of the pantomime as the key plot point.

One of the many fun qualities of “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” is how well it incorporates characteristics of Christmas that existed at the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it. A commissionaire who is an acquaintance of Holmes, finds a precious stone, the blue carbuncle, in the crop of the goose his wife was going to roast for Christmas dinner. Holmes and Watson follow clues through a bitterly cold London night to figure how the jewel, stolen from a luxury hotel, ended up in the goose.

Include Themes of the Season

Another quality you can take advantage of are the meanings of the season. One aspect of “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” that makes it so special is the offer Holmes extends to the culprit once he uncovers him. “The Killer Christian” by Andre Klavan is about redemption. In my Christmas mystery, “A Rose from the Ashes”, I used themes of mercy and forgiveness as my teen detective Rae Riley attempts to discover who her father is and if he tried to murder her mother when she was pregnant with Rae.

Writers, have you written a Christmas story? What was it about? Readers, what Christmas story uses the holiday setting effectively?

December 19, 2024 0

How to Write a Detective Team on ACFW

If you missed it from last year, I’m posting “How to Write a Detective Team” on ACFW, American Christian Fiction Writers, as a guest blog. Here’s the opening:

I’ll state the obvious: if you want to write a mystery, you must have a detective. But detectives come in all shapes and sizes, so you have a lot of room to develop an interesting main character. As you write, you might find your story is better if you have a duo of detectives. When I began my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, my detective was 19-year-old Rae Riley. Since my mystery was aimed at teens, my amateur detective had to be one. But as I wrote, I realized Rae’s father, since he is the sheriff of their fictional Ohio county, had to join her in the investigation or else he’d look incompetent and lose her respect and those of my readers. So I stumbled into a mystery-solving team, and my stories are the better for it. Below are my tips on how to write a detective team.

March 28, 2024 0

Disguising the Villain in a Mystery

Disguising the villain in a mystery is the toughest task when writing a story in that genre. Planting clues and red herrings effectively is hard too, but if I don’t correctly handle disguising the villain in a traditional whodunit, I’ve ruined the whole story.

Do’s and Don’ts for Disguising the Villain

Don’t have a very minor character be the villain.

Mystery author Bill Pronzini describes this pitfall in a chapter of his book Son of Gun in Cheek when writing about his love for the old Charlie Chan movies made in the 1930’s and ’40’s. He writes that often the villain turned out to be such a minor character that it was difficult to remember what scenes he or she was in.

Part of the fun of a mystery is to reread them after the solution is revealed, noting how the villain acted and what clues I missed that pointed to his guilt. If the villain hardly appears in the story, the reader has no satisfaction in seeing him unmasked. The mystery’s solution isn’t a revelation but a shock and a cheap one at that.

Now I can have a very minor character turn out to be an accomplice. That can provide a nice twist to the plot. But this character should still have enough page time for the reader to say, when revealed as the villain’s ally, “Aha!’ instead of “Who?”

Do make the villain a major player.

He should be an important secondary character, someone who has significant interactions with the detective. But if he has too many scenes in which he plays a pivotal role, the reader may get suspicious. So …

Don’t make the villain the only major player.

As I’ve written mysteries, this tip is the one I’ve found helpful: give each suspect almost equal time on the page. Creating suspects with as much reason to be guilty as the real culprit and allowing them meaningful page time helps disguise the true villain. The drawback of this method is that if a character acts suspiciously but is innocent, my detective either has to uncover the real reason for her suspicious activity, or the character must explain her actions. Unlike in real life, mysteries must tie up loose ends. For more on writing about clues and red herrings, click here. For more tips on writing mysteries, click here.

What mysteries had the best reveal of the villain?

October 26, 2023 0

The Scooby Doo Guide to Mysteries

As a kid growing up in the ‘70’s, I lived to watch Scooby Doo. Little did I know that this first exposure to mystery stories would be a good foundation for trying to write my own. My very first attempt at writing a story was in second grade, and I wrote a homage (that sounds better than rip-off) to Scooby Doo on the front and back of a sheet of notebook paper. The boy I had selected to play the cowardly character like Shaggy took offense and threatened to tell the teacher. Not only was this my first story, but also my first time dealing with an audience and censorship. The Scooby Doo Guide to Mysteries provides 4 basic points to writing a mystery.

Mysteries have a beginning, middle, and end.

Beginning: The premise of the mystery and the identity of the detective(s) are established. “You kids are new to these parts, so you don’t know the legend of the headless vampire zombie, and how it’s been scarin’ folks out of town.”
Middle: Detectives can do any of the following to solve the mystery:
- - Question witnesses and suspects.
  - Examine the site of the crime.
  - Analyze Clues.
  - Run from the villain – a lot.
End: Detectives reason from their investigation and reveal identity of villain. “Mayor Smith dressed up as the headless vampire zombie to scare everyone away while he emptied the mine under the town of its gold.”

Characters should be distinct.

Although Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy weren’t complex, there was no way to confuse them with one another. Fred was usually the brave one with a plan. Daphne was pretty and danger-prone. Velma was smart, Shaggy was scared, and Scooby Doo was a scared dog. Those characteristics influenced how the gang solved the mystery, so plot points developed from character traits.

When the plot needs a boost, put your main characters in danger.

Much of the running time of a Scooby Doo episode was spent doing just that – running. All the fleeing from the villain of the week not only padded the episode, but placing the detectives in danger raised the stakes for reaching a successful resolution to the mystery. And even though for 453 episodes, Scooby and the gang had solved the mystery, when you’re a kid, you worry that the 454^th time, things might go horribly wrong.

When the plot needs another boost, add humor.

Shaggy and Scooby’s cowardly personalities added a lot of humor to each mystery. Humor usually makes a character more believable or likable. For most kids, Shaggy and Scooby were their favorite characters. Humor also adds a contrast to tense or scary situations and makes any story just more fun.

What shows or books from your childhood influence your writing today?

For more tips on writing mysteries, click here.

October 19, 2023 5

How to Write a Detective Team

If you want to write a mystery, I’ll state the obvious: you must have a detective. But detectives come in all shapes and sizes, so you have a lot of room to maneuver. As you write, you might find your story is better if you have a duo of detectives. When I began my first novel, my detective was 19-year-old Rae Riley. Since my mystery was aimed at teens, my amateur detective had to be one. But as I wrote, I realized Rae’s father, since he is the sheriff of their fictional Ohio county, had to join her in the investigation or else he’d look incompetent. So I stumbled into a mystery-solving team, and my stories are the better for it. Below are my tips on how to write a detective team.

Decide if you write from the POV of one member or both.

POV (point of view) is critical to how you plot your mystery. Rae is my main character, and I write in first person. The story has to happen to her, and she has to make the story happen. Her father, Mal, can provide her information, but readers only see him through her eyes.

If I was writing from both of their POVs, then I could have scenes with just Mal and have him discover things that Rae may not be aware of, but the reader would be. Who my POV character is and how many I have affects how I lay out the clues.

The team should have contrasts.

If you’re two detectives are too much alike, then you only need one of them. Holmes and Watson have appealed to readers for over a century because the characters contrast.

Rae is a quiet, thoughtful amateur photographer. She has a photographer’s eye for noticing details. She also has a drive to help people, which draws her into cases.

Mal is more outgoing, confident, and carries a lot of authority in his manner. He’s also very protective, especially of his children.

Because of the contrasts in personality …

The team should have conflict.

Nothing’s more boring than two characters who never disagree. One of the delights in the Nero Wolfe mystery series is how the eccentricities and quirks of the great detective Nero Wolfe aggravate his right-hand man Archie Goodwin.

Rae’s desire to help people in trouble brings her into conflict with Mal, who wants her to stay safe. This conflict brings some needed tension to a warm relationship that could get too cozy to stay interesting.

Creating a detective team is a lot of work but a lot of fun. What detective teams do you love to read?

October 12, 2023 6

Tag: How to write a mystery