# Mystery writing



## TakeWalker (Feb 12, 2010)

I don't believe we've had a topic on this.

I've never been strong at writing mysteries. It's that whole problem I have with plot weaving I mentioned in the "I suck" thread.

But lately I've been reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes and I'm itching to revive a story project that I realize is really suited to mystery writing.

So let's talk craft and give advice. Who's got experience writing mysteries? What makes a mystery work?


----------



## HidesHisFace (Feb 13, 2010)

First of all - mystery can not be obvious. Well, thats obvious, right? Thats the major rule, the rest depends on kind of mystery.
Good way of setting up a mystery is ending of a story or chapter - open ending, without revealing all the details, forcing the reader to interpret some facts themselves. In following stories/chapters you may reveal the truth or make it even more confusing.
If you want something mysterious in the middle of the story, you can't reveal too many details at start. Give hints gradually, so the reader may start creating clearer and clearer image in their heads. You may also give some false hints to make the whole thing even more confusing and multidimensional.
Everything depends on what is a mystery - is it a character or a case, like murder or theft? In case of character before meeting him or her you may put some stories of other characters about our mysterious someone - very diverse stories, creating a false or unclean image, like one character telling something, and the other telling something completely different.


----------



## Altamont (Feb 13, 2010)

Hey, the same thing happened to me! I read A study in Scarlet and all of a sudden my fursona, Altamont Wolfe,, deective extrodanaire, was born


----------



## Murphy Z (Feb 13, 2010)

One good way to write a mystery is to go "backwards."

Let's say it's a murder mystery. You would start with who got murdered, who did the murder, how and why. Then I'd think of some clues and who the detective is. 

You don't have to do it this way. You can always write a few chapters of rough sketch and decide later.

I recommend against those mystery stories where it seemed like "anyone could have done it." You know, where person A was just as likely as person B, etc. to have done it. They're disappointing.

I suppose furry mysteries would involve lots of stomach x-rays


----------



## duroc (Feb 14, 2010)

I always thought a mystery would be an interesting(and probably very difficult) challenge to write.  To me, I kind of feel like a good mystery writer will give the reader everything they need to know up front, and leave it up to the reader to try and put the puzzle together.

I'm reminded of Agatha Christie, and in particular, her story "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", which I very much enjoyed.  She lays out all the players, and all the information the reader needs is right there for them to figure it out, but the author sends you in several different directions so you don't see the obvious answer.  Those are the best kind of mysteries to me.

But I imagine that a mystery would take a great deal of planning(probably even more so than most genres of fiction) in order to keep the reader guessing all the way to the end.


----------



## TakeWalker (Feb 14, 2010)

Murphy Z said:


> One good way to write a mystery is to go "backwards."
> 
> Let's say it's a murder mystery. You would start with who got murdered, who did the murder, how and why. Then I'd think of some clues and who the detective is.
> 
> ...



This is probably going to be how I go about it. I need to know all the details and motivations for the characters involved, and basically write an entire second story. I'll probably just have to try it and see how it comes out. :V


----------



## yiffytimesnews (Feb 14, 2010)

I consider myself a mystery snob...at least I am with the mysteries I watch on TV and with films. First of all it's all got to fit perfectly. Meaning nothing impossible when comes to real life things, you have to keep it real. Take this old mystery show, where a train car was stolen as the train was moving...btw they used a cable and a temporary set of tracks. But they forgot one thing, trains have air brakes and they are connected to one another, any break the entire train stops. The same with clues, they can't be stupid, you have to be clever even a bit obscure. Take for example this one film which the murder victim died with a bishop chess piece in his hand. The solution I thought was quite intelligent, it seems his murderer was named Deacon, and a deacon is a church officer and so is a bishop.


----------



## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Feb 15, 2010)

duroc said:


> I always thought a mystery would be an interesting(and probably very difficult) challenge to write. To me, I kind of feel like a good mystery writer will give the reader everything they need to know up front, and leave it up to the reader to try and put the puzzle together.
> 
> I'm reminded of Agatha Christie, and in particular, her story "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", which I very much enjoyed. She lays out all the players, and all the information the reader needs is right there for them to figure it out, but the author sends you in several different directions so you don't see the obvious answer. Those are the best kind of mysteries to me.
> 
> But I imagine that a mystery would take a great deal of planning(probably even more so than most genres of fiction) in order to keep the reader guessing all the way to the end.


 
How long has that quote been your sig?


----------



## GraemeLion (Feb 15, 2010)

The thing that I always have used when planning a mystery (Heh, working on one to), as someone better than me said, "Start with a body."

Here's Joe.  Joe is the victim.  In ten days, Joe will be killed by Frank.

Why did Frank kill Joe?
How did Frank kill Joe?
What was Joe's last day like? 
What was Frank's mistakes in killing Joe?

Then, from there, I tend to write everything out from the killer's viewpoint.   In most cases, we can assume the killer is a first time killer , in some, he might be cool and a serial killer, but they won't be perfect.  You don't need to be verbose here.  Just enough to get a good feel for what the killer is going through, why the killer feels this is justified, and how the killer does it.  

After that, I write things out from the dead person's side.  Same ordeal.  Why did he do the things that caused the killer to off him?  Who did he talk to, visit, see.  What were his final hours like.

Finally, I then take those two, combine them and start plotting out from the murder forward.   Add in your detective/pi, and there ya go. 

But always start with a body.


----------



## yiffytimesnews (Feb 17, 2010)

But don't kill him off right away, you need to set up not only the characters but the circumstances that lead to the murder.


----------



## nybx4life (Feb 18, 2010)

I'm not too strong at mystery or horror (which I believe tie together), but some shows give you an idea of how it works, like Fillmore (yes, the Disney cartoon.)


----------



## yiffytimesnews (Feb 18, 2010)

There is also a lot of mysteries on both broadcast and cable TV, but if you could rent the series Nero Wolfe, the mysteries they had on that series were great.


----------



## nybx4life (Feb 19, 2010)

Also another bit of shows to mention:
If you want to add comedy to it, there's shows like Monk (awesome in my opinion), and Psych (also good) which play their parts of filling mystery and comedy.


If there's something more into mystery, Law and Order go that route as well.


----------



## yiffytimesnews (Feb 23, 2010)

Huge fan of psych here!!!!


----------



## Mangasama (Feb 23, 2010)

I've always wanted to take a crack at these, and have two fully fleshed out outlines with full character notes. Problem is I'm one of those "get around to it" idiots. I got distracted into writing for comics, then came a film book project, then a concept for a kids' book. The mystery keeps being pushed out by other work.

Closest I actually managed finishing was an (unpublished) comedic comic book story, "The Case of the Kerosene Cat"...


----------



## jinxtigr (Feb 26, 2010)

I write mysteries- or at least one  My first furry novel was in the form of a mystery, and I grew up reading all kinds of mysteries- there's way more out there than Holmes and Agatha Christie  Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Edmund Crispin- then there's the police procedurals like Ed McBain and Sjowal/Wahloo...

"Kings of Rainmoor" is in the form of a mystery.

http://www.tallyroad.com/library.html

The whole thing with a proper mystery is to be artfully misleading. You have a lot of stuff going on, things being said, and to do it properly you have to drop some 'so THAT was!' moments. Like "So THAT was what he meant when he said..." or "So THAT was why she turned on the radio" or "So THAT was what made the puddle on the floor- a stabby icicle!" It's all about giving all the clues in such a way that a sharp reader actually can solve it- but in a misleading enough way that it's possible to get suspicious of the wrong people. It's not easy, but that's half the fun- you end up trying really hard to mislead in a technically honest way, and being real happy when you're able to put across something that can be read different ways.

Usually there's somebody being a schemer unless it's a police procedural, which means it's okay to write them clever- normally it's not realistic to have some character being really twisty and deceptive, but mystery thrives on schemer characters. You're only as good as your villain


----------

