Zara Altair's Blog, page 6

Red Herrings in Your Mystery

What’s A Red Herring? In logic, a read herring is a fallacy of distraction bringing up another point to distract the argument. In the financial world, a red herring is a prospectus of an upcoming business that is not complete but indicates the future stock.

In a mystery, a red herring is a false clue that leads the sleuth away from the villain. The red herring distracts the reader from knowing the true culprit.  

The origin of the term is vague and entomology scholars debate the source. Some people believe it originated in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett. He claimed that he used a red herring, cured and salted, not fresh, to mislead hounds following a trail. At the time of publication the term served as a metaphor for false news accounts.  

​ How to Use Red Herrings in a Mystery Red herrings create mystery in your story by testing your sleuth’s abilities and decision-making skills. Each false trail creates another obstacle for your sleuth keeping them from discovering the true villain.

Use red herrings as a device in the middle section of your story to build tension. When you’ve built a strong protagonist, the reader will believe, as the protagonist does, that a true clue is at the root of the discovery path.

Here are some examples of using red herrings and build suspense for your reader.

An innocent character has a strong motive to kill the victim. As you introduce a suspect, give them strong reasons to hate and kill the victim - jealousy, envy, a debt unpaid, a stolen wife or girlfriend.
A character appears to have committed the murder. They were nearby, have no alibi, were scheduled
to meet the victim, a witness saw them leave the scene of the murder.
An object or finding (clue) appears to point to an innocent suspect. A letter written to someone with the same first name as a suspect. An earring on the floor that matches a suspect’s earrings but turns out to be a common earring worn by several people or the suspect wears an earring in only one ear. A loan document that creates a suspicion about a character only later, the sleuth discovers the loan has been paid.
A clue that presents conflicting evidence. A clue appears early in your story that seems to have little bearing. As your sleuth follows a conflicting red herring, he discovers the first clue is valid.

The essence of the red herrings you use is diverting attention from the real clues and the right suspect.

​ Limit Red Herrings in Your Story Although red herrings are fun to create for a writer, adding too many in your story will frustrate your reader. Aim to keep a balance between real evidence and clues and the false ones. Have no more than three red herrings in your mystery.

Readers love a puzzle but they don’t want to be tricked. Make sure the red herrings you create integrate with the overall theme and mystery, otherwise they will feel “added” to pad the story. The same holds true for too many false starts. Your reader will feel they are being cheated from solving the crime. You need to balance frustrating your sleuth and losing your reader. Readers Expect Red Herrings Red herrings are a standard trope in mystery novels. Readers love to follow your hero’s challenges. They enjoy rooting for your sleuth and discovering how he meets each challenge to solve the crime. Keep your readers guessing with well-placed false clues inherent to your storyline.

Zara Altair

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Manage Your Novel Scenes with Checklists

Scene Checklists Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction.

When you go through the first edits of your story make certain that all scene components are in each scene. You’ll take your reader by the hand to lead them through the story.

​ Two Types of Scenes Alternating between Proactive and Reactive scenes is a cycle that builds story in increments.

The Proactive Scene challenges your protagonist.
He has a goal
She tries to achieve the goal but obstacles challenge him as the scene moves forward
At the end of the scene he has a setback

By the end of the scene, the protagonist not only did not reach his goal but has a setback that leaves him worse off than at the beginning.

​ Checklist for the Proactive Scene Who is the primary point of view character (stay with her throughout the scene)?
What is her goal?
Keep the goal simple for this one small part of the story
Create the objective
of the goal so the reader can visualize the success
Make the goal worthwhile otherwise cut the scene
Make the goal achievable in the protagonist’s view
Make it difficult to achieve
Create the conflict that keeps your hero from reaching the goal
Even with obstacles, don’t let the protagonist give up
Make the obstacle unexpected, but keep it logical within the story

Put your hero or heroine in the worst situations as they seek what seems like an obtainable goal at the beginning of the scene.

​ The Reactive Scene Now that you have thwarted your protagonist, it’s time to give him some space. This scene is where your heroine decides what to do next.

Begin with the protagonist’s reaction to what just happenedNow, get your hero to figure out what his options are. If the setback was significant
he may have no clear options, and he needs to look at his dilemma and choose an option.In the final portion of the scene, the protagonist must make a decision
. That decision is the goal for the next scene
​ Checklist for the Reactive Scene These are the basic elements to include in the Reactive scene when your protagonist makes a decision
.

Clarify the protagonist’s vision of the problem. She needs to know what the problem is before she can make a decision
. Keep the reader with the protagonist by visualizing what the character will do nextThe decision for the next action should be in line with your character’s personality and valuesShow how the protagonist sees success
from his decisionMake the decision difficult enough that the reader has doubts about whether your character can do what she decides
Reactive scenes provide a way for your character to make terrible decisions which will create even greater conflict later on. She may be blind to the motivations of another character. He may find that getting into the boardroom isn’t a slam dunk. Reactive scenes are your opportunity to build conflict and tension because the following action scene may be based on a very wrong decision that seemed right at the time for the character.

​ Why This Structure Helps
 For beginning writers, all this alternating of scenes may seem forced. I know, I was a beginning writer, and thought the same way. But my stories went nowhere and lacked tension. Readers want and expect your characters to have problems and overcome obstacles. Unless you are very 
compulsive, you don’t need to write these lists down. Just know which type of scene you are writing, create the obstacles either to action or decision making, and write the scene. Your story will benefit and your readers will love your story.

​ Scene Editing When Your Story is Finished
Once you have written each scene with all the writer passion you hold, go back to edit your story with a cold, clear eye.

​ Scene Checklist for Editing Is your scene written from one point of view?Is it an action scene or a reactive scene?Does the reader know where the characters are? Setting grounds the reader.Does the scene include at least three of the five senses—touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell? These details help bring the reader into the scene.Do you crank up the conflict—either action or decision—to the highest point? Make it tough, really 
tough, for your character.
Practice story editing with an objective eye. Be as unbiased as possible about the elements in each scene. Use your critical mind to objectify the story. I think of it as switching from the story creator, the one who loves the story, to a person looking at a thing. Use whatever mind tricks you can to be as objective as possible.

Do this work on your story and scene structure before you send it to an editor.

Some writers switch into editing mode and stop writing during the process. I like to balance editing and writing so I do some of each during the editing process. Find what method works for you, but don’t skip story editing.

Keep writing!


Zara Altair
​Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Challenge Your Sleuth Protagonist

​Make Your Sleuth Reach for a Solution Creating a great mystery for readers depends on page turning events in your story. Create tension with challenges to your sleuth. Each time you create a challenge your reader keeps reading to see how your sleuth gets past a stopping point. That point may be a small as a suspect hesitant to answer questions to a life-threatening event with the opponent.

The events may vary in intensity depending on the sub-genre of your mystery, but every story needs challenges to the protagonist. Your challenge as a writer is to create hurdles in your storyline. The more the better. Make your sleuth work for the final resolution.

​ Complications, Roadblocks, and Reversals Three plot devices for giving your sleuth a tough time are complications, roadblocks, and reversals. In your story-crafting process brainstorm as many ways as you can to frustrate your sleuth.

Complications

A complication is an event or factor that slows your detective’s progress. As your sleuth attempts to discover the villain things get in the way.

A car that won’t startA neighbor or colleague interfering with a plea for helpTest results that aren’t back yet
These complications are often daily events that happen at an inconvenient time, but the result is you’ve delayed the sleuth’s progress..

Roadblocks

Roadblocks are just that, they stop your sleuth. Roadblocks are impediments to your sleuth’s progress. These are points in your story where your sleuth has to change direction. They occur at major plot points in the story.

He follows a hunch or clue to the ultimate end only to find it has no bearing on the murder.Reviewing a suspect’s statement he has another question. When he goes to interview the suspect, they’ve left town or have become another murder victim.
Once your sleuth encounters the roadblock, you take your reader in a new direction.

Reversals

A reversal alters your sleuth’s course into the opposite direction. If she is gaining traction, a new circumstance shows she needs to rethink everything. A reversal increases the stakes and sends the story in a completely new direction.

Emotional reversals create a clash between the protagonist’s inner goal and the outer goal in a disastrous way.

Although your sleuth has some success, a roadblock makes her feel she can not find the killer. A strong story midpoint reversal.The sleuth discovers that his right thinking is all wrong. He has to start over.A teammate has a mismatched agenda that reverses all the previous “help.”The final discovery that alters the sleuth’s discovery journey to one of revelation. This is a positive new direction.
​ Your Obstacle Course as a Mystery Writer Your aim in creating an intriguing mystery is to create obstacles for your sleuth. As your story moves forward, create obstacles that increase in difficulty and challenge for your protagonist.

Complications, roadblocks, and reversals create story tension. That tension complicates the mystery solving puzzle
. There’s no set order of how to use your obstacles. At each stage of your story think of the worst outcome your sleuth could have for their current course and set the challenge. Your readers will thank you.

PRO TIP: Each scene is a mini-story that requires an obstacle. For example, if you have a chapter with three scenes, each of those scenes will present a hurdle for your sleuth. By the end of the chapter, you’ve created three different obstacles. Keep them coming.

Zara Altair

Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash

Clues and Foreshadowing

What is Foreshadowing? Foreshadowing is a literary device which is an advance hint of something that will happen later in the story. Foreshadowing creates an atmosphere of suspense as the reader continues on with expectations over later events.

Foreshadow upcoming events with character dialogue, plot events, and changes in setting. Each method supplies a way to hint to the reader of what is coming. And each instance builds suspense for the reader who wants to know how that dialogue, event, or setting change will lead toward discovery
of the killer.

​ Clues as Foreshadowing Events
Each clue your sleuth discovers in a mystery foreshadows the final revelation. But, the mystery writer has a challenge, how to plant the clues without giving away the villain before the end. You want to foreshadow, without foreshadowing.

​In the mystery novel, you want to tantalize your reader without calling emphasis to the clues that point toward the final discovery. The device works like a secret foreshadowing to keep your reader guessing.

​ ​Ten Ways to Tantalize Your Reader
Invite your reader into the puzzle without giving away the secret of who the villain is.

Sequence Diversion –
Put the real clue right before the false one. Readers and your sleuth often focus on the last clue presented. If you’re getting started with mystery writing, this tactic is a great place to start. Mention or show the clue first and then immediately focus on a different clue or red herring.

Secret Emphasis –
Emphasize the unimportant, but de-emphasize the clue. The reader sees the clue but doesn’t see what’s important about it.  For example, your sleuth may see the value of a company report and the statistical details but doesn’t look at the man who researched and wrote the report.

Before It Counts –
Early on, plant the clue before it has any context. Your sleuth may walk by a man cleaning his yacht with chemicals before a business partner dies of toxic chemical poisoning. Carolyn Graham uses this tactic in her Inspector Barnaby mysteries.

Missed It –
Your sleuth misinterprets the meaning of a clue. The murder took place in a room with open windows. Your detective believes that’s how the murderer escaped. But the windows were open to let in the evening breeze and the murderer escaped through the door and out the back staircase. This is a great tool to use with a flawed sleuth whose flaw keeps her from seeing the real meaning.

The Not a Clue –
The clue is what isn’t there.  Although the sleuth deduces
certain actions happened, the real clue is absent. A classic clue that isn’t there is when Sherlock Holmes realizes the dog didn’t bark in “Silver Blaze.” There was no intruder.

Piece by Piece –
A time-release method to scatter pieces of the clue in different places through the story. Then mix up the logical order.  Your sleuth finds an empty aquarium, water but no fish in a suspect’s room. Later on she finds six fish bodies tossed out a window. She has an “epiphany” when she remembers the empty aquarium.

In Plain Sight –
Create a cluster of clues and squeeze the real clue in with all the others. Hide the clue in plain sight. This technique works well in a story with multiple suspects from Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express to John D. MacDonald’s hard boiled Travis McGee (pick one).

Distraction –
Draw your reader’s attention away from the clue. The sleuth and the reader follow a false trail. What seem like the most evident clues are not the real trail to the suspect. In Adrian McKinty’s The Cold, Cold Ground the clues seem to lead toward a serial killer who targets homosexuals. Not the case at all.

Time Seed –
Create a time problem. A suspect has an alibi for the time of the murder. Later it turns out that the murder was earlier and the alibi does not work. Or the suspect claims a time as an alibi but could get away during the time covered by the alibi.

Camouflage with Action –
Camouflage a clue with action. Just as your sleuth glances at a scrap of paper on the floor, he’s hit from behind. In the ensuing action and consequences—trip to the hospital, a missed appointment because of time in the hospital, etc.—your sleuth overlooks the clue. Jo Nesbø uses action camouflage in his Harry Høle series.

​ Satisfy Your Reader Foreshadowing with clues is a challenge for mystery writers. Building suspense in other genres with foreshadowing leads to events later in the story, but the reader keeps those foreshadowing moments in mind. The mystery writer needs to subdue the foreshadowing by hiding the clues. At the end, your reader may realize all the clues were there, but while reading you want to keep those clues hidden.

Zara Altair

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash


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Villainous Character Background

Your Villain Right and Wrong The true pleasure of mystery readers is trying to discover who the killer is before your detective does. It’s the big puzzle and the draw of the genre. The challenge for you as a mystery writer is to create a villain who is understandable, relatable, and yet hidden until the last moment of your mystery.

The best approach to understanding your villain is to look at their world view. In the villain’s eyes, their beliefs and actions are justified. The villain may feel unjustly harmed by the victim. Or his killing may feel, to him, like justifiable revenge. Or, her cold-blooded calculation is rational in her belief system.
However you conceive the villain’s motivation, throughout the story they will remain firm that their world is correct, and the killing justified. So, your villain is right in their world while wrong in the world of your story.

​ The Villain Portrait in the Mystery The villain can be a smooth talker, a buffoon, or a monosyllabic thug to the rest of the world and the other characters in your story, but you need to present the villain as he sees himself as you write your story. When he speaks with other characters, especially your sleuth, the villain sees himself as the good guy. He will portray himself that way in the story.

You can reveal the villain layer by layer as he moves through the story.

How the villain relates to other characters (suspects)
The lies he tells to hide his secret
His stated beliefs in dialogue
How other characters see his relationship with the victim
The action, clue, or dialogue that is misread by the sleuth
The action, clue, or dialogue that reveals the murder to the sleuth

In your background, focus on the relationship between the villain and the victim. Their relationship is the basis for the murder and the sleuth’s involvement. Think of ways the two connected, then the ways things went wrong, and finally the one incident that tipped the villain to murder.

How did they get together?
Was their relationship ever positive?
What caused the turn?

Like any story research, you may use only 20% of the relationship you create. Experienced writers know that rich background allows for opportunities to use details as they are writing. Even, you, the writer, may not know which details you will use in your mystery until you are writing.

​ The Open Good and Hidden Bad Writing a believable and concealed villain for a mystery requires consideration of how you present and reveal their beliefs and actions. You may feel that all the clues you plant are obvious because you know who committed the murder, but if you balance the villain’s view of himself and his actions as good, you can save the hidden reality until the final reveal. You sleuth and your readers will appreciate your skill.
Zara Altair
Photo by ahmed zid on Unsplash

A Mystery’s Pivotal Character is The Victim

The Victim Drives Your Mystery Although your sleuth is the hero of your mystery, the victim drives the story. The sleuth works throughout the story to uncover layers about the victim and the people (characters) involved in the victim’s life.

In a traditional mystery, the puzzle pieces the sleuth uncovers are based on the relationship between the victim and the villain. As you construct your story, you reveal the layers of the victim’s life as your sleuth learns more and more about the victim’s world.

​ The Essential Victim Backstory As you work to create your character bible for your mystery, the victim holds prominent place right after your sleuth. The more you know about the victim and their world, the easier it is to construct the puzzle of your mystery.

Basics you need to know:

The victim’s relationship to the villainThe victim’s relationship to each of the suspectsA broad stroke backstory of the victim’s life that will enrich connections to the charactersThe specific action the victim took to incur the villain’s ultimate strikeThe victim’s world - usually unknown to the sleuth
To add extra depth to your victim, give them a secret and a lie the same way you do for your other mystery characters. Imagine what you can do with what suspects think they know about the victim when they share with your sleuth.

​ Context and the Victim Context is the most important element in creating your character. When you create your victim character background you create the context for all the characters in your mystery. The victim’s relationship to all the other characters are the elements that help you create the puzzle.

As you take your detective and your readers deeper into the story, your detective enters a new world, the victim’s world. As he wanders the victim’s world he gathers bits and pieces of information, meets suspects and in their environment expands his vision of the victim’s world.

You need to know this world, in order to guide your sleuth through discoveries. Sometimes, because the victim’s world is new to him, he makes false assumptions or overlooks clues or mistakes a red herring for a clue.

At various places in your story, you set up clues for the sleuth that reveal the connection between the victim and the villain. Part of the fun of writing your mystery is hiding those clues to baffle your sleuth and keep your reader guessing.

​ The Base for Your Mystery Even though your victim may play a small part in your story, create a rich background for this all-important character in your mystery. The murder is the incident that sets your sleuth in motion.

When you know about your victim and their world, you can pull from a rich resource to unlock relationships with other characters, hide clues that seem unimportant at the time, and slowly reveal the deep connection between the victim and the villain.

Zara Altair
Photo by DDP on Unsplash


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Show Your Mystery Clues

The Counterintuitive Show ​ Clues make up small details in your mystery that point the detective and the reader toward the villain.

Detective, crime writer and mystery writing adviser, and Murder.con host Lee Lofland says,

​

Tiny clues are often the ones that bring a case to a close.
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You want to plant those clues in your story without bringing attention to them. Keep your reader guessing. One of the best ways to hide those clues is with one of the best storytelling methods - show don’t tell.

​ ​Show Versus Tell As you write your mystery, show what is happening through character responses. These responses can be physical actions or dialogue. Telling is just that. Let’s look at some examples.

Tell: The temperature fell.
Show: Her nose stung, and she squinted against the sunlight on the snow.

Tell: He smelled garlic.
Show: He hugged her tight and said, “Oh, the garlic special pizza.”

Tell: It was high summer.
Show: The sand burned under her feet as she made her way to the ocean.

Telling is not always a bad technique. Use it for covering a time lapse between scenes or covering a sequence of mundane events. You don’t need to show everything. If your sleuth needs to travel to another town to follow up a suspect, you don’t need to show her packing, getting to the airport, going through security, getting on the plane, finding a taxi, etc. You’ll bore your reader. Sum it up with, Kelly booked the first flight to Memphis to talk to Watson.

​ The Door to Reader Attention While your reader is concentrating on your story in the actions and dialogue of characters, you display your clue right in the middle of that showing. Surrounding a clue with action or dialogue minimizes its importance at the time.

Instead of telling your clue, hide it while you are showing what your character is doing.

Using the same examples plus the clue see how the clue gets lost in the showing.

Tell: The temperature fell.
Clue tell: The suspect’s footprints led to the woods.
Show: Her nose stung, and she squinted against the sunlight reflected on the snow beyond a trail of footprints.

Tell: He smelled garlic.
Clue tell: A notebook on the counter lay open with the victim’s name.
Show: He hugged her tight and said, “Oh, the garlic special pizza,” as he saw over her shoulder [victim’s name] in an open notebook on the counter.

Tell: It was high summer.
Clue tell: The killer lost his beanie in the struggle.
Show: The sand burned under her feet as she made her way to the ocean. She stepped on an old beanie to cool her soles for a moment.

These examples are simplistic, but highlight how you can combine action and clues to show your reader the story point.

​ Readers Are In For The Ride, Give Them Action
Mysteries are puzzles. Readers want to solve the puzzles along with your sleuth. Unless they are reading a thriller (not a mystery), they are disappointed when they guess the villain before the sleuth.

Hiding your clue in the midst of showing helps downplay the clue until the moment your sleuth reveals the killer.



Zara Altair
Join the Killer Writer list for more about writing your mystery from start to finish. 
​Photo by Vincent Brancifortion Unsplash

The Prickly Beginning

​A Scene is a Revelation A story is a sequence of small moments. The first moment is make or break for getting your reader involved.

Writing advice for beginning novelists can be confusing, like to start with a hook or show the hero’s everyday world. It’s easy to go way off track by starting with a sex scene to “grab” reader attention and then go on to something else that proves that first scene is extraneous. Or, in the everyday world the hero wakes up, looks in the mirror in the bathroom complete with a physical description, and then goes to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Neither of these devices gets your reader into the story. That’s your job at the beginning. Reassure readers that the story you promised feels like the genre they want, gets your protagonist in action right away, and delivers a dilemma that keeps them reading for more.

​ What Readers Want in the First Chapter Readers want to know your mystery is worth their time and emotional involvement. Deliver the goods up front.Introduce and focus on the sleuth Make sure the tone reflects the tone of your story - your reader wants to know if they like the way the story is told
Show a weakness and a strength so the reader gets to know the characterLet the reader know they are in the genre they expect
Once you know what needs to be at the beginning, you can start your opening scene.

​ The Opening Scene So, how do you go from a hook to the protagonist’s ordinary world in a mystery? The best way to navigate that opening scene is through emotional states. Starting with physical details can lead a beginning writer in the wrong direction. Jump right in to how your detective feels. Every scene needs an emotional turn, so starting with a feeling gets your reader onboard emotionally.

Start with your sleuth in the middle of something in his everyday world. Give him a want. It can be small - returning spoiled cabbage to the grocery store, attempting to reach a partner/friend/girlfriend. Show his emotions - disgust, anger, eager to connect for tonight’s dinner/bowling night/ date. Show his emotions.

Something impedes your sleuth’s progress. Aim to make this happen on the first page. A stranger/opposition/friend asks for help/tells him to drop tonight’s date/pushes him down as they flee (your choice). The stranger can be a key suspect as the mystery unfolds or the murder victim or your sleuth left his weapon at home or lost a phone connection or… Show your sleuth’s emotional response to this interruption.

The key is to cause a disturbance, something prickly, in the protagonist’s world. Now you are bringing your reader into the story. Your sleuth and your reader will experience an emotional change from the beginning to the end of the scene.

Each emotional response ties your reader to your hero in ways just telling action will not do. Focus on the emotional world of your protagonist. Represent the emotions through action and dialogue. When the protagonist’s emotion change you bring the reader into the story.

​ You Don’t Have to Get it Right, Just Get It Experienced authors may go back to edit, rewrite, or even change the first scene. On your first round, if you focus on the emotional tenor and the change your sleuth experiences, you’ll be well on your way to bringing your reader into the story.

Meet reader expectations right away with genre, tone, main character and a weakness and a strength while constructing a scene based on an emotional shift.

Reveal a small piece of the way the world works for your sleuth.Character wants something - ask the questionSomething impedes - present the conflictConfronts for success or failure - answers the questionAn emotional unit that changes the character’s state
The purpose of story is to give the reader an emotional interpretation of the world. Focus your opening scene on that interpretation. Disturb your character in their world. Give him a prickle.

Zara Altair
​Photo by Joao Ferreira Gomes on Unsplash

Research Discoveries for The Peach Widow

Discoveries I Made While Researching The Peach Widow Background Every story presents new research challenges when writing an historical mystery. For The Peach Widow I needed background on farm dogs, inheritance law, and natural poisons.

My first challenge was looking for background on inheritance law concerning a second wife and children by a previous marriage. After all the wonderful and informative responses from scholars about the time of Theodoric in Italy, I was frustratedto discover that Roman Law attorneys have no such enthusiasm for writers. Each one I approached did not respond.

​ When Murder Was Not A Crime That drove me to more online research. I made a story-changing discovery as I dug deeper. Murder was not a crime.

That means a public crime. No police. No trial. Each family had to deal with the consequences once the murderer was revealed. That gave me a whole new layer for Argolicus as he makes his way discovering a killer. He also had to help the family come to terms with what they could and could not do for recompense.

​ The Big Farm Dog The farm dog, Pup, plays a crucial role in the story. I read about Roman farm dogs and discovered the Pup most closely resembles the modern Dogo Argentino, a big dog breed that originated in Argentina.

To arrive at that conclusion I looked at a number of illustrations of both Greek and Roman dogs, read descriptions from the time, and then looked for a modern equivalent.

​ The Natural Poison Another challenge was to find a natural poison source that would be readily available to a poor murderer who did not travel far. I needed a substance that grew locally. After researching natural poisons and plants that grow in southern Italy, I identified oleander. I could plant clues early on and bring the poison to light later in the story.

Zara Altair

The Villain and The Victim

The Hidden Backstory of a Mystery The villain and the victim are star characters in your mystery. As the story unfolds for the reader the focus is on your sleuth, but the relationship of these supporting characters are the crux of the resolution.

In a traditional mystery the puzzle pieces the sleuth uncovers are based on the relationship between the victim and the villain. As you construct your story, you reveal the layers of the victim’s life as your sleuth learns more and more about the victim’s world.

At various places in your story, you set up clues for the sleuth that reveal the connection between the victim and the villain. Part of the fun of writing your mystery is hiding those clues to baffle your sleuth and keep your reader guessing.

​ The Relationship Web The background work you do in character development builds the relationship between the villain and the victim. The more you know about these main mystery characters, the richer your story details will be.

The Victim

​Make no mistake, the victim is a character in your story, not just a dead body.  

In order for your sleuth to discover the villain, he must understand the victim. Your sleuth explores the victim’s world to find clues and suspects related to the victim’s death. Once the murder is discovered
 - usually near the beginning of your mystery - your work as a storyteller is to reveal the victim’s character through the eyes of others and the clues.

As you develop the character background for your victim, know their relationship with all the suspects, but focus on the relationship with the villain.  Create at least two and up to four secrets about the victim. Then reveal them through the story through physical clues and dialogue from other characters.

Some secrets may be red herrings that make another character look guilty and at least one will reveal the villain’s identity.

The Villain

Throughout most of your mystery, the villain is one of several suspects. Create a rich background. You’ll give yourself a variety of puzzle pieces to drop into your story. Go beyond the villain as a character role. Give her a name, a background with relationships, a physical fallibility, and emotional weakness.


Personal life not related to the victimSecrets they want to keep hiddenLies they tell to preserve the secretsLife related to the victim
In your background, focus on the relationship between the villain and the victim. Their relationship is the basis for the murder and the sleuth’s involvement. Think of ways the two connected, then the ways things went wrong, and finally the one incident that tipped the villain to murder.

How did they get together?Was their relationship ever positive?What caused the turn?
Like any story research, you may use only 20% of the relationship you create. Experienced writers know that rich background allows for opportunities to use details as they are writing. Even, you, the writer, may not know which details you will use in your mystery until you are writing. That is why the deeper the relationship background you build between the villain and the victim, the more you have to use at the right moment in your story.

​ The Two Key Characters The relationship between the villain and the victim is germane to creating a strong mystery. Without their relationship, there would be no murder. A rich background of their relationship arms you with a variety of ways to hide the villain as a suspect. The more you know about the villain, the more you have to hide in your story. Those hidden clues challenge your reader to solve the puzzle.
Zara Altair

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash