Step 8: Write Act II Scenes

Now it’s time to enrich and complicate your story. Your sleuth, you may recall from last week’s post, faces insurmountable odds. How can she find the killer? Here’s where you can show her intelligence, resourcefulness, and determination. She rises to the occasion.

Here’s the questions to ask:

Who wanted the victim dead? You should have already created four or five suspects in Step 5.

Why did each want him dead? Who has the most compelling reason? (spoiler: he won’t turn out to be the killer)

How did he die? Do any of the suspects have knowledge (chemist would know poisons) or skills (martial arts champion) or equipment (gun enthusiast)?

Where was each suspect at the time of the murder? For everyone who isn’t the murderer, figure out how to confuse that person’s alibi (wrong day, unreliable witness) that you can uncover later.

Plan your sleuth’s strategy. Who will she talk to first? Where will she look for clues?

Time to complicate her life. Obstacle after obstacle will deter her. A storm keeps her away from the crime scene, destroying it in its wake. A suspect has left town. As an amateur sleuth, she’s not privy to official information and the police rebuff her attempts to learn details of the crime.

And that’s not all.

Her private life interferes. A family member needs her help. Her husband wants to talk about a business venture. Her day job demands overtime.

But, like all successful detectives, she fields the obstacles and keeps going.

By the mid-point of Act II, she’s got it! She must alert the authorities. They’ll surely listen now! Before she can call the cops, her suspect is murdered. Oh no. It wasn’t him.

She must try again. Harder this time.

And she must keep on her quest no matter how much her personal problems interfere. She knows quite a bit, and she can build on that knowledge. Also, this is where she can change, learn she has strengths she hadn’t known before. She hitches up her britches, tugs on her boots, and slogs on, tramping down highways and byways to discover her killer.

She goes back to her suspect list, following up alibis and discovering if they had killing skills or implements. Now she knows her own strengths, winnows her list and, once more, thinks she’s identified the killer.

Until someone else is arrested.

Her hope of solving the crime is squashed. She can’t battle the law. They’d only laugh at her feeble attempts at crime solving.

What’s she to do? Next week will tell!