Another simple mystery plot.  This one I’ve got mentally labeled The Lead.

1. A crime occurs.
2. The solver follows leads as though they were a labyrinth.
3. Some of the leads are dead ends.
4. Some of the leads are live ends.
5. One of the leads that looks like a dead end is a live end.
6. The solver keeps an eye on the dead-alive end, while appearing to follow the other leads exclusively.
7. The solver pounces on the criminal out of the blue.
8. Climactic struggle, wrapup, the end.

I’m working on this plot right now for an upcoming series.  More on that later.  Variations on this one show up a lot in detective-type novels.

I’m slowly getting a grasp on (some) types of mystery plots.  Here’s my first one, which I’m going to call The Mistake.

1. A crime occurs.
2. There are three suspects.
3. The criminal is not one of those three suspects.
4. The solver rotates through investigating the three suspects, and may even form a valid-sounding theory about one of the three suspects as the criminal.
5. Then something knocks everything over for the solver and they realized they were wrong all along, and the criminal was this other person.
6. Big reveal, wrapup, the end.

I’ve been doing this one mostly in ghostwritten cozies, so I can’t direct you toward any that I’ve written.  Yet.  You’ll see this one mostly in cozies (although it certainly isn’t the only possible cozy plot!); it’s good for distracting the reader without leaving an area.  Agatha Christie likes to make the criminal one of the initial suspects, “prove” that they couldn’t have done it somehow, then actually prove later that they did.

So I’m working on a series, A Fairy’s Tale, which so far is made up of a bunch of loosely related twists on ’80s-style horror novels/movies.

Books have rules, right?  Things like, “The magic system, if any, is X” or “The main character gets the most POV chapters” or “The writing style in this book has a 1920s flavor to it, see?”  What the rules are doesn’t matter–as long as they’re appropriate for that book.

I knew that series would have rules, too, but I had no idea how deep that would go.

• All plots based on ’80s-style horror.
• The main character is a woman with agency, not just a screaming victim.
• The “magic” is some kind of weird extra-dimensional science.
• There are extra dimensions that interact with our own.
• The “fae” are extra-dimensional beings.
• The stories center around an unnamed Midwestern college town in the middle of nowhere.
• It’s easy to cross from the fae dimension to this one in certain areas, of which the town is one.
• The fae have been trying to hack human genetics so they can long-term make the jump out of their own universe before it gets destroyed.
• The fae can only stay in our universe so long before they start to fail.  Like days at most.
• The fae have “powers” that allow them to manipulate non-animate object to make them animate.  The more I find out about the universe, the more I realize this is because the fae, for all that they are afraid of the “Others” destroying their own universe, are using the Others’ techniques–because the imps are definitely something that only the Others should be able to do.
• The Others want to destroy existence, Cthulhu-style.

TL:DR – Worldbuilding stuff about the rules of the world.

What I didn’t realized was that the series is also built so:

• There are certain locations in town that have to be mentioned in any modern story, like Betty’s diner and The Page Turner bookstore.
• If I don’t, the plot gets stuck.

I’ll probably find more things like that.  The subconscious.  It has plans that I know nothing about.  You can find the first novel, One Dark Summer Night, the you-done-meddled-where-you-shouldn’t novel, here.  I’m currently working on Under Twilight’s Spreading Blight, which is the on-a-dare-let’s-go-to-the-haunted-house-for-a-sleepover-what-could-possibly-go-wrong novel.

Bone to pick.  Not gonna name names, because it’s all too common.

All writers have ethical choices to make.  Not all stories are ethical to write.  But let’s stick with horror today.  A story that makes a reader want to die, for example, is an unethical story.  A story that makes a reader want to become a no-shit serial killer.  A story that makes a reader want to hurt someone for the fun of it, that dehumanizes a class of people, that whips up fear and hate, that celebrates abuse or despair.

Those things are unethical.

Either words have power, or they don’t.  And if you think they don’t, that this is all nothing but harmless entertainment, then you can get out of the writing business:  no big loss.

Writing horror, you learn how to play with both your own fears and other people’s.

Don’t abuse that.

Plus…why do you think horror doesn’t sell that well, as a genre?  Could it possibly be because some of the writers–not King, not Koontz, not even (ironically) Ligotti or Lovecraft–make their money off treating their readers and even their characters with contempt?

Why love someone’s work, when they see you as just another button to push?

Why trust a genre?

I’m steamed up this morning and it feels ugly to say, “Click this and give me money.”  So I won’t.  Tomorrow.

I’m working on writing better headlines, using info from Copyblogger.  Sorry if this gets weird…

…

Whodunnit?  That’s the major question of most mysteries (leaving aside thrillers and suspense for now).  And yet, most of the advice about writing a mystery that I’ve read is about hiding clues in your work–one of the least important parts of writing a mystery, in my opinion.  (They hide themselves, really.)

So how do you pick who did the murder, when you’re writing a mystery?

My advice here:

• Pick the person who, when the solver finds out who did the crime, it increases the stakes.  Either the knowledge puts the solver in more danger, or bringing the criminal to justice is waaaay more painful than the solver expected–for example, the criminal is their only child.
• The criminal is connected to many other characters by personal relationships.  That is, the criminal isn’t a stranger or outsider.  The criminal is, in fact, right in the middle of things in one way or another.  (Otherwise, the reader could feel cheated if they invest all that mental energy in solving a murder…and a random mugger did it.)
• The criminal’s motive isn’t just for personal gain, but for some strongly emotional reason–personal gain AND revenge, or personal gain AND fear that they’ll never get what they “deserve” from their day job.  Personal gain AND pride.  It’s never just the inheritance, but the inheritance and that one time that dirty so-and-so insulted your salt-and-pepper shaker collection.
• “Crazy” just isn’t good enough.  The motive has to be a reason that the audience can understand.  God help you if the whodunnit rests on something like, “The character was crazy because they were mentally ill, gay, or trans.” I will burn you.  Because that kind of thing is about the audience being unable to handle reality, not the “criminal.” Most people with mental illness as well as people who are gay and trans are far, far more likely to be victims than to be criminals. I promise you, you can find a better motive.  AND IT’S BEEN DONE.

People want to feel things in books; the best criminal in a whodunnit is the one who ends up giving the characters (and the audience) all the feels.

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