Writers in the Storm

Writers In The Storm is delighted to welcome Elizabeth Spann Craig, w/a Riley Adams. Elizabeth's latest Memphis BBQ series mystery, Hickory Smoked Homicide was just released on November 1st. Enjoy!

Thanks so much to Jenny Hansen for inviting me here today to talk about mysteries—my favorite subject!

Before I was a mystery writer, I was a mystery reader. I’d easily devour two or three in week.  I loved everything about them—the sleuths, the puzzle, and the resolution of the case at the end of the book.

As a writer, I love mysteries just as much.  For me, the structure in the books makes them a lot of fun to write.  That structure also makes them the perfect books for a new writer: the pattern of introducing a body, the suspects, laying clues, and resolving the case. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you write your mystery.

15 Tips for Writing a Murder Mystery:

1.  Make the sleuth someone readers root for.  The sleuth, like any protagonist, needs to be multi-faceted.  If they’re too perfect, they may be unlikeable. Flaws serve to make a sleuth relatable to readers as well as give them stumbling blocks for solving cases.  Another important point is that the sleuth needs to be intelligent and act intelligently. Readers get disgusted with sleuths who set out on their own to meet killers on deserted alleys in the middle of the night.

2.  Be careful with your number of suspects. Suspect numbers can get a little tricky.  You want enough suspects to ensure that the killer’s identity is a surprise, but not so many that the reader forgets who they are. I usually like five suspects, killing one in the middle of the book. One of my editors actually prefers fewer.

3.  Think carefully about timing of the body’s discovery.  This point can create sore feelings between authors and editors, but usually the murder needs to occur fairly soon in a book.  I know my editors like it that way.  Otherwise, the readers are just sort of in suspended animation, waiting for the crime to kick off so they can participate in solving it.  It’s the whole point of a murder mystery. If we have a lot of chapters before the body’s discovery, they probably just function as set-up or backstory…which is never popular with editors.

4.  Give the reader a reason to care about the case.  What is it about the murder or case that makes the reader want to keep reading?  Is the victim someone very likeable and innocent and they want to avenge her death?  Is one of the suspects wrongly accused and needs to be vindicated?  Is the sleuth somehow personally involved or emotionally connected to the case?

5.  Know your subgenre.  Planning to submit your mystery for publication?  Your language and the level of gore or description of the body or crime will affect your subgenre and readership. Writer’s Digest has a nice list of mystery subgenres (scroll down on the landing page.)

6.  Keep the mystery fair.  One of my favorite aspects of mysteries is that they have an almost interactive feel to them.  The reader solves the puzzle along with the sleuth. To provide the reader with this satisfying feeling, we’ve got to play fair with them. They need to receive all the information that the sleuth does. If the sleuth knows something, the reader should know it, too.

7.  Make sure you’re leaving several clues to the murderer’s identity, but aren’t making them too obvious.  The clues need to be scattered throughout the book or else the reader will feel that the mystery wasn’t fair.  But the reader doesn’t need the equivalent of a neon sign pointing out that a clue happened.  No one wants to figure out the solution to the mystery in chapter five. Find a way to lay the clue but to distract attention from it—maybe another suspect arriving on stage?  A sudden argument between the sleuth and another character?

8.  Use red herrings, but don’t let the red herrings continue too long or be too frustrating. Red herrings mislead the reader and sleuth. Mysteries need red herrings to give the sleuth false leads to investigate.  But if a red herring stretches the entire length of the mystery before being proven wrong in the last chapter, it may feel unfair to the reader…or make it seem that they’ve wasted too much time on a lead that didn’t pan out.

9.  Make sure the suspects’ motives are believable.  Most common motives are revenge, jealousy or envy, self-protection (from the victim divulging something about the murderer or hurting themselves or someone close to them), the need to cover up a crime, personal gain (financial, promotion, etc.), frustration or anger, and love or hate.             ,

10.  Realize you can change your killer—even after the first draft.  Could all of your suspects have murdered the victim? Did they all have motive, means, and opportunity? If you realize, at the end of the book, that your murderer isn’t the strongest choice, you can change the ending with really only minor tinkering.

11.  Have your suspects tell lies and tell truths. It keeps things interesting. No one is 100% reliable, after all.

12.  Consider using “an unreliable witness.” Agatha Christie frequently had a character who everyone discounted, based on their behavior or appearance.  But that character frequently gave clues to the killer—although no one listened but the sleuth.

13.  Give your sleuth some depth.  Is there anything else your sleuth wants?  Can you see an arc for your sleuth in your story? Have you provided any conflict for your sleuth apart from the mystery that could be included in a subplot?

14.  Provide someone for the sleuth to talk to.  Crime fighting can get lonely.  It’s very helpful if the sleuth has someone to bounce ideas off of. Otherwise, you end up with your sleuth indulging in lots of internal monologue. Sidekicks can also provide a little comic relief, or offer the sleuth a different perspective of the suspects.

15.  Tie up any loose ends.  Oddly enough, there’s a very satisfying and comforting feeling readers receive from mysteries. A lot of this comes from problem-solving in a book.  A serious problem is created, then solved by the end of the book (with the reader's help, if you’ve truly created an interactive feel to the book.) Double-check to make sure all your loose ends are tied up to help create this feeling for readers.

Are you a mystery reader or writer?  What aspects of mysteries do you find enjoyable to read or write?  Any tips I’ve left out?

Elizabeth’s latest book Hickory Smoked Homicide released November 1.  Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries (2012) for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink. She blogs daily at Mystery Writing is Murder, which was named by Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010 and 2011.

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Twitter: @elizabethscraig

By Laura Drake

On Monday, our own Fae Rowen took on the Inspiration half of this discussion, brilliantly. You can read it here.

When this throwdown was first suggested, all the WITS Bloggers assumed I’d take the Sweaty side. I don’t want to think about what that says about me. Or my deodorant.

Why? Because I get up at 3 am to write before work? That I do it on weekends too? Because writing and getting published is the single most important thing in my life right now? (If you know my husband, do not call him – there’s money in it for you.)

I get the feeling sometimes that people hate me for my writing habits. No, really. When the subject comes up, they glare at me, or they look guilty and sidle away.

But please, before you do that – read the following:

You do not have to get up early, or stay up until the ungodly hour of nine to put in sweat equity.

• I know busy moms who back their SUV up to the soccer field and write – looking up now and again to shout encouragement to their kids.
• I know retired people who lock themselves in their office, not emerging until their word count for the day is in the bag.
• My husband met an 80 year old guard at the badge-check booth of an Aerospace firm, who penned “City Slickers” while on the job (honest-to-God truth.)
• Many writers get their best ideas in the shower (no, not the sex scenes, either.)

It’s not about the time of day. It’s not about the ambiance of your writing space. It isn’t even about butt in the chair.

It’s about wanting something. Wanting something bad enough to put in the hours, tears, years, and enough sweat equity to buy the city you live in.

It’s just as hard and simple as that.

If you set a goal, want it bad enough, AND you enjoy the journey to get there, you will.

So, all that remains is for you to decide how best to enjoy the journey while you’re waiting, right? That means finding a schedule that works best for you. Morning, evening, or stolen minutes between . . . it doesn’t matter. I don’t get a gold star for getting up early. You don’t get one for staying up late.

What we both will get if we keep at it, is a book in our hand, with our name on it.

So what if it’s a little damp and sweaty-smelling?

That’s the smell of success, people!

Laura

by Fae Rowen

This one isn't so much a throwdown  as a mirror reflecting what keeps us writing.  Usually Laura Drake draws the line in the sand first, but today I'm going to talk about inspiration and writing.  On Wednesday, since she's the queen of "bottom in the chair," Laura's going to follow-up with perspiration and the writer. (How lucky for me that, according to the old saying, I'm only writing about the 1% inspiration and Laura gets the hard work--the 99% perspiration!)

Without the inspiration of that first story I would never have attempted to write my own novel.  But the characters kept adding scenes to the movie in my head and I felt my day-to-day life slipping more and more into their reality.  A bit scary when the story is a medieval fantasy! An English-teacher friend told me to write the movie down and my first novel was born.

Typically my characters start to impinge on my consciousness to the point of me saying, "Okay, already!  I'll write your story!" so they'll leave me alone when I'm not writing.  I pretty much know the beginning scenes and the ending before I start writing. When they're clear enough in my head, and the characters are three-dimensional complete with backstory, I start the book.

If you read our throwdown about Plot- vs Character-driven stories, you'll know that I'm not much of a plotter.  But when you've been a voracious reader all your life, you've pretty much got the drill down.  Things start out bad and get worse and worse still.  When your character is facing death--or worse--things get better fast and you're done.

This writing style can be a problem after the first three or four chapters. Uh, what happens next? How do I get to that compelling ending? How do I weave my theme into non-existent scenes without getting that dreaded sagging middle? That's where inspiration takes over for me. I can get inspiration from almost anything--and have.  Take the time I was working on a contemporary (so out of my time zone!) about a female math professor who had been a star ballerina in her younger days. Because of an injury, she now tutored young ballet students in her spare time.  Need a scene.

I was taking a belly dancing class in preparation for my Middle East trip. Now, I am not any kind of a dancer. As I was trying to figure out where the muscles were that made my stomach ripple (Did I have them?), I thought, "What if my heroine were a belly dancer?"  What if her friend, a fellow student at Juilliard, danced in a belly dancing troupe? What if, after my heroine's injury, she learned to belly dance? What if she rejoined the troupe for one night only as they toured the West Coast--and that was the night our hero saw what he thought was an uptight college professor belly dancing?  Hmmmm.  Yep, bump up the romance with a shimmy and a hip thrust.

My little sports car has been a jet fighter, a spaceship, and a race car, depending on the book.  In fact, Laura calls the car the Athena-mobile, after the heroine of my first futuristic.  My Siamese cat, Shogun, has spawned a tiger, a lion-like creature, and a sentient alien race.

Most recently, on a trip to Kauai, I was snorkeling as I usually do on vacation.  While maneuvering through coral tunnels looking at eels, octopus and hundreds of brightly colored fish, I thought of the book I'm working on now.  Of course, there must be an ocean on that end-of-the-universe planet.  Since it's a planet with crystals instead of trees and plants, it would make perfect sense that underwater there would be beautiful crystalline gardens with incredible hues and dangerous currents from the vibrations of the crystals.

Not only that, but this beach would work well to show the hero he isn't infallible and that he can't fix everything like he can on his home world. Later, a major scene with a competitive sporting event will have a a broader influence if it's at two venues, one of which is that same beach. Made one scene into two like that! And ramped up the tension (thank you, Donald Maass!), because the heroine must compete at the location of her recent almost-deadly accident.

All that from a wonderful morning snorkeling the North Shore of Kauai.

Did I mention that this planet has no food source? The people must eat only protein bars and protein drinks packed with all the necessary supplements--and some nasty things they don't know about!  Guess what? When I came up with this idea I was on a diet, you guessed it, of protein bars and powders.

You could probably look at what you do the next two hours through a different lens and come up with at least one--I'm thinking more--story ideas for setting, character or scene. Just ask, "What if ...?" and go with it.  There is no wrong answer. You're opening the door for inspiration from your everyday life. And, like it or not, we all write based on our own lives, because that's what we know best. And great writing comes from what we know best.

So put on those glasses of a different color and be inspired by your world. Awaken to everything around you and see it in a new way, as if you're seeing for the first time. And wonder what might happen if ... .

Do you have a sure-fire way to get inspired to write? Do you have a routine to call in your personal muse? We'd love to hear from you. (Heck, I'm not above stealing a good routine!)

Unfortunately, you can't finish a book on inspiration alone. You've got to do the work. On Wednesday Laura Drake will address writing from the "perspiration" angle.  I can't wait to read her blog--she's incredibly dedicated to putting in the time.