Murder Mysteries: Open vs Closed

One of the fundamental distinctions between murder mysteries is whether the plot is open or closed. Today I explore this distinction, breaking it down into its constituent parts and focusing on its significance for the writer.

Open vs Closed Mysteries

Whether a mystery is open or closed depends on when the reader discovers the identity of the murderer.

If the identity of the murderer is unveiled at the beginning of the story without the reader having to do any work to figure out his identity—that is, if the identity of the murderer wasn’t a part of the puzzle for the reader—then the mystery is said to be OPEN. In most open mysteries the reader knows MORE than the detective for much of the story.

On the other hand, if the identity of the murderer is unveiled at the end of the story and if the murderer’s identity was the main mystery—the main puzzle for the reader—then the mystery is said to be CLOSED. In most closed mysteries the reader knows LESS than the detective (though the detective may draw conclusions from the evidence, conclusions he doesn’t immediately share with the reader).

Open Mystery

Lee Goldberg, scriptwriter for Diagnosis Murder and author of many of the Mr. Monk books, advises that if you write an open murder mystery make sure that both the murderer and the reader believe the perfect crime has been committed. What they read for, what pulls them through the story, is watching the detective find all the tiny—or not so tiny—flaws you didn’t notice.[1]

The knowledge gap: Notice that through much of the open mystery there is a knowledge gap. The detective mulls over clues the reader knows MORE about. This knowledge gap occurs because the reader knows everything the murderer does. What no one knows at the beginning of the book is what mistakes the murderer made. This is what the detective figures out by the end of the book, it’s what reveals the murderer’s identity.

The question: From what the reader already knows of the murder, and from the clues the detective uncovers throughout the story, will she be able to figure out where/when/how the murderer slipped up before the detective figures out the identity of the murderer?

The suspects: The detective interviews suspects but the focus is different because, often, the detective has a pretty good idea early on who the murderer is. The problem is proving it.

Closed Mystery

If, on the other hand, a closed mystery is more to your liking make sure the crime is confounding to both reader and detective. The clues don’t seem to single out any one person. In this case what pulls the reader through the story is watching the detective come to understand the connections—connections between clues, connections between people—that aren’t immediately obvious.[1]

The knowledge gap: Through much of the story there is no knowledge gap: the reader knows as much as a detective. Everything the detective discovers the reader also knows AND the detective is the reader’s only source of information, the reader doesn’t get to peek over the murderer’s shoulder as he does the deed. That said, the detective will know more than the reader after around the two-thirds or three-quarter mark, but this is only because he has drawn inferences from the clues he has found, inferences he doesn’t have to divulge to the reader until the denouement very end.

The question: Can the reader figure out the identity of the murderer before the detective does?

The suspects: The detective searches for clues that will help him determine each of the suspects MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY. The detective looks for inconsistencies between what he knows about the suspects—the available clues—and what any particular suspect has told him.

Examples of Open and Closed Mysteries

Open mystery:

- Columbo.
- Diagnosis Murder (some episodes).

Closed mystery:

- Agatha Christie’s stories.
- Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
- Mr. Monk (some episodes).

Note:

1. To read more about open vs closed mysteries I recommend Lee Goldberg’s article: How to Write a Murder Mystery.

---

Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

The books I’m recommending today are Lee Goldberg’s Mr. Monk books. It has been a few years, but I’ve read each one of these and loved them! If you liked the Mr. Monk TV series and you love murder mysteries, give these a try!

---

That’s it for today! Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you again on Monday. Till then, good writing!

Writing a Murder Mystery: 7 More Characteristics That Make a Murderer Interesting. Part Two of Two

This post is a continuation of my last post, Writing a Murder Mystery, Character Creation: The Murderer, Part One of Two.

Let’s continue our discussion.

7 More Characteristics That Make a Murderer Interesting:

1. The murderer must be a worthy adversary for the sleuth.

Storytellers want their audience to think the detective is clever and resourceful. How is this done? Easy! SHOW the detective being clever and resourceful by pitting her against an opposing force—the murderer—who is as clever and resourceful as herself.

When the detective fails (as she inevitably will at some point) the reader will understand that the detective is up against someone brilliant. If the murderer isn't clever, then when the sleuth fails there is a real danger the reader will lose interest.

In addition, if the murderer is at least as clever as the detective, when the detective solves the mystery and unmasks the murderer it will mean more. We want the murderer to be perceived as being so clever that ONLY your detective could have brought him to justice.

2. The murderer should act from motives of self-interest.

No inexplicable desires or drives, please. The murderer should have an easy-to-understand motive. This goes back to what P.D. James wrote about all motives boiling down to lust, lucre, loathing and love (see: The Murderer, Part One of Two[http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2017/03/writing-murder-mystery-character.html]).

3. The murderer often has a deep psychological wound.

Having a deep wound will help humanize the murderer, it will make him more sympathetic. A sympathetic character is one a reader can understand and understandable characters are ones readers can relate to. They are compelling.

4. The murderer’s ‘type’ is clear.

The murderer is brilliant.

Fictional murderers come in all sorts of flavors but we could say, broadly, that they come in two types: some murderers are brilliant (e.g., Moriarty from Sherlock[link]) while others ... not so much.

If a murderer is brilliant then, often, their strength is also their weakness. For example, in the TV show Sherlock[link] Moriarty is a brilliant psychopath. I say brilliant but it seems he’s not QUITE as clever as Sherlock. Moriarty’s oddness is explained by his intelligence, as is Sherlock’s (in this sense Moriarty is Sherlock’s nemesis[http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/09/character-types-and-five-bad-band.html]).

Moriarty is so intelligent ordinary humans are like ants to him. The master criminal thinks of himself as a different, and clearly superior, species. Just as many humans wouldn't bat an eye at killing a mouse or deer so Moriarty wouldn't hesitate to kill a human if it was in his interest to do so (shades of Hannibal Lecter).

As for Sherlock, his friends—John Watson and Mrs. Hudson—keep him connected to humanity, they keep him human. Moriarty has no such connection and in consequence his brilliance has stripped him of his humanity.

Another detective who, broadly speaking, fits this pattern is Mr. Monk[link]. Recall Mr. Monk’s catch phrase: It’s a gift ... and a curse. Sherlock’s brilliance is both what allows him to solve crimes and it’s also what isolates him from other people; it’s what sets him apart.

The murderer is garden variety.

If the murderer is more of a garden variety murderer then his motive usually has something to do with greed, desperation, depravity, and so on.

In a psychology course I once took the professor said that humans have four motivations for all their behavior: feeding, fleeing, fighting and ... sex. Translating this into the language of a murder mystery, the common murderer is interested in:

• Feeding: The murderer wishes to continue life as it is but someone is threatening his status quo.
• Fleeing: All hell has broken lose and the murderer has to disappear but someone is preventing this.
• Fighting: The murderer is in a smiting mood. He wants to destroy an enemy. 
• Sex: Love and lust. Obsession. Love and lust are distinct and yet intertwined. Though, arguably, one can love or lust after something inanimate, here I’m talking about loving or lusting after a person. The murderer would do anything—and I do mean ANYTHING—to gain the affections of this individual, but someone is standing in her way.

4. Make the conflict personal.

Make the conflict between the sleuth and the murderer personal. Whatever motivation you give the murderer, make him want to taunt the sleuth. Also, make the sleuth willing to take crazy risks to catch the murderer.

If the murderer is caught then his/her life is over, perhaps literally, but if the murderer gets away with it, what then? What will the sleuth lose?

If the sleuth isn’t able to solve the puzzle and figure out the who, what, where, why and how—or, worse, if he offers up an incorrect solution—this would not only ruin the sleuth's reputation but send an innocent person to prison. And condemning the innocent is something the sleuth MUST care about unless he or she is an anti-hero. Caring about justice, about fairness, is a large part of what separates white hats from black hats.

5. Show that the murderer is one sick puppy.

For most of the story the antagonist is going to wear a mask. Underneath the mask she is getting more desperate and her sickness, her desperation, escalates.

One way we could show this is by escalating the number of murders, their violence, as well as the murderer's reckless daring.

6. Let your antagonist win occasionally.

Your sleuth needs setbacks. He needs strong opposition to battle against and, so, occasionally, he needs to fail. Often this happens at or near the midpoint. The sleuth—or the sleuth's helper, his Watson—thinks he knows who did it. But he’s wrong. Around either the Midpoint or the All Hope is Lost point, the suspect is found dead, killed the way the other victims were.

7. Show the killer's true face at the end.

So far the killer has hidden her true face: she is a cold-blooded killer. She has taken the lives of those she knew, perhaps even those she loved. And she did it for personal gain. She's not nice, not ordinary, perhaps not even sane. But for most of the story she has hidden in plain sight and has acted like everyone else. At the end we need to show her as she really is. We need to show readers the murderer's contempt for those around her, for those who counted themselves as her friends.

---

Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

Midsomer Murders, Season 18.

From the blurb: “The cozy villages of Midsomer County reveal their most sinister secrets in these contemporary British television mysteries.”

---

That’s it for today! I’ll talk to you again on Friday. Till then, good writing!

Writing a Murder Mystery, Character Creation: The Murderer, Part One of Two

"Once I figure out whom to kill, and how, and of course why, then I start asking myself what the killer did wrong, or what he overlooked, that will lead to his undoing." —Lee Goldberg[1]

“One of the most critical skills an aspiring writer needs is the ability to build a solid villain. Even the greatest protagonist in the world cannot truly shine without an equally well-rendered opposition. The converse of that statement isn’t true, though—if your protagonist is a little shaky but your villain absolutely shines, you can still tell a very successful story.” —Jim Butcher[3]

A murder mystery is primarily about the murderer. It is not primarily about the detective, it is not primarily about the sleuth’s sidekick, it is not even primarily about the victims. After all, it is the murderer's desire, his goal, that drove him to kill. If your detective doesn’t have a strong antagonist to butt heads with, things will get boring quickly. In a murder mystery creating a strong murderer can be especially tricky because readers (hopefully!) don’t know who the antagonist is until the very end.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of creating a strong antagonist, one your readers will love to hate. It is the battle between the protagonist and antagonist, their contest of wills, that generates the narrative drive that will mercilessly pull readers through the story.

How to Create an Interesting Murderer

Make the antagonist sympathetic: As strange as it may seem, we want readers to become emotionally connected to the antagonist. Readers need to be able to see themselves in the antagonist and, in so doing, understand her. (Or at least that's one way to go. Many of Agatha Christie's antagonists weren't in the least sympathetic and yet her stories are worldwide bestsellers.)

The antagonist provides obstacles for the protagonist: The antagonist puts obstacles in the way of the protagonist as she seeks to identify the murderer. This generates narrative drive by either providing new clues (or pseudo clues) or by resolving one clue while providing another.

The antagonist is equal but opposite: The antagonist is often very much like the protagonist. For instance, Luke and Darth Vader were both strong in The Force and both trained as Jedi Knights. One could say they both wanted what was best but they had very different ideas about what that was.

One crucial difference: There is one crucial difference between the protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist will hold a value that the antagonist doesn’t. So, for instance, the protagonist generally does something unselfish, sometimes it doesn’t even make much rational sense. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dr. Belloq was Indiana Jones’ nemesis. They were both archaeologists, they were both passionate about finding and bringing back the Ark and they both liked Marion Ravenwood. The big difference? People were more important to Indiana than relics.

5 Questions to Ask about the Murderer:

1. Who does the murderer need to kill? 

I’ve found that, usually, the first victim is the person the murderer needed to kill. But there are notable exceptions. Agatha Christie often broke with convention and used her readers' expectations against them (for example, Three Act Tragedy, The A.B.C. Murders).

2. What is the murder method?

Is the murder method, the means of death, an arcane poison? Or perhaps it's a normal poison but there is a problem figuring out how, or when, it was administered? Get creative! If at all possible make the murder method unique and extreme—which is to say, memorable. Read books, watch TV. Write down the many and various ways characters are dispatched. Mix and match. Use what you find to generate your own ideas.

3. Why does the killer need to kill? What is her motivation?

P.D. James once wrote that "All motives can be explained under the letter L: lust, lucre, loathing and love.”[2]

Lust. This is perhaps the oldest motive. Someone sees something they feel they can't live without. Something they covet, something they obsess over. It could be the corner office or the most beautiful girl at prom. It could be your neighbor's wife.

Lucre. Greed. The murderer wants to experience the lifestyles of the rich and famous and is willing to do anything to make that happen.

Loathing. Hatred. The desire to settle a grudge. A perceived offence. The desire to do unspeakable things to the drunk driver who mowed down your wife and children. His lawyer got him off on a technicality, so now you're taking matters into your own hands.

Love: Someone stole the heart of the person you've loved since fifth grade and then threw her away like garbage. As a result she committed suicide. Now you're out for revenge.

4. What does the murderer stand to lose, what are the stakes?

The murderer wants to prevent the detective from identifying her. If she fails in this then she will either be killed or spend the rest of her life in prison. In addition, she'll likely lose all her friends and possibly her family as well.

Of course often the stakes are more specific, more personal. It could be that the murderer is trying to save something he loves, a winery, a restaurant, or a relationship. For him, the worst thing in the world would be to lose that, but if he is revealed as the murderer the thing he loves most in the world will be ripped from him.

5. What did the killer do wrong? What did she overlook?

It seems axiomatic—at least in fiction—that every killer, no matter how intelligent or how well planned the crime, will make at least one mistake. With Agatha Christie, often the killer's mistake was trying to be clever, trying to pull the wool over the detective's eyes. But her detective turned this into a trap. For example, Poirot assumed the guise of the silly foreigner and so invited the proper English people of his day to underestimate him. His quirks, his foreignness, was his armor, his disguise.

What the killer did wrong, what she overlooked, has to be something the detective could discover, as well as something that plays to her strength. There are countless examples of this, but what comes to mind is the episode of Sherlock entitled The Great Game.

Sherlock Holmes is wonderful at noticing minutiae and bringing together diverse threads, strands of information and, from them, creating a synthesis that yields the answer (usually the 'ah-ha' clue triggers this epiphany). The graphical way the show's writers/producers/director have used to illustrate the information Sherlock notices (words suspended in air) works brilliantly and adds another dimension to the storytelling.

My point is that by working backward, looking at the killer, figuring out the motive and the murder method, and then asking where she slipped up is much easier than doing things the other way around.

The Goal: To Surprise the Reader

Never lose sight of the goal: to surprise the reader. I like it when I figure out the identity of the murderer a few paragraphs before the detective unmasks her. That way I feel clever because I've guessed right but I’m not bored.

Even more important, though, than surprising the reader is playing fair. Or, more precisely, it is important that the reader believes you’ve played fair and haven’t unfairly misled them. The reader must feel that everything hangs together and makes perfect sense.

---

Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

This is one of my favorites: Murdoch Mysteries, Season 10.

From the blurb: "At the dawn of the 20th century, Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) solves Toronto's trickiest cases with scientific insight and ingenuity in the tenth season of the award-winning mystery series."

---

Next post in this two part series: Writing a Murder Mystery: 7 More Characteristics That Make a Murderer Interesting. Part Two of Two.

Notes:

1. How to Write a Murder Mystery, by Lee Goldberg.

2. Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James.

3. How to build a Villain, by Jim Butcher

How Murder Mysteries Differ from Other Kinds of Stories

I’ve been writing about murder mysteries quite a bit lately. I PROMISE I’ll write about something else for the next post! (If you’d like me to talk about a particular topic please let me know! Leave a comment, tweet me at @woodwardkaren or send an email. I would love to hear from you!)

High Stakes & High Tension

The following is true regardless of genre: Your story should have high stakes and lots of tension/conflict. But exactly how you cash this out in a murder mystery presents it’s own unique challenges.

High Stakes

The stakes need to be high for both the detective and the murderer; they must both stand to either gain and lose a lot. The same with the murderer. Let’s cash this out.

Detective

First, there’s the obvious: The detective’s goal is to identify the murderer just as the murderer’s goal is to evade detection. Notice that if the detective achieves his goal the murderer can’t and vice versa. That’s the structure we’re looking for. If the detective succeeds the murderer will, at the very least, go to jail. If the detective fails, his reputation will be in tatters, perhaps he’ll even lose his job.

But there are less obvious stakes. The detective might own his own business and solve puzzles on the side. Perhaps he has developed a reputation for solving murders that stump the police. How would his business fare if his customers came to see him as incompetent?

Or it could be that some suspicion has been cast on the detective. He must solve the crime to clear his name. If, for instance, the detective owned a bakery and the victim was killed with poison, that would NOT be good for business!

Or it could be that the detective is a lawyer. He needs to exonerate his client (who happens to be his aunt’s favorite nephew) and the only way to do that is by identifying the real murderer. If he fails Aunt Petunia will hate him forever and he’ll lose most of his clients!

There are MANY possibilities.

Murderer

Again, there’s the obvious: The murderer’s goal is to evade detection, to commit, as the saying goes, the perfect murder. If he fails, then he could be killed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

But there are less obvious stakes. Even if the murderer is never sent to prison he could lose everyone and everything he cares about: his job, his wife, his kids, his espresso maker, not to mention the cute Pomeranian that licks his toes in the morning. Life, as he knows it, would be over.

It’s important to mention the stakes for both the protagonist and antagonist at the pinch points, to remind the reader of what the detective is up against, how desperate the murderer is, the lengths to which she will go.

High Tension

As we have seen, the detective has a goal as does the murderer. The detective wants to identify the murderer by way of investigating clues. The murderer wants to remain free!

High stakes help CREATE high tension. How? High stakes drive characters to do things that take them out—way out!—of their comfort range. It is the push and pull between characters, especially between antagonist and protagonist, that drives a story forward.

Every scene, no matter who is in it, has two important characters.[1] These characters are working toward different clearly defined goals that are mutually exclusive. If one character achieves his goal then the other character cannot and vice versa. Sometimes these two characters will be the protagonist and antagonist (or, in our case, the detective and murderer), but not always. In fact, in a murder mystery, a reader won’t be able to tell whether the person in the scene with the detective is the murderer! In that respect, murder mysteries really are quite different from other genres: readers don’t even know who the antagonist is until the very end!

Clear as mud? Let me give you an example. Let’s say our detective wants to get a witness, Mrs. Lawson, to tell him what she saw the night of the murder. The main character in the scene is the detective and the character opposing him is Mrs. Lawson. The detective has to find out WHY Mrs. Lawson doesn’t want to tell him what she saw—is she afraid or is she covering for someone she knows?—and convince her to do something she doesn’t want to do. If he does, he achieves his goal. If not, he loses.

Is Mrs. Lawson the murderer? Probably not but who knows. In an Agatha Christie murder mystery the less suspicious someone is the greater the likelihood they’re the murderer!

It is the reader’s knowledge of what the main characters in any specific scene have to gain and lose that pulls the reader through it. Will the detective (or perhaps the detective’s helper) get the clue they need to solve the next part of the case, the next piece of the puzzle? Ultimately, they will have to face their darkest fears to achieve their goals.

One thing that’s different about mystery stories in general (I’m including thrillers in this category) is that the protagonist—and usually the reader—doesn’t know who the murderer is. Perhaps we have a smattering of scenes where we see the murderer anonymously do a number of bad things, or plan to do a number of bad things, but we don’t know who this person is until the end. So the antagonists we have are going to be the cranky boss, the obnoxious co-worker, even the weather!

For example, the detective and his sidekick must visit someone who is in the hospital, scheduled to have a risky operation, and they need to question her. But there’s a storm brewing. Then it breaks, turns the roads to mud and the sleuth’s car gets stuck. And so on. Each scene must have something who ACTS as an antagonist, something that opposes the goal of the main character in that scene. The antagonist doesn’t have to be a person though. In this example it was the storm. More broadly, the antagonist can be a person, place, thing, idea—it can be the main character themselves! I don’t know about you but I’ve sabotaged myself a time or three.

Reader Involvement

Finally, a murder mystery involves the reader in a unique way. Sure, ANY kind of story involves the reader but in a murder mystery the reader doesn’t know who the antagonist is and is ACTIVELY engaged in trying to guess their identity. In a sense, the writer is playing a guessing game with the reader (for more about books that play games see: How To Write A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story.)

UPDATE:

I've received some wonderful feedback regarding the detective's stakes. Adaddinsane mentioned that in many excellent murder mysteries the stakes for the detective are low. For instance, this is true in many of Agatha Christie's mysteries and she is one of the best selling novelists of all time!

I've noticed this tendency toward low stakes as well and wrestled with it. Personally (and this could just be my own preference) I like it when the sleuth has something personal riding on the outcome. It could be something humorous (an ill-advised bet he's made) or it could be something more substantial (the failure of his business). I find this adds more conflict, more tension, and helps pull me through the book.

K.M. Idamari (over on Google+) mentioned that Murder Mysteries have a social dimension. The murder breaks the rules of society. Identifying the murderer is about writing a wrong, it's about justice.

Very true! Yes, this is something I meant to speak about then it slipped my mind. Thank you!!

---

Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

An Autobiography, by Agatha Christie.

Read about Agatha Christie's life in her own words. From an Amazon reviewer: "Agatha Christie's autobiography will keep the reader interested in knowing a little bit more about her life as wife, mother, and author."

---

Notes:

1. I say “characters” but these needn’t be people. For instance, a tornado could be an antagonist. However in the case of a murder mystery the antagonist does have to be an agent since they have to try and avoid detection.

The Secret of Agatha Christie’s Success: Deceit!

Agatha Christie’s book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, was the very first murder mystery I ever read!

It’s not surprising I took to Christie’s work. The Guinness World Records lists Agatha Christie as the best selling novelist of all time. Her books have sold roughly 2 BILLION copies! Only the works of William Shakespeare and the Bible outsell her.

This makes me wonder: What is the secret to Agatha Christie’s success?

There has been talk of a formula but I think Christie simply had a handle on the structure of a good story and, specifically, the structure of a great murder mystery!

Beyond that, I think her phenomenal success can be traced to two things:

1. Christie introduced ROMANCE into the murder mystery. 

2. Christie was very good at hiding the identity of the murderer. And she usually did this cleverly and fairly. 

Today I’m only going to concentrate on (2), above. (If you would like to read more about including romance in a story, see: The Structure of a Romance Story.)

How to Make Readers Think the Murderer Couldn't Have Done It. 

There’s no other way to say it: Agatha Christie deceived her readers! And we loved it. How did she do this?

7 Ways to Disguise a Murderer:

1. Agatha Christie made readers think the murderer was a victim. (Peril at End House.) 

Examples: Peril at End House, The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor, And Then There Were None.

In PERIL AT END HOUSE Nick—the eventual murderer—convinces Poirot that someone is trying to kill her. She is subtle and drops clues she knows the great detective (who loves clues!) will pick up on.

In reality, she’s setting up her friend (Fredricka 'Freddie' Rice) to take the fall for a murder she is preparing to commit.

The following summary of Peril at End House (this is from the televised version starring David Suchet) contains spoilers.

Hercule Poirot and his loyal companion Captain Hastings are vacationing at a Cornish Resort: The Majestic. Hastings tells Poirot about an explorer—Michael Seton—who is attempting to fly around the world but who has disappeared. Shortly after this we are introduced to one of the main characters of the story: Magdala ‘Nick’ Buckley (Magdala is a family name). When Nick and Poirot meet she tells him in a casual, offhanded way that she has come close to death three times in the past few days.

After finding various clues, Poirot comes to believe someone is trying to murder Nick. But who? And why?

Maggie Buckley, Nick’s cousin, travels to Nick's home, End House—a gorgeous old place that Nick loves but which is mortgaged to the hilt and in desperate need of renovation—to help watch over Nick. Tragically, the night she arrives Maggie is shot dead. Since the two girls were both wearing black dresses, and since Maggie was wearing Nick’s fur wrap, the two girls would have looked almost identical. Everyone believes Maggie was killed because the killer mistook her for Nick.

After Maggie dies Poirot comes to believe Nick was engaged to Michael Seaton, the deceased world explorer. Michael Seton has left a will that leaves everything to his fiancee, Magdala. Nick is set to inherit millions! Now that Poirot knows why someone is trying to kill Nick the only question left to answer is who?

Strangely, the answer to this seems straightforward. Nick’s best friend, Freddie, is Nick’s primary beneficiary. If Nick dies, Freddie gets everything! The only trouble is, Poirot doesn’t believe it. Freddy is not stupid and the latest attempt on Nick’s life was facile. Besides that, Freddy had no clear motive. She didn’t need the money. She wasn’t desperate. The psychology was all wrong!

It’s here, about three-quarters of the way through the book, just after the all hope is lost point, that Christie gives Poirot the clue which reveals everything. It all hinges on a name. Nick’s given name is Magdala. Further, we know it’s a family name. At this point Miss Lemon and Hastings engage in silly wordplay, wondering what the nicknames are for various given names. Hearing them, Hercule Poirot asks himself: What is Maggie’s given name? What if it were Magdala ...? And, of course, it was. Magdala ‘Maggie’ Buckley was Michael Seton’s fiancee, not Nick!

Nick had killed Maggie so she could pose as Michael Seton’s fiancee and inherit his millions.

Her immediate motive: Nick was fanatically devoted to End House, and she would lose it if she didn’t get quite a lot of money very soon.

That’s the description! Sorry for the length. Peril at End House is, IMHO, one of Christie’s most clever mysteries.

You see the pattern? The murderer tries to be clever, sets themselves up as the victim and in so doing misdirects both Poirot and the reader.

The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor

When the BBC did their adaptation of this story they changed it a wee bit. It is the BBC version I’m referring to. Here’s a brief summary:

Mr. Maltravers has a weak heart, a failing business, a young wife and quite a lot of life insurance. Not the best combination! It is perhaps no surprise that soon after we meet Mr. Maltravers he is found dead of an apparent heart attack. His body is found under a tree said to be haunted by the spirit of a girl who committed suicide decades before. Mr. Maltravers' face is frozen in an expression of shock and agony. 

The victim's wife of two years is convinced that her late husband saw the girl’s spirit and was, quite literally, scared to death. She SEEMED devoted to her late husband, but appearances can be deceiving. Could she have had a motive for killing him? Or perhaps it is exactly as she claims, that a spirit inhabits the tree and it frightened her husband so much his heart gave out.

Mr. Maltravers’ had a brief dalliance with his secretary years before but his secretary—a severe woman of middle-age—still cares for him. Might her caring have turned into something darker?

Mrs. Maltravers is an attractive, intelligent woman apparently devoted to her elderly, ailing husband. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that one of her old friends, Captain Black, still carries a torch for her. He seems honorable, but what might he do to win her heart?

At first it seems as though Mrs. Maltravers is a victim. She sees a ghost in the big spooky tree and no one believes her. The ghost makes her mirror bleed and tortures her with visions of death and blood. At first it seems as though Poirot is nothing but solicitous toward the young widow but it gradually emerges that he suspects her.

Perhaps this particular story is a bit dated in that it relies on the reader suspending disbelief in ghosts and the like, but I found the adaptation convincing.

2. Agatha Christie made readers think the murderer was dead at the time of the crime. (And Then There Were None)

Christie makes the reader think that a certain character is dead and so, when another murder occurs, we think THAT character can’t have committed the murder.

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None is Agatha Christie’s best selling book and probably one of the most popular novels of all time. Reading what follows will reveal the ending, so—if you haven’t yet—go read the book, then come back!

Okay. Here’s the plot:

Ten very different people are lured to an island by a variety of pretexts. Here’s the Wikipedia summary:

“All have been complicit in the deaths of other human beings, but either escaped justice or committed an act that was not subject to legal sanction. The guests and two servants who are present are "charged" with their respective "crimes" by a gramophone recording after dinner the first night, and informed that they have been brought to the island to pay for their actions. They are the only people on the island, and cannot escape due to the distance from the mainland and the inclement weather, and gradually all ten are killed in turn, each in a manner that seems to parallel the deaths in the nursery rhyme. Nobody else seems to be left alive on the island by the time of the apparent last death. A confession, in the form of a postscript to the novel, unveils how the killings took place and who was responsible.”

The murderer is one of the 10 (the classic closed society). He/she succeeds in convincing one of the other guests on the island, a doctor, to help him fake his death. The doctor—a man too trusting for his own good—agrees.

Every guest of the island—well, every guest except for the murderer!—is a victim. So we, the reader, see the culprit as a victim for most of the book. It is only at the very end, when everyone is dead, that Christie reveals the secret to the puzzle.

I think And Then There Were None was one of Christie’s best books. It was clever, filled with twists, and the whole thing held together after you read the solution.

3. Agatha Christie made the reader think the killer had a cast iron alibi. (Evil Under the Sun)

Christie tricked the reader into thinking the killer couldn’t have done it. Why? Because he/she had no opportunity.

Briefly, in Evil Under the Sun the murderers pose as a young married couple with more than their share of problems. He is carrying on an affair with Mrs ???, a wealthy movie star and she—delicate flower that she is ("I must get out of the sun, I burn so easily...") is devastated but tries to take her husband's philandering in stride.

The truth is that nothing is as it seems. The movie star is their mark, they've arranged to strip her of her wealth then kill her before she has a chance to protest. They work together to give each other an alibi for the crime. Mrs. R. makes it appear as though she was swimming with another guest at the time of Mrs. R's apparent death while Mr R is one of the two people who (apparently) found the movie star's body.

In reality, the 'body' Mr. R found was Mrs R playing dead. After the time of discover is set then Mr. R kills the movie star in his own sweet time. This was crusial because at that time Mrs. R had an alibi (she was swimming with ???) and Mr. R had been with other peole at every second up to that point. Afterwards (it was thought) it didn't matter where he was, but in reality it was after she was 'found' that the true murder occurred.

So you see,  Christie made readers think that Mr R wasn’t a member of the closed society, that his name wasn't on the list of possible killers (for more about 'closed societies' see my article English vs American Murder Mysteries).

4. Agatha Christie made the killer the narrator. (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)

Making the narrator the killer isn’t considered fair play. Even though The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was one of Agatha Christie's most successful books, the writing club she belonged to—the Detection Club—(Dorothy L. Sayers, Baroness Emma Orczy and G. K. Chesterton were also members)—explicitly forbid its members from employing this technique. That said, Christie got away with it! Why? Readers, even though they grumbled a bit about it not being quite fair, LOVED the book!

(For more on Agatha Christie and the Detection Club: Agatha Christie's Secret: Break The Rules.)

That said, I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone else try making the narrator the killer, although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone gave a young Christie that very advice!

5. Agatha Christie made each suspect the murderer. (Murder on the Orient Express).

This was truly clever. What’s an implicit assumption readers make? That one (or possibly two) of the suspects are murderers. We don’t think: They all could have done it! At least we didn’t up until Murder on the Orient Express!

6. Agatha Christie made the murderer a police officer. (Hercule Poirot's Christmas)

In an English cozy police officers can be incompetent, arrogant, rash or stupid but they are not murderers. So Christie decided to make a police officer the murderer in Hercule Poirot's Christmas. And it worked beautifully!

7. Agatha Christie made the murderer a child. (Crooked House)

Kids are sweet and innocent, right? This is an Agatha Christie novel so ... not necessarily!

* * *

As I said at the beginning of this post, the trick to keeping your readers from guessing the murderer is to—in the fairest possible way—trick the reader. Part of this is making the murderer the sort of person we tend not to suspect. Someone we trust.

---

Every post I pick something I love and recommend it. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post.

Treat Yourself: 70 Classic Snacks You Loved as a Kid (and Still Love Today), by Jennifer Steinhauer

I LOVED Twinkies as a kid, how about you? Or maybe you preferred Oreos or Fig Newtons? Here’s a book that will helps us recreate the classic oh-so-bad-for-you snacks! I haven’t tried any of these recipes myself—not yet! As soon as I get a kitchen, though, I’m making my own Twinkies. :-)

---

Notes:

1. Here I’ve only given one story as an example, but Christie used each of these techniques in many of her books.

How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery: The Murderer

W.H. Auden writes that the test of a good detective story is twofold:

a) The reader must be surprised when the sleuth reveals the identity of the murderer.

b) The reader must believe that "everything he has previously been told about the murderer is consistent with his being a murderer."[1]

An excellent test! Also, it highlights an important point: a murder mystery is primarily about the murderer. Not the sleuth, not the sidekick, not even the victims. After all, it is the murderer's desire, his goal, that drove him to kill.

Qualities of an Interesting Murderer

1. The murderer must be a worthy adversary for the sleuth.

Storytellers want their audience to think the sleuth is clever and resourceful. This means the storyteller must show him being clever and resourceful. But the only way to do this is to pit the sleuth against an opposing force--the murderer--who is every bit as clever and resourceful as the sleuth. 

When the protagonist fails (as he/she inevitably will at some point) we understand that they were up against someone brilliant. If the murderer isn't clever then when the sleuth fails ... well, that's just embarrassing! 

Also, when the sleuth finally solves the mystery and unmasks the murderer it means  more because the antagonist was clever. So clever, in fact, that only your sleuth could have brought him/her to justice.

2. The murderer should act from motives of self-interest.

No inexplicable desires or drives, please. Not in a cosy. The murderer must have an easy-to-understand motive. P.D. James in her wonderful book, Talking About Detective Fiction, writes:

"All motives can be explained under the letter L: lust, lucre, loathing, and love."

3. The murderer could have a deep psychological wound.

I think there are, roughly, two kinds of murderers. Criminal masterminds like Professor Moriarty and garden variety criminals who poison their great aunt so she won't discover they've embezzled all her money. Generally, Agatha Christie portrayed the latter as weak and, possibly, evil. That works for me. 

Which isn't to say that these person-next-door criminals didn't have awful things happen to them which left wounds. I'm sure they did. But I doubt that any wound could explain committing murder. But wounds do something else: they humanize. And that's good because we want round murderers not stick figures like Dr. Fu Manchu.

Murderers like Moriarty, criminal masterminds, are generally  brilliant and calculating. It isn't so much that they have a deep psychological wound which explains their behavior but that some event or series of events radically transformed them into what they are. 

An event or ability. In the TV show Sherlock, Moriarty is portrayed as a brilliant psychopath, almost as clever as Sherlock himself. But his oddess is--or so I thought--explained by his brilliance. He is so smart that he views ordinary humans as ordinary humans view ants. He views himself as a different, and clearly superior, species. Just as many humans wouldn't bat an eye at killing a moose or deer so Moriarty wouldn't hesitate to kill a human if it was in his interest to do so.

Sleuths and Psychological Wounds

I know this question was about murderers, but I'd like to answer it for sleuths as well. Although this may be seen as heresy, I don't believe that all sleuths need to have a deep psychological wound. Especially if one is writing in something of the style of the (English) golden age mysteries, those set between the wars. (Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers are just two of the many authors whose works fall into this category.)

Agatha Christie's sleuth, Hercule Poirot, though excessively fastidious and saddled with a taste in clothes and facial hair that could be comically old-fashioned, did not have a deep psychological wound (and the same goes for Miss Marple and Sayers' sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey). 

Contrast this with Sherlock from the TV show of the same name. Now that is a character with a deep psychological wound. One of my favorite lines from that show is from the first episode of the first season, A Study In Pink:

Sherlock Holmes: "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high functioning sociopath. Do your research."[4]

And then, again, in the last episode of season three: His Last Vow:

Sherlock Holmes: "Oh, do your research. I'm not a hero, I'm a high-functioning sociopath."

I would argue that the original Sherlock Holmes did not have a deep psychological flaw. Yes, he was different—quirky—but nothing on the order of the Sherlock Holmes portrayed (brilliantly) by Benedict Cumberbatch. 

And it works. Sherlock is, hands down, my favorite show and I'm not alone. It enjoys a 9.3/10 rating over at IMDb and a 9.1 user score over at Metacritic.com.  

But Poirot is popular as well. Agatha Christie is, after all, the world's third best selling novelist and the most popular mystery writer of all time.

Whether to give your sleuth a deep emotional flaw might depend on the kind of murder mystery you intend to write. In a cosy it is the sleuth's ratiocination that takes center stage. We are concerned with logic; as Poirot would say, it is all about order and method.

On the other hand, in a hardboiled detective mystery such as "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett, or Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep," the logic of the crime is downplayed in favor of the sleuth understanding how the city, the police and the gangsters operate. That, and the sleuth's ability to take a punch as well as give one. In keeping with the setting, these sleuths are darker and more flawed.

4. Make the conflict personal.

Make the conflict between the sleuth and the murderer personal. Make the murderer want to taunt the sleuth. Make the sleuth willing to take crazy risks to catch the murderer.

If the murderer is caught then his/her life is over, perhaps literally, but if the murderer gets away with it, what then?

Yes, not being able to solve the puzzle or, worse, offering up an incorrect solution--being foiled by the murderer--could not only ruin the sleuth's reputation (assuming he cares) but send an innocent person to prison. And that is something the sleuth must care about. I think that's a large part of what separates white hats from black hats.

5. Show that the murderer is one depraved, sick, puppy.

For most of the story the antagonist is going to wear a mask. Underneath the mask they are getting more desperate and their sickness, their desperation, escalates.

One way we could show this is by escalating the number of murders, their violence, as well as the murderer's reckless daring.

6. Let your antagonist win occasionally.

Your sleuth needs setbacks. He needs strong opposition to battle against and, so, occasionally, he's going to fail. Often this happens at the midpoint. The sleuth--or the sleuth's helper--thinks they know who did it. But they're wrong. Often the suspect is found dead, killed the way the other victims were.

7. Show the killer's true face at the end.

The murderer is a cold-blooded killer. She has taken the lives of those she knew, perhaps even those she loved. And she did it for personal gain. She's not nice, not ordinary, perhaps not even sane. But for most of the book she has hidden in plain sight and has acted like everyone else. Now we get to see her as she really is. We get to see the murderer's contempt for those around her, for those who counted themselves as her friends.

Although there is a lot more that can be said about qualities the murderer should, or could, have; qualities that would contribute to making him or her an interesting character, one a reader would love to hate, that's it for today. In the next episode of this series, How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery, I'll talk about the second most important character in a murder mystery: the sleuth.

Here are the links to the previous articles in this series:

- How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery

- The Importance of Setting In Writing A Murderously Good Mystery

- Writing A Murderously Good Mystery: The Importance of the Murder Victim

Links/References

1. "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.

2. "Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel," by Jonathan Crow over at OpenCulture.com.

3. "A Plot Begins to Take Shape," by Margot Kinberg over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...

4. This line is from the episode, "A Study in Pink," from the TV show Sherlock. Episode written by [].

I also drew from my previous articles:

- 12 Tips On How To Write Antagonists Your Readers Will Love To Hate

- 4 Ways To Create A Strong Antagonist

- How To Write A Murder Mystery

Photo credit: "Taking A Fence" by Ian Sane under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing A Murderously Good Mystery: The Importance of the Murder Victim

Today I'm continuing my mini-series on how to write a murderously good mystery by exploring what qualities the murder victim might have.

The Victim

W.H. Auden in The Guilty Vicarage [2] writes that two things should be true of the victim (and please keep in mind that the murder mysteries under discussion are English cozies where all the characters have some connection to each other):

i. All your characters should have a reason to want to kill the victim.

ii. All your characters should feel sorry, or at least a little guilty, that the victim is dead, or for wanting him dead.

The trouble, of course, is that for everyone to want the victim dead it's unlikely he's going to be a shining ray of sunshine. On the contrary, he's probably going to be one fine example of an SOB. This sets up a contradiction: Why should the characters feel guilty that someone they hated is dead? Or, more importantly, why should your readers care that the victim is dead?

Survivor Guilt

First of all let me mildly disagree with W.H. Auden. In the majority of the murder mysteries I've read and watched the survivors do not mourn the untimely passing of the first victim. In fact, often, this initial death is greeted with a measure of glee. Though, that said, I do grant that sometimes, perhaps even often, one or more of the survivors do experience feelings of guilt for wanting the victim dead. 

For example, Agatha Christie's short story, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, the victim is singularly despicable in every way and anything we found out about the deceased afterward just confirmed our low opinion of him. (The same can be said of the victim in Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.)

On the other hand, in Evil Under the Sun, Agatha Christie reveals that much of what we thought we know about the victim came by way of the killers. Sure, no one would nominate her for person of the year but she was young and lonely and alone. 

Perhaps the lesson here is that if you want your characters to think better of the victim after they've given their pseudo-life for the plot, you could have the survivors discover either that they'd been misinformed about some of the victim's faults or discover new information about the victim, information that paints them as a nice--or nicer--person. For instance, perhaps the victim gave generously to a children's hospital because his child died of an, at that time, incurable disease.

A Sympathetic Character

Occasionally when the first victim is thoroughly reprehensible you can get your readers to care about who killed them by making a sympathetic character the first suspect (e.g., Agatha Christie's story, The Triangle at Rhodes). 

The sympathetic character, though, doesn't always have to be the first suspect, it could be someone who cares about the suspect (a girlfriend for example) or someone who believes that justice has not been done and swears to make sure it is. 

For example, in Agatha Christie's Mrs McGinty's Dead, James Bentley--a thoroughly unsympathetic character--is convicted of her murder. But that's fine because Christie draws the reader into the story--makes them care about the fate of the prisoner--through her use of the thoroughly sympathetic character, Superintendent Spence, as well as James' almost-girlfriend Maude Williams. And, of course, through the recurring character of  Hercule Poirot. 

Subsequent Victims

Auden writes, "If there is more than one murder, the subsequent victims should be more innocent than the initial victim, i.e., the murderer should start with a real grievance and, as a consequence of righting it by illegitimate means, be forced to murder against his will where he has no grievance but his own guilt." [2]

This is something I've noticed as well; it doesn't always happen, but if you have a murderer whose first victim is a reprehensible character, one the murderer felt pushed to kill, it is often effective to have the next victims be sympathetic, perhaps even characters the murderer cared for. When this is the case it sets up tremendous conflict within the murderer.  

For instance, in Agatha Christie's novel, A Murder is Announced, while the first murder victim was a minor criminal and not very sympathetic, the other two victims were. More than that, the killer truly loved one of them. 

In the next installment of this series, How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery, I will talk about what readers look for in the second most important element of a good murder mystery: the murderer.

Links/References

1. "How To Write A Murder Mystery"

2. "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.

3. "Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel," by Jonathan Crow over at OpenCulture.com.

4. "A Plot Begins to Take Shape," by Margot Kinberg over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...

Photo credit: "Lavender Dreams" by Bhumika Bhatia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

The Importance of Setting In Writing A Murderously Good Mystery

Today I continue talking about murderously good mysteries and how to write them.

The Five Elements: Milieu, Victim, Murderer, Suspects, Detectives

In "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden writes:

"The detective story has five elements — the milieu, the victim, the murderer, the suspects, the detectives."

I want to look at each of these in turn but that's going to take a while so, for today, let's start with a murder mystery's milieu.

Milieu

a. The Society/Setting must be closed.

I think that what W.H. Auden meant by "society" was, in practical terms, the sum total of characters that would have to be taken into consideration when solving the murder. One's pool of suspects.

Small suspect pool. When Auden writes that the society must be closed he means that, in selecting the setting, we need to pick something that will limit the number of people who could have committed the murder; that is, limit the number of suspects we'll have to deal with.

For example, in Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage the society would be everyone in the village of St. Mary Mead where the murder took place. The suspects are those who had, or could have had, the means, motive and opportunity to kill the victim, Colonel Lucius Protheroe.

One murderer. In addition to having a relatively small suspect pool it must also be clear that the murderer is one of the people in the society you set up.  Auden writes that what the murder mystery writer needs to avoid is any possibility the murderer comes from outside the society. For example, it wouldn't do for the murderer to be someone on a road trip from London who killed the Colonel for kicks and then drove back to London. 

It must be clear from the beginning that one of the people in the society (in the case of my example, the village of St. Mary Mead) must have committed the crime. The only question is: who?

By the way, it doesn't have to be just one murderer, but the principle of parsimony applies and if the evidence doesn't suggest more than one murderer was at work, it's likely best not to complicate matters. On the other hand, as time goes on it may appear that there was more than one murderer. In several of Agatha Christie's books it turned out this was the case but she tended to use this as a twist near, or at, the end of the tale.

Every character within the society should have multiple connections with every other member.

Characters, like people, aren't islands unto themselves; each character has--or should have--multiple connections to every other character. This raises certain questions: i) what kind of connections and ii) how are they relevant to the murder (many connections probably wouldn't be) and iii) how will the sleuth discover them?

Kind of connections. Auden writes that everyone in the society should be closely related either by family ties, by geography (a small village such as St. Mary Mead), by occupation (they all work at the same company or go to the same lodge) or by happenstance (happen to be trapped in an aeroplane together). 

Relevance and discoverability. Each and every character should be a potential suspect, but the detective might have to dig a bit; do some research, interview a few characters; to figure out the exact nature of the connection between the suspect and the victim and whether it's relevant to the murder.

In the beginning, the members of the group--the society--will first appear to be strangers to each other, but the sleuth will discover they have many interesting, intimate (and possibly scandalous) connections with each other.

Examples:

- Group of relatives (Auden gives the examples of the Christmas dinner at the country house).

- Geography keeping people together; a small rural village, a college campus, a military academy.

- A group of people who work together. Auden suggests a theatre company, but it could also be a band, choir, writers' convention, and so on.

- A group isolated by technology: an airplane, a train, an RV, and so on.

b. Nothing bad ever happens here.

Auden writes that:

"Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet." (Auden)

The setting should be unsullied by murder. The society should be such that murder is ... well, if not unthinkable, then very very unlikely. A nunnery, academia, the church choir. This way, when murder occurs, the crises is greater. If a murder were to occur, say, in the bad area of a big city late at night we wouldn't be as shocked than if it occurred in the middle of a play on a cruise ship in mid-afternoon.

Also, having the murder occur in a setting, a context, where murder is rare helps put pressure on the law to solve the crime in order that things can get back to normal. 

In addition, the law itself would be a disruptive influence, one that many would find unwelcome. This may be bad for the characters, but it's great for the storyteller because it's a source of conflict. Every character--even the (apparently) most blameless, most upright, is cast under the same pall of suspicion. This makes everyone--everyone except the murderer!--anxious to expose the murderer and get things back to the way they were.

Characters

Auden writes:

"The characters in a detective story should [...] be eccentric (aesthetically interesting individuals) and good (instinctively ethical) — good, that is, either in appearance, later shown to be false, or in reality, first concealed by an appearance of bad." 

In other words, it should, on the face of it, seem implausible that any of the suspects committed the murder. (If there is someone around who hated the victim then give them an ironclad alibi.)

As the murder mystery unfolds, those who seemed to have no motive will become serious contenders for the murder. Similarly, those who seemed most likely to commit the murder will be shown either not to have had the opportunity, or to have vastly different motives than it first appeared.

Thats it for today! It looks as though these posts have morphed into a series. In the next instalment I will look at what W.H. Auden--lifelong lover of murder mysteries that he was--had to say about what makes the perfect victim. In the meantime, good writing!

Photo credit: "Recreation" by *Light Painting* under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery

I said I would finish my post on narrators today but I've decided to put that off until Monday. Today lets revisit one of my favorite topics and examine how to write an engrossing murder mystery.

The idea for this post came to me because, over the past few days, I've come across several top notch posts about writing a murder mystery. The one I'm going to draw from for this article is "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. (This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.)

In The Guilty Vicarage Auden--a self-confessed addict of murder mysteries--talks about what elements go into creating a great, wonderfully escapist, murder mystery.

The Basic Formula of a WhoDunit:

Auden writes that the "basic formula is this: a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies." (The Guilty Vicarage)

Generally speaking, mystery stories conform to the overall structure of a genre story:

1. The Ordinary World.

The state of the story world before the murder.

2. Inciting Incident. 

The murder.

3. Call To Adventure. 

The detective takes the case.

4. The Special World of the investigation.

The detective crosses the threshold into the special world of the adventure. Something might happen to lock him into the investigation. Perhaps he discovers he needs the money, or a rival detective bets he will fail, or his love interest is arrested for the murder.

5. Tests and Trials.

Clues. The detective discovers many clues. Some of them are false (red herrings), some of them are true but not related to the murder (irrelevant), and some are true and related to the murder (critical). The detective's job is to figure out which clues fall in which categories. 

Suspects. The detective interviews suspects, gathers evidence and thinks about the crime. Perhaps more murders are committed. 

If there is a B-story it will come into play around points (4) or (5), if not sooner.

6. Ordeal.

False success. It seems as though the murderer has been found. This could be someone the police have fixed on and the detective doesn't agree, or it could be that the detective is working from false or insufficient data and identifies the wrong character as the culprit.

7. Peace. 

The police, and perhaps even the detective, believe the case is closed. This would be a good place to have something exciting happen in the B-story.

8. Suspicion. 

Something ruffles the still waters of the newly accepted status quo. Suspicion is raised that the person arrested for the murder might be innocent.

9. Major Setback. 

Everyone comes to know that the person they thought was the murderer really isn't.

Perhaps someone comes forward with evidence that the person thought to be the murderer couldn't possibly have committed the crime. For example, the suspected murderer is a parent who believes their child is the murderer and, since they feel they are somehow responsible for their child's actions, seek to take the blame.

Perhaps evidence is discovered which reveals it was impossible for the supposed murderer to have done the crime(s).

Perhaps there's another murder while the suspected murderer is behind bars.

Perhaps something, an idea, was nagging at the sleuth but he couldn't quite but his finger on it. Something happens, he sees something, hears something,  remembers something, that convinces him the person accused of the murder is innocent.

10. All Is Lost. 

Or all seems to be lost. The police and/or the detective suspect the wrong person. Perhaps they're on the right track but something--perhaps some item of information--they've accepted as true really isn't and is leading them astray. 

Of course it doesn't have to be misinformation that throws the detective off. Perhaps his personal life is blinding him to something (his love interest is leaving him; children in crisis), perhaps there's someone he believes is above suspicion that he hasn't examined seriously enough; his mentor, for instance. The mentor might not be the murderer, but the detective's failure to take that possibility seriously has, perhaps, kept him from fully examining those around the mentor, like the man's personal assistant.

11. "Use The Force, Luke."

This is the detective's 'ah ha' moment. If, as I suggested above, the detective believed something false that was tripping him up, this is removed. If there's a B-story, then this is where the resolution to the B-story could supply the missing piece of the puzzle.

12. The reveal.

This is where the detective gathers everyone together, lays out all the clues, explains which category each falls in (red herring, irrelevant or critical), unveils the deep dark secrets the suspects were hiding, and, finally, unmasks the murderer.

13. Aftermath.

The guilty party has been exposed and so we know that those who appear innocent really are. The detective has removed the pall of suspicion from the community and they can return to their ordinary lives.

There's a lot more to say about this but that's enough for now. I'd like to come back in the near future and talk more about setting (both human and physical) and characters (suspects, detective, murderer).

Links

Here are some links to articles about mystery writing you might find interesting:

- "How To Write A Murder Mystery," by me, here.

- "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.

- "Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel," by Jonathan Crow over at OpenCulture.com.

-  "A Plot Begins to Take Shape," by Margot Kinberg over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...

Photo credit: "Orchard At Twilight" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. Photo is based upon Anne Worner's photo, "In the Clearing (Explore 10/16/2013)", licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.