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.

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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.”

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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.

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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."

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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

Murder Mystery: The Victim

Let's talk about the victim and her importance to a murder mystery. In a sense, she is the central character. Of course the victim isn't the protagonist—the detective is—but without the victim there would be no story! Today I look at what information the detective needs to uncover about the victim, the what, where, when, why and how.

The Victim Injects Passion into the Narrative

I think of the victim as the heart of the story. After all, she was killed. Murdered! That’s passionate. Someone stole her life. And it usually isn’t an act of passion, it’s planned. The murderer intended to snuff the victim out, knowing the stakes, knowing that if he was caught he would be killed or spend the rest of his life in prison. (I’ll talk more about motivation when I discuss the killer.)

Most of the time the passion comes from the victim, not the detective. Think of it: the detective is engaged in solving a bloodless puzzle, deciphering clues to identify the murderer. Myself, I like passionless puzzles! But there is no denying that emotional engagement helps build suspense.

How does the reader discover all this passion? Through the detective. Details of the victim's life are a bit like buried treasure the detective must unearth. The detective strips away layers upon layers of the victim's life, her psyche.

The relationship between the detective and the victim is peculiarly intimate and one-sided. The detective is laser focused, at least in the beginning, on the first victim, on why she was killed, on why the murderer ran such a risk.

The detective is the victim’s champion. Because of the nature of the crime, of murder, the victim no longer walks among us. Nevertheless, it is the detective who must, in a sense, bring the victim back to life until justice has been served.

Information the detective uncovers about the victim:

WHO was the victim?

What was the victim's strongest desire? How did this desire translate into a concrete goal? What were the obstacles to this goal? Where was the victim in his journey toward this goal? Had he, perhaps, denied his greatest desire all his life and then, just before death, decided to follow his dreams?

If the victim pursued his passion who would it have impacted? Whose lives would have been changed? How?

What was the victim’s profession? How did the victim earn his money? Through legal means? Illegal? Was it a profession others admire (doctor) or did it make them feel vaguely uncomfortable (used car salesmen)?

Did the victim have family? Were they married? Single? Did they have children? Were they close with their family (mother, father, siblings, uncles, aunts) or had they drifted apart? What was the victim's last Christmas like?

Perhaps most important of all, how did the other characters feel about the first victim? I've found it works best if the first victim is either loved or hated by most of the suspects. The victim could be hated by everyone except one person (as in Agatha Christie's wonderful mystery, Appointment with Death) who loves them blindly, devotedly; to such an extent one wonders: It can't possibly have been real ... can it?

WHAT about the victim motivated the crime?

It’s often easier to look at what the murderer needed than to ask what characteristics the victim had that motivated the crime, but let's try.

Was the victim wealthy? The child kills parent for her inheritance.

Was the victim hated? Did they set up a ponzi scheme that robbed folks of their life savings?

Was the victim killed to frame someone? The murderer may have had nothing against the victim, the only reason she is dead is that the killer was setting someone else up to take the fall. And so on.

WHY was the victim killed?

Knowing what about the victim motivated the crime is only half the story. The other part of the equation can only come when we know the killer's motive.

For example:
- The victim was wealthy.
- The murderer was poor.
- The murderer was in the victim's will.

So far so good, but it's still not enough. There needs to be some sort of catalyst. Perhaps the murderer's daughter needs an expensive operation or she'll die, and she needs it soon. (I'll talk more about motivation when I discuss the murderer in a later post.)

WHERE was the murder committed?

The WHERE of the murder is often closely linked to the HOW. If your victim is to die of poisoning and the poison needs to be introduced into a bitter liquid (such as coffee), then that helps narrow the field. Perhaps an intimate picnic breakfast for two in a local park is called for or (even better!) breakfast in bed.

Of course the most important thing about the crime scene is that it must create a dividing line between those who COULD have done the murder and those who could not.[1] A blizzard could have cut a group of people staying at a bed and breakfast off from the rest of the world, it could have occurred in a small English village (or, possibly, Cabot Cove Maine!), and so on.

Speaking of the crime scene, the same rules of thumb apply to this setting as to any other. Is it unique? Exaggerated? Memorable?

WHEN was the murder committed?

Generally murderers attempt to trick the detective when it comes to time of death. Corpses are frozen or draped with electric blankets, anything to mask the time of death so the murderer can set up his perfect alibi. (I'll talk about this in more detail, later, when I go over the murder method.)

HOW was the murder committed? 

This should, ideally, have something to do with both the murderer and the victim. It can’t always be done, but I like it when the murder method is matched to the reason for the crime. For instance, a billionaire buys an old, family owned, winery intending to turn it into a parking lot. The day after the purchase the billionaire is found, drowned, in a vat of merlot.

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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.

Cruising for Murder: A Myrtle Clover Cozy Mystery (Myrtle Clover Cozy Mysteries Book 10), by Elizabeth Spann Craig.

From the blurb: When “a fellow passenger disappears, Myrtle realizes she must seize the helm and find the killer...before more souls are lost.”

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That’s it! I’ll talk to you again on the weekend. Till then, good writing!

Notes:

1. There needs to be a dividing line between those who could have done the murder and those who couldn't, but there is a subset of mysteries—a variant of a locked room mystery (e.g., Death in Paradise)—where it seems no one had the opportunity to commit the crime. Normally, means and opportunity are known and it is the motive—the psychology of the murderer—that needs to be revealed.

How to Whip Your Prose into Shape

Whenever anyone writes a post about how to improve one’s prose it’s inevitable that one’s own prose comes under scrutiny! So, let me say that I’m sure you’ll be able to find many errors in my writing. Believe me, if I didn’t use the tips I’m about to give you, my writing would be much worse. In the final analysis all we can strive to do is improve. Perfection is not only unattainable, it’s not productive.

Here are my tips:

1. Hunt for and exterminate unnecessary 'this's and 'that's.

The second sentence of my first paragraph used to be:

“So, let me say that I’m sure you’ll be able to find MANY errors in my writing.”

Compare that with:

“I’m sure you’ll be able to find MANY errors in my writing.”

The two sentences say the same thing but the second sentence says it more forcefully because it’s not as cluttered. Granted I removed more than just “that” but even just taking “that” out would have been an improvement.

2. Look for unnecessary modifiers.

There’s nothing wrong with the word “just.” Like any word, it has its place, there are circumstances in which it is needed. The same is true for “partially,” “almost,” “practically,” and so on. Saying, “Joe boarded the plane in time” expresses a different thought than, “Joe boarded the plane just in time.”

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to use modifiers. My rough drafts (and even my published posts!) are riddled with them. But do try to be merciless and take out extraneous modifiers, anything not needed to express a particular thought.

Rule of thumb: If you can remove a word and the sentence expresses the same thought, then you don’t need the word.

For instance, take the sentence:

“But do try to be merciless and strike out those modifiers which a sentence doesn’t need to express a particular thought.”

This says exactly the same thing as:

“Be merciless and strike out modifiers that don't help express a particular thought.”

The latter sentence is clearer, cleaner and much easier to read.

3. Avoid stock phrases and cliches.

For instance, above I wrote:

“Like any word, it has its place, there are circumstances in which it is needed.”

I ran a rough draft of this post through Pro Writing Aid and that program pointed out that “sometimes” communicates the same thing as “There are circumstances,” and does it more simply and cleanly. (Yes, I’m an affiliate for Pro Writing Aid, but only because I use and like the program.) So I could have rewritten it as:

“Like any word, sometimes it is needed.”

I'm not in love with that construction, it feels stilted, but it's shorter and clearer.

Another example:

“Today, I’d like to talk about what I’m going to call the ‘conflict character.’”

This sentence would be clearer as:

“Today, I’d like to talk about what I will call the ‘conflict character.’”

It’s a small change, but I like the shorter, clearer, sentence.

Pro Writing Aid helped me spot the above, but I feel it's only fair to note that sometimes the program gets it wrong. It suggested that this sentence:

“I’m going to use “antagonist” and “murderer” interchangeably except where I think it might cause confusion.”

be replaced with this sentence:

“I will use “antagonist” and “murderer” except where I think it might cause confusion.”

As you can see the latter sentence does not express the same thought as the former!

4. Compare your writing to the writing of authors you admire.

The writers whose prose I most admire are: Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King.

Pro Writing Aid is great but, like all programs of its type, the statistics it displays are meaningless without context. So I let my favorite authors provide context!

Let me give you an example. I just ran my last post, Writing a Murder Mystery: The Conflict Character, through ProWritingAid. Then I ran a portion of Stephen King’s book, On Writing, through the program (I made sure the excerpts contained about the same number of words).

• The program suggests that I make 27 readability enhancements and that Stephen King needs to make 37 readability enhancements! lol
• The program let me know that I have 10 passive verbs but Stephen King had 16 passive verbs.
• The program let me know that I have 4 hidden verbs while Stephen King had ... none!

(BTW, ProWritingAid made many more than these three observations, I’m just giving you the gist of it.)

The final observation was the one that yielded paydirt. I’ve compared my work against Stephen King’s a number of times and the above pattern holds. Stephen King does not hide verbs while I salt them away like a squirrel hides nuts.

So, what is a hidden verb? A hidden verb is a verb that is turned into a noun. For instance, my article had the following hidden verbs: “a portion of,” (used twice) and “a collection of” (used twice).

Here’s one of my sentences in which I salted away a hidden verb:

“The second kind of conflict is conflict that only lasts for A PORTION OF the story.”

Here’s my revision:

“The second kind of conflict only lasts for part of the story.”

Much better!

How can you tell whether hidden verbs have wormed their way into your prose? I run my writing through Pro Writing Aid and it highlights these phrases! But another way of spotting them is to look for the following word endings: -mend, -tion, -sion, and -ance. Also, scrutinize words that link with words such as: “achieve, effect, give, have, make, reach, and take.”

This really only scratches the surface of ways to improve one's prose. If you'd like me to write more about this subject, let me know in the comments! :-)

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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.

Elements of Style Kindle Edition, by William Strunk Jr.

This is a classic! From the blurb: “The Elements of Style ... is the best-known, most influential prescriptive treatment of English grammar and usage...” I have Elements on my writing shelf snuggled up to Stephen King’s On Writing.

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

Notes:

1. I'm an affiliate for Pro Writing Aid, but only because the program has helped me become a better writer. I would not endorse a product I didn't use.