The Structure of Story

When I was a kid I had absolutely NO idea how to write an entertaining story. I wish someone had whispered the phrase “story arc” in my ear, it would at least have given me a place to start.

The Classic Character Arc: The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is something we feel in our bones, it is the story of human civilization, but let’s make it explicit. What are its elements? We need:

A character, in a situation, with a well-defined problem, who tries to repeatedly solve it, but he fails and, in failing, makes the problem worse.

At the climax of the story, the hero makes a final attempt to achieve his/her goal. The result of this final attempt -- of the race to the final confrontation -- should unfold from the pattern of the hero’s victories and failures during the rest of the story.

If that sounds a bit mysterious, hang in there, I’ll unpack it.

BTW, that summary was from Philip Brewer’s post, Story Structure in Short Stories.

The Inward and Outward Journeys

Let’s break down the idea of a journey. There is usually an inward journey for the hero as well as an outward journey. 

In the movie, Edge of Tomorrow, William Cage (inner journey) went from cowardice to courage and (outer journey) from incompetence to mastery. These two journeys, these two paths, come together. Cage does something very brave just before the Final Confrontation and this gets him through the All Hope is Lost point. Mastering his cowardice was essential for Cage winning the final battle.

Again, more about this, below.

1. Opposites are good

This story structure comes to us by way of Larry Brooks's article: The Short Story on Structuring Your Short Story. 

Brooks writes:

"Like life, our stories always reside somewhere along that same continuum of set-up… shift… response… shift… attack… shift… resolution."

For instance, in the setup, the hero -- I like using the word ‘hero’ rather than protagonist -- is going through his normal everyday routines -- he struggles with the neighbourhood bully, he is in love with someone completely out of his league, he dreams of taking over the lucrative family business. That’s the hero's ordinary world.

Then something happens. There’s a shift. It could be that the protagonist gets a magical golden ticket, it could be that a young boy, sees a hologram and goes in search of an older, mysterious rather dodgy, character.

In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf came to Frodo, who had recently inherited the One Ring, and advised him to take it away from the shire in order to protect his community.

Okay. So. Another name for what just happened was the ‘Call to Adventure.’ After anything big happens in a story, there’s a response. In the case of Lord of the Rings, they are chased by the Black Riders.

But what I like about Larry Brook’s way of looking at things is that we really don’t need a lot of fancy names: the Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, and so on.

The key, the bedrock, is that something negative happens that derails the hero, and then something positive happens. That’s the pattern. The negative things that happen keep getting worse but the hero manages to keep going. Negative and positive. This back and forth keeps up until the hero and villain fight it out at the end and settle the matter once and for all.

Hook the reader early.

Plant a hook in the first couple of lines. Be bold. Here are a few first lines I think are marvelous:

“Halston thought the old man in the wheelchair looked sick, terrified, and ready to die. He had experience in seeing such things. Death was Halston's business; he had brought it to eighteen men and six women in his career as an independent hitter. He knew the death look.” (The Cat From Hell, Stephen King)

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling)

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (1984, George Orwell)

If you THINK you have a good hook for your novel, but you’re not sure, test it out on your friends -- or even random strangers in line with you at Starbucks -- tell them your hook and watch their face, that will tell you pretty much everything you need to know. Also, do they ask questions? Are they curious about what happens?

I think it’s a good idea to include your hero’s perspective in the hook, although, that said, only one of the stellar opening lines I included, above, say anything about the protagonist (The Cat from Hell). As always, it’s up to you. If it works, it works.

2. Introduce the elements of a central problem as soon as possible. 

We’ve given the reader a hook. They’ve read the first sentence or two, now we need to draw them into some conflict, some problem, that is directly related to, connected to, the central problem of the story. 

Also, we need to fulfill the promise of the hook, or at least give the reader enough information to make them curious enough to keep reading. 

Here are the first two sentences of “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” (I know I just shared the first sentence, above, but this is one of the best first paragraphs I’ve ever read):

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

Now, I thought the first line was a very good hook, but just look at that second sentence! 

Right away, the reader knows there is going to be a lot that is strange and a lot that is mysterious occuring in the Dursley’s life and the Dursley’s are going to HATE it. I also knew right away that I would find the Dursley’s trials and tribulations humorous, because the Dursley’s seem like perfectly horrible people! (Which they are.)

3. The Ordinary World

Show your readers your character going through his/her daily routine, and show them one problem that he needs to overcome, one thing he/she is failing at.

For example, Harry Potter is failing to fit into the Dursley’s family, he is failing to find people who love him. Of course, it’s not his fault, the Dursley’s are despicable people, but, still, it’s a problem. Why is Harry failing to fit in? Well, he is the offspring of someone who could do magic and the Dursley’s are terrified of that. They are terrified their friends will find out they are related to people who can do magic. They are terrified of being rejected. So, the very thing the Dursley’s are terrified of, they do to Harry Potter. 

I have to be honest, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is one of my favorite stories! Both because it is very fun to read and because it is well structured as a story.

4. Try and Fail Cycles

Here’s the way I think about the construction of a story. The hero starts his journey in the ordinary world, going to his ordinary life. 

He is secretly in love with the lead cheerleader, but she doesn’t know he exists, he gets beaten up for his lunch money, etc. But then something happens that changes his situation. For Harry Potter it was a letter that invited him to attend a school for wizards. 

Generally, at around the 25% mark of a story the hero’s situation changes. Often when something big happens, there are a number of attempts to change but the first couple of attempts fail. For example, with Harry Potter, there were a LOT of attempts to deliver Harry’s acceptance letter to Hogwarts before he ultimately received it.

One movie that is great at demonstrating this is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Think of the scene where Indy is thrown into the Well of Souls, think of the number of times he tries to fight off the snakes and then his torch goes out, and then he tries to climb a statue, and then it tips over, etc. (I talk more about this in Parts of Story: Try-Fail Cycles.)

5. Midpoint confrontation

This is where the hero confronts the villain (or where the protagonist confronts the antagonist). Obviously, the protagonist can’t defeat the villain here, if he did then the story would be over! 

What generally happens is the hero learns that he’s wrong about something he believes about the world. He’s wrong about something important, essential, to the problem he is trying to solve. Further, he learns this because he confronts the antagonist. 

For example, in Edge of Tomorrow, William Cage, at the midpoint (Spoiler!) discovers that he has been tricked. He journeyed to a location because he thought he could fight the Omega (the Big Bad) but he was met by Alphas (run of the mill bad things). He discovered he was being tricked. That was an important piece of information that significantly changed Cage’s plans.

So, in summary, at the midpoint the hero fails in defeating the antagonist but he learns something vital from the confrontation.

6. The Hero’s Plan: The race to the final confrontation

At some point the hero comes up with a plan. Generally this is somewhere around the 75% mark. Generally, there is some sort of group scene around this point (your main characters meet in a bar, restaurant, etc), the hero has a touching bonding moment with his band of travellers.

Make sure the stakes are clear. What could the hero lose? What would the hero gain?

7. Something goes wrong: try and fail cycle.

The hero is racing toward the final confrontation, but of course something goes wrong. 

The hero’s plan was good, plausible, perhaps brilliant, but something went wrong and it failed. 

This is a try, fail cycle. The hero fails, then he tries something new. Then he fails. Then he tries something else. Then he fails. 

Then, facing certain death, he tries a new thing in desperation, believing that if it works he will die but at least the antagonist will be eliminated. And that is a good thing because it means his family and friends will be safe.

And it works.

Obviously this is difficult to set up. In the movie, Edge of Tomorrow, the protagonist, Cage, was introduced as a coward -- that is what he needs to overcome -- so when the final confrontation happens we need Cage to be prepared to give up his own life for the people in his community, for humanity. And he does.

8. All Hope is Lost

Toward the end of the Try and Fail cycle I just spoke about, the hero will experience an ultimate setback. They will fail, but they will fail in such a way that it seems there is no way back. At this point, often, the A-story (the outer journey) and the B-story (the inner journey) come together. Further, these threads come together in such a way that the hero sees the way out, the way to POSSIBLY win the confrontation.

9. Resolution

Either the hero defeats the villain or not. In popular fiction, generally, he does. And ideally, it should be done cleverly. If you can surprise the reader here, but in a way that makes sense and grows from the hero’s challenges, that is the stuff of which great stories are made.

There’s a reason why stories like Star Wars: A New Hope, Edge of Tomorrow and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark were box office favorites.

I urge you to take a peek at The Structure of A Short Story by Sarah A. Holt, it’s an older post, but it’s much shorter than mine and she has a good sense of humor.

BTW, I’ve begun reading my posts over at YouTube, so if you would rather listen to this, here is the url: Structure of Fiction.

Let’s Make a Detective, Part 2 of 2

Let’s continue creating a detective!

This post is part of my Let’s Write a Murder Mystery! series. In my last post I began creating a detective. I:

• Started thinking about what the detective’s name will be.
• Chose two or three detectives I can use as my own personal examples of what an awesome detective is.
• Glimpsed the detective for the first time.
• Looked at how the detective dresses, especially the tags and traits associated with clothing.
• Looked at what the detective does for work or, in the case of a cozy, what kind of business he owns.
• Began developing the setting and paid special attention to how the detective's work and home add to his memorability.

Today I'm wrapping up the creation of the detective. In this post I'll:

• Finish figuring out the detective’s name.
• Develop a tagline.
• Get a start on fleshing out the detective's character sheet.
• Look at how the detective is connected to the other characters.
• Develop parts of the setting: the town, the detective's home (his lair), and his work.
• Determine the detective's characteristic action.
• Explore the character's strength as well as their weakness.
• Explore the character's psychological wound.
• Explore the character's motivation and goal. 
• Continue developing the character's backstory.
• Clarify what the murderer and detective have in common.
• Clarify the characteristics that make the detective awesome, the detective's special talent. What about the character is unique and interesting?
• Discover what the detective's unique edge is? What is it about the detective that allows him to best the murderer at the end of the story.
• Discover what your detective's hobby is.

As I said last time, keep in mind I don’t have anything planned, no notion of what this detective is going to be like. Now let’s finish creating our detective!

Note: I've included this material in my book: How to Write a Murderously Good Mystery: The Major Characters.

1. Detective’s Name

You might already know your detective’s name, and if you do please feel free to skip this section.

Sometimes a name comes to me and sometimes it doesn’t. Nothing’s popping so I’m going to do this methodically. When a name doesn’t show up on my mental doorstep here’s what I do:

a) Write down the names of fictional characters that resonate with me. 

Here are a few off the top of my head: Hercule Poirot, Ariadne Oliver, Hannibal Lecter, Indiana Jones, Raymond West, John McClane.

b) Look at the names and try to see some sort of pattern. These are all names I’m drawn to, so ... why? What is it about them I like? 

I’m especially drawn to “Hercule Poirot” and “Ariadne Oliver,” the names of two of Agatha Christie’s characters.

“Hercule” and “Ariadne” are names from Mythology.

Ariadne is associated with mazes, puzzles, partly because she helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur. Some stories have it that Ariadne married Dionysus and MAY have become immortal!

And, of course, Hercules is a Greco-Roman hero and son of Zeus and Alcmene, a mortal. He was supernaturally strong and had many adventures.

In any case, you can see how Agatha Christie’s mind may have been working, her thought processes. Ariadne Oliver often helped Poirot find the solution to a case, to (in a sense) find his way out of a maze.

I think, ideally, my detective would be named Theseus, or (because I’ve never met anyone named Theseus!), Theo. After all, Theseus went into a maze in pursuit of a killer which is pretty much what we want our detective to do!

Problem: I know a Theo and, while he is a wonderful person, he is pretty much the OPPOSITE of how I imagine my detective.

But hold on, I just had an idea: Alexander! Xan for short. (I’ve always liked the name, “Xan.”)

Alexander conquered the (known) world. That fits with the backstory I spun yesterday, about the cabal bent on world domination—I can’t write that without thinking of that old song, Everyone Wants to Rule the World.

So that’s the name! “Alex,” “Alexander.” His friends, though, call him Xan. Yea!!! I feel much better now that my detective has a name. Now all I need is a last name but that doesn’t have to come right away.

2. Detective’s Tagline

I want Alex to have a saying, something like Poirot’s: I do not approve of murder. Which might seem a little odd because we usually don’t think about a prohibition against murder as a taste preference! But I like that Poirot makes it PERSONAL. It isn’t simply that murder is wrong, Poirot personally disapproves of it.

I’m going to borrow this emphasis on the importance of truth and of the value of truth-telling (in the right circumstances). Here it is:

Living is not enough.

In other words, it isn’t just living that’s important, it is HOW a life is lived. What do you think?

Perhaps “living is not enough” doesn’t relate to murder enough. We’ll see.

Mr. Monk’s tagline was: It’s a gift ... and a curse. This didn’t relate to MURDER per se, but it was exquisitely relevant to Monk’s abilities. He was compelled to notice even the most minute of minutiae and this was, indeed, both a gift and a curse. It was the cause of his illness but it made him the best detective in his fictional universe.

I’ll keep “Living is not enough” for now, I can always tweak it later.

Okay! Now that we have a name and a tag line, let’s press on and answer the questions from my post 7 Tips for Creating an Interesting Detective.

3. How the Detective Is Connected to Other Characters

a) What sorts of actions (skills/traits/characteristics) could demonstrate how smart and capable your detective is? Think about putting this in a setting that will bias the outcome in favor of the murderer.

When I speak of a character’s tags and traits I’m usually either referring to something that is intrinsic to a character—for instance, having a button nose—or relational. For instance, beauty is generally considered relational. In the often mentioned Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder” a beautiful girl lives in a community of people we would consider hideously disfigured. The twist: because she doesn’t look like them they consider HER ugly.

Here’s how this applies to creating characters: When we read a story, the protagonist is only compared to the other characters in the story world. If you want a character to be attractive (or intelligent, or friendly, etc.), they must be attractive RELATIVE TO the other characters. So it’s not just about shaping the protagonist’s features, it’s about shaping the features of EVERY OTHER CHARACTER in your story.

In order for your character to appear formidable, they must be MORE formidable than your other characters. To ascribe a strength to your character, you must ascribe a weakness to other characters in the scene. (I’ll talk more about this in another post.)

EXERCISE: What tags and traits would set your detective apart as courageous? What other characters would you put in the scene? What would their tags and traits be?

I think the most courageous detective ever written was Mr. Monk. This might startle you. After all, the man was terrified of milk. MILK!

But courage isn’t doing something you’re not scared of, it’s being terrified but doing it anyway. When someone Monk cared about was threatened he would face his (copious!) fears and do what needed to be done.

I think that one of Alex’s greatest strengths is his willingness to put his reputation on the line. Willingness to make a fool of himself. Willingness to be wrong. Willingness to go the extra mile. To be scared and yet put himself in jeopardy to do what he believes needs to be done.

b) The Murderer

There is no direct personal connection between Alex and the murderer, though the murderer does ...

OMG!!! I just realized, that secret organization the killer, Lydia Morton, glimpses when she’s a girl, that organization is either the cabal I’ve been talking about (see my last post), or connected to them in some way.

I could use this as a way to demonstrate how truly and really old and powerful the detective’s (Alex’s) family’s organization is. The cabal can order this other secret society around. Generate conflict/interest by forcing them to do something they really don’t want to do.

TO DO: Come up with a name for the cabal.

And it follows that—yes! The detective, at the end of the story, will make a personal sacrifice and agree to become more connected to the organization in exchange for his father’s help with the case.

This will SHOW the reader what his father is like, the place he has in the organization, how powerful he is.

So there’s that connection but, other than that, the murderer just another townsperson as far as the detective is concerned. (This could change.) Perhaps he knows her husband, Mark. Mark is the Mayor?

Note: Often what makes the sleuth better than the murderer isn’t merely a tag. For instance, let’s say that the detective and murderer are both extremely, unnaturally, intelligent. What makes the detective better than the murderer won’t be that he’s more intelligent, it is a characteristic he shares with his sidekick, something warm and fuzzy and socially redeemable. Something that makes readers feel connected to the detective. (And, yes, I’m thinking about Sherlock as I type this!) I think I’m going to go with something very simple yet powerful: Family. Connectedness. The power of love.

i) What behavior, trait, event or characteristic could serve as a point of comparison between the detective and murderer?

One way of approaching this question is to ask what trait the detective and his sidekick share. This should be something that represents their special bond.

So. Alex. What trait does he share with this sidekick? To answer this we have to know something about the sidekick.

I do have a few ideas. I think he’ll be Alex’s late wife’s brother. The detective and his brother-in-law really didn’t know each other very well before Alex’s wife’s death—this is because, in part, she tried to shield Alex from her family.

Alex’s brother-in-law blames him for his sister’s death so the two of them are not on the best of terms.

IDEA: Alex’s brother-in-law could be the reason Alex is pulled into the investigation. The brother-in-law is desperate to solve the crime and his sister said that Alex was the most brilliant person she’d ever met, and for her that was really saying something. So, even though Alex’s brother-in-law has no love for Alex, he comes to him for help.

(I suspect the reality is that the brother-in-law is doing the bidding of the cabal, trying to find out how much Alex knows about the organization. They want to know what Alex is up to and how far he’s gotten in his investigation.)

So, what characteristic does Alex share with his brother-in-law? That’s easy, love for Alex’s late wife. In general, the ability to love another selflessly. Also, whether they want to admit it or not, they are family.

ii) How is this shared trait different from the antagonist’s primary trait?

For example, Sherlock and Watson are both loyal adventure seekers. Moriarty also sought adventure. like Sherlock Moriarty LOATHED boredom. But he wasn’t loyal. Loyalty wasn’t in his nature. Sherlock could love other humans, be loyal to them. Mycroft, on the other hand, could love, but only family, only people sufficiently like him.

So I'll say that Alex can love unselfishly while the murderer can't love. If she was faced with a choice between her life and that of her husband, she would choose herself. In the end, the only person she really, truly, cared for was herself.

iii) What one thing (skill/ability/disposition) contributes most to the murderer’s success? 

For instance, Moriarty is lonely and bored, he’s basically a child ... if children could be specialist consulting criminals! He loves playing games with lives. His threat: to burn the heart out of Sherlock. This tells the reader something important about the detective: he has a heart. The skill that contributes most to the murderer’s success is, quite literally, heartlessness.

But what about MY murderer? What skill or characteristic contributes most to HER success? I think I’m going to borrow from Sherlock: heartlessness.

Caring about others, being willing to put one's own life in danger for them, is a strength but it's something a bad guy or gal could use against one. Having heart, though, makes the detective human because it makes them vulnerable. The murderer can take advantage of this because she doesn't share that particular characteristic with the detective.

iv) What one thing (skill/ability/disposition) contributes most to the detective’s success?

What one skill contributes most to Alex's success? We’ve just discussed this, above. I think it’s heart. Alex genuinely cares for people—his late wife, his brother-in-law—and would sacrifice himself for others.

c) The Murderer's Husband

The detective, Alex, had to go to Mark for a permit he needed. It’s a SMALL town and they became friendly.

NOTE: I need to explain why the murderer and her husband prefer to live in a small town rather than, say, Manhattan. Perhaps it has to do with her father? He grew up here, he’s devoted to the town.

d) The Murderer’s Father (Second Victim)

How is the detective connected to the second victim, the murderer’s father?

The murderer's father—Lydia's father—doesn’t like the detective. He views Alex as an outsider, which he is. Further, Lydia's father, let's call him Jim, belongs to a rival secret organization.

(Too many secret organizations? Perhaps I could say Jim was a policeman tasked with bringing down the cabal.)

For whatever reason, Lydia's father, Jim, views the detective as a threat. Further, Jim believes the detective's late wife, Maria, was a fool for marrying Alex.

Why would Jim feel like this? Perhaps he had a crush on Maria's mother? Perhaps Maria's mother spurned Jim's advances and married someone wealthier with better social connections. Perhaps Jim bowed out of their relationship and insisted she make this choice. Perhaps Jim has regretted that ever since and his misgivings have made him a sour old man.

IDEA: Jim could have been paid off by the cabal. Perhaps that's how he got the seed money for his business. Perhaps he owes his wealth to the cabal and that has been chewing him up inside for decades.

Alex did what Jim didn't have the courage to do (he married the girl he loved even though the cabal tried to pay him off) and therefore Jim hates him.

e) The Murderer’s Brother

The murderer’s brother is also Lydia's first victim.

I don't think Alex is connected to the murderer’s brother. Alex hasn’t been in the town all that long and they don't meet prior to his murder. The brother is off on vacation, indulging in an extreme sport. His death is thought to be a tragic accident at first.

4. Setting

Please indulge me while I say a quick word about settings. In terms of setting, what we want to do is ratchet up interest through contrast. Think of a demon in a church; that’s contrast.

Meadowmead. I see the town as a sleepy eastern town. Picturesque. I know it’s an older movie, but Practical Magic had gorgeous sets that captured the atmosphere I'm looking for.

Most of the townsfolk believe in family, community, love, and loyalty.

People have been coming up from the city and snapping up the real estate in Meadowmead. This has driven up prices and made it so that folks can't afford to buy a house in their own town. This has upset a number of them and biased them against outsiders.

a) Detective's Lair in Meadowmead

I started to talk about Alex’s lair in the last post but didn’t get far. I have a few more ideas now. He has rooms above his restaurant.

Alex has a way with technology. He builds his own computers, uses a version of the Linux OS, and shuns the Chrome browser in favor of Tor. He has made his home ‘smart’ (IoT and all that) which means that his home occasionally malfunctions in hilarious ways.

Alex’s restaurant, Absinthe Cafe, is underneath an apartment building Alex owns. It used to be his late wife's and came to him after her death. Alex gives all the tenants deals, takes care of them. I don’t know if this will come out in the first book.

The physical space, the location, where the detective opens his business used to be a coffee shop. Alex takes over the cafe, shifts the focus to food, redecorates and reopens. He's able to keep some of the previous clientele.

There are still several things I don’t know. For instance, why does the detective move to THIS town? Perhaps he has family there? Let’s investigate ...

b) Why did the detective come to THIS particular town?

The protagonist will be called to the town by a herald conveying a message from a mentor figure. The mentor could be a family attorney or perhaps a friend of the family.

Does it have to do with his father’s (or perhaps uncle’s) will? Perhaps in order to inherit it he has to spend a year in the town?

Does the detective have any family in the town? He might have an uncle or aunt, elderly. The aunt could be a mentor of sorts. She could give readers the odd tidbit of information about the detective.

The detective, being a newcomer, doesn’t fit in. A person can live in Medowmead for 20 years and still be the new guy or gal and the detective has only been there a few days, maybe a week. He isn’t even a newcomer, he’s merely a tourist!

I still don’t know much about the detective’s family or his family’s connection to the town. Perhaps tie this back to the idea of a cabal of wealthy individuals who influence world affairs.

Ah! That gives me an idea ...

The detective is an only child and a bit of a rebel. He sees this cabal as undermining democracy. The detective thinks about exposing his family's connection to the cabal.

Perhaps the detective’s sidekick is from a family in Meadowmead, one who has been there since its founding. Further, perhaps it will turn out that the cabal did something to wrong this family. He was personally hurt by them in some way. Perhaps Alex is trying to make amends. Also, he is trying to LEARN about people and what makes them tick.

5. Detective's Characteristic Action

I’m thinking about the detective’s characteristic action. Perhaps this has something to do with his memory palace. Perhaps it has to do with the detective entering something, placing something, into his memory palace. The memory place would have to be ...

Don’t know! I’ve got nothing.

Transhumanism. I wasn’t planning to do anything with this but perhaps the detective’s family, the cabal, wants to beat death and is willing to do ANYTHING to achieve their goal. (That is in no way related to the detective’s characteristic action, but what the heck! It’s something.)

6. Fleshing out Meadowmead

Why is the detective in Meadowmead? Why not go someplace else?

There’s something about Meadowmead the detective loves, perhaps something associated with his childhood. He loved someone who died and her family is still here.

I think Alex’s connection to the town has to do with his late wife’s family. His own family wants him to leave the town, to come back home and pick up the family mantel.

That just came to me! Apparently the detective used to be married but his wife passed away. At this point that’s all I know about her.

I don’t see the detective’s late wife clearly but I think she might have been tall, willowy. She liked wearing pastel colored diaphanous dresses with droopy big-brimmed straw hats. She had long blond hair the color of sunflowers. And freckles. I don’t know exactly when she died, but I think it was fairly recently, perhaps a year or so before the start of the story. I also think it was from a prolonged illness. She was very kind.

The detective’s sidekick might be his late wife’s brother. Perhaps the detective’s connection to the town is through Alex’s late wife. Perhaps her family lives in Meadowmead. Perhaps the restaurant ...

Perhaps Alex's wife—I’m drawing from the movie John Wick here—had a last wish and it was for Alex to open up the restaurant. She thought it would be good for him. She made him promise. She wanted to draw him out of himself, force him to interact with other people, good ordinary (non-cabal) folks.

Or perhaps the detective thinks there was something fishy about his wife’s death and believes the town holds the answer. Or ... an idea just came to me ...

Perhaps I have it wrong, perhaps it ISN’T Alex who is connected to the Cabal, perhaps it was his late wife. The cabal view HIM as undeserving.

I like it! This increases the conflict. The cabal had a significant presence in the town—perhaps one of their main chapter houses is there, or their historical archive is there.

Oh! And this could explain why Alex came to Meadowmead. It could be that his mother-in-law passed away recently and left the detective her business. She used to own the cafe. She said that Alex’s late wife would have wanted him to come back. Perhaps his mother-in-law give the detective something in her will, perhaps some piece of information, that draws the detective back to town. The mother reveals the tip of a very dangerous secret. Perhaps ... yes! Alex’s mother-in-law could be the one who gives Alex his first real lead on how to bring down the cabal.

Here’s an idea for the ending of the story: Alex will have to do something risky in order to get leverage on the cabal to force them to a) help solve the murder mystery and b) get information from the cabal.

7. The Detective's Motivation and Goal

The way I see it, Alex's OVERRIDING DESIRE is for revenge, that’s what he’s driven by. Specifically, taking revenge on his late wife’s family for her death. Even more specifically, he believes her father is high up in the cabal and was directly responsible for his daughter’s death.

Alex's CONCRETE MOTIVATION is the knowledge that his late wife’s fatal illness was her family’s fault, that it was retribution for her marrying him and exposing the cabal. The detective has vowed the secret organization will pay for killing her. I see this as a myth arc or series arc. I wasn’t thinking about this when I came up with the idea but perhaps it will be a bit like Mr. Monk’s search for his wife’s killer, the way that investigation stretched out over the series.

Alex's OVERRIDING GOAL is to bring down the cabal by exposing them to the public for what they are.

Alex's concrete motivation and his CONCRETE GOAL go hand in hand—they are two sides of the same coin—you can’t have the one without the other. The detective’s concrete motivation is what gives him a push to go after his concrete goal. In Alex's case this is to expose his late wife’s father as a two-faced murderer.

Summary of motivation and goal:

Overriding desire: Revenge
Concrete motivation: The cabal killed his wife and is getting away with it.
Overriding goal: To bring down the cabal, to expose it.
Concrete goal: To expose his wife’s father as a two-faced murderer.

overriding desire -> overriding goal
               ⬇                          ⬇
concrete motivation -> concrete goal

I know this material can seem a bit abstract—which might seem unusual given that this is supposed to be a practical post exposing how one person (me!) goes about putting together a character—but this process is crucial to making characters believable, to giving them depth.

If the character’s overriding desire shifts so will everything else, including the character's concrete goal.

So ... Let’s look at Alex. As he lets go of his desire for revenge (which, let’s face it, isn’t a nice cuddly COMFORTABLE desire) how will his goal—to go after his father-in-law—change? And, over the course of a series, it should change.

Hmmm. I’m going to have to think about this. Perhaps Alex will go from seeking revenge (DESTRUCTION) to sacrificing himself (or a part of himself) to stop the cabal from doing awful things (REDEMPTION).

8. The Detective's Deep Psychological Wound

Alex’s deep psychological wound was caused by the death of his wife. The wound itself is the guilt he feels for her death (he believes he is directly responsible for it). If he hadn’t tried to make her disassociate herself from her family then she wouldn't have been killed.

The detective’s deep wound will come in especially handy in the B-story which, often, is about the hero’s inner life, his inner journey. The A-story carries the main story arc (it deals with the story question which has to do with the detectives external goal). The B-story is about a relationship, often one that involves a love connection.

In many stories the B-story concludes when the detective confronts her deep, dark, wound and heals it. In healing her deep wound, the hero discovers the key to achieving her external goal and, after taking action at the climax, victoriously closes out the A-story. (I go into this in more detail in Structure of a Great Story)

Further, the detective’s wound is healed BECAUSE of his willingness to sacrifice himself. Similarly, the killer’s wound will never heal because he will NEVER sacrifice himself, his happiness, for others. So ...

a) The Connection between Alex’s deep PSYCHOLOGICAL WOUND, his OVERRIDING DESIRE and his CONCRETE GOAL

Alex’s deep psychological wound is the death of his wife; namely, the responsibility he feels for it.

His overriding desire is revenge and his concrete goal is to make his late wife’s father pay for her death.

These three things reinforce each other. If Alex no longer felt responsible for his wife's death his thirst for revenge would be sated. He would still seek to bring down the cabal, but he would do so much less recklessly.

9. Your Character's Strength and Weakness

Honestly, I have NO idea what Alex’s strengths and weaknesses are. So I’ll do what I always do when I’m stumped, look at examples and hope inspiration strikes.

• One of Mr. Monk’s strengths is being the best copyeditor in the world! He spots EVERY mistake and is knowledgeable enough to correct it. His weakness is that he doesn’t have a choice, he is compelled to notice every single thing in his world that is out of place.
• Sherlock Holmes’s strength is not caring about what others think or feel about him. Of course this is also a weakness.
• Hercule Poirot’s strength is his ‘little grey cells.’ Is being able to meld the details of the murder with the psychology of the murderer to come up with the identity of the murderer. His weakness, one of them, is his vanity. Often murderer’s attempt to  play on Poirot’s vanity to blind him to their guilt.
• Miss Marple’s strength was knowledge of her village, which gave the detective an uncanny knowledge/understanding of human nature. She knew countless stories about her neighbors, about their many misdeeds, and was able to extrapolate the lessons learned to other cases she came across. Her weakness was ... come to think of it, I’m not sure she had one!

a) What is Alex’s unique ability?  

What ability would demonstrate how smart and capable my sleuth is?

Like all my example detectives, Alex is off-the-charts intelligent. Further, he has the ability to notice minutiae and to use this information to understand the significance of what he sees, to understand means, method and opportunity. But none of these abilities make Alex UNIQUE.

Honestly, I can’t think of anything! Perhaps I will have to content myself with having the detective be unique within the world of the story. Like Sherlock Holmes, Alex has the ability to notice and remember everything. From these minutiae, these clues, he eventually spins a correct theory of the crime.

b) What is Alex’s unique weakness?

Alex’s deep psychological wound is a weakness but I would say that his true weakness is also his strength: his love for his family, even his traitorous brother-in-law. His loyalty tends to blind Alex to the faults of his kin.

Perhaps part of the loyalty that he feels toward his brother-in-law is due to the guilt he feels over the death of his wife. Alex’s weakness makes him take what seem like insane risks, it leads him to trust those who are patently untrustworthy.

c) How is the detective’s psychological wound tied to their strength? 

Alex's strength is being able to love others and his willingness to put himself, his life, on the line for his friends.

This is why his psychological wound cuts so deeply. It's killing him that he was there for others when he couldn't be for his wife.

CHANGE: I think I was wrong before, his late wife didn't have a terminal disease, she was killed but the killing was made to look like an accident, the cabal covered it up.

10. What is your detective’s hobby?

Sherlock Holmes played the violin, Hercules Poirot cooked and grew vegetable marrows. Lieutenant Columbo was an excellent golfer.

Alex could love baking, perhaps he even enters baking competitions. Or perhaps he loves drag racing, kite flying, football, biking or ... well, the list is as long as one's imagination!

I’m going to say he likes baking. He has staff that do most of the cooking for the restaurant, but he personally does all the baking.

11. The Detective’s Special Talent

Usually the detective has a special talent, a special ability. Sherlock Holmes and Monk had a photographic memory, Miss Marple had amazing hearing and an excellent memory. Columbo excelled at getting the murderer to underestimate him by being impervious to embarrassment. Others have had the ability to mentally recreate a crime scene and live it from the killer's point of view. Many different detectives have had the ability to tell if someone is lying.

I think you can make your detective good at practically anything, as long as it makes him or her seem resourceful and clever.

So, coming back to Alex, what is HIS special talent? I like the idea of him being able to recreate the crime scene, something like what Will Graham could do on Hannibal. So this comes in two parts. First, he notices minutiae and, second, he uses what he notices to mentally recreate and 'see' the crime, how it took place. I think Alex will also be able to tell if a person is lying.

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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.

Writing the Paranormal Novel: Techniques and Exercises for Weaving Supernatural Elements Into Your Story, by Steven Harper.

From the blurb: "This helpful guide gives you everything you need to successfully introduce supernatural elements into any story without shattering the believability of your fictional world."

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That's it! Next time we'll take a look at creating/discovering the detective's sidekick, his Watson. Until 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

Writing a Murder Mystery: The Conflict Character

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

As I’ve mentioned, the antagonist as antagonist doesn’t come ‘on-screen’ until the end of the story when the detective reveals the murderer’s identity to the reader.

This is one of the quirky characteristics of murder mysteries: for most of the story no one knows which of your characters is the criminal, not until the end of the story. (I’m going to use “antagonist” and “murderer” interchangeably except where I think it might cause confusion.)

In, say, an action/adventure story the reader knows who the antagonist is, at least in general terms. For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark we knew from the opening sequence that Indiana Jones’ nemesis was René Belloq.

This is not the case in a murder mystery. Yes, the detective’s goals and the murderer’s goals are mutually exclusive, but since the reader can’t know who the murderer is before the big reveal the detective often has another character—I’m calling this character the conflict character—to butt heads with. (Note: There can be more than one conflict character.)

Conflict and the Murder Mystery

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of conflict—and this applies to any story, not just murder mysteries: There is conflict that spans the entire arc of the story (i.e., the main arc) and conflict that spans a minor arc (for instance, the B-story, C-story, etc.).

The first kind of conflict lasts for the entire story and is often between the detective and her sidekick; I go into this further, below.

The second kind of conflict is conflict that only lasts for a portion of the story. This portion could be a portion of a scene, a sequence of scenes, or the entire B-story/C-story/D-story, etc.

I’ve covered the conflict within a scene elsewhere (see: Making A Scene: Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive) so I won’t go into that here. What follows has to do with conflict that comes from arcs such as the B-story, C-story, etc.

How many conflict filled arcs are needed depends, at least in part, on how many murders there are: the more murders, the more suspects. For instance, in a show like Midsomer Murders where 3 or 4 people die, there needs to be a larger initial character pool than in a show like Murdoch Mysteries where, often, only one or two people die.

An Example of Conflict: Murdoch Mysteries Season 10, Episode 17

In the main arc, the spine of the story, Murdoch teams up with the Captain to investigate the murder of an older derby skater, a person who coached girls, girls who later formed an aggressive derby team. That is the first major event. The second (usually either a murder or some sort of setback) is the victim’s daughter being knee-capped and crippled for life.

In this episode the Captain acts as Murdoch’s sidekick. Murdoch’s goal is to find the killer as well as the girl’s assailant. He hopes that even if the girl’s assailant isn’t the killer it will help him identify the killer. But there is no quarrel between Murdoch and the Captain. There is a certain gentle push and pull but nothing remotely aggressive.

That’s the main arc. The two sub-arcs are, first, Dr. Julia Ogden and Rebecca James’ rivalry with the derby girls (there is a minor arc having to do with their good-natured rivalry with each other over who is the better skater). The second arc has to do with the conflict between George and his new girlfriend, the reporter Louise Cherry.

Who are the conflict characters? Which character generate conflict? I would say that the closest think to a conflict character is the derby team collectively. Here it’s not so much a person as it is a collection of people/characters. George’s conflict with Louise is a one-on-one conflict (since everyone else seems to love her!) while the conflict with the derby girls is between them and everyone else!

What Sort of Characters Are Conflict Characters?

Let’s talk about character roles. The conflict character could be the murderer, but most often isn’t. The conflict character could be a scapegoat, it could be a rival detective or even the detective’s sidekick.

In what follows I’m going to explore each of these possibilities (see below) as well as give examples to illustrate what I’m saying.

• The scapegoat as a conflict character.
• A rival detective (or simply a rival) as a conflict character.
• The detective’s helper/foil/sidekick as a conflict character.

I'll cover each of these in turn.

The Scapegoat as a Conflict Character

Let’s look at Agatha Christie’s Peril at End House. (Note: In what follows I draw from the television adaptation starring David Suchet.) This conflict spans most of the story and is part of the main arc.

A-Story: The Murder

--- Major
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Detective’s foil/Watson/sidekick/comic relief: Captain Hastings
Murderer: Magdala 'Nick' Buckley
Victim: Maggie Buckley
Scapegoat: Freddy Rice (Conflict character)

--- Minor
Detective’s ally: Miss Lemon
Police representative/ally: Chief Inspector Japp.

Note: Client lies to Poirot.

B-Story: The Relationship with Michael Seton

This is the red herring.

C-story: Drugs

Commander George Challenger: Drug dealer and transporter

D-story: Will/Forgery

Bert & Milly Croft: Forgers (antagonists of C-story)

Conflict. As indicated, Freddy Rice is the conflict character. From the first time she comes on-stage she pushes back against Nick’s claims. The first time we meet her she calls Nick the most brazen liar but then softens this by saying she doesn’t mean it as a criticism. She views Nick’s ability to lie as a gift. Freddy claims Nick is lying about the brakes on her car being sabotaged. But Freddy doesn’t stop there. At various parts of the story Freddy contradicts what Nick says.

Scandalous. For that time (the novel was published in 1932) Freddy was a scandalous character. She was married and yet carrying on a public affair with her lover, Jim Lazarus. And she is addicted to cocaine. As such, Freddy is not an especially sympathetic character! Just what one wants in a scapegoat.

A Rival Detective (or Simply a Rival) as a Conflict Character

Let’s stay with the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, but this time let’s take a look at Murder on the Links. Again, I’m going to use the TV adaptation of the story starring David Suchet.

A-Story: The Murder

Detective: Hercule Poirot
Foil: Captain Hastings
Murderers: Madame Daubreuil (Mastermind),  Georges Conneau/Paul Renauld (22 years ago), Marthe Daubreuil (present day).
Victim: Paul Renauld
Scapegoats: Jack Renauld & Bella Duveen
Police representative: Giraud of the Sûreté (Conflict character).

Note: Client lies to Poirot.

B-Story: The Relationships between Jack Renauld, Bella Duveen and Marthe Daubreuil

Jack Renauld and Bella Duveen were a couple until Jack left Bella for Marthe Daubreuil.

C-story: The relationship between Captain Hastings and Bella Duveen.

Captain Hastings falls in love with Bella Duveen, but fears she is still in love with Jack Renauld and has murdered Paul Renauld. But, hey, every relationship has its problems!

Although (as in any murder mystery) there is conflict between each character and the detective, the main source of story conflict (the A-story/arc) is between Poirot and Giraud. Both men consider themselves the greatest detective alive so there was bound to be a clash. Giraud, though, is a condescending bully who lacks Poirot’s grasp of order and method. Events come to a head when Giraud arrests Jack Renauld for the murder of his father.

The Detective's Helper as a Conflict Character

When the detective's helper is the conflict character the sidekick is usually somewhat bumbling, the detective somewhat acerbic, we see that they both have reasons for how they feel but they’re both likable, good and fair.

I’ve already gone over an example of this, above, but let’s talk about Peril at End House. Here Poirot clashes with Hastings over the latter’s fanaticism over golf—he would much rather golf than help Poirot with the case—and this irks Poirot.

Also, Poirot tells Hastings that his instincts about who is a good guy are so bad that if Hastings thinks a certain person is beyond reproach Poirot thinks they’re probably guilty of something! Hastings is, of course, offended. These minor clashes continue throughout the story.

Long-Term Conflict Generated by the Detective's Love Interest

A story arc is the story's spine. It has to do with the characters, their goals, and the obstacles each encounters. In a television series the spine generally stretches over an entire season while the myth arc spans an entire series (not all series have coherent myth arcs, and that's fine; it's not necessary).

In a murder mystery there are often two spines. One spine is what you would expect, the protagonist has the goal of discovering the identity of the antagonist/murderer and the antagonist/murderer has the goal of not being caught (or perhaps of doing whatever it takes not to be caught). As I've mentioned, it can be difficult to infuse conflict into this arc because the identity of the murderer is unknown.

The other spine, though, often focuses on the protagonist's romantic interest. This story arc can generate conflict. While each episode will contain minimal conflict, when taken as a whole, generous amounts of conflict are supplied by the season-long romantic arc.

For example, in Death in Paradise one story arc had to do with Humphrey engaging in what he thought would be a whirlwind romance with a friend on vacation but which turned into something deeper for both of them. I won't describe the story arc, but it has the traditional setup: each character has a goal and each goal is mutually exclusive. While each of them seems like a very nice person, they are each other's antagonist. It's effective.

I think the TV show Supernatural (I'm currently addicted to it!) is the most successful at using both a seasonal story arc and its myth arc to generate conflict. Each season the brother's are in conflict over something. Further, this familial conflict is directly tied into the threat they're trying to save the world from (which, in turn, is tied into the whole myth arc about why they're doing this in the first place).

Why does this work? Because, hey, they're brothers! It's realistic. They love each other, would die for each other, but they can drive one another nuts! They can have epic fights. The conflict comes across as natural. (I've mentioned Supernatural because, while not strictly speaking a mystery, it does include that element.)

* * *

We see that because the identity of the antagonist isn’t revealed until the end of the story, conflict in a murder mystery is often handled differently from other kinds of stories. That is, the other main characters, and even minor characters, help stoke conflict and keep the antagonistic fires burning. And of course the antagonist helps out by providing one or more murders for our intrepid detective to investigate.

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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.

Being Poirot. This is an amazing documentary for fans (like me!) of Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

From the blurb: “As twenty five years of playing one of television's greatest icons come to an end David Suchet attempts to unravel the mysterious appeal of the great detective Hercule Poirot - and reveals what it has been like to play one of fiction's most enduring and enigmatic creations. In this entertaining and revealing documentary Suchet allows the camera crew to follow him as he prepares for the emotional final days' filming on set. Suchet returns to Agatha Christie's Summer home in Devon, where he first met the author's family after taking on the role a quarter of a century ago, and travels to Belgium as he attempts to find Poirot's roots and discover what the Belgians think of one of their most famous sons.”

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

Notes:

1. Except when it isn't! In a murder mystery there are exceptions to this rule but they are so rare I'm not going to talk about them except to mention their existence. Example: The 10 season of Murdoch Mysteries. It seems as though George Crabtree's decision between Louise Cherry and Nina Bloom.

8 Ways A Thriller differs from a Mystery

I’ve discussed the structure of a CYOA story, the structure of a mystery, the structure of a short story, even the structure of a great story, but never the structure of a thriller. I think it’s high time to remedy that!

But how to write a thriller is a rather large subject, so in what follows I only look at 8 ways a thriller differs from other kinds of stories.

Thriller: Mystery, Crime, Suspense and Horror

Thrillers have a bit of everything: mystery, suspense, crime and horror. Perhaps that’s the secret of their popularity, there’s something for everyone.

“Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock.” (Wikipedia)

In a word, thrillers are supposed to be thrilling!

8 Ways in which a thriller differs from other books:

1. Pacing: A thriller is relentless.

I’ve found that certain genres—cozy’s for instance—don’t require a huge amount of dramatic tension or, as I like to call it, narrative drive. Speaking for myself, I read cozy mysteries for the sense of community, to see the characters’ quirks and how they complicate things. To see a) WHO did it, b) HOW they did it and c) WHY they did it. Thrillers, though, I read primarily because I want to lose myself in a fast paced story that fires up the imagination.

2. There is no obvious set of suspects.

One of the things that distinguishes a thriller from a cozy is that a thriller doesn’t have a clear list of suspects.

Recall that in a cozy mystery the suspects are drawn from what W.H. Auden calls a “closed society” so we have our pool of suspects right from the beginning. The reader’s task is to work out which of them committed the dastardly deed. For example, a freak snow storm traps 9 people in a remote hunting lodge. Logically, the killer has to be one of the surviving 8 people.

In a thriller, though, the killer can be someone completely unconnected to the detective and her allies. For example in Thomas Harris’ novel Silence of the Lambs Jame Gumb, the serial killer and Big Bad, was never directly connected to the investigation. (Dr. Hannibal Lecter WAS, but Lector wasn’t the antagonist.)

That said, many times the murderer has some sort of connection to the detective. For example, it might turn out that the killer is someone inside the detective’s inner circle, or perhaps one of the apparently minor characters involved in the case—the detective’s mail carrier, the barista that serves the detective coffee each day, his sister’s new boyfriend, and so on. For example, in James Patterson’s thriller, Along Came a Spider, one of the killers was part of the hero’s own team.

3. High stakes.

In a cozy the stakes are usually modest. If the detective doesn’t solve the case then the murderer will go unpunished and the imbalance the murder created in society will not be addressed. As a result, people will be more suspicious of each other, each thinking that the other could be a murderer. Also, the sleuth’s reputation would take a considerable hit.

In a thriller, on the other hand, if the murderer isn’t caught it could mean the end of the world.

4. Protagonist is a hero.

Not all protagonists are heroes. A hero is someone—male or female—who has noble qualities. For instance, they are courageous and think of the well-being of others before their own. They will do what many would consider irrational things to defeat the Big Bad and save the day.

Generally, whatever organization the hero is with he is cut off from. He is the rebel police officer, the journalist who skates too close to the edge, the soldier who would do anything, sacrifice anything, to save the day.

5. Antagonist is a proper villain.

Another difference between a thriller and a cozy is that in a thriller the murderer is more likely to be a vicious, brilliant, psychotic, serial killer than he is a weaselly nephew who murders his cousin for their money.

Or, if we’re talking about a political thriller, the villain is much more likely to be a terrorist out to destroy the free world than someone who kills in a moment of passion or because he wants to stop his most intimate secret from being revealed.

6. A lot of scenes, not many sequels. What sequels exit are short.

I mentioned that thrillers were part action story and here is one reason why: sequences of scenes are strung together with only very short sequels between them. I know I use this example quite a bit—perhaps too much!—but Raiders of the Lost Ark is a terrific example of scene vs sequel length.

There are sequels in Raiders, but they are very short. One sequel was about 5 seconds long, just long enough for Indiana Jones to say something like, “We’ve got to get the ark,” and then he and Marion are off to fight another battle.

Let’s face it, folks don’t read thrillers because they want something to help them fall asleep! They read them for, as the name suggests, a thrill.

For more on scenes and sequels see the article Scenes, Sequels, Sequences and Acts.

7. The setting of a thriller is often exotic. 

Exotic locations are unfamiliar, extreme, locations.

Unfamiliar. For someone from the Pacific Northwest, a tropical beach would be an exotic location, but if you lived in Hawaii then not so much!

Extreme. The world's largest particle collider would be an exotic location. As could a spacecraft orbiting Earth ... or Mars!

A Carnival is often used as an exotic location, especially if the thriller has supernatural overtones.

This is another point of departure from the cozy mystery which is often—and quite intentionally—placed within a familiar, comfortable, cozy setting.

8. An exciting, surprising, climax.

Every reader of a cozy knows what the climax is going to be: the detective is going to go over every clue and separate the true clues from the distractors and red herrings. (Distractors are those clues that have to do with wrongdoing, but wrongdoing that has nothing to do with the murder.)

While the climax of a thriller needs to reveal the identity of the murderer (the who, the why and the how) there also needs to be a twist. For instance, a classic twist comes at the end of the movie Seven when the penultimate victim is revealed to be the detective’s wife. This leads to the further twist of the Big Bad himself being the ultimate victim, killed by the detective himself.

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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.

Today I’m going to recommend something a bit different: Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13.0. I’ve tried it out and I have to say I’m VERY impressed. The program seems to understand 98% of what I say perfectly. Unfortunately, the 2% that Dragon misunderstands can be frustrating! bottom line: If you’re a slow typist or you hate typing, and you don’t mind fixing the odd mistake, this program is for you. (Here’s a review of the program: PC World.)

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That’s it! I’ll talk to you again on Wednesday. Until then, good writing! :-)

Blake Snyder and the Six Things that Need Fixing

In Save the Cat, Blake Snyder writes:

“The first 10 pages is also where we start to plant every character tic, exhibit every behavior that needs to be addressed later on, and show how and why the hero will need to change in order to win. She's an isolated writer who lives in a make-believe world (Romancing the Stone); he's a hip, slick, and savvy foreign-car importer who's as glib as he is cold (Rain Man); she's a ditzy airhead who doesn't appear to have much substance (Legally Blonde).

“And when there's something that our hero wants or is lacking, this is the place to stick the Six Things That Need Fixing. This is my phrase, six is an arbitrary number, that stands for the laundry list you must show — repeat SHOW — the audience of what is missing in the hero's life. Like little time bombs, these Six Things That Need Fixing, these character tics and flaws, will be exploded later in the script, turned on their heads and cured. They will become running gags and call-backs. We, the audience, must know why they're being called back! Look at Big and its primary set-up: "You have to be this tall to go on this ride." On the list of Six Things That Need Fixing there are other needs besides a height requirement. The kid in Big can't get the girl, have any privacy, etc. But in Act Two he gets all those things when he magically turns Big. And those call-backs only work because we have seen them in the set-up.”

I had heard about this idea of Things that Need Fixing before I read Save the Cat—Dwight V. Swain talks about tags and traits in his book Techniques of the Selling Writer—but I like the way Blake Snyder spells it out.

A Thing that Needs Fixing

1. A tag or trait the protagonist has and wants fixed, or ...
2. A tag or trait the protagonist doesn’t have but wishes he did.
3. Something that needs to be shown in Act One and then ...
4. Used as a running gag or call-back in acts two and three.
5. Resolved in Act Three.

(If you're unfamiliar with a three act structure, see: A Story Structure in Three Acts.)

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

1. A tag or trait the protagonist has and wants fixed.

Blake Snyder mentions Big and that movie does contain terrific examples. The protagonist wants to be taller, wants to be able to talk to girls, wants to have privacy, and so on. During the course of the movie he has each of these desires fulfilled but things don’t turn out quite they way he thought they would. The end result of experiencing these changes is, toward the end of the movie, a renewed appreciation for being a kid.

2. A tag or trait the protagonist doesn’t have but wishes he did.

In The Matrix Neo wants to meet Morpheus and learn the truth about The Matrix. Throughout the rest of the movie Neo has this wish fulfilled on various levels. At the Lock-In he learns, physically, what The Matrix is—it spews his physical body out and, in the process, nearly kills him. At the next level Neo enters The Matrix and learns, in a limited fashion, how to control it. Then, at the end of the movie, Neo transcends the matrix and can alter it in any way he wishes.

3. Something that needs to be shown in Act One and then ...

When the protagonist—or any main character for that matter—is introduced, they are introduced doing something (even if this is just talking to someone), they are introduced with some sort of initial goal, and we give them tags and traits. In this opening scene we somehow manage to show the audience, get them to understand, the protagonist’s deep desires. (Generally a main character will have an internal and external desire, but one will take precedence over the other in the plot.)

4. Used as a running gag or call-back in acts two and three.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. It’s a character tic, and it’s called back in Act Two when he’s thrown into the Well of Souls along with a few hundred snakes.

5. Resolved in Act Three.

Continuing from the last point, Indy’s fear of snakes is never (to my knowledge) resolved, but I wouldn’t want it to be! It is a minor weakness in an otherwise courageous character, something that makes him more human. In Big, though, the protagonist realizes that, despite all the things that irritated him about being a kid, he wants to go back. Now, because of his adventure, he sees himself in a new light.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook 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.

Today I’m recommending the beautiful Moleskine Classic Notebook. I’ve written before about how I write my Zero Drafts in longhand. I know this won’t work for everyone, but I find that ideas come to life easier when I have a pen in my hand and write longhand (see: The Benefits of Handwriting). Of course a Moleskine notebook isn’t a requirement for that! But if you want to treat yourself I can wholeheartedly recommend this journal. I buy myself a Moleskine if I’m celebrating something, or treating myself for reaching a long anticipated milestone.

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That’s it! I hope you have have very merry and safe Happy New Year! I’ll talk to you again on Monday. In the meantime, good writing! :-)

Editing Your Zero Draft

NanoWriMo is over! If you participated and wrote more than you would have otherwise, you’re a winner. If you ended up writing 50,000+ words, that’s awesome!

It’s been a week since NaNoWriMo ended so you’ve had a chance to distance yourself a little bit from the story. If you don’t have sufficient distance from your writing the danger is that when you read your Zero Draft you won’t be able to be objective. What I try to do is put my manuscript away for a week or two so I can come back to it with new eyes.

In any case, after enough time has passed rescue your manuscript from the drawer and read it from start to finish. There’s only one rule: don’t edit until you’ve read the whole thing. This is torture for me, but it’s important to re-load the whole story into your mind without changing anything.

When I read something that’s not right, a misspelling, etc., I want to go into the file and fix it but if I were to do that then I’d start adding sections that didn’t need to be added and deleting material that was necessary for the development of a future event.

I find one way to lessen the temptation to edit is to print a hardcopy of the manuscript and, if I must make notes, then at least I can’t change the electronic file. By the way if you want to save paper and load your manuscript into an app that allows you to mark up a file I recommend GoodNotes, it’s the app I use.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you read:

- Does a character’s name change halfway through the story? Is the name spelled the same way throughout the manuscript? Do all the names you use begin with a different letter? Are all the names sufficiently distinct from each other?

- Is each character absolutely necessary to advance the plot? Can two (or more) characters be merged into one? Or are there too few characters?

- Do NOT worry about grammar or spelling (other than for names) at this stage. If you’re anything like me, you’re going to end up not using a lot of the text in your Zero Draft. Fiddling with grammar and spelling would just waste your time.

->After your first read through.

After you’ve read your story through try to answer these two questions:

(a) What state of affairs represents happiness to your protagonist? Being together with friends and family? Winning the lottery? Retiring from their job? Going into business for themselves? Traveling the world?

(b) What danger threatens to keep the protagonist’s dream from becoming reality?

Now try and answer these questions:

What is the protagonists external goal? That is, what concrete thing or state of affairs does the protagonist desire to bring about? For example, in Die Hard John McClane wants to protect his wife and the other hostages and defeat the terrorists.

Is there a physical object that represents this goal? For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones wanted to bring the Ark back to the United States.

In the recent movie “Arrival” the protagonist’s external goal is to understand why the aliens arrived on earth, to understand the alien language.

Make sure you know what the protagonist’s goal is—it will form the spine of your story.

Story Structure

I’ve written quite a few posts about story structure (link and link) so I won’t go into that here. But be sure that your protagonist’s external and internal goals are what drives the key scenes of the story.

Antagonist

Another thing to focus on at this stage is that the protagonist has a suitably strong antagonist. You want the antagonist and protagonist to have the same goal and for it to be impossible for them both to achieve the goal. Also, it tends to work well if the protagonist and antagonist are alike in many ways.

If the antagonist is the protagonist's nemesis then he/she will be quite a bit like the protagonist but differ in at least one important respect.

In Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Beloq is Indy’s nemesis. Both men are archaeologists and are driven to procure relics. But they operate by very different moral codes and view the relics they hunt for very differently. Indy appreciates the relics for themselves while Beloq is primarily interested in what the relic can do for him in terms of wealth or power.

The number one thing that you need to keep in mind as you re-read your Zero Draft is to be kind to yourself. There are going to be awful bits and there are going to be glorious bits. Don’t stress about the disastrous passages, focus on the good, focus on what works. Stay positive.

If you’re anything like me there are going to be a LOT of drafts between now and your final one. It’s a process of weeding out what doesn’t belong and gradually shaping the story. It’s early days still. If you keep at it you’ll end up with a story you love.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. 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. :-)

Today I am feeling whimsical so what better book to recommend than Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling. From the blurb: "When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he intends his stay to be just a brief stopover. However, when his magical case is misplaced and some of Newt's fantastic beasts escape, it spells trouble for everyone…"

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That's it! I'll talk to you again on Friday. Till then, good writing. :-)