Backwards Mystery Plotting for Amateurs

I'm not calling names, here.

I'm not saying you're an amateur, but hey... if the shoe fits, don't just wear it. Grab that leather loafer, pull on your Sherlock Holmes' hat and lets get down to it, because I used to be flamboozled by the very thought of plotting a mystery.

How do you come up with a culprit? How do you set up a crime? (Really, I had six kids, I should be totally golden at setting up crimes, right????) How do you plant clues, red herrings, shuffle things around and have any of it make sense?

In this case, this ONE case of writing (because I am a linear writer/storyteller, meaning I begin at the beginning and go through to the end...) I don't begin at the beginning. I begin at the end. With the perpetrator, the culprit, the crime.... And then I spin my way backwards by figuring out who might have an interest in the outcome.

Who might dislike another person?

Who's short on money? People in tight circumstances become prime suspects because they are in need. A reader will see that "need" and realize that person has a great reason to be a suspect... even if they're not the culprit.

Who's got a grudge to bear against another? Who has a history they don't want revealed? Who's uncle/aunt/cousin has dirty laundry?

Probably all of them. And that's what's different about a mystery/thriller/suspense story.

As an investigation deepens, more is revealed. Hidden pasts take on onerous overtures... because can a zebra change its stripes?

Not as a rule, so a bad youth leads to an evil adulthood...

But not always, and there's a red herring for you... because people do change, they get redeemed, they strike out on new paths and that makes them less a suspect and more a person to respect.

So here's the skinny:

1. Begin with the crime. Who did it? Why? (Money, Sex, Power are the three big players)

2. Who is hurt by the crime?

3. Who in town/city/neighborhood would want to hurt that person?

4. Add an odd character or two to the playlist

5. Animals work well in cozy or humorous mysteries. Not necessarily so much in thrillers. (The poor rabbit in "Fatal Attraction" is a prime and horrible example!!!!)

6. Setting varies from cozy mystery (small towns like my Martha's Vineyard mystery series with Guideposts) to straight mystery (Agatha Christie's books, pure classics) to amateur sleuth mysteries (Nancy Drew style) and on...

But the main trick in plotting these is to start at the end and work your way back mentally... at least that works for me. 

In a straight story, I'm absolutely linear. I don't quilt a story together and build in patches. Lots of folks do that successfully! 

But not me, and if you've tried and failed (like crashed and burned, utterly) then it might not be YOU failing... it could be the strategy you're employing.

Shake it up a little! Pretend it's a Christmas tree, a stately blue spruce or a scrawny white pine and then begin at the peak, the summit.... with the crime...

Then work your way down to the ever-growing branches, building several as you go.

If this is a romance, then you need to thread the romance into the story as well, and that's not always easy. Clever writing and quick timing/pacing come to mind there.

But if there's no romance, or just hinted romance, then you've got room to play. And who doesn't want room to play???

My second mystery "Swept Away" releases soon. I had so much fun returning to Martha's Vineyard and all the great characters we've got there... and seeing what my friend Priscilla is up to!

Here's the blurb on this delightful book 9 of the Mysteries of Martha's Vineyard: 

The arrival of a Hollywood film crew revives memories of three dramatic events in Martha’s Vineyard’s history: a little girl’s unsolved disappearance, a daring heist, and a major hurricane. When Priscilla learns that all three events occurred over the course of the same weekend, she is convinced that they were connected. But how? With her daughter, Rachel, visiting, Priscilla dives into the mystery, but she isn’t alone. The son of the detective who oversaw the case of the missing girl tells Priscilla he is seeking answers to put his ailing father’s mind to rest. But is his story true, or is he just interested in recovering the missing money from the heist? 

As Priscilla pieces together the clues, a smaller—but no less vexing—mystery hits closer to home. When her newly painted lemon-yellow door ruffles feathers in her neighborhood, someone begins leaving ugly scratches in the paint. Who is behind this disturbing vandalism—and can Priscilla catch the culprit to put a stop to it?

Our deep freeze has broken here in Western New York and I suspect there will be snowmen showing up soon, now that the snow is growing "heavier"... you can't build a snowman with dry, super-cold snow! While we're making snowmen up here, tell me what it is about mysteries that attracts you... The fun of figuring out the clues before the end of the book? Or the engaging characters? And do you like murder mysteries or prefer your cozies without a body necessarily attached?

Leave a comment and I'll tuck your name into a drawing for my absolutely beautiful soon-to-be-released Love Inspired "Her Secret Daughter"... a poignant story of sacrificial love and God's perfect timing... which sometimes doesn't seem all that perfect, does it? 

Multi-published and bestselling inspirational author Ruthy Logan Herne has over 40 published novels and novellas and she's living her dream of touching hearts... and souls...  from a VERY COLD AND SNOWY farm in Western New York! Thanks for visiting with her here in Seekerville... and you can friend her on facebook, follow her on Twitter and her editors really, really love it when you follow or like her on Amazon and Bookbub! And she loves  making editors happy!