The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit

by Tapply, William G.

  Or the chief of detectives growls: “Senator Smith’s body was found floating in the river last night. He was shot three times in the face. Find out who murdered him, and do it fast. Your promotion depends on it.”

  Or the editor says: “A bomb exploded in a convenience store. Three people died. Get the story and get it today, or I’ll find someone else who will.”

  Thus do professionals begin their investigation. Their reputations, their self-esteem, their careers, and perhaps their lives are at stake.

  Your story has begun.

  If you decide your hero or heroine will be a professional, you must be thoroughly familiar with that profession. Don’t try to fake it. Every detail must be absolutely accurate. Your cop must think like a cop, talk like a cop, and behave like a cop. Your lawyer must know the law. Your reporter must know how to meet a deadline. Your pathologist must know medicine.

  When you write a mystery story, you and your reader make a bargain: Your reader agrees to pretend that your story actually happened, provided you agree to make your story resemble reality. A single misstep or false note will break the contract by shattering your readers’ faith—their “willing suspension of disbelief.”

  The amateur sleuth

  An amateur sleuth—a person whose livelihood does not depend on investigating murders—can, at least in theory, come from any walk of life. Housewives and kindergarten teachers, secretaries and bartenders, jockeys and tennis players, computer nerds and real estate brokers—all can find themselves in situations where they might need to solve a murder. A husband might be driven to find his wife’s killer, for example, and readers will readily believe that a parent would stop at nothing to track down the kidnapper of a child.

  The challenge for the writer is to give amateur sleuths powerfully compelling reasons to pursue their own investigations instead of hiring a professional.

  They must be strongly driven to persevere, even when the stakes get higher and the risks multiply. If readers don’t buy the amateur sleuth’s motive, the story, no matter how clever and dramatic it might otherwise be, will flop.

  The motive should result from the story’s events, not your sleuth’s personality. It’s not enough to portray your hero or heroine as naturally curious or brave or persistent. You must create a situation that compels even the most reluctant protagonist to take action.

  Since amateurs bring no necessary experience or expertise to the murder investigation, the writer who decides on an amateur can usually avoid the intense research that goes into creating a believable professional.

  If you give your amateur hero a convincing reason to chase down a murderer no matter what the danger, a reason that readers can empathize with, you’ll sink your hook in deep.

  The amateur is likely to change more than the professional as she pursues her investigation. The amateur has probably never before been particularly courageous or resourceful or persevering, and certainly has never had to track down a killer. Now she is forced into a situation that tests her will and courage and intelligence as they have never been tested before.

  Gender, appearance, and other characteristics

  Your sleuth can be old or young, rich or poor, gay or straight, lighthearted or gloomy, strong or weak, attractive or plain. There are no formulas and no taboos.

  James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux is a recovering alcoholic. Barbara Neely’s Blanche White is an African-American housekeeper. Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr is a burglar who runs a bookstore. Jake Page’s Mo Bowdre is a blind sculptor. Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak is an Alaskan Aleut detective. Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are Navajo policemen. Linda Barnes’ Carlotta Carlyle plays volleyball and drives a cab. Robert Parker’s Spenser is a weightlifter and a gourmet cook. Katherine Hall Page’s Faith Fairchild is the wife of a minister and a former New York caterer. All are popular and memorable sleuths.

  Mix and match gender, job, hobby, personal history, appearance, and other characteristics to create your own unique, complex, multidimensional sleuth.

  The series sleuth

  The recurring hero or heroine is a staple of mystery fiction. When considering a first novel for publication, acquiring editors often base their decision on the promise of future novels with the same sleuth. They know that readers develop strong loyalties to appealing heroines and heroes. Mystery readers often care as much about the sleuth’s personal problems as they do about the puzzle she’s working on.

  But the series sleuth must be designed for the long haul. If your first novel features a librarian as a protagonist, you’d better be able to convince an editor that your librarian is an internationally renowned expert in rare and valuable books who is periodically called upon to consult in cases of theft and forgery.

  A psychologist whose specialty is child abuse, such as Jonathan Kellerman’s Alexander Delaware, makes an effective series hero. So does Rick Boyer’s Doc Adams, a forensic dentist. An auto mechanic who’s an expert at identifying stolen vehicles could be a series hero. So could a professor of sociology who wrote her doctoral dissertation on rape, or a museum curator or an antique collector whose expertise makes him a useful adviser to those who investigate crimes for a living. But unless you give your series sleuth an area of specialization that could logically involve her in mystery puzzles, you will be hard-pressed to think up an entire series of cases for her.

  If you intend to write a series, then make your sleuth either a professional (private investigator, police officer, crime reporter, lawyer) or an amateur with special crime-busting credentials.

  But you have to sell your first book before you need to begin worrying about a series. If you’ve dreamed up a can’t-miss storyline that demands an amateur one-shot hero, that’s the book you should write. Elmore Leonard and Dick Francis and many other successful mystery authors create new heroes for every story. They thereby avoid the trap that ensnared Conan Doyle, who became so bored with Sherlock Holmes that he killed him off. Eventually Doyle was forced to revive his famous detective when readers made it clear that they wanted only Holmes stories from him.

  Defining characters by what they want

  Your sleuth should obviously be drawn with the greatest care. You want your readers to identify with her, root for her, agonize with her when she fails, exult with her when she triumphs. Make them care about her happiness and her health and her success. Make them wonder how she’s getting along with her ex-husband or lover. Make them hope she’ll have a chance to take a vacation, or play more tennis, or visit her father in the nursing home. You want readers to wish your sleuth would eat more sensibly and quit smoking and finally settle down with that elusive young policeman.

  Making readers bring these concerns to your books doesn’t happen by accident. In the process of developing mystery heroes and heroines, you must explore their full range of interests, desires, needs, and fears.

  Everything that goes into characterizing your sleuth can be expressed in terms of what she wants. Readers will worry about her because she has goals that are important to her and it’s not certain that she’ll achieve them.

  Every mystery hero or heroine, like every real person, has several needs and desires. These goals may conflict with each other and with those of other characters. Such conflicts lend depth and texture to your story. Your sleuth, for example, may want to follow the trail of a killer from Chicago to Baltimore. But he also wants his wife to be happy, and she doesn’t want him to leave her home alone to watch over their wayward teen-aged son (who wants to skip school and experiment with marijuana).

  But your readers will not be satisfied with a novel about your sleuth unless a whodunit puzzle is its focus. In every novel, no matter what other problems your heroine has to confront, she wants above all to solve a crime.

  This purpose supersedes all of her other goals. If it didn’t, she’d go visit her father or play tennis instead of tracking down the bad guy.

  Define your story by your sleuth’s motivation. What does she want
? Why does she want it so badly? Why does she care enough to take significant risks to attain it?

  Then identify your villain’s goals, and make sure that his wants are strongly felt and in direct conflict with your sleuth’s.

  Mystery novels focus on the needs and goals of their characters: The sleuth wants to unravel the clues, identify the villain, and bring him to justice; the villain wants to elude the hero, escape detection, and get away with murder. Many of your characters’ goals will not be readily apparent to your readers. Those that are hidden help to create the story’s mystery. Deducing the true aims of the villain, for example, typically forms a vital part of the story of detection.

  For each important goal, decide why the character needs or wants it so much. Then create scenes that suggest those goals. Your characters’ actions are clues to their goals.

  A mystery plot can be understood as an evenly matched game between protagonist and antagonist. The stakes are high. Both have important goals and want desperately to achieve them. But it’s a zero-sum game. If the hero or heroine wins, the villain must lose.

  Creating character profiles

  Write down everything you can think of about your characters. Your hero or heroine, your villain, and your other central characters deserve fully developed biographies. Include family histories, birthplaces, schooling, marriages, personal triumphs and tragedies. Think of what your characters like to read and eat and the music they enjoy. What are their politics and their opinions on current issues? How do they like to spend their leisure time? What do they worry about? What do they believe in?

  Visualize them. How old are they? What do they look like? What kinds of clothes do they wear?

  Imagine their surroundings, too. Draw a word sketch of their house or apartment and their office. Is it neat or cluttered? What paintings hang on the walls? What magazines are on the coffee table?

  All of this creative work is background, the writer’s necessary homework. You must know your characters fully before you write about them. But be prepared to leave much of this biographical material out of your story.

  After creating a dramatic opening scene in which a corpse is discovered and your sleuth appears, you might be tempted to interrupt your story to tell your readers all about your hero:

  He peered into the mirror, scraping his razor carefully around the raised red scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his jaw, and he remembered that fateful night in New Orleans when Millie O’Leary, the blonde in the black velvet dress, with the glass eye…

  And if you’re not careful, you’ll allow your character to remember all of the delightful material from that biography you worked so hard to create. From the night in New Orleans, you’ll recount your hero’s childhood, and how the playground bully always stole his lunch money, and how his father said that if he ever wanted to be a man he’d have to learn to stand up to bullies and defend himself. His mother hated violence, and Mom and Dad had big arguments about it. Your hero knew that it was his fault that his parents fought all the time, so he secretly joined a gym and met an ex-prizefighter, who…

  And so on and on and on. By now your readers have completely lost track of your story and are likely to set your book aside.

  Don’t allow the biographies you’ve composed to limit your imagination and creativity. If, once your story is underway, you find that your characters begin saying and doing unexpected things, don’t resist them. Characters often do “come alive” in the story as they never do in sketches and biographies.

  Characterization through scenes

  In real life, the more we listen to people talk and watch them act, the more we know about them. The same is true in fiction.

  Mystery readers prefer to learn about fictional characters the way they get to know real people: by watching them and listening to them.

  Everything characters say or do is a clue to their personalities, their life histories, and the forces that motivate them. As they act and speak in scenes, your characters will gradually acquire depth and complexity. Good writers reveal what their characters are like by showing them in action.

  In a mystery story, of course, things are never what they appear to be. For example, suppose your readers first meet a character named Harry when he enters a tavern. He straddles a stool, nods to the bartender, and says, “Gimme a Bud.”

  A moment later Mr. Rowan appears. He slides onto the adjacent barstool, adjusts the crease in his pants, and says, “Excuse me, bartender, but what do you have by way of German beers?”

  In this simple scene readers will find clues to the education, experience, taste, appearance, and attitudes of two characters. Readers will expect conflict between these two, and as the scene develops they will learn more about them.

  As you show Harry and Mr. Rowan interacting with other characters in this and in later scenes, readers may gradually deduce that the crude Harry, in fact, is a philosophy professor, while the well-dressed and cosmopolitan Mr. Rowan is a Mafia hit man. That process of discovery and surprise is what makes mystery stories compelling for readers.

  Chapter 4

  The Lineup: Villains,

  Victims, Suspects, and

  Other Characters

  In mystery fiction, although several characters might have valid motives for committing a murder, only the villain did it. He kills for compelling—but rarely obvious—reasons, and then uses his considerable intelligence to avoid being detected. He presents a supreme challenge to the detective. He makes no mistakes. He never panics. He leaves no blatant clues behind. He never acts guilty. He lies convincingly. He misdirects anyone who might begin to suspect him. He’ll do anything—including committing more murders—to avoid being nabbed.

  It’s even money he’ll get away with it. It will take a clever, resourceful, and determined sleuth—and reader—to identify him and bring him to justice. When you write mystery fiction, if you make it easy, you make it boring.

  Readers should meet the villain early in the story. At this point, of course, only the writer knows who the villain is and what he or she has done, or is about to do. For the mystery writer, the rule is this: Make the villain one of the crowd, neither more nor less prominent than any of the story’s other characters.

  Only with the climactic revelation do you transform the villain from an ordinary character into one of great complexity. After all, who’d have suspected that she was capable of all those murders?

  Beginning writers tend to worry that unless their villain acts guilty, or appears evil, or has a transparent motive, or is obviously stronger or craftier or more unscrupulous than the other characters, they are not playing fair with their readers. Resist the temptation to throw in clues for your readers’ benefit while withholding them from your heroine or hero. And never allow your sleuth to miss a clue that is obvious to your reader. That’s giving the reader an unfair advantage—and mystery readers don’t want an advantage over the sleuth.

  If your readers lose respect for your sleuth, you’ll lose your readers.

  A worthy villain challenges your hero or heroine and leaves the story’s outcome in doubt. Match a determined sleuth against a resourceful and clever and equally determined villain and you’ll have your readers hooked.

  Suspects and red herrings

  In the course of pursuing her investigation, your sleuth encounters a variety of characters who are linked to the victim and could have had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the murder. The more legitimate suspects your story has, and the longer you keep them under suspicion, the more complicated and challenging your puzzle will be.

  Don’t disappoint your readers by exonerating too many suspects too quickly. Remember: Only one is the actual villain. All the rest are “red herrings,” characters who, despite appearances, are innocent and whose main function in the story is to misdirect the reader’s attention. But don’t introduce red herrings for the sole purpose of misleading your readers. Every character should have a crucial part to play in the story, offeri
ng information of some kind that either helps your sleuth gather clues or misdirects her (and your readers). All characters, however minor, must have motives and goals that connect to the victim and the events of the story.

  You can test the validity of a suspect by asking this question: If I omitted this character entirely, would my story collapse?

  Your answer must be “yes.” Otherwise you’re not playing fair.

  Victims

  In some stories, a character’s simple function is to trigger the mystery by getting murdered. The sleuth may begin by investigating this murder, but soon more complicated questions arise, and the victim turns out to be a minor character whose significance fades as the story develops.

  More often, however, a murder victim has secrets that provide the murderer with a motive. The connection between the victim’s secret and the murderer’s motive is the solution to the puzzle.

  Mystery fiction typically begins with the discovery of a corpse. The victim is already dead, and readers never get to know him directly. Even in stories where the murder occurs after readers have met the victim, they don’t know everything about him. An important part of the sleuth’s investigation becomes the painstaking piecing together of the victim’s backstory, which comes in bits and pieces of information, often seemingly contradictory, filtered through the memories and motives and lies of other characters.

  Who was this person? What did he do and know? Who’d want to kill him?

  You must know the answers to these questions before you begin writing. Next to your hero or heroine, your victims—even if readers first meet them as dead bodies—are often the most important and interesting characters in mystery fiction.

  Write the life story of your victim before you begin to write your story of detection. Make it rich and complicated and unusual. Give him or her friends and lovers, opponents and enemies. Above all, give him secrets.