characters - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

Home » Tag Archive: characters (Page 5)

Blog Hop – The Next Big Thing

Many thanks to Charlotte Holley who tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog hop. I didn’t know what a blog hop was but it seems like fun. In this one, authors answer questions about their Work in Progress (WIP) and people can follow the links along and see what various writers are working on. That way readers can anticipate and check back later to buy the books they’re interested in. It’s possible that one or more authors in this chain may really be working on The Next Big Thing!

When you’re tagged for this particular blog hop, you post your answers the following Wednesday and tag five other authors for the following Wednesday. Here are my answers:

1. What is the working title of your book? “A Tale More True”

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? If I recall correctly, I was thinking about fanciful trips to the Moon in early literature. I’m a fan of Jules Verne, but he’s actually a latecomer to that topic. While researching, I came across references to Baron Münchhausen. My story then sort of sprang into my head.

3. What genre does your book fall under? It’s alternate history, in the subgenre of clockpunk. I’ve not written much clockpunk, my story “Leonardo’s Lion” being the exception.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? There are three characters of interest. The protagonist is Count Eusebius Horst Siegwart von Federmann. Count Federmann could be played well by actor Chris Hemsworth. He’d have to speak English with a German accent, but doesn’t have to do it well, since it’s a comedy. Count Federmann is a brooding character, angry at and jealous of Baron Münchhausen. The Count is intelligent, determined, and optimistic, but lacks sense.

Shia_Labeouf The Count has a young French servant named Fidèle, and I’ll select Shia LaBeouf for that role. Mr. LaBeouf would have to speak English with a French accent, but not an especially good one. Fidèle is full of life, but has the sense to fear danger, though he’s always respectful of nobility.

The character Baron Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen only appears briefly at the beginning and end of the story. Since it’s a cameo role, I’ll splurge and pick Robin Williams. I need an older character of plain appearance who’s able to speak English with a German accent and captivate an audience with his words alone. Robin Williams played the part of the King of the Moon in the 1988 Movie “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A man is so angry about the self-aggrandizing lies of Baron Münchhausen that, just to prove the Baron wrong, he constructs a gigantic metal spring and launches himself to the Moon, where he learns about the nature of Truth.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I will offer it to Gypsy Shadow Publishing to be included in my What Man Hath Wrought series.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I’m not done with the fist draft yet. I researched, planned, and outlined the story for about a month. First and second drafts will take another month.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? It’s a light-hearted clockpunk tale, so there aren’t many comparable stories. Perhaps the closest thing is that movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.”

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? The muse speaks. I listen and write it all down as fast as I can.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Come on—intense jealousy, a space voyage in 1769, and weird Moon creatures. What more do you want?

At this point I should mention which authors I’m tagging next in this blog hop, but I was unsuccessful in getting any to participate. I think the hop has been going for about thirty weeks now, with most authors tagging five others. If you do the math for such a chain, you’ll see how, theoretically, we’d pass the population of the earth in Week 15, and by Week 30 there would be over 2 with 20 zeroes participants.

There only seems to be that many budding authors in the world. So much for theory. As Yogi Berra said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

So I won’t be tagging anyone else. This strand of the chain ends here, with my alter ego, a guy I like to call—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 19, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Captain Nemo sighted at Darkovercon

Those who attended Darkovercon this year on November 24th and 25th got a chance to see me, dressed as Captain Nemo.

I’m the one on the right, by the way. Why, yes, that is an electric pistol I’m holding; very observant of you to notice. Not visible in this photo is the Captain Nemo motto “Mobilis in Mobile” on my chest. My Nemo costume is based on the original illustrations, unlike the movie versions where Nemo appears either as a Navy Captain or an Indian Prince. Jules Verne’s Nemo had abandoned connections with the land. He was no military man, nor did he consider himself Indian any longer. He was part engineer and part pirate, and his clothing reflected that.

Here’s my electric pistol. Very steampunk! The golden, jagged sights on top are reminiscent of the Nautilus submarine from the Disney film of 1954. True, Nemo didn’t go around carrying a pistol. The electric rifles mentioned in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea were only for underwater use, and the original illustrations show them to be similar in appearance to standard rifles. I just took a little creative license.

And there’s the motto. The Latin translates as “moving in a moving thing” or, more metaphorically, “free in a free world.” Yes, you can find versions of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea where it’s rendered as “Mobilis in Mobili” where that last word ends in ‘i,’ but I’m told that’s plural, and singular was most likely intended.

Feel free to send me a comment if you (a) think I looked like Captain Nemo should look, or (b) think I looked too silly for words. While I wait for you to type your comment, I’ll enjoy recalling how a childhood fantasy came real for–

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 2, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Sorry, New Rule. You Can’t Do That!

In the original Star Trek TV series, there’s an episode where Captain Kirk invents a card game called Fizzbin in which he makes up the rules as he goes along. The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes featured a game called Calvinball which may never be played by the same rules twice.

If you’re a writer of fiction, you might consider yourself to be playing such a game, too. According to W. Somerset Maugham, “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” With apologies to the famous novelist, I’d say the game has too many rules to memorize and they change with time, according to the tastes of readers. Only by playing the game well can you can make money selling books.

You might try to emulate great writers of the past and imitate their writing styles, in an effort to achieve success. Bad idea. The rules were different in their time. Let’s cover some of those former rules.

1. Take all the time you need to create a vivid description, to ‘paint’ with words. Writers of the 19th Century and earlier used extensive portrayals to convey the appearance of a scene or character, multi-paragraph descriptions abounding in adjectives. That worked well in an era without movies or TV, but readers won’t wade through such long-winded descriptions today.

2. Adverbs exist for a reason; use them. Authors once used adverbs with abandon. Adverbs modify adjectives or verbs and often end in ‘ly’ like ‘crazily.’ These days it’s considered lazy to use too many adverbs, a sign you didn’t take time to select a powerful enough verb.

3. Demonstrate your skill as an author in your narrative paragraphs; dialogue only interferes with that. At one time, fiction was mostly narration, with occasional dialogue. We’re now in an age of character-driven stories, and readers want characters to talk more. No long, boring narrative paragraphs, and less narration overall.

4. Incorporate a rather dull character who needs everything explained to him (even things he already knows); that’s a clever way to explain things to the reader. There was an era when authors could use this technique even if it strained the conversation a bit. These days, that’s no longer tolerated and there’s even a term for it–As You Know, Bob or AYKB. AYKB’s are tempting, an easy trap to fall into even if you make every effort to avoid them.

5. Bring the narrator in as an entity the reader can trust, as one who helps foreshadow future events. In a bygone past, writers could have the narrator speak directly to the reader. And now, Gentle Reader, let us discover what Annabel must be thinking about this latest development. That voice could be used to foreshadow future events in an ominous tone. Little did Frank know, but his secure life would soon be altered forever. Understand, it’s still okay to use foreshadowing, but do it with subtlety, and not with the narrator speaking to the reader. Today that’s referred to as narrative intrusion.

6. Find clever new ways to express your ideas. As centuries of writers did this, many of the word combinations they used were so good the first time, they got used again, and re-used many times over. And became clichés. Now you don’t get to use those clichés, unless you add some twist on them. Go think of your own clever word combo that might become a future cliché. This rule didn’t change, but sorry, you can’t use the same tired clichés.

7. Ease into your story by introducing the reader to the setting, time period, and major characters before any action occurs. Readers in those times had nothing to compete with books for entertainment, and had the time to curl up near the fire and read a cozy story by its light. Times are different. You must grab your reader by the throat with a first sentence or paragraph that demands attention. It’s called a hook, and stories without a good one stay un-bought.

So, are you up for a game like Fizzbin or Calvinball? May the best writer win! Unfortunately, the game’s rules aren’t known by you or—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 25, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Conveying a Sense of Wonder

One of the things that drew me into fiction as a child was the sense of wonder I experienced when reading certain fiction, notably that of Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke and later science fiction writers. The question is, how does a writer evoke that in readers?

First, let’s try to define it. The book Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction defines it this way: “a feeling of awakening or awe triggered by an expansion of one’s awareness of what is possible or by confrontation with the vastness of space and time, as brought on by reading science fiction.”

Although often associated with science fiction, that emotion needn’t be. Rachel Carson’s book The Sense of Wonder was about sharing a love of nature with a child.

I like the associate with childhood. To children the natural world is new, and they experience that sense of wonder more often. Then it fades as we age and it takes more than mere nature to astonish us. Here’s an example of that fading-with-adulthood phenomenon. How many times have you heard the finale of the William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger theme) by Gioachino Rossini? Ho hum, right? But do you remember the thrill of that first time you heard it? Can you image what audiences of 1829 felt the first time that finale ever played, anywhere?

Up until Jules Verne and authors who followed him, adults most often experienced the sense of wonder in religious contexts, or in fantasy literature. Through his writing Verne showed the world what engineers and scientists of the time were bringing about—a better understanding of the natural world, and the amazing things man might do to achieve his ends. Verne showed readers something new and vast, and it had nothing to do with God or dragons, but with people.

Arthur C. Clarke was another science fiction author who captured the sense of wonder better than most. He carried the science far beyond Verne did, and showed a future humanity achieving, through engineering, the capabilities of gods or wizards. It was Clarke who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

For writers seeking to induce the sense of wonder in their readers, then, how do you do it? I think there are four elements involved:

A “thing” that is new in some way, or an old thing in a new context
A powerful description of that thing, emphasizing its newness
One or more characters confronting the thing
A depiction of the awe felt by one or more of the characters. How does the thing make the character feel? Again, you’re striving to recreate in words the amazement a child feels for something new.

If you do this well, if your characters are compelling, if the thing is truly worthy of awe and you’ve described it and your characters’ impressions well, then your readers will feel the wonder of it right along with the characters.

In my fiction, I strive to create this sense of wonder, most often in association with technology. Many of my stories are historical, so the characters see something outside their experience, but not necessarily beyond that of modern readers. I confront my characters with such things as a flying trireme, a clockwork lion, a giant mechanical elephant, a steam-powered oared galley in the 1st Century, and steam-powered human limbs (coming soon).

Is there anything to this “sense of wonder” stuff, in your opinion? Have you experienced that feeling from reading fiction? Have you tried writing it into your fiction? Leave a comment and let me know. Wondering about the answer to these and other questions, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 18, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Romancing the Short Story

Bet you didn’t expect me to write a blog entry on writing romance short stories, did you? Well, for one thing, if you desire to become an author, you should learn to write about anything, even topics or genres you know little about or have little interest in. You never know what you’ll end up being good at.

Second, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the romance genre has a vast and insatiable readership. Perhaps not so much in the short story length as in the novel length, but again, what if you’ve got a potentially great romance writer inside you, but you never try the genre to find out?

And, it turns out I have written a couple of short story romances. “Within Victorian Mists” is a steampunk romance, and “Against All Gods” is a romance story set in Ancient Greece. So I am nominally qualified to discuss the topic.

To figure out what’s special or different about romance short stories, let’s start with basics. Any fictional story must have certain elements, including character, plot, conflict, setting, style, and perhaps theme. We’ll dispense with the last three by saying that romance stories can take place in just about any setting, be written in any style, and can explore just about any theme.

Romance stories are character-driven. The characters must be intriguing and complex. The point-of-view character should have aspects with which readers can identify and empathize.

The plot is the emerging love between the characters. Choose your events such that they enable the characters’ love to either develop, or be tested, or both.

The conflict is the protagonist’s struggle to attain love itself, not the sexual act or the fleeting emotions of love, but the deep and shared realization that the two major characters cannot live without each other.

In a short story, you’re going to have to be choosy. It’s very difficult, in just 1000 to 10,000 words, to encompass the typical progression of a love story in its entirety, from the first meeting, through the burgeoning attraction, through the testing or challenge, to the final realization of love. There’s a natural pace to the process of falling in love, and the short story length doesn’t fit that pace as well as the novel length does.

Consider selecting one vignette, one emotion-charged event of a larger love story, and leave the earlier parts as backstory, and just hint at the later events. To explain what I mean, let’s consider what Christie Craig and Faye Hughes describe as the plot points of a romance story, the events that sum up to the plot arc:

Introduction/meeting
First acknowledgement of attraction
First acknowledgement of emotional commitment
Dark moment (what I’d call a test of love’s strength)
Resolution

Your short story could consist of just one of those events, and hint at the rest. Charge your story with emotion, and ensure the protagonist experiences an internal change in the direction of love, and that could be sufficient. It might be all you can manage within a short story format.

Have you written a romance short story? Submitted it for publication? Leave a comment and let me know what happened. When you began writing did you ever think you’d write a romance? No? Neither did—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 11, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Why You’ll Love the Snowflake, Too

The snowflake I’m blogging about today doesn’t have much to do with winter weather, but instead a writing method developed by author Dr. Randy Ingermanson. I won’t go through his method here, since he does a much better job describing it on his site than I could, but I’ll just discuss why I like it and why I think you will, too.

First, a snowflake is a good metaphor for a story (no two alike, many quite intricate and beautiful), but that’s not how Dr. Ingermanson means it. He’s referring to the mathematical fractal construction that starts with a simple shape, adds to the shape according to certain rules, and beautiful complexity emerges, with the final shape looking like a snowflake.

In the same way, he’s suggesting you start with very basic ideas about your story, then add to those ideas in a logical manner, building more detail with each step. Near the end of his ten-step process, you’ve got a thorough plan for your story. The tenth step is to write the story, which is much easier when you have your plan in front of you. You’ll find you don’t get stuck as often, or frustrated at boxing yourself into a plot situation your characters can’t get out of, at least without major changes.

I’ve discussed earlier how plot, characters, and setting have to fit together such that the story couldn’t really take place with any other characters, and the plot actions seem both inevitable and surprising, and the setting is the necessary one for the story. Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method makes this happen for you, by incrementally developing plot, characters, and setting, starting with sketchy concepts and adding more detail to each in turn until you end up with a comprehensive plan for your story and everything seems to fit.

How do I use the Snowflake Method? First, I’ve been writing short stories, and the Snowflake is intended for novels, so I abbreviate it a bit, sometimes using mind maps for some of the steps instead of writing them out fully. Second, I add a step concentrating just on the story’s hook, the opening sentence and paragraph. Third, I sometimes add a step to construct a motivation chart using a modified Root Cause Analysis chart to make sure my characters take believable actions in accordance with their personalities.

One downside to the Snowflake is the fact that it requires so much time for planning the story, and actually writing it must wait until the last step. Meantime, your muse may be screaming at you to cease all this planning stuff and get on with things. A screaming muse is actually good, much better than what comes next. If your muse starts feeling ignored, she will get bored and go away, or start looking for other story ideas to intrigue her. So keep thinking of the Snowflake as a method for getting to know your story better and better, not as a dreary planning exercise. Focus on the emerging details; promise your muse that you’ll be doing actual writing soon.

Dr. Ingermanson has come up with software to make the Snowflake Method easy and fun. Cheapskate that I am, I have not yet purchased it, but that package might be right for you, especially if you are struggling to accomplish the steps using word processors and spreadsheet programs.

Consider giving the Snowflake Method a try. Visit Dr. Ingermanson’s site. Whether it works for you or not, I’m sure he’d like to hear about your experiences with it. And of course, if you’d click on the “leave a comment” link below, so would—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 28, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Character, Plot, or Setting—Which Comes First?

Today’s question is about whether story-writers think about characters, plot, or setting when they first conceive the idea for a story. If you’ve written fiction, or thought about doing so, which did you start with?

Of these three story elements, perhaps character is most important to the reader. For readers, vivid and interesting characters linger in the memory long after plot or setting details fade. Some writers form a complete mental image of one or more characters, and then wonder what to have them do, and where to have them do it.

For other authors, the first image is of a setting. The scenery is sharp and distinct in their minds. Perhaps they have a photograph or painting to inspire them, and they decide to craft a tale around that image. Some story contests use pictures to prompt stories.

Still others think of the action or story-line or basic situation first. Only after that do they wonder what sort of people should take those actions and where the events should take place.

The image is my attempt to illustrate some of the possibilities graphically.

I’m talking here only about the initial impetus for the story. That’s not what the readers reads. In the end, the story must form a complete, coherent, integral whole. Characters, plot, and setting should fit together and complement each other. This is especially true of characters and plot. In a sense, plot and character determine each other. In a well-written tale, those are the only characters for which the plot makes sense, and vice versa. You can’t take any characters at random and fit them in any situation.

I doubt there is any right answer to my question about which element writers should think of first. I’d be shocked to learn if the greatest writers all started with the same element, but I suspect we’ll never know.

I considered the question with respect to my own short stories, and thought at first I had some stories in each category. Then I reflected on each tale one by one and discovered I had thought of plot first in almost every case. There were three stories in which the plot immediately determined the characters. In “Alexander’s Odyssey” and “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” the characters were historical or mythological figures. In the case of “The Steam Elephant,” my sequel to a pair of Jules Verne novels, the characters had been established by Verne.

The single exception to my usual practice of dreaming up a plot first is my story, “Against All Gods,” and I must admit I thought of the setting first there. I’d wanted to set a story aboard a trireme for some time, and also the Wonders of the Ancient World, so I started with those and conjured up a plot and characters to fit those settings.

Not that it matters to readers, who only see your finished product, but which do you think of first—characters, plot, or setting? Let me know by leaving a comment. It’s a question of interest to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 14, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Is Fiction Dialogue Different from Plain Old Yakking?

Dialogue through verbal speech is as important to your fictional characters as it is to us flesh-and-blood folks, though for somewhat different reasons. For both fictional and real people, speaking is the most common form of communication, and communication is, of course, not only vital but is something we humans do a lot.

However, real people engage in spoken dialogue for only a few reasons, and among them are:

to inform
to persuade
to establish a relationship
to argue
to direct or command

When our fictional characters talk, it is for these reasons, too, but also several more. This is due to the difference in their situation. For example, we often speak ‘off the cuff’ without much preparation or forethought; characters never do that, though they seem to. Characters only exist due to the efforts of an entity called a ‘writer,’ of whom they are unaware. They exist solely for the benefit and enjoyment of another entity called a ‘reader,’ of whom they are also unaware. So dialogue between characters also serves these purposes:

to set the scene; that is, help the reader ‘see’ the scene
to establish a character’s personality
to advance the plot by introducing or heightening the conflict
to create suspense or add tension
to remind the reader of previous events or characters
to foreshadow future events
to provide easy-to-read ‘white space’ in between narration paragraphs

Most of the time, fictional dialogue is accomplishing many of these functions at once. That might seem a daunting task for the beginning writer, and you may be wondering how you’ll ever write dialogue that does so much. As an author not too far removed from beginner status, all I can say is, I’m told the task gets easier with practice, like any good habit.

Now that we’ve covered the differences in purpose, let’s cover the differences in form between real and fictional dialogue.

In the first place, fictional dialogue is less dull. As much as we try not to be dull in real life, much of our conversation is, frankly, boring. Fiction can’t afford to be dull, so leave out all the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ of real speech. Cast out all the little pleasantries like ‘how are you doing?’ ‘fine,’ etc. Ever notice fictional characters rarely say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye?’ Now you know why.
Fictional characters shouldn’t have as strong an accent as real people, at least as it’s depicted in written dialogue. Whether your character is from the deep South, New England, or speaks English with a strong foreign accent, don’t attempt to replicate every word by spelling it as your character would pronounce it. Just do that with a couple of words per sentence at most. Your readers’ imaginations will do the rest, and you don’t want to make it difficult for them to decipher your prose.

And that’s it. In other words, fictional dialogue isn’t too different from everyday speaking, at least on the surface. If it were significantly different, readers wouldn’t find it believable. It’s only beneath the surface where fictional dialogue serves purposes beyond what’s going on in real conversation. Here are three links to great articles giving helpful guidance about fictional dialogue: here, here, and here.

“Hope you enjoyed my blog entry on how dialogue is different from plain old yakking. Feel free to leave a comment whether you agree or disagree,” said—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 8, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

How Well Do You Really Know Your Characters?

In a previous blog post, I wrote about creating characters. One bullet point I made was that you, as author, should get to know your major characters. Let me expand on that today.

To review, your goal is to create believable, interesting, and memorable characters. Also, to some degree, your characters should be representative, or recognizable; readers should be able to identify with at least some aspect of the characters, having that aspect themselves or having witnessed it in other real people.

With that as your goal, you understand why you shouldn’t use stereotypes as your main characters. You want to convey a degree of complexity or depth, mimicking the complexity of real people. To achieve that, try to create characters that aren’t entirely consistent; they can’t be described in one word or phrase. They may be mostly consistent, but they have a quirk or two.

So, why must you, as the author, spend time getting to know your main characters? Think about it this way—your readers can’t know your characters before you do, or any better than you do. Phrased positively, after you start loving your characters, and to the degree you do, your readers have a good chance of loving them too.

Every author employs a technique of choice to gain an understanding of his or her characters. Mine is to use a character chart. The chart takes me through the following aspects of a character:

Biographical. This includes such things as name, date of birth, back-story, talents or skills, nationality, race, finances, religion, employer and occupation, marital status, etc.
Physical. This category asks questions about age, weight, height, health, body type, eye color, hair color and style, disabilities, illnesses, self-image, etc.
Psychological. In this section I specify the Myers-Briggs personality category, the character’s main motivation, worst fear, biggest regret, etc.

If you send me an e-mail at steven-at-stevenrsouthard-dot-com, I’ll send you the character chart I use. However, I urge you to modify it so it suits you.

Here’s the interesting and non-intuitive part about using these character charts. You won’t end up using all that filled-out chart information in your story. In fact, after filling out the chart, you may never look at it again. And that’s okay. The point of filling out the chart wasn’t only (or even mainly) to generate a ready reference. The point was for you to get introduced to your character, to really understand your character well.

After completing the chart, you should still think of it as dynamic and changeable. It’s on paper or electronic form, after all, not chiseled on a stone tablet. If you find some aspect of the character not really working in the story, feel free to change the character. You’re aiming to have the story and characters intertwined so that only these characters could experience these events and behave in ways that advance that particular plot.

Aside from the chart method, here are two other ways to get to know your characters:

You could take some scene or event from your own life (not something in your story), and describe it as your character would. That helps keep your characters from getting too autobiographical and forces you to see through their eyes.
You could write down (or speak aloud) an imaginary dialogue between yourself and your character. Again, this separates the character from you, highlights how distinct and unique the character is, and helps bring the character “alive” in a way.

Did this blog entry help you, or not? Either way, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. Meanwhile, there are several characters waiting to become better known by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 9, 2012Poseidon's ScribePermalink

A Mystery to Me

Do you love reading mysteries? Ever think of writing one?

The genre was invented by Edgar Allan Poe and popularized by Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. It remains a popular genre with a devoted readership.

The mystery genre is hard to define. All fiction involves an element of mystery, since there’s always a conflict and the reader doesn’t know how the protagonist will resolve that conflict. Here we’ll speak of stories where the focus is on the puzzling aspects of the conflict, which is often a crime or some unexplained phenomena. In addition, the sleuth in the story uses attention to detail and deductive logic to solve the mystery.

In your mystery story, make sure the mystery itself is something important, something the reader will care about. That’s why there are so many murder mysteries, and so few involving a missing 99¢ comb.

Before writing your story, develop various timelines or storylines:

1. First is the actual timeline of events in which the real perpetrator commits the act. This must be logical and in accordance with various character’s motivations. As author, you’ll be the only one who knows this one.

2.a., 2.b, 2.c, etc. You may need a series of fake timelines, in each of which one of the other suspects could commit the act. These need not be completely logical or reflect character motivations exactly, but at first your sleuth won’t know that.

3. A timeline pieced together by your sleuth, formed through evidence and logical deduction.

4. You might even have a separate timeline that is revealed to the reader. However, Timeline 4 usually matches Timeline 3.

Most mysteries involve the commission of a crime. To do so, a criminal must have means, motive, and opportunity (MMO). The challenge for the sleuth is that either (1) several people seem to have all three, or (2) nobody seems to have all three. Of the three necessary parts of MMO, motive is often the first part presented to the reader.

Among frequent readers of the genre it’s considered unfair to (1) withhold evidence from the reader that the sleuth knows, including specialized skills or knowledge, or (2) have the sleuth confront the guilty suspect with insufficient evidence (that wouldn’t gain a conviction in court) but still the criminal breaks down and confesses.

Your writing challenge is to present the reader with all the evidence needed to solve the mystery, but to make the puzzle difficult enough that the reader would rather just read to the end to see how the sleuth cracks the case. Bear in mind the necessary evidence need not be emphasized in your story, just present. It could be buried in the middle of a paragraph. Or you could distract the reader’s attention with some dramatic action that happens to include a piece of evidence easy to gloss over.

The genre has been so well explored, it’s difficult to think of mysteries that haven’t been done. For example, I wish you luck in thinking up a new version of the locked-room mystery, where a crime is committed in a sealed enclosure where the only entries are locked from the inside.

For that reason, writers of mysteries these days seem to be focusing on the character of the sleuth, or the setting. In today’s market, the way to set your mystery apart is to have a very compelling sleuth. The minimum attributes for this character are: (1) attention to detail, and (2) an ability to deduce a chain of events from disparate facts. Or you could have two sleuths working together, each of which has one of these traits.

Another way to distinguish your mysteries from others is to use a historical or unusual setting. Depending on how far back a time you choose, it could present a real challenge for your sleuth due to the lack of modern crime investigation technologies.

Did this blog entry inspire you to write a mystery story? Leave me a comment and let me know about it. Just make sure the answer to whodunit isn’t–

Poseidon’s Scribe