Recently I’ve been sketching out some ideas for a murder mystery. As much as I enjoy reading detective stories and watching mysteries, I’ve never tried to write one before. I sure hope that my enjoyment of the solving process will give me some sort of advantage in the story-creation process.
Because I can’t just work this storyline out as I go along, I have to do much more planning and theorizing. Not only do I have to know who did it, but I’ll also have to figure at least two more people who could plausibly have been the killer. In a way, it will be like writing three stories and grafting them into one. (I wonder if that’s how the scriptwriters for Clue did it?)
Back in the 1990s day, if I had gotten an idea like this one I would not have sat down sporadically to brainstorm ideas. No way, man! First of all, I would have looked for books that would tell me how to write a murder mystery. Then I would have read all of them. If I made it past that point, I might have gone to the library and looked for any books with the same plot as what I had, however vaguely, in mind. After that I would probably have concluded that not only was there nothing new under the sun, but my idea had been done a thousand times before and by better writers than I. In fact, a very similar story had just been published, so I was already a year behind and why should I even start?
It’s just as well I didn’t have this idea back then; I would have talked myself out of writing anything. Michael, if he’d had the idea, would have taken the completely opposite path by writing a killer (see what I did there?) cover letter, selling the story to an editor with a tight deadline, and blazing ahead to work 24/7 until he had figured it all out by himself. I would have been involved by racing the just-printed manuscript to FedEx by an 8pm pickup time — possibly having to pound on the front door for entry if the staff had already locked up at 7:55 — and having to spend half of the proposed payment on overnight shipping. (The rest of the money would cover two reams of copy paper, a fresh toner cartridge, a bottle of Red Zinfandel, and a pack of clove cigarettes. So it’s just as well that he didn’t get the idea either.)
Somehow we did manage to write and publish the occasional item — but we were also working full-time jobs in different areas of the publishing industry at the time. I was writing and editing all day; he was editing and doing some graphic design. So to give us a break, we didn’t have a lot of energy in our “off” time to crank out piles of creative work. Even if we had, we really wouldn’t have known how to market it or how to govern ourselves into freelance good work habits.
I’m probably having some fun with this story idea right now because I’m only approaching it as a fun thing to play with. I’m not trying to write a best-seller in six weeks so I can make a million dollars and quit my day job. (I like my day job!)
So far I have cast the victim, the amateur detective, the police officer, and the forensic investigator. I know a couple of characters who will be suspects and I have figured out where to place some red herrings. I know the subtle clues that will tip off the detective. I’m just not quite sure who the killer is yet.
I want to have fun with this and figure it out for myself without the pressure of a deadline. Now, finding books that will tell me how to do this work almost feels like cheating. Ironically, until about a year ago I had about half a dozen books that would have helped me tremendously with this work. Several years ago, one of the kids briefly mentioned wanting to know more about police procedural work. Within days I had hopped on Amazon and purchased a bunch of books that could serve as references. So there I was, doing the same old thing and collecting the reference books before doing any of the work. You know what? The kid didn’t touch the books, and probably didn’t even follow through on whatever idea it was that they had. The fact that I can’t even remember which kid it was should tell you something about the trivial nature of their question, to which I definitely over-responded. Anyway, I donated all of these books to a local “Friends of the Library” sale about a year ago.
Now I have an idea and my reaction is, “cool, let’s mess around with it for a while and see if anything comes out it.” So far that’s been a fun process, and that’s good enough for now. If I do develop this idea into a full-length story, it should look different from anyone else’s story.
I actually did some knitting this week, and I got the toddler hat to the end of the 2×2 ribbing. Now I’m at a point where I need to decide what the rest of the hat will look like. My color choices are to continue in soft pink, to switch to a variegated yarn, or to alternate the soft pink and the multicolored yarn in two-row stripes all the way to the crown. I could also decide to make the top of the hat in either stockinette or mock cables. I must make a decision before I knit the next stitch, so…
Let’s take a poll! I always enjoy reader feedback, but this seems like a particularly good occasion for it.
This polling setup is completely different from the one WordPress used to use, and I can’t remember the last time I took a poll. So hey! This might be a new experience for all of us. I invite everyone reading this post to participate in the poll — even if you’re not a knitter, you still have an opinion on what would make a cute warm hat for a baby girl. You can take a look at the pattern here so you will know how it might look if words like “stockinette,” “plain knitting,” “2×2 ribbing,” and “mock cable” don’t mean anything to you. The pattern is hosted on Ravelry, which [somewhat] recently changed its website design to something that can cause seizures in those who are prone to them. If this might be a problem for you, please take the poll without visiting Ravelry.
And to follow up on last week’s post about the books I’m reading, I am indeed continuing to plug along. I’m currently in the 6th chapter of Tombstone (which could take another day or two to finish) and I’m ready to start chapter 14 of Dante and the Early Astronomer and chapter 13 of Indy Split. When I’m not reading, I am trying to catch up on Torah-related podcasts that I support through Patreon. They are rather fringe, so let me know if you’d like to have a link.
Oh! I forgot to mention that Youngest got his first shot in his vaccination series last Thursday afternoon. Everyone related to my household should be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the middle of June. Huzzah!
Chocolate Sheep 