Mysterious

First off, for those of you who may live a little north of New York City, I’ll be signing books at a children’s book festival a week from Sunday, on September 25th, in Tarrytown. I’ll just be signing, not speaking, but I’ll be there for two-and-a-half hours, and unless a miracle happens, I’ll have time to chat. This is a wonderful event, with many terrific kids’ book writers. Details are on the website. Hope some of you can come!

On June 16, 2011  AngieBelle wrote, …I have read many mysteries and am always fascinated by how the author ties everything together- even in seemingly simple children’s mysteries, which are usually what I’m reading. How does one come up with all the details that lead to solving the mystery?

I’ve written two other posts about writing mysteries, one on May 27th, 2009, and one on January 6th, 2010, which you may want to look at too. These are additional thoughts. I said in the earlier posts that I’m a newbie mystery writer, and I still am. In fact, I would welcome tips from other mystery writers who read the blog.

In my first mystery, A Tale of Two Castles, I didn’t know who the villain was until I’d written two-thirds of the book, and this worried me, as you can imagine. But then this character did something revealing, and I knew. The advantage of this is that the bad guy’s identity may come as more of a surprise to the reader if it was also a surprise to the writer. I’m not saying that careful plotters and outliners can’t create mysteries that feel unpredictable, only that this is the approach that worked for me, on a single book.

I’m trying it again in the new book, Beloved Elodie (tentative title). I’m making several characters potential villains, and I’ve invented back stories for each that could give them a motive for the crime, the theft of a flask, which, if not recovered,  will cause hundreds of lives to be lost.

These back stories can supply the details that pile up in a reader’s mind. In A Tale of Two Castles again, two of my characters were spies, which I didn’t reveal until near the end of the book. Their undercover activity caused them to act suspiciously. I knew why but the reader didn’t, and I could sort the details out because of my secret knowledge.

The back story technique goes something like this: Madame Peppercorn is knifed to death at midnight. Mr. Marjoram is found with a knife. Congresswoman Thyme was seen loitering near the scene of the crime. Professor Basil was overheard arguing with Madame Peppercorn the day before the murder. Madame Peppercorn’s daughter, Miss Allspice, has been corresponding with a lawyer about declaring her mother incompetent. Doctor Nutmeg was prescribing sedatives to Madame Peppercorn for her anxiety. Detective Tarragon finds clues galore, details galore. The reader goes to sleep at night counting spices.

But the author knows the following: Mr. Marjoram had the knife to protect himself from a colleague who threatened him; Congresswoman Thyme lost her engagement ring somewhere near Madame Peppercorn’s estate; Madame Peppercorn demanded an acknowledgment from Professor Basil in his forthcoming book about rich old ladies; Miss Allspice is worried about her mother’s recent memory lapses; Doctor Nutmeg murdered Madame Peppercorn because she threatened him with a malpractice suit, which he knows would cost him his license. He visited her, ostensibly to explain his prescriptions, knocked her out with something that leaves the digestive system quickly (Is there such a thing?), and stabbed her to death.

The author can keep it all straight because he knows who’s doing what for which reasons.

I’m not as organized as the above herbal mystery suggests. I toss in clues and details willy-nilly, hoping they’ll come in handy later, but I do make up the back stories – usually. In A Tale of Two Castles I had a mild-mannered character speak harshly at one point. I didn’t really have a reason, simply that it was late at night and he was alone. My editor asked me to tie up that loose thread and fondly told me she was sure I knew the character’s motivation. I didn’t, but at that point the book was written. All the elements were in place, and I found the character’s reason, and it fit.

It fit because writing is magical or the human mind is magical, which I’ve said before on the blog. We plunk in details to enrich our stories, to flesh out our characters, hoping the details will come do double duty and be useful for the plot, but when we write them in we have no idea how that will happen. We keep writing and find, often enough to be remarkable, that this little thing, for example a character’s fascination with a certain painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, turns out to be the key to the entire story.

Some of what I throw in turns out not to belong, and I waste time on plot points that don’t take me the right way, but these come out in revision, and some points were interesting to explore even if ultimately not right. Writing isn’t efficient, at least not when I do it.

A few months ago I bought a book on writing mysteries, then read only part of it because most of the advice offered didn’t apply to fantasy. But I do remember one rule: neither too many suspects or too few. The author suggested at least three and no more than six, a good rule, I think.

In A Tale of Two Castles, suspects abounded because my victim was despised and feared by many. I narrowed the field simply by authorial spotlight. The people I shined my beam on were implicated; the hundreds of others never entered the picture. The mayor, for example, was present when the crime was committed, but I paid no attention to him, so he didn’t become a suspect.

Is this fair? I’m not sure, but without this technique many stories couldn’t be told.

The crime in Beloved Elodie takes place in an isolated spot, so the number of suspects is limited. Still, a few more characters are present than I can use, so these extras’ time on the story stage will be short.

As readers, we anticipate future events, even in a non-mystery. The writer gives us clues that the story characters can’t pick up on. Watch out! we want to scream to the main. This friend is treacherous!

Mystery readers tend to be extra vigilant about clues. I don’t read mysteries with a pencil and paper, taking notes, trying to figure everything out logically, but I do keep an eye out for the likely villain. This habit as a reader is worrying me as a writer. If, for example,  I make Ms. Clove an unpleasant character, the reader may think, It will be too obvious if Ms. Clove does it. She can’t be the thief. Then if I make Mr. Turmeric nice, the reader may think, He’s too sweet to endanger all these people; he can’t be the one. But maybe the author will think I won’t suspect Mr. Turmeric, and he really did do it.

If it turns out that Mr. Turmeric is the villain, the reader will think that’s predictable and be disappointed. If Ms. Clove did it, the ending may feel too easy. The solution has to be layered, surprising characters. I’m working on that, but the predictability factor is on my mind.

Here are three prompts:

•    In the mystery of Madame Peppercorn’s murder, write interviews between Detective Tarragon and the suspects. Have the detective discover the meaning behind some of the statements and misunderstand others. (You can pick a different villain if you like.)

•    In 1967 silk magnate Jim Thompson disappeared while visiting a friend in Malaysia and was never seen again. Here’s a link to Jim Thompson on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_%28designer%29. The entry goes into the disappearance in some detail, and you need to read that part in order to do the prompt. Your challenge is to solve the disappearance. If you like, you can turn the circumstances into fantasy.

•    Now for a children’s mystery. You may know the nursery game, “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” It’s just an accusation and denial. Turn it into a story and solve the mystery. The trouble, of course, is that the most important evidence gets eaten.

Have fun, and save what you write!

31 Responses on “Mysterious”

  2. Melissa says:

    Gail-
    Just wanted to let you know that I figured out the mystery *=Þ* of your late night postings. I live in Illinois so there's a time change right? I also wanted to know if the place where you're signing books is anywhere near Houghton NY. My sister goes to college at Houghton and we're picking her up around the 25th. I would die of happiness if I could see you at the same time!!!

  5. marveloustales says:

    I love it when a detail I threw in just because, or for an entirely separate reason, turns out to be pivotal to a character or to the plot. I like to think my subconscious must know what I'm doing, even when I don't realize it.

  10. Melissa says:

    Gail-
    I can't say I'm not disappointed but it's not like I've never seen you before. I was at the Anderson's bookstore in Wheaton for the book signing tour of A Tale of Two Castles. I had only found your website a few days before that so I was lucky to find you just in time. You can't imagine how stunned I was that the very next week you were coming to my City!and I was wondering- do you remember doing any other book signings in Illinois?

  12. gailcarsonlevine says:

    From the website:

    Great post! The herbal mystery was a really good example, I thought. I haven't read A Tale of Two Castles yet, unfortunately, but I'm getting it from the library as soon as it's my turn! I was wondering, what books did you like best when you were younger? Do you have certain favorites, or favorite authors, or what?
    Elizabeth

  13. gailcarsonlevine says:

    Melissa–I was only where you were this last time, but I've been in Illinois before, always through Anderson's.

    Elizabeth–When I was little I read and loved the classics, BAMBI, HEIDI, PETER PAN. I've mentioned these and other, current favorites now and then in blog posts.

  14. Melissa says:

    You can't imagine how happy I am at the end of school each day when I can race out the doors and to the library to see if you've answered. And I'm never disappointed. (Well ok. I was disappointed about you not being near Houghton for the tour but that's different.) I know people must have said this a hundred times or more but thanks a million

  16. April says:

    Hi Gail,

    Just dropping in to say I've missed being active in the comments section of your blog! I had a baby a few weeks ago and it's amazing how much time the little guy takes up. But now that he's starting to develop a somewhat predictable routine, I'm hoping I'll be able to swing by here more often.

    PS: I liked your little spices mystery. 🙂

  18. gailcarsonlevine says:

    From the website:

    (Just as I suspected, I have been a blond this whole time:oops: Sorry)

    However, since I'm not a blogger, I have to post here. I wasn't going to bother you by writing on the website any more but…well, I'm stuck…and you always have SUCH good advice…well, sorry, but I can't help it – I need your help!

    You see, I'm only fifteen, but my story centers on modern-day adults. They have to be adults,for plot reasons. However, this means that have to work and do other adult things. Obviously, I've never been an accountant, so I can't say what goes on during work, and that word (work) is beginning to make me cringe because I've used it so many times! I read your post about writing things you've never done, and it helped a little, but I'm still having a dose of trouble with this! It's a book centered on adults, but it's written by me, a kid, and it shows. Any help?

    Oh, one more question (I really should have included this in my last question! Sorry!): Is using quotation marks bad? As you can tell, I like using them. In my two stories, especially the children's book narrated by a six-year-old girl,I use them a lot when I have bits of information that don't fit into a normal sentence or into the paragraph. Some examples are: (after all, this IS Sunny we're talking about!) or (I'm not sure why grownups do that!) or (he would have gone himself if it weren't for the fact that his hair would be a dead giveaway). But I've never read a book that uses quotation marks. Are they bad or against the rules? How do you get around using them when you need them?
    Emma

  19. gailcarsonlevine says:

    Emma–This adult thing may be hard. I suggest that you see if you can observe a work setting or several work settings, maybe where relatives work, maybe interview people on their lunch breaks if they'll let you, and be very quiet the rest of the time to encourage people to forget you're there. Thoughts from other blog readers?

    I think you mean parentheses, not quotation marks. I don't know of any rule against them, but over use of anything is usually to be avoided.

  22. April says:

    Gail, thank you! 🙂

    Emma, don't be afraid to write about what you don't know. At the least it'll give you research (by observing and interviewing, like the others have said) and writing practice, even if the story ends up in a drawer. On the other hand, maybe as you gain experience in life you can go back to this story and revise it so that it doesn't sound like it's written by a kid. No writing is wasted, even if it's never published.

  23. April says:

    Also, Emma, you don't have to have a Blogger account to comment here. The drop-down menu by "Post Comment" has a few options. If none of them work for you, you can always make a Blogger account… it's free. If you have a Gmail/Google account then you already have access to Blogger (they're linked).

  24. Brianna says:

    Gail– I totally agree with you, although there is one exception: the word 'said'. There are so many writers who use words other than said, as in descriptive words, which is great if you're writing for a teacher. But if you're writing to get published or even just to write, said is a good, hard-working word. The book 'Spilling Ink' by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter has a great chapter on that, as does Writing Magic!
    Oh yes– I'm homeschooled, and for my half credit of creative writing this year, I'm using Writing Magic as my one of my textbooks! How cool is that?!?!
    As Chicory said, (see? If I had used a word such as 'acknowledged', 'divulged', or 'opined', it would have meant the same thing. At least you think it might. You may need to go get a dictionary. That's why 'said' is so important. It's like filer– it flies under the radar. Sorry. i'll get back to the subject Chicory had 'IMPLIED'…) I was surprised by the villain in Tale of Two Castles, but not particularly. I think it was cool (sorry, for lack of a better word, 'cool' will stand in) that there were so many characters that could be the villain. So maybe it was a bit of a twist. 🙂

  25. Melissa says:

    Anyone who thinks they can help-
    I don't really know how to word this but here goes. For 8th grade English we were given an assignment of writing a narrative. We could make it up or base it off of life experiences. The minimum is two pages and the maximum is five. I for one am not telling my teacher anything about my life. So I'm going to make something up. I can come up with and idea quite easily. My problem is how to confine a whole story within 2-5 pages. My teacher said she won't grade thirty kids' twenty page papers. (I'm probably the only one who would want to) I can understand that but I still don't know what to do. Whenever we do our morning writing she has us write for around fifteen minutes. I have no trouble at all writing. I have trouble stopping. All my peers may find it easy to write a short story in fifteen minutes but I never can. So all my stories are open-ended and unfinished. To me, short stories seem plotless and boring. Don't get me wrong-I love childrens books but short stories seem entirely different. I can't seem to introduce a character, create a problem, have it solved and finish it all in less than ten pages. The introduction alone takes at least a page. How can I have the main part of the story take up only three pages at most? Now I'm repeating myself…But you can see my dilemma right? The paper isn't due until sometime in November I think so I have quite a while but the sooner I get started on it the better. Suggestions anyone?

  26. melissajm says:

    Melissa:

    Here's some things I've learned about writing flash fiction (stories of < 1,000 words) that might help:

    Pick something with a single plot (no subplots), a short time frame, and a limited # of characters (3 often works well.)

    Summarize your story in no more than 2-3 sentences. (Like an entry in TV guide)

    Write the story without trying too hard to stay in the limit.

    Go back and "distill" it. Cut out or combine any scenes that don't serve at least 2 purposes. (Ex, instead of a scene to introduce Bob, a janitor, a scene to show that he loves Becky, and a scene describing the Land of the Giants, where the both live, combine then into something like "Bob shimmied down the table leg and stuffed a soiled napkin the size of a bedspread into his cleanup bag. He heard a giggle-a normal, human giggle- turned, and felt a fiery blush creep up his neck. Becky was watching, and here he was, up to his elbows in congealed roc grease."

    (Probably not the greatest example, but you get the idea.)

    Go through the story again, line by line, word by word. Look for shorter ways to get your point across. Instead of "He climbed up the towering stone staircase," would "He scaled the granite staircase" do the trick?
    Take out words like "very," "extremely," and "sort of." They don't add much.

    Hope this helps, and good luck with your assignment!

  27. Brianna says:

    @melissajm, that's great! I also have had trouble with writing short stories. I read Gail's post on it, but this is very helpful! Thanks.
    Also, Melissa, if an introduction takes one page, and say the conclusion takes another, you have 3 pages in between to cram with story. Have you ever written a short skit, or sketch? It's a bit like that. You have to condense it WAAAAYY down, filling in the little bits with actions. It's like a roller coaster– you start with the introduction, instigating event, then climax, then conclusion. You can even start in the middle of the action, revealing little bits of the story as you go along. Hope that helped!

  28. gailcarsonlevine says:

    From the website:

    Gail: good advice, I'll see if I can do that.

    Melissa: it's ABOUT adults, but I'm not very confident that it's high-quality enough to be FOR them.

    Melissajm: I've never heard of take your child to work day, but I probably could volunteer! And yes, unfortunately, one of them does have to be an accountant.

    April: so true – all of it! I guess I put a lot of pressure on myself sometimes to make my story perfect, whether or not it will ever end up published. And thank you for pointing out the drop-down menu. Believe it or not, none of those is installed on my computer, but I'll work on my dad to let me make one. And I didn't know that it's free to make a blog – good to know!

    Thank you all so much for your words of wisdom!!!:-D
    Emma

  30. melissajm says:

    Brianna, you're welcome!

    I'm puzzled about something. Why would a story need a separate introduction? Why not just jump right into the story?

    Oh, I forgot to mention Drabbles! A Drabble is a story of exactly 100 words. They're great practice for learning how to fit a whole story into a small space. (And if you're stuck on a bigger project, writing Drabbles can "kickstart your brain." ;))

  31. Lizzy says:

    Hello
    I would first love to say that i LOVE all your work! Reading the books you have written make me feel really happy, no matter how many years go by, my love for those books never dies down. I have read Ella Enchanted at the least six times (and the movie countless times) I have actually started to collect the Ella Enchanted book, so far i have 4 copies. I think that all the covers are different, but i have 1 left to get.
    I do have a question or two though. If you had started writing Ella Enchanted today instead of a couple years ago, how different would you think the story would turn out. Do you think that it would turn out as a totally different story, or would it stay around the same? I have always wondered if one fate of time in the book if something else happened if the book would turn out very different. I have one more Question: When writing a book, have you ever started on a idea that you were so excited about but 20 pages later you wish their was one this that you could have changed at the beginning but that it would change the whole course of the story. I am in that tight spot, i started writing about a 13 year old but as i continued the story i realized that the events i want to come would be much better if she was a couple years older. But if i change it now, i would have to change most of the story. The mind between a 13 year old and a, say, 16 year old are much different and live different lives. Should i change it? Should i continue so far in the story until she is around 16? Have any advise?
    Thank you for your time, and keep on writing 🙂

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