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!