How to Write a Mystery

"Begin at the beginning," the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, "and go on until you get to the end. Then stop." Good advice for anyone writing a first mystery, and it's equally good advice for the first column in the new mystery section of Writer On Line.  
 
The concept of mystery began early in man's experience. When the first person looked around and wondered, "Where did I come from?" and "Why am I here?" mankind faced the first -- and longest lasting -- mysteries. 
  
Writers in antiquity scribbled mystery stories long before the Western Europeans came along and the challenges of the genre intrigued writers like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Although earlier Americans produced mystery stories, the New World first got into the detective novel act when Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories of horror and what he called "ratiocination."  
  
However, there's not much mystery about how to begin to write mysteries. Begin by reading. It's vitally important for the aspiring author to become familiar with the work of those who have gone before. 
  
Mystery Genre  
The mystery genre is essentially divided into two parts: Professional detective and amateur detective novels. These can be carved into as subdivisions as you care to invent (one self-styled expert claims as many as 32), but the usual subcategories are the Private Detective (or PI), Classic Whodunit, Cozy or Traditional, Amateur Detective, Suspense, Police Procedural, Romantic Suspense, Thriller, and Historical Suspense. True crime fiction and nonfiction are often included in the mystery classification. 
  
As an aspiring mystery storyteller, read each of these to compare them in terms of style, construction and presentation, and to discover your preferences. "Write what you know" should be "write what excites you." Research makes experts of us all, but stories come alive when the author is intrigued by the subject. 
  
Read at least one classic and one contemporary novelist in each category, and read them twice. First for fun, then for analysis. Compare similarities and search out differences in style, language, presentation. Read the books you don't like; you'll learn from them as well. Look for tight plot construction, suspense, surprise and reversals. These are the "comfort food" of the literary world: good triumphs over evil and justice prevails.  
  
In the police procedural, a policeman protagonist leads the investigation. Read Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" or Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Peter Lovesay's newest, Upon a Dark Night, is a contemporary sample.  
  
The Classic Whodunit, a puzzle mystery whose sleuth may or may not be a professional crime fighter, had its heyday in the early part of this century. Dorothy Sayers' Murder Must Advertise is the classic of choice, then Barbara D'Amato's The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery. 
  
Agatha Christie leads the Cozy, also called "traditional" authors, and the reader who plows through her books (more than 90 in all) will have a good idea of how this subgenre works. Settings are genteel, murders present intricate problems, and the sleuth is usually a gentle soul who understands human nature. Murder at the Vicarage is the classic "cozy" mystery. Carolyn Hart's The Christie Caper is perfect to bring you up to date in this area. 

Amateur Detective novels include Christie's Miss Marple series and Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books. Read Sayers' The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, then go modern with M.D. Lake's Midsummer Malice.  
  
Suspense presents its own writing challenges. Authors like Mary Higgins Clark and Dean Koontz produce these by the dozen. Read Anne Rivers Siddons' The House Next Door. For your classic sample, you can't beat Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. 
  
For good perspective on Romantic Suspense begin with the original Gothic, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Mysteries of Winterthurn is contemporary writer Joyce Carol Oates' offering, or try the comic and unusual Slow Dancing with the Angel of Death by Helen Chappell. 
  
The historical subgenre could be divided again several times, but for an overview read Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad of Frankie Silver and She Walks These Hills or Maureen Jennings' Except the Dying. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier surpasses even the Brontes in popularity. 
  
Humorous murder mysteries never laugh at murder but their spoofs of people and situations are heart-lifting. Judith Viorst's Murdering Mr. Monte and Sharyn McCrumb's Missing Susan are great fun. 

Plot and Character   
Now it's time to get down to business. Take your favorite specimen and look at the two most important features: plot and character. In the mystery, plot comes first. It is tightly constructed and its one predictable feature is its unpredictability. Actually, the mystery has two plots: What looks like it happened and what really happened. Begin your analysis by diagramming the structure of the story: What is the initial problem? How does the protagonist react? What does that cause?  
  
Study major scenes to figure out why the author made the choices he or she made. Come up with other options. Find the plot points -- where the story suddenly takes another turn -- and study the methods the author used to get to them and to present them. Construct a plot line and a time line. Record subplots and notice how the author built them into the story. 
  
List characters, their roles and backgrounds. What makes them seem real to you? What makes you care? Ferret out the motivation for their actions from the story and their backstories and note how they are interwoven.  
  
Classic Shortcut 
Or you can take a classic shortcut, otherwise known as the Iowa Workshop Method. Type out the entire book. Every word. You are not violating anyone's copyright since you will never attempt to publish any part of it, but you will learn more than you ever dreamed possible. It will take a long time, but not as long as it will take you to reinvent the wheel as you struggle blindly through your first draft. You needn't choose a long book, but writing it down from start to finish will reveal subtleties you won't find any other way.  
  
Writing a book is hard work. Learning to do it right is even harder. Sure, you can just sit down and write and with a certain amount of luck, you can turn out a credible product. But anything worth doing -- anything you will spend large amounts of time, thought and energy on -- is worth doing well. Writing a book is comparable to brain surgery: Any surgeon could pick up the instruments and do the job, but it's the one who has studied the intricacies and workings of the brain who will enjoy the most success.  

Other titles:  
Police Procedurals: 
The Last Best Hope (Ed McBain) 
Good Cop, Bad Cop (Barbara D'Amato) 

The Classic Whodunnit: 
Chinese Orange Mystery (Ellery Queen) 
Fare Play (Marian Larch Series)  (Barbara Paul) 

Cozies...or Traditional Mysteries: 
ABC Murders (Agatha Christie) 
Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie) 
Dead Men Don't Dance (Margaret Chittenden) 
Catering to Nobody (Diane Mott Davidson) 

Suspense: 
A Cry in the Night (Mary Higgins Clark) 
Remember Me  (Mary Higgins Clark) 
  
 

  -- ST 
 (copyright 1998 Sunnye Tiedemann) 

Sunnye Tiedemann, who teaches writing in her community and on AOL, writes short mysteries and is the national newsletter editor for Sisters In Crime. She is working on her first mystery novel.