
Write Plots for Mystery Books & Scripts
For over 35 years, I’ve crafted mystery plots with clues on short notice. I created MYSTERY BONES diagrams to track character details, ensure no loose ends, and organize clues and red herrings. Analyzing Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and other fair play mystery authors and experimenting extensively with diagramming, I developed a system to simplify and clarify the plot creation process.

A Mystery Structure has Seven Parts
1. What happens? THE CRIME
2. Who is involved? THE CHARACTERS
3. Why did it happen? THE MOTIVE
4. How did it happen? THE METHOD or MEANS
5. When did it happen? THE OPPORTUNITY
6. Where did it happen? THE CRIME SCENE
7. What is the solution? THE CLUES

Flooded by Ideas?
You can start at any one of the seven parts.
Just PICK ONE
Any one of them can inspire your writing and spark excitement. If you are excited about what you are writing, then your readers will feel excited reading what you wrote.
Many considerations will arise as you write, but tackling them all at once can be overwhelming and confusing.

One Step at a Time
Take the process step-by-step to stay focused. Your decisions will make your mystery unique. There’s no set order to begin since plotting isn’t linear; use diagrams to track the story.
Setting, characters, motives, and crime are interconnected.
Writing for live entertainment has narrower parameters than for books or films.

Got an Idea?
What happens – an overview of a situation?
Who is involved – which types of character?
Why did it happen – a motive that makes you mad?
How it happened – intrigued by a murder method?
When -which era &time of day?
Where – historic, futuristic or exotic locations?
The Clues – in love with strategy and puzzles?

Mysteries Can Go Anywhere
Mysteries are flexible, fitting any situation. For interactive scripts, know your constraints up front to avoid adjustments later. For books, you have more freedom but still need a clear endpoint. Build a strong infrastructure to support all twists. The Mystery Bones Diagrams helps track your plot and allow you to follow promising new ideas within reason. If an idea requires major changes, it might be a different story altogether.

Truth & Misdirection
One story is What Appeared to Happen, and the second story, which everyone is trying to figure out, is What Really Happened.
What Happened is the story. What Appeared to Happen makes it a mystery.
It’s how you tell it that matters; when you reveal crucial information.

Joseph Hansen
“Don’t just say it’s raining – make us feel the sodden weight of a wall of water driven by winds at sixty miles an hour.”
Walter Mosley
“If you want to write believable fiction, you will have to cross over the line of your self-restraint and revel in the words and ideas that you would never express in your everyday life.“

Learn from Others
P.D. James
“With Agatha Christie ingenuity of plot was paramount – no one looked for subtlety of characterization, motivation, good writing. It was rather like a literary card trick. Today we’ve moved closer to the mainstream novel, but nevertheless we need plot.”
Frank Herbert
“When a man lies about an inconsequential thing, then that thing is not inconsequential.”
Alfred Hitchcock
“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
Oscar Wilde
“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.“

Calling all mystery writers!
Diagram your plot to completion. Supercharge your writing time with renewed excitement.
Become a Beta Tester
Sign up for ‘Random Emails’ to receive notifications. Minimum emails. Maximum inspiration.
Become a VIP Beta Tester (Early 2025)
- Test premium content before anyone else
- Shape the course with your valuable feedback
- Enjoy special Beta pricing – FREE for the first round of Beta Testers
Get Mystery-Writing Intelligence
- Writing ideas & inspirations: Your Hero Just Found a Servered Head – Plot Twist: It’s Still Talking.
- Event planning tips
I am trying to write a mystery book but it is difficult what are some tips and by the way its not a murder its a theft. Thanks.
Hello Mystery Lover!
A mystery has two components; ‘what actually happened’ and ‘what appeared to have happened’. You tell the story of ‘what appeared to have happened’ and your detective or protagonist figures out ‘what actually happened’. This is often accomplished by telling the story out of chronological sequence. Know what actually happened before you start, break it down into pieces and then toss them out there for your sleuth to find and put back together.
A mystery doesn’t have to be a murder, in fact it doesn’t even have to be a crime. A ‘whodunnit’ simply means that an unknown person performed an action – no matter if the action is a murder, a theft, or the baking of a cake. Basically you want to have your theft have the motive, the method and the opportunity (The Mystery Bones) to have committed the theft and then create the clues to prove that he had, indeed, each of those three things. You will also need to create clues to show that other people also had one or two of the Bones (motive, method or opportunity) otherwise there is nothing to solve. You can get a bit of help with the clues here.
Put the crime, or a piece of intrigue leading up to the crime, at the beginning of the story. You want to grab the reader and have them asking questions right away. Keep the action going right up until the end. ‘Give hope. Take hope away. Give hope. Take hope away.’ Let your detective make wrong assumptions and then figure out what a clue really means at the last minute. If you enjoy writing your mystery then others will enjoy reading it.