What Happened? THE CRIME
Where do you get your ideas from …
What do I do with the dirt? ORGANIZE IT INTO A PLOT
This is a compliation chart of
all THE MYSTERY BONES
charts I use to plot a mystery. The crime in the form of the victim sits in
the centre of the circle.
When all of the spaces have been filled in on the chart above, your mystery will be completely laid out. All you have to do is write it. You will know exactly what to write because you have done all your re-writes and plot juggling on the charts.
First decide on a crime you
feel passionate about.
What really pisses you off?
What issue makes you angry?
Who is behind that?
That person, or a person who represents the issue that makes you angry,
that person is your villain.
The Crime comes from an Obstacle to the Villain’s Desire.
Who or what is stopping them from having what they want.
What do they need to do to remove the obstacle from their path and reach their desire?
What is their MOTIVE?
HOW TO WRITE MYSTERIES
The Book CLUE TRAIL
THE CRIME
THE CHARACTERS
MOTIVE, METHOD, OPPORTUNITY
THE CRIME SCENE
CLUES & EVIDENCE
CONSULTATIONS
HOME
So cool, I wrote a small novel w/out this outline, got help for it at great cost, that was not all that helpful, and see the reader has expectations . . .
I marvel at mysteries or detective novels I read, all the BIG names, and how dense and convoluted they are!
It’d be helpful to put the actual titles or actions/pieces, in those boxes in your diagram above, to plot the plot, but maybe that’s proprietary to you?!
Hi Jacques – thank you for your comment. I try to strike a balance between giving lots of information away so that writers can get help from the website and so that they know that I know what I am talking about. If people find the free information useful I hope that they see buying my book CLUETRAIL or booking a consultation as a good investment. All the diagrams are labelled in the book and there is tons of instruction on creating clues and hiding them. I like creating plots for mysteries where people have everything they need to solve the mystery and if you ware writing one of those types of mysteries then my book is very useful.
To be clear, my expertise is in plotting rather than writing. I can help people put together a tight plot but whether it is written clearly and cleanly or dense and convoluted is up to the writer and editors. If you want to make sure your plot has no loose ends or extra information then I am your expert. I believe in diagramming rather than outlining. This is basically the book I wanted to read when I was starting to do mystery entertainment and needed to come up with a variety of plots quickly.