elements of mystery essay

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Mystery in Literature

Mystery in literature is a genre that captivates readers with its enigmatic narratives, drawing them into intricate puzzles and suspenseful plots.

Introduction: Mystery in Literature

Table of Contents

Rooted in the exploration of the unknown and the unraveling of secrets, mystery literature encompasses a diverse range of subgenres, from classic whodunits to contemporary psychological thrillers.

Central to this genre is the art of storytelling that masterfully conceals and reveals, inviting readers to join protagonists in deciphering clues and navigating unforeseen twists. The allure of mystery lies not only in the resolution of its central enigma but also in the intellectual engagement it offers, making it a timeless and enduring facet of literary exploration.

Mystery in Literature: Major British and American Mysteries

Mystery and Literary Theories

• Critique: Formalism emphasizes the inherent structures within a literary work, focusing on elements such as plot, character, and setting. In mystery, attention to plot structure, the arrangement of clues, and character development is crucial. Formalist analysis can highlight how these elements contribute to the overall effectiveness of the mystery narrative.
• Critique: Structuralism delves into the underlying structures governing language and culture. In mystery literature, this perspective may examine recurring patterns in detective narratives, the binary oppositions between good and evil, and the symbolic use of clues as linguistic signs within the narrative structure.
• Critique: Psychoanalytic criticism explores the psychological dimensions of characters and their motivations. In mysteries, characters’ hidden desires, fears, and the symbolic nature of the central mystery can be analyzed through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. For example, the detective’s pursuit of truth may be seen as a manifestation of the human desire for resolution and order.
• Critique: Feminist criticism of mystery in literature scrutinizes the representation of gender roles, power dynamics, and the portrayal of female characters. It may question the prevalence of certain stereotypes and the treatment of women within the genre, examining how these aspects reflect or challenge societal norms.
• Critique: Postcolonial criticism investigates how mystery narratives engage with colonial histories, cultural identities, and power structures. It may analyze how detective fiction set in colonial or postcolonial contexts reflects or challenges colonial narratives and explores the impact of colonialism on marginalized communities.
• Critique: Reader-response criticism focuses on the active role of the reader in constructing meaning. In mystery in literature, this perspective can explore how readers engage with clues, make predictions, and construct their interpretations of the central mystery. The genre’s interactive nature with readers becomes a crucial aspect of analysis.
• Critique: Marxist criticism examines social and economic aspects within literature. In mysteries, this perspective may analyze how economic disparities, class struggles, and societal tensions are reflected in the portrayal of crime, investigations, and the resolution of mysteries.
• Critique: Postmodernism in mystery literature may focus on the genre’s self-awareness, metafictional elements, and the blurring of traditional narrative boundaries. The genre’s exploration of fragmented narratives, unreliable narrators, and the deconstruction of conventional storytelling can be central to a postmodern critique.

By applying these various literary theories, critics can offer diverse perspectives on the mystery genre, uncovering hidden meanings, cultural implications, and the genre’s role in reflecting and shaping societal ideologies.

Mystery: Steps to Write It

Mystery: Suggested Readings

• Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. HarperCollins, 1934.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Penguin Classics, 1892.
• Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1939.
• Atkinson, Kate. Case Histories. Little, Brown and Company, 2004.
• Lehane, Dennis. Mystic River. William Morrow, 2001.
• Hawkins, Paula. The Girl on the Train. Riverhead Books, 2015.
• Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2005.
• Penzler, Otto, editor. The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries . Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2011.
• Hillerman, Tony, editor. The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories . Oxford University Press, 1996.

Read more on Literary Devices below:

• Comic Devices in English Literature
• Comic Genre in Literature
• Myth: A Literary Device and Genre
• Myth in Literature

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How to Write a Mystery Story: 12 Powerful Writing Tips

Mystery stories have a unique allure, drawing readers into a world of crime, suspense, false clues, secrets, and intrigue. If it’s done well, they will imagine themselves in the sleuth’s footsteps, shrouded in a cloak of apprehension, unraveling the enigmatic clues that lead to a spine-tingling revelation.

But what makes a mystery story truly engaging, and how can you write one that will keep your readers guessing until the very end?

In this guide, we’ll share 12 powerful mystery writing tips that will show you how to write a mystery novel, transforming your storytelling process and leaving your readers eager to turn the pages, desperate to uncover the truth.

What Makes a Mystery Story?

Mystery is a genre that revolves around a puzzle that needs to be solved. This question can be a crime, but it can also be another type of mystery, such as a supernatural occurrence or a missing person.

These stories contain a central character who takes on the responsibility of unraveling the mystery and uncovering the truth. Readers are invited to follow the investigator’s thought processes, reasoning, and fact-finding methods as they diligently pursue leads, analyze evidence, and piece together the puzzle’s fragments.

To heighten the narrative tension, mystery stories usually employ elements of conflict , suspense and surprise. Authors reveal clues and evidence gradually, as well as introduce red herrings—misleading details or plot twists meant to divert attention away from the real villain or actual solution.

As the story progresses, readers become amateur detectives themselves, actively participating in the investigation by piecing together clues, speculating on motives, and attempting to solve the mystery before the characters do.

As such, this genre harnesses the innate human fascination with the unknown, the uncanny, and the insatiable curiosity to unearth hidden truths.

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9 Types of Mystery Stories

Mystery stories come in various subgenres, each with its own unique elements and characteristics. Here are some of the different subgenres, along with descriptions of each.

1. Cozy Mystery

Cozy mysteries are known for their light-hearted and non-violent approach to crime-solving. They typically feature amateur detectives, often in a small-town or village setting, who solve crimes with wit, charm, and the help of their community. These mysteries emphasize the puzzle-solving aspect rather than graphic violence or suspense.

Some popular cozy mystery series include Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow novels, and Leslie Meier’s stories with reporter/investigator Lucy Stone .

2. Hard-Boiled Mystery

These unsentimental mysteries are gritty and realistic, featuring tough, cynical, and morally complex protagonists, often private investigators or police detectives. These stories delve into the darker aspects of crime and society, with a focus on urban settings, violence, moral ambiguity, and the bending of rules to solve cases.

Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade series, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories, and Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer books represent this subgenre with aplomb.

3. Police Procedural

Police procedurals offer an in-depth look into the workings of law enforcement agencies. These stories emphasize the step-by-step investigation process, including interviews, forensic analysis, and legal procedures. Authors often research and accurately depict police work and criminal justice systems.

Here you will find Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta forensic pathologist novels, and Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.

4. Legal Mystery

This mystery type is centered on lawyers, prosecutors, or legal professionals who solve mysteries within the context of the courtroom or legal proceedings. These stories often involve complex legal dilemmas, courtroom drama, and ethical quandaries.

The most famous contributor to this subgenre is John Grisham, ably accompanied by Scott Turow, Steve Martini, and Richard North Patterson.

5. Medical Mystery

These science-focussed mysteries involve the investigation of perplexing medical cases, diseases, or outbreaks, often featuring healthcare professionals, medical detectives, or amateur sleuths who strive to uncover the underlying medical cause, solve medical puzzles, or prevent potential health crises.

Almost all Robin Cook and Michael Palmer books fall into this category, together with Leonard Goldberg’s Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series and Michael Crichton’s ” The Andromeda Strain”.

6. Historical Mystery

Historical mysteries are set in the past, often featuring a historical period, event, or figure as a backdrop. These stories provide readers with a sense of time and place while incorporating historical details and mysteries that fit within the chosen era.

In this subgenre, you will find Anne Perry’s Thomas Pitt novels situated in Victorian-era London, C.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series from the Tudor era, and Lindsey Davis’s Falco series set in ancient Rome.

7. Supernatural Mystery

Paranormal or supernatural mysteries incorporate elements of the paranormal, such as ghosts, vampires, or supernatural phenomena, into the mystery plot. These stories often blur the lines between the natural and the supernatural, creating an eerie and mysterious atmosphere and an unusual mystery that requires substantial out-of-the-box thinking to solve.

Some of the most famous authors include Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen King.

8. Whodunit Mystery

Whodunit mysteries, also known as classic or traditional mysteries, emphasize the puzzle aspect of the story. The central question is “Who committed the crime?” Readers are presented with clues and red herrings, and they are encouraged to solve the mystery alongside the investigator. The crime is usually a murder, and the protagonist is a detective who is trying to solve the case.

Here the classics are Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books, and the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers.

9. Psychological Mystery

Psychological thrillers, also often called psychological mysteries, blend elements of mystery and suspense with a focus on the psychological and emotional aspects of the characters. These stories usually involve unreliable narrators, mind games, and the exploration of the human psyche.

These books have been particularly popular since the turn of the century and include “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins, and classics like “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith.

How to Write a Mystery Story

If you feel motivated to write your own mystery story but you feel like you need some guidance on the practical aspects of constructing one, this section provides a step-by-step guide on the art and craft of writing a mystery novel that will keep your readers eagerly turning the pages. So, let’s get started.

Step 1: Understand the Genre

By immersing yourself in the genre, you’ll become familiar with its conventions. This knowledge helps you create a story that resonates with readers who appreciate the specific characteristics of mysteries.

From cozy to supernatural mysteries, explore the subgenres so that you can choose the one that aligns with your writing style and interests. Knowing the nuances of each subgenre helps you tailor your story effectively.

While reading, analyze the structure of the novels. Identify common tropes and plot devices used in the genre. Consider how authors introduce clues, red herrings, and character motivations.

Take notes on what works well in the novels you enjoy. Pay attention to character development, pacing, dialogue, and how authors handle suspense and revelations.

Step 2: Craft a Mystery

While this step looks impossibly huge, you don’t have to work out all the details here. You can fill in much of it in later steps, so don’t feel overwhelmed.

But at least start by clearly defining the central mystery or crime that drives your story. This is the core puzzle that your protagonist will aim to solve. The mystery can be almost anything: murder, theft, missing persons, kidnapping, identity theft, sabotage, blackmail, cybercrime, a political conspiracy, a secret society/cult, or some other unexplained phenomenon.

Consider your own interests and passions. Writing about a mystery that fascinates you will make the storytelling process more enjoyable and authentic.

Real-life events, news stories, or historical incidents can serve as inspiration for your story. Adapt these events and add fictional elements to create a compelling narrative.

Use the “what if” technique to brainstorm potential mysteries. Start with a simple question like “What if a famous painting went missing?” or “What if a small-town librarian discovered an old diary with hidden secrets?”

Step 3: Develop a Backstory

Every crime or action to be investigated should have a motive. Why did the perpetrator commit it? The motive should be logical and compelling, providing a strong reason for the actions taken. Some possible motivations include the following:

• Greed: Greed or financial gain are powerful motivators for crimes like theft, embezzlement, fraud, and murder.
• Revenge: Revenge and personal vendettas can lead to crimes such as murder, blackmail, or acts of sabotage.
• Envy: Jealousy can drive individuals to commit stalking, harassment, or even violence against those perceived as rivals.
• Desperation: Dire circumstances like financial ruin, addiction, or a desperate need to protect loved ones may lead to criminal actions as a last resort.
• Power and Control: A desire for dominance and control over others can motivate crimes like kidnapping, human trafficking, or abusive behavior.
• Political or Ideological Beliefs: Some characters may commit crimes in the name of political or ideological beliefs, leading to acts of terrorism, espionage, or subversion.
• Love and Passion: Romantic or passionate relationships can lead to crimes of passion, including murder or acts of violence committed in the heat of the moment.
• Curiosity and Experimentation: Some mysteries may stem from characters’ curiosity, experimentation, or a desire to test boundaries, leading to unforeseen consequences. Think scientific experiment gone wrong, exploring forbidden areas, opening sealed containers, dabbling in occult rituals, AI experimentation, dark web exploration, etc.

Together with constructing a reason why the mysterious event happened, start thinking of the relationships your story will have to include to make sense of this reason. While you can develop your characters in depth later, describe the family dynamics, friendships, rivalries, or past connections that may have contributed to the events.

Step 4: Establish Clear Stakes

Define what’s at stake in the story. Why is solving the mystery important? What consequences will result if it remains unsolved?

Stakes give your protagonist a compelling motive to investigate the mystery. They also create tension and suspense, as characters race against time to unravel the mystery and prevent negative consequences. In short, they make readers care about the outcome.

The most immediate and high-stakes consequence of failing to solve a mystery is life or death. But such a failure can also lead to imprisonment, reputational damage, financial ruin, loss of valuable artifacts or knowledge, trauma, guilt, or danger to a community or political system.

Step 5: Create a Protagonist

Your detective or main character serves as the driving force behind the narrative, and their qualities, quirks, and motivations can greatly influence the reader’s engagement. Include the following in their profile:

• Characteristics: Consider unique physical traits, personality quirks, or habits that set your detective or protagonist apart from the typical investigator.
• Motivations: While you can include the stakes of investigative failures here, also describe personal or ethical reasons why your character wants or needs to solve the mystery.
• Backstory: Explore their past experiences, traumas, successes, and failures. Understanding their history will help you portray their motivations and vulnerabilities effectively.
• Flaws and Weaknesses: Introduce character flaws, weaknesses, or personal challenges that your detective or protagonist must overcome. Weaknesses that relate to the challenges they will confront are particularly appealing.
• Unique Skills or Expertise: If there is a particular profession, hobby, or talent that make your character well-suited for solving mysteries, describe them here.
• Character Growth Arc: Consider how your protagonist’s experiences throughout the story will shape them and lead to personal development.

Step 6: Create Supporting Characters

Populate your story with a cast of diverse and interesting characters, including potential suspects, witnesses, and allies for your investigator. Each character should have their own motives, secrets, and function in the story.

The allies will be people with unique skills, knowledge, or expertise that complement the protagonist’s abilities. They should have their own motivations for helping with the investigation. To make it interesting, you can also develop complex relationships between the protagonist and their aids in the form of conflicts or tensions that arise as the investigation progresses.

The potential suspects can be either heroes or villains, but should, by definition, not be the main character responsible for the crime or mystery. Consider these elements of suspects:

• Motives: Give each suspect a clear and distinctive motive for being involved in the mystery. These motives should be believable and provide a plausible reason for their potential involvement in the event.
• Backstories: Explore their personal histories and experiences to understand what drives them and what secrets they may be hiding.
• Alibis: Establish alibis for your suspects that can be investigated and verified by your protagonist. This will help you to construct clues and red herrings later.
• Relationships: Consider the relationships between suspects. Do they have alliances, rivalries, or conflicts with each other? These dynamics can create additional layers of intrigue.

Step 7: Build a Setting

Building a rich story setting is essential for immersing readers in your mystery and enhancing the overall atmosphere and believability of your narrative. A setting can be so suitable and well developed that it almost serves as another character.

Draw inspiration from real places, events, or settings that align particularly well with your narrative. For example, a snowed-in Victorian Mansion is a good place for a paranormal investigator to investigate a haunting, since they cannot simply leave when events become too scary.

Sherlock Holmes did this particularly well in his Arthur Conan Doyle stories, where the foggy and atmospheric streets of Victorian-era London with their ancient alleyways, echoing footfalls, and glimpses of silhouettes contribute to the sense of menace and intrigue in the stories.

Alternatively, you can pick a setting that contrasts with your mystery in a way that is memorable in some way. In “Death on the Nile,” for example, Agatha Christie transports readers to the beautiful, exotic, and romantic setting of a luxurious riverboat on Egypt’s Nile River, where a murder mystery soon develops.

Engage readers’ senses by describing sights, sounds, smells, textures, and even tastes that characterize the environment.

Step 8: Craft Clues and Red Herrings

Layering clues and red herrings is a crucial step in crafting a captivating mystery story. Clues propel the investigation forward and guide readers closer to the truth, while red herrings are false leads designed to misdirect and create suspense.

Clue vs. Red Herring

If a detective finds a hidden compartment in a suspect’s desk containing a photograph of the victim and an old love letter, it can either be a clue or a red herring, as follows:

Clue: The suspect had a romantic relationship with the victim, potentially leading to a motive for the murder.

Red Herring: The photograph and love letter were planted by someone else to frame the suspect, diverting attention from the real culprit.

Crafting Clues and Red Herrings

To craft good clues and red herrings, keep these factors in mind:

• Core Clues: Identify the core clues that are essential for solving the mystery. These are the pieces of information that, when combined, lead to the ultimate solution. These clues should be logically connected and scattered throughout the story to help readers solve the mystery, but avoid introducing them too early.
• Red Herring Opportunities: Look for opportunities to introduce distractions, misdirection’s, or false leads that divert the protagonist and reader away from the true solution. Avoid using more than two of three simultaneously, as readers will then not notice them.
• Character Motives: Consider the motives of characters, including potential suspects, witnesses, and allies. What reasons might they have to provide false information or create deceptive situations? Align red herrings with character motivations.
• Progressive Revelation: Start with minor or subtle clue hints and progressively escalate to more significant revelations. This builds suspense and maintains reader interest.
• Character Involvement: Involve characters actively in the discovery of clues and red herrings. Allow them to interpret and react to the information they encounter, deepening their engagement in the mystery.
• Balanced Revelations: Ensure that genuine clues and red herrings are revealed in a balanced manner. Avoid having a long stretch of the story with only one type of revelation. Mix genuine progress with moments of misdirection.
• Seamless Integration: Incorporate both types of lead naturally into the narrative. They should arise from character interactions, evidence, dialogue, or the environment. Avoid making them too obvious or contrived.
• Clue Variety: Use different types of clues and red herrings to keep the mystery engaging. These can include physical evidence (e.g., a bloodstained shirt), verbal hints (e.g., a cryptic message), or character behavior (e.g., an unexplained absence).
• Foreshadowing: Foreshadow major clues with subtle hints or references earlier in the story. Foreshadowing helps make the ultimate reveal feel earned and logical.

Step 9: Plan the Investigation

Now that you’ve specified the potential suspects, the clues, and the red herrings, you can plan the protagonist’s investigation. Much of it will fall into place with the insertion of the details in the previous steps, so a good approach is to develop a timeline or chronology of events related to the mystery to lead your protagonist down a logical investigative path.

Decide when your protagonist will stumble onto the clues and red herrings. At the beginning, they will probably encounter more false than real clues. Once they eliminate these, the clues will start playing a bigger role in their investigations and their thinking.

Establish how they will encounter the information that feeds into their investigations. Physical evidence, witness testimonies, research, undercover investigations, anonymous tips, characters’ suspicious behavior, coincidentally crossing paths with a suspect, the noticing of patterns, or any other method can work.

Step 10: Build Suspense and Tension

The stakes you identified in a previous step will help you to build tension, but you can also use other methods to convey a sense of urgency that propels the investigation forward. Time constraints, impending danger, or impending consequences can intensify tension and keep readers on edge.

Control the pace at which you reveal information. Gradually disclose clues, red herrings, and key revelations throughout the story. Avoid overloading the reader with too much information at once, as this will lead to wildly exciting periods interspersed with long, tedious parts.

Foreshadowing allows you to hint at future developments and create an atmosphere of anticipation. Drop subtle clues or suggestions about what’s to come, leaving readers eager to see how these hints will play out.

Use the setting and conflicts between the investigators and/or the suspects to build further tension.

Another way to prevent readers from getting bored is to include emotionally charged scenes that resonate. These scenes can involve personal revelations, confrontations, or high-stakes confrontations with suspects or adversaries.

Step 11: Write a Satisfying Resolution

This is the culmination of your mystery story, where the central mystery is solved, loose ends are tied up, and the reader experiences a sense of closure and fulfillment.

The resolution should unveil the truth behind the mystery in a gradual and logical manner. Avoid a sudden, last-minute revelation that feels contrived. Instead, let the protagonist piece together the final clues and deductions.

A good way is to orchestrate a confrontation between the protagonist and the culprit or key players involved in the mystery. This showdown can be emotionally charged and provide the outstanding answers.

Ensure that the resolution is plausible and consistent with the clues and information provided throughout the story. Readers should be able to look back and see how the solution was seeded throughout the narrative.

The resolution should explain why the crime or event occurred, who was responsible, and how it was carried out. Provide a clear understanding of the “whys” and “hows.”

Show the impact of the resolution on the characters, particularly the protagonist. Allow them to experience growth, closure, or transformation as a result of solving the mystery. Address any personal stakes introduced earlier in the story.

If your story has a theme, use the resolution to reflect and reinforce it. The resolution can offer insights or lessons related to justice, morality, or the human condition.

Step 12: Revise Your Story

Read through your story to examine it for plot holes, inconsistencies, contrived plot points, character depth, inappropriate pacing, and the incorrect placement and effectiveness of clues and red herrings.

You should ideally hand copies to friends, relatives, and beta readers who enjoy mystery fiction. Readers who read regularly in this genre will be able to help you identify tropes, clues, and investigative details to improve.

Based on these insights, revise your story until it is ready for professional review.

8 Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Mystery Writing

Even the most experienced mystery writers employ editors to delete their cliches, close their plot holes, and fix their logical inconsistencies. There are certain traps that beckon all mystery writers, so it’s important to be aware of them if you want to write a mystery story that is polished and professional.

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid in mystery writing:

1. Too Easy to Solve

One of the biggest pitfalls that mystery writers can make is making the mystery too easy to solve. If the reader can figure out the solution to the mystery too early on, they will be bored and disappointed.

To avoid this pitfall, make sure that you plant enough clues throughout your story, but don’t make it too easy for the reader to figure out the solution. Use red herrings to misdirect the reader and keep them guessing until the very end.

2. Too Difficult to Solve

While mysteries often involve intricate plots, avoid making them overly convoluted or completely impossible to solve. If the reader can’t figure out at least potential solutions to the mystery, they will be frustrated and confused.

To get around this pitfall, make sure that you give the reader enough information to solve the mystery, but without giving everything away. Leave some of the clues up to the reader to interpret.

3. Too Few Potential Suspects

Readers of mystery stories know that the main villain is usually someone who seems likeable and is a good friend of the protagonist. So, if you have only one or two such characters in your story, it will be far too easy for readers to identify the villain.

Accordingly, make sure that there are enough suspects who are basically likeable, at least until seventy percent through the story.

4. Predictable Ending

A mystery with a predictable ending can be disappointing. Strive for a resolution that surprises and satisfies readers, even if they’ve made some correct guesses along the way.

In other words, even if readers can predict the villain, make sure that the motivations for their crimes or the details of how they committed them are surprising.

5. A Deus Ex Machina Ending

A Deus Ex Machina ending is an ending that is resolved by a sudden, unlikely, or unexplained event that is not foreshadowed or explained in the story. It can make the ending feel unsatisfying, unrealistic, and like a cheat.

You can avoid this by making sure that your ending stems from something that has gone before in the story. You should write the story in such a way that the reader has all the information they need to understand the solution to the mystery.

6. Overuse of Coincidences

Coincidences can sometimes be useful, but not if your protagonist coincidentally stumbles onto most of the clues they need to solve the mystery. Your readers want to believe that the mystery is resolved through your protagonist’s efforts and intelligence.

Consequently, try to minimize coincidences or, if necessary, provide a plausible explanation for them.

7. Neglecting Character Development

Well-developed characters are essential in any genre, but they’re especially important in mysteries. Avoid creating one-dimensional characters solely driven by the plot. Readers should care about what happens to them.

Formulate backstories, motivations, and personalities for the more important characters.

8. Too Many Red Herrings

While red herrings can add intrigue, using too many can overwhelm readers and make the story feel contrived.

Make sure each red herring serves a purpose in the narrative. It has to lead to a potential suspect or a direction for the investigation.

Literary Genre Quiz (Hard)

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we will answer some of the most common questions about the definition and characteristics of mystery stories.

What Defines a Mystery Story?

A mystery story is a narrative that revolves around an enigma, puzzle, or unresolved question, typically involving a crime or unusual event. It engages readers by presenting a central mystery that propels the plot, characters, and readers on a quest for answers, often leading to a successful investigation and resolution of the mysterious event.

What Are the Elements of a Mystery Story?

A mystery story has a central puzzle that needs to be solved, a protagonist who is trying to solve it, clues that are scattered throughout the story, red herrings that mislead the reader, often a climax in which the protagonist and antagonist confront each other, and a resolution in which the mystery is solved.

What Are Popular Mystery Story Examples?

Popular mystery story examples include iconic works like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, featuring the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend Dr. Watson solving complex cases; Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series, renowned for their intricate plots and memorable characters; Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” in which a hard-boiled private detective solves a case involving a priceless statue, greed, and murder; and modern mysteries like Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” celebrated for its psychological twists and unreliable narrators.

Final Thoughts

To write a good mystery story, remember that a compelling central mystery is at the heart of it all. Engage your readers with a tantalizing puzzle that invites them to participate in the unraveling. Develop characters that feel real, with motives that drive their actions and reactions. Master the art of suspense, using carefully placed clues, red herrings, and plot twists to keep your audience guessing.

But above all, never forget that crafting a good mystery is not just about the destination but the journey itself. Embrace the challenge, let your creativity flow, and may your stories be the kind that readers can’t put down!

Yves Lummer

As the founder of BookBird, Yves Lummer has pioneered a thriving community for authors, leading more than 100,000 of them towards their dreams of self-publishing. His expertise in book marketing has become a catalyst for multiple best-sellers, establishing his reputation as an influential figure in the publishing world.

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How to Write a Mystery Story

Last Updated: May 17, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Lucy V. Hay . Lucy V. Hay is a Professional Writer based in London, England. With over 20 years of industry experience, Lucy is an author, script editor, and award-winning blogger who helps other writers through writing workshops, courses, and her blog Bang2Write. Lucy is the producer of two British thrillers, and Bang2Write has appeared in the Top 100 round-ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life and is a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK. She received a B.A. in Scriptwriting for Film & Television from Bournemouth University. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 570,663 times.

A good mystery story will have fascinating characters, exciting suspense, and a puzzle that keeps you turning the pages. But it can be difficult to write an engaging mystery story, especially if you have never tried to before. With the right preparation, brainstorming, and outlining, you can create a page-turning mystery of your own.

Preparing to Write

• When it comes to mystery, one of the key elements is tension and making the story compelling from the very beginning. [1] X Research source
• In mystery stories, your reader does not know who committed the murder until the end of the novel. Mysteries are centered on the intellectual exercise of trying to figure out the motivations behind the crime, or the puzzle.
• Mysteries tend to be written in the first person, while thrillers are often written in the third person and from multiple points of view. In mystery stories, there is usually a slower pace as the hero/detective/main character tries to solve the crime. There are also limited action sequences in mysteries than in thrillers.
• Because mysteries are often slower paced, the characters are usually more in-depth and well rounded in a mystery story than in a thriller.

• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. The 19th-century mystery novel was originally written in serial form, so the story moves forward in measured steps. Much of what became standard in crime fiction was done by Collins in this novel, so it is an engaging and instructive introduction to the genre.
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Chandler is one of the genre’s greatest writers, creating engaging stories about the trials and tribulations of private detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is a tough, cynical, but honest P.I. who becomes entangled in a plot with a General, his daughter, and a blackmailing photographer. Chandler’s work is known for its sharp dialogue, great pacing, and riveting hero, Marlowe. [3] X Research source
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the genre’s most famous detectives, along with his equally famous sleuthing partner Watson, solves a series of mysteries and crimes in this collection of stories. Holmes and Watson inject their unique character traits into the stories along the way. [4] X Research source
• NANCY DREW by Carolyn Keene. The whole series is situated in the United States.Nancy Drew is a detective. Her close friends Helen Corning, Bess Marvin and George Fayne appear in some mysteries. Nancy is Carson Drew's daughter. Carson Drew is the most famous lawyer in River Heights, where they live.
• "Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon.This is similar to Nancy Drew.It is about two brothers: Frank and Joe Hardy, who are talented detectives.They are the sons of a very famous detective, and they sometimes help in his cases.
• A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne. This recent mystery novel is set in 1970s suburban Washington. It centers on the “crime” in the neighborhood, the murder of a young boy. Berne intersperses a coming of age story with the mystery of the death of the young boy in bland, boring suburbia, but manages to make the story anything but bland or boring. [5] X Research source

• For example, in The Big Sleep , Chandler’s first-person narrator describes himself through his clothing on the first page: “I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with the dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be."
• With these opening sentences, Chandler makes the narrator distinct through his way of describing himself, his outfit, and his job (private detective).

• For example, in the second paragraph of the first page of The Big Sleep , Marlowe places the reader in the time and setting: “The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high.”
• The reader now knows Marlowe is in front of the home of the Sternwoods and it is a larger home, possibly wealthy.

• In The Big Sleep , Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to “take care” of a photographer who has been blackmailing the General with scandalous pictures of the General’s daughter.

• In The Big Sleep , Chandler complicates Marlowe’s pursuit of the photographer by having the photographer killed in the early chapters, followed by the suspicious suicide of the General’s chauffeur. So Chandler sets up the story with two crimes that Marlowe has to solve.

• The resolution of the mystery should feel surprising to your reader, without confusing them. One of the benefits of a mystery is that you can pace the story so the solution unfolds gradually, rather than in a rushed or hurried manner.

Developing Your Main Character and Outlining the Story

• Body size and shape, hair and eye color, and any other physical characteristics. For example, you may have a short female main character with dark hair, glasses, and green eyes. Or you may want a more typical detective character: tall with slicked-back hair and a five o’clock shadow.
• Clothing and dress. Your character’s clothing will not only create a more detailed image for your reader, it can also indicate what time period your story is set in. For example, if your main character wears heavy armor and a helmet with a crest, your reader will realize your story is set in medieval times. If your character wears a hoodie, jeans, and a backpack, this will tip off your readers that the story is likely set in modern times.
• What makes your main character unique. It’s important to create a main character who stands out to your reader and feels engaging enough to sustain many pages in a story or novel. Consider what your character likes and dislikes. Maybe your female sleuth is shy and awkward at parties, and has a secret love of reptiles. Or perhaps your detective is a complete klutz and doesn’t consider himself a strong or smart person. Focus on details that will help to create a unique main character and don’t be afraid to draw on details from your own life or your own preferences and tastes. [7] X Research source
• What matters most is that your main character has a burning question or burning need to solve the mystery.

• If you decide to set your story in a time period or location you are unfamiliar with, conduct research on the time period or location through your local library, online sources, or interviews with experts in a certain time period or location. Be specific with your research and during your interviews to ensure you get all the details of a setting or time period right.

• An item is stolen from your main character or someone close to the main character.
• A person close to the main character disappears.
• The main character receives threatening or disturbing notes.
• The main character witnesses a crime.
• The main character is asked to help solve a crime.
• The main character stumbles upon a mystery.
• You can also combine several of these scenarios to create a more layered mystery. For example, an item may be stolen from your main character, a person close to the main character disappears, and then the main character witnesses a crime she is later asked to help solve.

• Create a list of possible suspects your main character may encounter throughout the story. You can use several suspects to point the detective and/or the reader in the wrong direction to build suspense and surprise. [8] X Research source
• Write a list of clues. Red herrings are clues that are false or misleading. Your story will be stronger if you include several red herring clues in the story. For example, your main character may find a clue that points to one suspect, but it is later revealed the clue is actually tied to a different suspect. Or your detective may find a clue without realizing it is the key to unlocking the entire mystery. [9] X Research source
• Red herrings are all about saying "follow this thread" when the "thread" in question is completely wrong. A good writer can put something in the way that stops readers from realizing what's going on.

• The main character is investigating a possible lead alone and encounters the murderer or killer.
• The main character begins to doubt his/her abilities and lets his/her guard down, allowing the murderer to kill again.
• No one believes the main character and he/she ends up trying to solve the crime alone,and he/she ends up getting kidnapped.
• The main character is injured and trapped in a dangerous place.
• The main character is going to lose an important clue if he/she can’t get out of a certain location or situation.

Find continuous ways to engage the reader. "I end each chapter with a cliffhanger, resolution, a turn, a reveal, a new wrinkle ... something that will make you want to read the next chapter of that character."

• The main character saves someone close to them, or an innocent person wrapped up in the mystery.
• The main character saves himself/herself and is changed by his/her courage or smarts.
• The main character exposes a bad character or organization.
• The main character exposes the murderer or person responsible for the crime.

• Introduction of main character and setting.
• The inciting incident, or the crime.
• The call to adventure: The main character gets involved in solving the crime.
• Tests and trials: The main character finds clues, encounters potential suspects, and tries to stay alive as he/she pursues the truth. Close ones might be kidnapped as a threat
• Ordeal: The main character thinks he/she has found a key clue or suspect and believes he/she has solved the crime. This is a false resolution, and is a good way to surprise your reader when it turns out the main character got it wrong.
• Major setback: All seems lost for the main character. He/She found the wrong suspect or clue, someone else is killed or harmed, and all his/her allies have abandoned him/her. A major setback will amp up the tension in the story and keep the reader guessing.
• The reveal: The main character gathers all interested parties together, lays out the clues, explains the false leads, and reveals who the murderer or guilty person is.

Writing the Story

• Think what your main character might see in a certain setting. For example, if your character lives in a home much like yours in a small town, you may describe his/her bedroom or his/her walk to school. If you are using a specific historical setting, like 70s California, you may describe your character standing on a street corner and looking at the unique architecture or the cars that drive by.
• Consider what your main character might hear in a certain setting. Your sleuth may listen to the birds chirping and the sprinklers on the lawns on the way to school. Or your detective may hear the roaring of cars or the crashing of ocean waves.
• Describe what your main character might smell in a certain setting. Your main character might wake up to the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen by his/her parents. Or your detective may be hit with the smell of the city: rotting garbage and body odor.
• Describe what your character might feel. This could be a light breeze, a sharp pain, a sudden jolt, or a shiver down his/her spine. Focus on how your character’s body might react to a feeling.
• Think about what your character might taste. Your main character may still taste the cereal she had for breakfast in his/her mouth, or the drink from the night before.

• Think about being concise with your language and description. Most readers continue reading a good mystery because they are invested in the main character and want to see his/her succeed. Be brief but specific when describing the main character and his/her perspective on the world.
• For example, Chandler’s The Big Sleep starts by situating the reader in a setting and gives the reader a sense of the main character’s perspective on the world. “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
• With this beginning, the story starts in action, with a specific time, date, and description of the setting. It then presents the main character’s physical description and job title. The section ends with the main character’s motivation: four million dollars. In three lines, Chandler has covered many of the essential details of the character, the setting, and the story.

• Think about how you would react in a situation if you were angry or scared. Have your character react in ways that communicate angry or scared, without telling the reader about the character’s emotions. For example, rather than “Stephanie was angry,” you could write: “Stephanie slammed his/her water glass down on the table so hard his/her dinner plate rattled. She glared at him, and started ripping the thin, white napkin into shreds with his/her fingers.”
• Showing, rather than telling also works well for descriptions of setting. For example, in The Big Sleep , rather than tell the reader the Sternwoods were wealthy, Chandler describes the luxurious details of the estate: “There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills.”

• Plot. Ensure your story sticks to the outline and has a clear beginning, middle, and an ending. You should also confirm your main character shifts or changes at the end of the story.
• Characters. Are your characters, including your main character, distinct and unique? Do all the characters sound and act the same or are they different from each other? Do your characters feel original and engaging?
• Pacing. Pacing is how fast or how slow the action moves in the story. Good pacing will feel invisible to the reader. If the story feels like it is moving too fast, make the scenes longer to draw out the emotions of the characters. If it feels like the story gets bogged down or confusing, shorten the scenes to only include essential information. A good rule of thumb is to always end a scene earlier than you might think or want. This will keep the tension from scene to scene from dropping and keep the pace of the story moving.
• The twist. The twist can either make or break a good mystery story. This is completely optional, but many of the best stories have a twist at the end. Make sure that a twist is not too "cheesy". The more unique a twist is, the easier it is to write. When writing an overused twist, such as "then they woke up", you'll need to be a very good writer to make it sound good. A good twist not only fools the audience, but fools the character(s) too. Consider hinting towards the twist during action scenes, so that when the reader looks back on the story, they'll wonder how they missed it. Try not to make the twist evident too early on.

Mystery Story Help

Community Q&A

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pen and/or a computer with a word processor (like Word)
• Mystery books/stories
• An idea/plot for the story

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• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-tips-writing-great-mystery-suspense-novels
• ↑ http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/59582-the-10-best-mystery-books.html
• ↑ http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bigsleep/summary.html
• ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/970720.20careyt.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-mystery.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/how-to-write-murderously-good-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-fiction.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery-part-two.html

About This Article

Before you write your mystery story you’ll want to create some characters and outline the plot. You might make your main character a detective or just a curious citizen who witnessed a crime. Once you have characters, choose a setting and a mystery such as a murder or a robbery of a precious artwork. If you want to make your story dramatic, add in cliffhangers and red herrings, or clues that lead to dead ends. When you’re ready to write your story, scroll down for tips from our Creative Writing reviewer on creating a well-paced and exciting narrative. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Want To Write A Murder Mystery? Here’s How

Congratulations! You’ve picked one of the reading world’s all-time favorite genres.

And with all the subgenres , you have loads of opportunities and choices when writing a murder mystery.

Although there’s room for a LOT of variety in this genre, the overall structure is pretty consistent.

In this guide on how to write a murder mystery, we’ll show you what makes mystery a great choice for your first debut as a fiction author — especially if you enjoy reading and watching them.

You probably have your favorites, too. And the more you learn about how to write mystery, the better sense you’ll have of which subgenre you want to focus on.

Let’s cover the basics before we get down to business.

• Writing a Murder Mystery

Murder Mystery Story Lines

Murder mystery outline, murder mystery plots, murder mystery characters, murder mystery plot, murder mystery clues, essential tips for writing a murder mystery novel.

Writing a murder mystery can be just as fun as reading one. Sometimes, it’s even more fun.

Sure, it’s more work. It’s on you to make sure the reader doesn’t regret buying your novel instead of someone else’s.

And there’s plenty of work involved in not only writing your mystery but also editing and revising it — not to mention everything you’ll do to get it ready for publication .

But when you’re done, and your first reader tells you, “You kept me guessing until the very end! I LOVED this story! This is the first of a series, right? … Right?? ” you’ll know it was worth it.

And the more you learn how to get that kind of response from a reader, the more fun you’ll have cranking out one murder mystery after another.

How to Write a Murder Mystery

What makes mysteries such an ideal genre for new fiction writers is its predictable (but highly customizable) overall storyline sequence:

• Discovery of a murder victim.
• An investigation by a sleuth — professional or amateur.
• Red herring (the reader is invited to suspect someone other than the murderer).
• Sleuth walks into a compromising situation and discovers the truth.
• Sleuth makes a narrow escape, and the murderer is caught.

The particulars of your murder mystery storyline will depend on your book’s subgenre. And there are quite a few. Here’s just a sampling from a long list of subgenres at WritersDigest.com .

Once you know your story’s structure and key moments, you can draft a rough outline .

From there, you can either flesh it out with more detail — for your characters, clues, red herrings, etc. — or use it to launch right into writing your first chapter.

The following questions can help you create a motivating story outline:

After answering these questions, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what happens in your story. An outline helps keep everything sorted by providing a timeline for all the key moments and clues in your story.

It’s up to you whether you want your chapters to have titles related to their content.

Some authors enjoy crafting chapter titles that tease the reader. Others simply number their chapters and rely on tantalizing hooks at each chapter’s end.

If you have to choose one or the other, though, definitely hook your reader at each chapter’s end. You want them to feel conflicted about putting your book down — even when they have to. Give them a reason to come back.

Make it easier to include these hooks by writing an outline like the following for each chapter:

• Key moment #1 (at the beginning of the chapter)
• Key moment #2 (somewhere in the middle) — optional
• Key moment #3 (at the end of the chapter)

In other words, lead your reader through the chapter with moments that make it worth their while to keep reading. Make them care about what’s happening with the mystery and with your main character’s life and relationships.

Spell it out in moments. And put those in your outline.

The basic mystery plot follows the overall storyline mentioned above but each story fills in the blanks differently — based in part on your subgenre and in larger part on your specific story and its characters.

As a murder mystery author, you want to keep your readers guessing about the murderer’s identity without straying from the basic murder mystery story structure.

Keep their interest with something familiar (the story structure they’ve come to expect) along with something new and captivating. Entice them with the promise of surprising revelations. Give them a reason to care about your story’s characters.

Get them asking the following questions (or some variation thereof):

These will also depend on your chosen subgenre. For example, if you’re writing a cozy mystery, your main character will probably be a female amateur sleuth who runs a shop or eatery of some kind.

She’ll often have a best friend who helps her with her sleuthing. And more often than not, there’ll also be a love interest who either helps her solve mysteries or tries to curb her sleuthing ways.

If you’re writing a classic whodunnit or detective mystery, your main character will probably be a seasoned detective adept at noticing things other people miss or disregard. This detective will probably have a sidekick, who may or may not have a life of their own.

To learn more about the kinds of characters and character types typical to each subgenre, you’ll want to read many by different authors. Once you have the basics down, you can add your own flavor to each character and each relationship.

Remember the five-act story structure from Freytag’s Pyramid? Here’s a refresher:

This works well with fantasy novels. With a murder mystery, though, it’s easier to think of the story in three acts:

Mysteries tend to be shorter, anyway — with a lot happening in each chapter. Mystery readers generally want something fast-paced. And the three-act story structure helps with this.

In Plot Point #1 , your main character engages with the inciting incident — which is the catalyst launching them into the story’s main conflict.

At the Midpoint in Act 2 , something happens that leads your character inexorably toward plot point #2. The midpoint often involves a disaster of some kind. It’s not the climax, but it does get things rolling more quickly.

At Plot Point #2 , your main character is at a low point — thanks mostly to the disaster at the midpoint.

Maybe they thought they’d discovered the killer. But when they followed a lead, hoping for success and satisfaction, it led instead to humiliation and disappointment.

All is not lost, though. Give them time to reflect on how things went wrong. Then give them a reason to pivot and head in a new direction.

Act 3 starts with the inevitable confrontation between your main character and the murderer/antagonist. This is the Pre-Climax, and from here things move very quickly toward the Climax.

The Climax , of course, is where your main character/sleuth narrowly escapes becoming the murderer’s next victim. At the climax’s end, the murderer is caught — or stopped (with some degree of finality).

The Resolution is where you tie up the loose ends and show how the case and your main character’s actions have affected them and everyone else in the story.

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It’s important that your reader has access to all the clues your sleuth has.

If they suddenly reveal the name of the killer and only then mention the clues they found that were never mentioned before, your reader will feel cheated of the chance to deduce the murderer’s identity themselves.

Mystery readers like to be involved in the sleuthing. Keep them in the loop.

If you write a detailed outline before starting your first draft, you can plug in your murder mystery clues — what they are, who will find them (first) and where, and how your characters interpret them.

Having these details already in your outline can give you the confidence to get started writing your first chapter.

It doesn’t mean those details won’t change. A lot can happen when you’re writing, and often the ideas you get when you’re in a flow state are better than the ones you had when you were brainstorming.

That said, some writers (those who lean more heavily toward the pantser end of the author spectrum) do better with a rough outline so they can add clues and other details as they write their draft.

You know your process better than I do. Do what works for you.

But if you get stuck, sometimes brainstorming with an outline or voice-journaling for your main character will help you get unstuck.

And sometimes a shower or a long walk can do what sitting at your desk cannot. Just like clues, sometimes you find inspiration when you’re not looking for it.

If you sat down with a group of murder mystery authors and asked them for their best tips on writing for this genre, you’d likely end up with a list like this one:

Ready to write your murder mystery?

Now that you know how to write a murder mystery, what ideas are percolating in that creative mind of yours? What characters are just begging you to bring them to life on the page?

A year from now, you could be working on the next installment in your bestselling murder mystery series, thrilled by the response of readers all around the world.

Where will it all begin? And how can I help you earn a good living writing murder mysteries? Because it can be done.

Check out other Authority Pub articles (like this one on writing dialogue) to get closer to your goal of becoming a bestselling author.

May this be the first of many bestselling novels with your name on the cover.

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What Are the Key Elements of a Murder Mystery?

Elisa Shoenberger

Elisa Shoenberger has been building a library since she was 13. She loves writing about all aspects of books from author interviews, antiquarian books, archives, and everything in between. She also writes regularly for Murder & Mayhem and Library Journal. She's also written articles for Huffington Post, Boston Globe, WIRED, Slate, and many other publications. When she's not writing about reading, she's reading and adventuring to find cool new art. She also plays alto saxophone and occasionally stiltwalks. Find out more on her website or follow her on Twitter @vogontroubadour.

View All posts by Elisa Shoenberger

What makes a murder mystery a murder mystery? That’s a key question for murder mystery aficionados and, of course, writers. I’ve just finished reading both S.S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case (1926) and Alex Pavesi’s The Eighth Detective (2020), which both look at the murder mystery. The Benson Murder Case demonstrates the process of uncovering a murder, and pokes f un at how clues, motives, etc. can be used to accuse the wrong person. The Eighth Detective looks more formally at the structure of mysteries, based on a mathematician’s analysis of the essential elements of a mystery.

So in honor of both those novels and my lifetime of reading murder mysteries, I’m going to lay out what I think are the five key elements to a good murder mystery.

Murder Most Foul

Fundamentally, a murder mystery must have a murder. It sounds pretty obvious, but it’s important to remember that crime novels, detective novels, and noir are often used interchangeably with murder mysteries. A mystery can mean anything from a murder to something involving stolen/lost items to a kidnapping or disappearance. It may be surprising to learn that many of Sherlock Holmes stories don’t really involve a murder.

Now, many murder mysteries often start with the premise that the person murdered may have died accidentally or via suicide. Part of the story is the detective, amateur, or professional, trying to prove to the police that this belief is a mistake and that a terrible wrong has been committed.

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The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi

The next key element for a murder mystery is a suspect. As the Eighth Detective explains, there needs to be a few suspects. Someone has to die and someone has to be the cause of the death, whether directly — i.e. through physical violence — or indirectly through poison, traps, etc.

But for a good mystery, there needs to be enough suspects that can keep the story going and keep the reader from guessing too early on just because there are too few people. What was so surprising with The Benson Murder Case was how it went through different suspects, showing how the clues could point to XYZ, but they aren’t the culprit.

Of course, whether the identity is revealed early on or not is not a requirement. Personally, I don’t like the Colombo style where the reader sees the crime and then watches the detective figure it out. But I don’t think it disqualifies a murder mystery from being part of the genre.

Elementary, My Dear Reader

The next element is that someone needs to be the detective. Someone needs to work as the proxy for the reader. The detective will lead the reader through the case as they collect clues, talk to people and sum them up. However, the detective does not need to be the same as the narrator. Point of view mysteries can be really fun as the point of view jumps from the detective to other characters. As Diane Peterfreund said in a forthcoming interview for Murder & Mayhem , with stories with shifting points of view, it’s also fun for the readers to know more than the sleuth.

That person can be an amateur or a professional; amateur sleuths are more common in cozies and it’s fun to watch the detective sort of fumble around and get into sticky situations. Professional detectives have more expertise but often have to deal with tricky aspects to their profession, whether it’s dealing with the ethics of their work (should I sleep with my sketchy but attractive client?) or procedural challenges if they are a cop or a private investigator.

Clues, Clues, Clues

The Benson Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine

For a good murder mystery, there needs to be clues. They can be found objects — a revealing letter, a missing glove, a fingerprint — or something overheard in a conversation between characters, etc. These are the breadcrumbs that help the reader figure out whodunit. Without them, it’s no fun. Granted, The Benson Murder Case plays havoc with clues, showing how easily clues can point to the wrong person, but without them, there’s not much to hold on to.  While the amateur detective Philo Vance prefers psychology to explain the crime, he’s still using clues in a larger sense — what is or is not there, people’s personalities, etc. Lack of evidence is, in its own right, a clue.

Interestingly, Ronald Knox, a mystery writer active in the first half of the 20th century, wrote a series of rules about what murder mystery writers were permitted to do. While the list is definitely outdated (not only have many rules been successfully broken, but some have outdated, offensive language), he does note that the detective should never be privy to clues that are not available to the reader. The writer ideally has put the clues into the narrative so that everyone, reader included, can see them but may not even know they are relevant. Nothing stings as much as when the detective brings up some important info that they learned off the page in the final denouement that the reader didn’t know about. It feels like cheating or deus ex machina.

Red herrings are a big plus as well. Just don’t go overboard.

Bury the Hatchet

I am tempted to put this under clues but I’m going to leave it as the fifth and final element.

There must be some kind of murder weapon or an object that can kill. There can be the conventional weapons — knife, gun, rope, or candelabra, a la Clue — or something like poison. Again, the weapon should ideally be a clue, since access to and possession of the murder weapon should help point to a suspect, whether it’s the real culprit or not. Again, it should be something found with the reader, and not just show up in the final act.

These five elements are essential to the murder mystery genre. Other elements like a sidekick, a pet (looking at you cozies), locked room or some clever murder, are all nice to have. There may be different iterations or games played with anyone of them, as evidenced by The Eighth Detective and the Benson Murder Case , but they need to be in the mystery in my opinion.

Interested in more murder mystery philosophy? Check out my essay on why poison is the best murder mystery weapon . Here’s a great one on a cozy murder mystery wish list .

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Writing a mystery novel: 7 items your story needs

Writing a mystery novel is challenging. It demands a keen sense for plot, characterization and creating suspense. A story that actively engages readers in solving the mystery (or in trying to piece together the narrative threads) needs at least 7 elements:

• Post author By Jordan
• 23 Comments on Writing a mystery novel: 7 items your story needs

• A strong hook
• Active reader involvement in piecing together information
• Red herrings
• Suspenseful dialogue
• Effective, descriptive mood and language
• Well-structured chapters
• A satisfying conclusion

1: Writing a mystery novel? Craft a strong hook

All novels need effective hooks: the reader should be interested to uncover more from the first page or (even better), the first line. The hook is typically a line or image that creates curiosity and questions that keep readers wanting to know more.

Suspense author Cheryl Kaye Tardif recommends being guided by ‘The Four Firsts’ of writing story hooks: The first sentence, first paragraph, first page and first chapter. At each level, pay attention to detail. Ask about your story’s first sentence:

• Does it grab the reader’s interest by teasing some further discovery?
• Does it pose a question the reader will strongly want answered?
• Does it contain dramatic potential (a looming conflict, loss, discovery of something that will turn your main character’s world upside down)?

The mystery writer Elmore Leonard, according to author and journalist William Dietrich , advocated never describing weather in a first line. Dietrich goes on to share examples of great first lines that flout Leonard’s advice. For example, Dean Koontz wrote:

‘Tuesday was a fine California day, full of sunshine and promise, until Harry Lyon had to shoot someone at lunch.’ ( Dragon Tears )

Koontz’s opener uses the mundane details of the weather to create contrast with Harry Lyon’s murderous act. This makes it more shocking. So treat ‘rules’ cautiously. The important thing is that your opening line sets the mysterious tone for your story and grasps the reader’s interest.

Looking beyond the first sentence, the first paragraph should introduce a little more sense of mood and atmosphere and intriguing setting and/or character. For the first chapter, favour brevity. If a reader feels they have to wade to the end of your opener, this could deter them from continuing.

2: Make the reader your number one detective

A ‘puzzle mystery’ is the sub-genre where the reader gets to solve the unknown. In any good mystery, however, the reader should be left to piece together information. Trust in your reader’s intelligence: Many beginning writers assume that they need to hold the reader’s hand throughout and over-explain the story as it happens. To make the reader play more of an active part in solving the mystery you can:

• Leave clues throughout ( so long as they aren’t too obvious ).
• Include characters who are truthful along with those who lie, leaving it to the reader to decide whose information seems more honest.
• Have multiple possible explanations. In a murder mystery, that means having multiple suspicious characters. In a mystery adventure, it might mean having both natural and supernatural possible reasons for a character’s disappearance.

3: Something’s fishy… Use red herrings

In fiction writing, the term ‘red herring’ refers to ‘A clue or piece of information which is or is intended to be misleading or distracting:’ ( Oxford Dictionaries Online ). The term is borrowed from the custom of training dogs to hunt using the scent of dried herring, which turns red from being smoked.

Red herrings can be scattered throughout your novel to keep the reader from guessing the culprit of a crime or explanation of a disappearance too soon. They escalate tension and suspense and make a novel more riveting.

In Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel And Then There were None , ten people end up on an island and die one by one. Christie makes one of the remaining characters disappear, leading the other members of the party (and the reader) to suspect the vanished character of being the murderer, but there are further twists.

A red herring can be:

• A character who seems to be more suspicious or complicit than he actually is.
• An object that seems to have more significance than it ultimately will.
• An event that seems to be important to the narrative but turns out to be secondary.
• A clue placed by a villain (unknown to the reader and the main character) to send investigators down the wrong path of inquiry.

Suspense in a mystery novel is key. What else can increase the reader’s sense of curiosity and anticipation?

4: Write suspenseful dialogue

Dialogue that sounds convincing to the ear is hard to get right. Suspenseful dialogue moves in ellipses and omissions; says one thing but means another. In a conversation between two characters, you can create suspense by:

• Having one speaker lie, giving information that contradicts what the reader already knows to be true.
• Have a character say something bizarre or unexpected (in David Lynch’s cult classic mystery TV series Twin Peaks , a character says to the investigating detective Agent Dale Cooper, ‘The owls are not what they seem.’
• Have a character withhold information or be non-cooperative when questioned.

Because we are perplexed by unexpected behaviour, use it to throw the reader and your characters off. A character who laughs mid-conversation, apropos of nothing, is a curious one. Employ dialogue with strange turns, interruptions, menacing tones or other elements that give the reader a feeling of unpredictability.

Part of what makes a mystery novel highly engrossing is it’s mood and atmosphere:

5: Create a mysterious mood with setting and descriptive language

In a mystery novel, as in a thriller, mood is a substantial part of what throws the reader head first into your fictional world. The factors that contribute to mood in fiction are:

• Setting: An old cathedral might have a hallowed, restful feeling whereas darkening woods can be menacing or eerie.
• Descriptive language: Be thoughtful about the adjectives and verbs you choose. ‘She hastened along the narrow path’ creates a sense of urgency and spatial confinement or claustrophobia, both of which contribute to a tense and suspenseful atmosphere.
• Characterisation: What your characters say and do, how they look and what they hide all contribute to creating a mysterious, uncertain mood.

The ingredients of a good mystery include structure as well as content. Not only what happens but how it is paced or where each scene takes up or leaves off:

6: Structure your mystery novel’s chapters attentively

Because the allure and fear of the unknown are the pillars of good mystery writing, it’s important to structure each chapter around unfolding discoveries expertly. While there should be rising action throughout the novel on a macro scale, within each chapter there should be some rising action too, as well as shifts in knowns and unknowns.

In chapter openings you can:

• Open in the middle of an unknown setting
• Open your chapter in the middle of a tense situation
• Begin with the discovery that something previously thought true was false

These are just a few examples of the way you can make a chapter riveting from the outset. End chapters on new discoveries that either bring the mystery-solving character(s) closer to finding the answer or create new questions. This push and pull between question and answer lies at the heart of the great mystery novel.

7: A satisfying climax and resolution

A mystery novel is typically more teleological (‘end-focused’) than a novel in another genre (such as high fantasy). In mystery novels, everything should build up to a satisfying answer to primary questions such as ‘Who? Why? What?’

Nancy Curteman makes the crucial point that the ending of a mystery novel should come with an ‘a-ha!’ moment. The reader should be able to go back and say ‘I saw this coming’ or ‘I didn’t see this coming, but it makes complete sense given x, y, and z’. The identity of the killer, the cause for a disappearance or some other mystery explanation should not feel like a red herring itself.

When writing a mystery novel, ideally your ending will:

• Answer the pressing questions you’ve kept readers asking
• Reveal truths about characters falsely suspected
• Relate clearly to the beginning
• Leave the reader feeling inclined to read your next novel

Writing a mystery novel demands that you pay attention to the ingredients of great mystery writing: Convincing plot and mood, mysterious characters, active involvement of the reader and more. If you’re ready to get going on your mystery novel, join the Mystery/Thriller writers’ group on Now Novel.

Related Posts:

• Better mystery plots: 7 clues to writing mysteries
• Writing a cozy mystery: 10 feel-good suspense tips
• 5 mystery elements for intrigue in any genre
• Tags how to write mystery novels , mystery , red herrings , writing mystery fiction , writing story hooks

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

23 replies on “Writing a mystery novel: 7 items your story needs”

Excellent article on writing a novel. And thank you for the link to one of my articles. Best wishes!

Thanks, Cheryl! My pleasure, thanks for penning a helpful resource for writers.

very helpful,indeed

Thank you, Maxwell. Thanks for reading!

Excellent! It really helped me and your article is well detailed. Thanks a lot <3 @NowNovel:disqus

It’s a pleasure, Varalika! Thank you for reading and I’m glad you found it helpful.

Pretty explainable article! Taught me a lot. Now I can use this to write my creative writing! Thank you so much, @NowNovel

Hi Alexander, It’s a pleasure! Good luck with your writing.

I’m writing an essay for a summer assignment in order to get in an Honors English class, and I’m trying to cite the author, but I cant seem to find the author on this page by chance does anybody know who the author is?

Hi Mckalee, my apologies I didn’t see your comment sooner. I am the author but when attributing a blog or a non-traditionally published electronic source, it is generally acceptable to use the title of the publication (in this case Now Novel) with the address and the date of information retrieval.

thank you, this helped a lot!

Not a big fan of “Here are the basic rules to follow to have a successful novel” Obviously a mystery novel must have Mystery, it should have Suspense but that holds true for any good fiction novel. I am not big on the rules and regulations of writing novels. While obviously there has to be some basic fundamentals aside from following the basics such as reasonably correct punctuation and grammar, and please remember grammar has evolved due to common usage by authors, not due to invented rules by some professor or critic who never wrote a best seller in their lives for the most part. One example is “foreshadowing” I mean what top author uses it? As a reader it leaves me cold, it’s like you have a part of the story in advance and who wants that? The most interesting novel of any best selling series of any author I can think of is, I think, the first one of the series; why? because it is full of mystery and excitement. After that even the best usually go downhill. After a lifetime of being a bookworm, seeing critically canned books such as Harry Potter, that violated many of the accepted “rules” of authoring, selling millions and as a recently published author who has listened to the true experts of writing bestselling novels (the authors), I honestly believe that it is just a matter of being reasonably accurate in spelling, punctuation and grammar and being interested in your story yourself and make it interesting enough and you can have a best seller. Another datum that seems important is If You Have a Fire Within, You Can Create a Fire Without. Mark J

Thank you for sharing your contrary viewpoint, you make a good argument. Regarding ‘foreshadowing’, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily giving part of the story in advance but rather sowing the seeds of implication (for example, introducing an object that later proves to be significant to the plot, a monument, a person, and so on). Effective foreshadowing can be quite subtle, ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, and in a certain kind of mystery (murder mystery) can be an excellent device for adding suspense.

This perhaps over-simplifying notion of foreshadowing aside, you raise good contra-points. I’d add that having a bestseller certainly isn’t only to do with the writing itself but also how well you market and promote a book, as some dreadful books do make bestseller status, as you’ve intimated. Regarding Rowling, what she did very well is build a detailed, engrossing world that was vivid in its scope and sense of wonder, and this spoke to readers of all ages, I would say. Her series, of course, isn’t ‘literary’ in style or audience.

Thank you for reading and engaging with our articles!

I realize I’m responding to a post made 9 months ago, so I hope you’re still there. I’m hoping to get some advice per remarks that you made to Mark, specifically regarding marketing and promoting a book.

I finished what I thought was a pretty good draft of one book, which is a drama/fantasy, almost two years ago. That was my first experience at seriously attempting to write a book, so I engaged a group of about 12 people to review it. Some I knew, some I didn’t know. I varied my evaluators by sex, age, interest in reading, etc. Although 11 out of the 12 said they liked the book, my best three critics (two of which were avid readers) liked the story/writing, but they wanted “more”.

I wasn’t looking for empty compliments (although I’m guessing that the original draft was “good enough” on a superficial level, per the comments I interpreted); I wanted a book that could be interesting and successful. So, I spent the next year researching the elements of how to write a good book and gave my book some critical thought of my own based on what I had learned through my research. Then, I went to work on adding “more”. My book increased from 46K words to 86K words. I added a prologue to handle some of the backstory of the older characters that contribute to the plotline, kind of like a brief mini-story to clear the muddle of some of the backstory within the main text. I more fully developed my main characters and even expanded the interaction with some select supporting characters to round-out the story. Of course, I also added better hints of twists to come (and then added those twists and a fuller storyline), made my evil characters more evil, and made my sympathetic characters more sympathetic.

My best critics have now reviewed my final draft. The conclusion was that I gave them the “more” they were looking for, and the book is ready to be published. I’m working on the book cover and I’ll be submitting the book for copyright shortly. I’ve dismissed submitting the book to publishing houses, mostly because I’ve heard that it is extremely difficult to even get them to read a book from a new author, and I understand that self-publishing is an alternative.

So, that brings me around to your remarks about how well the book is marketed and promoted. I’ve done some research into Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I don’t see a lot of information about marketing and promotion. For Amazon, I see approaches like initial 30-day half-price (or even free) offers. I’ve also read that promoting a book on Amazon or any online publisher is enhanced by the keywords you select for your book. I considered things like book-signings, perhaps at the local library, or even at the local Barnes & Noble. I researched some self publishing under Barnes & Noble simply for the fact that they support local author events; however, it seems that they will only support those author events on the condition that your book has already sold at a certain level…again, something difficult for a new author to break through without prior marketing and promotion. Do you have any suggestions regarding marketing and promotion? Or, do you have any materials (websites, etc) that you could refer to assist with marketing and promotion for new authors?

By the way, aside from the marketing and promotion question, I do have one other question with regard to the topic of this site (mystery writing). My next effort will be a mystery, but I’m wondering how it fits with the formula. I have two main characters, a husband and wife. The husband is police officer who desperately WANTS to be a detective. However, he is NOT the hero in the story. The crime occurs, but it appears to be related to the relationship between them. He gets the opportunity to be on the detective team to solve the mystery, but the more and more the story develops, the more he realized that the crime appears to be dependent on his own actions. Is it critical that the detective/mystery solver be the hero?

Any advice on the marketing/promotion or my question about the mystery hero is appreciated!

Thanks, Karen

Thank you for your detailed question. To answer in the two parts you posed it:

1) Regarding marketing and promotion for self-published authors, it is admittedly tricky to promote and market without an existing platform to leverage, as you say particularly when seeking admission to platforms with more prestige (such as having bookstore-hosted book signings). Barnes & Noble is of course a big seller; approaching an indie or other smaller bookshop may be easier.

The strategies you mentioned (initial discounting, for example) are widely used. I would recommend building a social media presence as a writer (if you haven’t already), sharing extracts, tweeting/gramming/Facebooking about writing, the books you love, the genre your work falls within, to build an audience, and engage with others’ posts (meaningfully, of course) on the same. This will help grow awareness.

Having a blog where you write about your genre, about the writing process, and/or review books in your genre is also useful as you can build an email list and market your Amazon author page to your list. A promo blog tour could also help drum up interest, as you could reach out to book bloggers in indie publishing to offer guest posts and/or other content (e.g. review copies) to further get the word out.

As a newcomer to marketing your work, it may seem daunting, so it could be helpful to take a course. We have an article specifically on marketing your work here that may be useful: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-build-a-book-audience/

2) Usually the mystery solver is the ‘hero’, even if an unlikely one. It would maybe read a little strangely for the protagonist of the story not to be the one to make the most crucial discovery. However this would be a better question for an editor perhaps once the story is written, as it’s difficult to comment on the efficacy of a plot development or character arc in summary form.

Please feel free to ask anything further, and good luck!

Thank you VERY much! Your feedback was very helpful and the link you provided was awesome! I hadn’t found your site when I was doing my initial research on “how to write”, but I’ve checked out some links from the original mystery writing article and your site has a terrific way or organizing the content to make it extremely easy to follow!

Hi Karen, it’s a pleasure! I’m glad I could help 🙂

Best of luck and please feel free to email us any questions any time at [email protected] , too.

I completely agree with what you have written. I hope this post could reach more people as this was truly an interesting post.

Ever since mystery novels existed, it has been one of the best selling genres of all time.

Please read my blog: 5 Reasons Why You Should Read Mystery Books

Have a great day!

Thanks, Patricia, you have a great day too.

This is very helpful to writing a mystery book but what should the book NOT include?

Hi J, thank you for your question. A good place to start is looking at lists of mystery tropes and deciding for yourself which seem the most hackneyed, contrived or stale. TV Tropes does a good job of listing fiction tropes in a humorous way and have a list of mystery tropes here (I would say the ‘You Wake Up in a Room’ trope is maybe one of the most played out for the genre, but you never know – you could reinvigorate a trope with new life, too).

Another way I’d recommend getting to grips with a specific genres requirements (or non-requirements, rather) is to scan reviews on Goodreads sorted by that genre and see what readers complain about most. Is it that it was easy to work out the mystery all along? Or were there certain character stereotypes? This should help. Thank you for reading our blog!

[…] In the novel-writing world, you have, on one hand, ambitious, creative trades- / craftspeople. They want to write novels, and they want to make money doing it. It’s creative, but it’s business. They typically choose their favorite genre and study the formulas, become intimately familiar with the work of other writers in the genre, analyze what sells and what doesn’t and why, evaluate their specific market, and write to their audience. They give their readers something engrossing and entertaining, if formulaic and predictable — because formulaic and predictable is a safe sell and is even encouraged. (Search “mystery genre rules,” and results will show, respectively, The “Rules” of Detective Fiction, 6 Rules for Writing Great Mystery Novels, 17 Rules of Mystery Writing, S.S. Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories, and Writing a Mystery Novel: 7 Items Your Story Needs.) […]

[…] can find these 20 exciting mystery books for middle schoolers in your local library or purchase through the affiliate links provided […]

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• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Mystery

I. What is Mystery?

Mystery (pronounced  mis -t uh -ree, ) is a genre of literature whose stories focus on a puzzling crime, situation, or circumstance that needs to be solved. The term comes from the Latin mysterium , meaning “a secret thing.” stories can be either fictional or nonfictional, and can focus on both supernatural and non-supernatural topics. Many mystery stories involve what is called a “whodunit” scenario, meaning the mystery revolves around the uncovering a culprit or criminal.

II. Example of Mystery

  Read the following short passage:

 I stared down at the corpse, whose face was covered by a ski mask. Next to the body was a pile of money. The biggest pile of money I had ever seen. Attached to the body was a note. I tore it from the dead man’s jacket, and read it slowly, over and over, trying to take in its words: Get rid of this and the money is yours—I will deliver the other half after the job is done. Sincerely, F.  What I did next was something I would grow to regret for the rest of my life.

The passage above sets up a mysterious situation for the audience to follow. It begins with a crime—a murder—and ends with an ominous hint to the audience. However, the passage does not at all reveal what the narrator chose to do and would later come to regret. A book featuring this passage would likely end with the solving of the murder and the revealing of the true circumstances of the narrator’s decision.

III. Types of Mystery

Mysteries are defined as either nonfictional or fictional , and there are further divisions within each involving the combination of other literary genres.

a. Fiction Mysteries

Fictional mysteries are stories that can be realistic or fantastic in nature, but are not specifically based on true events. They overlap with other literary genres, such as fantasy (most commonly to create gothic fiction), thrillers , horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, and even science fiction. Detective fiction, which explicitly features a detective solving a crime, is perhaps the most popular form of fictional mystery, however, it is nowadays considered a separate genre of literature.

b. Nonfiction Mysteries

Nonfiction mystery books cover a wide range of topics that address true events, often involving mysteries of history, science, religion, magic, the supernatural, or the afterlife. For example, there are many works on unsolved crimes, unexplainable disappearances of people or groups of people, strange sightings like Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster, and UFOs, or mysterious places that seem to be haunted. Nonfiction mysteries are also a very popular genre for documentary and reality television shows, often focusing on mysteries that remain unsolved or unexplainable.

  *An important difference between fiction and nonfiction mysteries is that fiction mysteries almost always end with the mystery being solved , while nonfiction mysteries typically exist to address mysteries that remain unsolved.

IV. Importance of Mystery

Mysteries began to gain popularity in the Victorian era, mostly in the form of gothic literature, which was primarily for women. Since then it has developed in both form and reach, and has become a widely read genre among male and female readers of all ages. Mysteries are important because they feature topics that are usually both fascinating and troubling to the human mind—unsolved crimes, unexplained questions and events in natural and human history, supernatural curiosities, and so on.

V. Examples of Mystery in Pop Culture

  example 1.

The popular series of teen mystery fiction novels Pretty Little Liars and television series by the same name follows the mystery of the disappearance of a teenage girl named Alison, as seen through the eyes of her friends, who were supposedly the last people to ever see her. The following a promotional clip for the pilot episode of the TV series:

Here, the writers immediately establish the show as a mystery by opening the series with the night that Alison went missing. Later the audience learns that Alison was declared dead when a body was found, however, the mystery continues as her friends receive messages and threats about personal things, which are always signed from “A.” The entire series centers on the mystery of A’s identity and the circumstances of Alison’s disappearance and murder, and, the possibility that she is still alive.

For nearly twenty years the nonfiction mystery television series Unsolved Mysteries entertained its audience with stories of unexplained events and crimes in the United States. It featured true accounts of mysteries of every nature—crime, murder, UFOs, missing persons, separated family members or friends, ghost stories—as told by real witnesses, historians, detectives, and so on.

Because of its popularity and ability to reach the public, the show was also known for occasionally helping to solve crimes and mysteries—after episodes aired, viewers would sometimes contact the show with information that helped solve a crime, find a missing person, or reunite people who had been separated. Unsolved Mysteries would share these success stories in later episodes, often updating the audience weeks, months or years after a story originally aired.

VI. Examples of Mystery in Literature

The late 1800’s gave rise to the iconic fictional character Sherlock Holmes, a detective who is featured in a series of mystery novels and short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Most of the stories are told from the perspective of Dr. Watson, Holmes’s assistant and companion. Holmes is an independent detective based in London with eccentric personality and highly logical reasoning skills. Below is a short selection from the novel The Hound of Baskerville :

Another item had been added to that constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole grim story of Sir Charles’s death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all within the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew from his drawn brows and keen face that his mind, like my own, was busy in endeavouring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitted.

Here, Watson is running through some of the clues to the victim’s death in his head. He also expresses his familiarity with Holmes’ character and skills by telling the audience that he knows the detective is finding the connections between all of these clues in his mind; which will inevitably lead to the solving of the mysterious murder.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries , also known as The Sookie Stackouse Novels, are a  bestselling series of mystery romance novels by mystery author Charlaine Harris. As alluded by its title(s), the series is narrated by the protagonist Sookie Stackhouse and follows her relationship with vampires and other supernatural beings. The novels also inspired provocative HBO television series True Blood. The plot takes place in present day Louisiana, and often references popular culture, as in the selection below:

  “Bubba” is supposed to be Elvis, who Bill claims was turned into a vampire on the night he died decades before. Harris lets the audience in on little secrets like this and references them throughout the series. Each novel Sookie faces a new mystery, and she always plays a substantial role in solving it. Like many mystery series, each Southern Vampire Series book could essentially exist as its own standalone story, as it introduces and solves a new mystery in each novel; however, the true popularity lies in the following of Sookie and her life.

VII. Related Terms

  detective fiction.

Detective fiction is considered its own genre of literature, though it is technically a subgenre of mystery. These stories feature a detective investigating a situation or a crime, commonly a murder. It is popular form of crime fiction and gothic fiction, where the protagonist is most often an official detective investigating a crime, or a person who acts as an unofficial detective to solve a more personally relevant mystery, respectively.

VIII. Conclusion

In conclusion, fiction mysteries engage readers in an unexplained event or situation from its occurrence to its resolution, while nonfiction mysteries allow authors to explore unsolved or unexplainable mysteries of the world. The genre can be successfully combined with many other styles of literature to create engaging stories for audiences of all ages.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Posted on Oct 01, 2018

How to Write a Thriller in 7 Heart-Stopping Steps

Someone has been kidnapped and your protagonist is trying to prevent their murder. The clock is ticking but their car has just exploded, the building they were in has been set on fire, and, as they turn around to try to escape, they are face-to-face with a gun…. Now what ? Since you’re here, you obviously want to answer that question by writing your own thriller.

In this post, we look at how to write a thriller by outlining the main characteristics of the genre and turning to professional editors for their top tips.

What is a thriller?

A thriller is a fast-paced novel full of conflict , tension, suspense , unexpected twists, and high stakes. Every single scene and element in a thriller is meant to propel the action forward, test the characters, and take the readers on a roller coaster ride that will leave them on the edge of their seats.

What is the difference between thrillers, mysteries, and suspense fiction?

Readers often conflate thrillers with mystery or suspense novels, which is perfectly understandable — bookstores often shelve them in the same section. But what are the differences between these other genres (if there are any)?

When it comes to the differences between thrillers and suspense novels, editor Allister Thompson suggests there is not a huge difference. He says that “the element of surprise, the release of tension, may be more important in suspense (the tension has to break at some point), while it could be said that a thriller needs more visceral action.” In a thriller, the danger, twists, and surprises that await the protagonist are important for maintaining the pace of the novel and keeping the reader on their feet.

In thriller and mystery novels, the action is driven by separate forces. According to editor Anne Brewer:  “In a mystery, the plot is driven forward by the protagonist, a sleuth, who is investigating a murder… In a thriller, the action is driven forward more generally by elements beyond the protagonist's control.” In both cases, the protagonists might be working toward solving a case, but the events that surround them — and how they get into them — are completely different. Another difference is that mystery novels generally involve a protagonist who is faced with a crime that they need to solve. On the other hand, in thrillers, the protagonist might need to stop the crime from happening in the first place.

Perhaps most crucially, the whole point of a mystery is to figure out the culprit. However, in thrillers you might discover the Big Bad on the very first page — which means they’ll be posing a threat to the protagonist from the start.

PRO-TIP:  To read 22 of the best psychological thrillers, check out this post right here . 

Thriller subgenres

Thrillers are just one term for a large category of fiction that includes various subgenres. Although it might seem trivial, deciding on a subgenre will actually help guide your writing since you’ll know where it fits in the market. They can encompass:

• Supernatural, like the Duffer brothers'  Stranger Things
• Politics, like Michael Dobbs’ House of Cards
• Espionage, like Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
• Psychological, like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon  by Stephen King
• Action-adventure, like Breakthrough by Michael C. Grumley
• Crime , like What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell
• Historical, like Lies She Never Told Me by John Ellsworth
• Legal, like Juror #3 by James Patterson and Nancy Allen
• Military, like Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October
• Domestic, like Harlan Coben’s The Stranger

There is often some overlap among the subgenres, so don’t be surprised to find a book in two — or even three — different categories. Whichever subgenre you settle on, we recommend reading books that fit into that category to get an idea of the common elements that are often present.

So, now that we have defined what a thriller is and its characteristics — let’s see how to write one.

Which genre (or subgenre) am I writing?

Find out which genre your book belongs to. It only takes a minute!

How to write a thriller in 7 steps

There’s no fool-proof way of writing a successful thriller (if there was, everyone would do it), but there are ways to ensure that your novel ticks all the right boxes. Based on advice from our network of editors, this is our take on how to write a thriller.

1. Flesh out your characters and their motivations

Characters in thrillers are usually complex. The good guy might not be the model citizen, and the bad guy may have a justification and conviction for everything they do — at least in their mind.

The rivalries between these opposing forces is what will give rise to the action that will propel your story forward, so you need to give each of your characters a clear motivation . Ask yourself:

• Why do they what they do?
• What is their ultimate goal?
• Does the protagonist need to save him or herself or somebody else?
• How do they react in the face of adversity?

One great exercise when carrying out this kind of character development is to fill out a character profile template. You can try out our free one below. Lucky you!

FREE RESOURCE

Reedsy’s Character Profile Template

A story is only as strong as its characters. Fill this out to develop yours.

2. Start with action

The opening scene is a pivotal moment in any book. In thrillers, it’s especially important because you need to start with action from the get-go. Oftentimes starting in medias res is a good way to accomplish this. Avoid an “info dump” where you accidentally include too many irrelevant background details.

You don’t necessarily need to start with a murder — in fact, in some thrillers, there isn’t one at all or it doesn’t happen until half way through the novel — but you need to start with something exciting that sets the protagonist in motion.

In the very first chapter of The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, someone on a boat falls into the waters of the Mediterranean after being shot  — we don’t know who or why. He is eventually rescued by a fishing boat, and we find out that this survivor has amnesia. At this point, the reader has virtually no information about the characters or the plot of the book before being launched into a life-threatening situation.

3. Show what’s at stake

High stakes are characteristic of thrillers, but the particulars change depending on the subgenre. For example, in a domestic thriller, the stakes will be more character-specific. Contrast this to a military or political thriller, where the consequences will probably be broader, affecting the fates of a group, country, or even the world.

In Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, a daughter’s disappearance and death puts the family at risk of completely shattering while they try to find out what happened to her. In this domestic thriller, the stakes are specific to the family. Even though they are the only ones affected by the events, it’s just as effective.

4. Make it difficult for your protagonist

Your audience needs to care for your protagonist and their fate, and a good way to do this is by placing them in situations where it’s impossible to tell if they’ll make it or not. This will help heighten the stakes and make their eventual success much more satisfying for the readers. So, put your characters in jeopardy by having dangerous situations come at them from unexpected places! Make their trusted allies turn on them seemingly out of the blue.

In Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (spoilers!) , protagonist Nick is the main suspect for the murder of his wife, Amy, who disappeared on their fifth wedding anniversary. Even though he is made to look like the culprit, we later find out that everything had been staged by Amy herself as a plan to accuse Nick of murder. While Amy coming “back to life” is meant to exonerate him and bring his life back to normal, it ends up being worse as he’s then forced to live under her threats.

5. Bring on the twists

As we have established, thrillers are mainly propelled by plot events, and the best way to keep readers engaged in the plot is by introducing twists and unexpected events . This is easier said than done, as twists can sometimes have the opposite effect. So, if you are not sure if your twist is enough to keep the story moving, Anne Brewer suggests asking yourself the following questions:

• Is my protagonist behaving as actively as possible, or sitting back and letting things happen?
• Is this twist as exciting as it could be?
• Does the twist feel “big” enough?
• What’s the worst thing that could happen to my protagonist right now?

Once you have the answer to these questions, make it happen .

6. Build up to the climax

Now it’s the moment that the protagonist — and the readers — have been waiting for: the final showdown against the antagonist that will decide everything.

The climax is a pivotal scene in your book, so make sure you dedicate time to polishing it and make it really shine. In particular, it may be helpful to write the climax first so that you already know where your characters need to end up. Once you’ve established that, you can pave their way through your plot twists. If you'd like some inspiration, go here for a list of 70+ plot twists .

7. Give your story a satisfying ending

A satisfying ending isn’t necessarily a “happily ever after.” Keep in mind the kind of story you’ve been telling so far and make sure the ending fits well.

In some cases, you may want to completely tie all the threads and answer all the questions. Or you might want to leave it as an open ending, where the final conclusions are left to the reader’s interpretation. If your plan is to write a series of books, then a cliffhanger might be the way to keep readers on the hook. Whatever kind of conclusion you go for, remember that it’s always necessary to wrap up the current action so that there’s a sense of satisfaction at the end of the book.

Now that we’ve covered seven steps to write a thriller, let’s cover a few bonus tips to ensure that it leaves a lasting impression.

Bonus tips from professional editors

Writing a gripping thriller can be a challenge, so we turned to our top professional editors for tips to help you write your own page-turner.

Avoid anything that bogs down the pacing

According to editor Anne Brewer, “Thriller writers should avoid anything that bogs down their pacing. This tends to be either getting too wrapped up in everyday details or getting mired in plot developments that aren't exciting enough for the genre.” If you see that a scene or a plot doesn’t add enough excitement or it slows down the action instead of moving it along, take a step back and rewrite it.

Don’t mislead the reader

“If you are writing a thriller, or something you wish to call one, then action and/or danger must be there. If you write another kind of mystery novel that is gentler or more procedural and call it a thriller, you're misleading the reader,” says editor Allister Thompson. It is important that you stay true to the genre throughout the novel — otherwise you might just turn away readers instead of gaining them.

Don’t let your imagination get bogged down

When writing a book, it’s easy to let yourself be constrained by the limits set by your own abilities. However, Anne Brewer warns against this, saying: “Try not to let your imagination get restrained with what might normally happen: plot twists in thrillers are entertaining because they're inventively outside the norms.”

Make sure the stakes are high enough

“A thriller needs to have a palpable sense of tension or danger or, at worst, dire consequences that the characters are trying to avoid or escape. And there must be pitfalls along the way,” says Allister Thompson. In other words: make absolutely sure that the stakes are high for your protagonist, so that they are compelled to keep the story moving forward.

To write your own unstoppable thriller, don’t forget to create that action-driven tension, conflict, and suspense. Turn everything upside down — for the protagonist and the reader — with every turn and twist.

What are some of your favorite thrillers? Let us know in the comments below!

6 responses

Thomas Peterson says:

17/07/2019 – 14:02

It was great that you mentioned the climax is the most important scene to make great. I love reading and writing modern women suspense novels and it's great to get some tips on how to make the writing so much better and to help me understand these things when reading them. I would love to try some of these tips to enhance my reading and writing greatly.

↪️ Yvonne replied:

08/08/2019 – 01:54

Glad that you found the article useful and hope that you've gotten a chance to apply the tips! Looking forward to the success story :)

Kevon Brown says:

06/08/2019 – 12:54

Informative stuff!! Great job. Keep sharing.

Thanks for reading, Kevon!

Mary Hutson says:

15/01/2020 – 02:49

For anyone who would like to read a couple of very good Crime thrillers, checkout "Snapped" or "Sniper's Nest" by CM Sutter. I got them as free Kindle books on amazon .com and now, I'm learning how to write my own thriller. They brought me more joy than any other book I've read in years! The author's website: www.cmsutter also offers free downloads. I guarantee you'll be impressed.

Penelope Smith says:

11/03/2020 – 03:28

I liked your suggestion about not misleading the reader. It is always nice to know that you could have figured out the mystery in a book. I love reading books where I can try to start putting the pieces together early on and getting that pay off for that work later on.

Comments are currently closed.

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detective story

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• Academia - What is the Appeal Of Detective Fiction
• detective story - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

detective story , type of popular literature in which a crime is introduced and investigated and the culprit is revealed.

The traditional elements of the detective story are: (1) the seemingly perfect crime; (2) the wrongly accused suspect at whom circumstantial evidence points; (3) the bungling of dim-witted police; (4) the greater powers of observation and superior mind of the detective ; and (5) the startling and unexpected denouement , in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained . Detective stories frequently operate on the principle that superficially convincing evidence is ultimately irrelevant. Usually it is also axiomatic that the clues from which a logical solution to the problem can be reached be fairly presented to the reader at exactly the same time that the sleuth receives them and that the sleuth deduce the solution to the puzzle from a logical interpretation of these clues.

The first detective story was “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue ” by Edgar Allan Poe , published in April 1841. The profession of detective had come into being only a few decades earlier, and Poe is generally thought to have been influenced by the Mémoires (1828–29) of François-Eugène Vidocq , who in 1817 founded the world’s first detective bureau, in Paris. Poe’s fictional French detective, C. Auguste Dupin , appeared in two other stories, “ The Mystery of Marie Roget ” (1845) and “ The Purloined Letter ” (1845). The detective story soon expanded to novel length.

The French author Émile Gaboriau ’s L’Affaire Lerouge (1866) was an enormously successful novel that had several sequels. Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868) remains one of the finest English detective novels. Anna Katharine Green became one of the first American detective novelists with The Leavenworth Case (1878) . The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886) by the Australian Fergus Hume was a phenomenal commercial success.

The greatest of all fictional detectives, Sherlock Holmes , along with his loyal, somewhat obtuse companion Dr. Watson , made his first appearance in Arthur (later Sir Arthur) Conan Doyle ’s novel A Study in Scarlet (1887) and continued into the 20th century in such collections of stories as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) and the longer Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). So great was the appeal of Sherlock Holmes’s detecting style that the death of Conan Doyle did little to end Holmes’s career; several writers, often expanding upon circumstances mentioned in the original works, have attempted to carry on the Holmesian tradition.

The early years of the 20th century produced a number of distinguished detective novels, among them Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Circular Staircase (1908) and G.K. Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) and other novels with the clerical detective . From 1920 on, the names of many fictional detectives became household words: Inspector French, introduced in Freeman Wills Crofts’s The Cask (1920); Hercule Poirot , in Agatha Christie ’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), and Miss Marple , in Murder at the Vicarage (1930); Lord Peter Wimsey , in Dorothy L. Sayers ’ Whose Body? (1923); Philo Vance , in S.S. Van Dine ’s The Benson Murder Case (1926); Albert Campion , in Margery Allingham ’s The Crime at Black Dudley (1929; also published as The Black Dudley Murder ); and Ellery Queen , conceived by Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, in The Roman Hat Mystery (1929).

In a sense, the 1930s was the golden age of the detective story, with the detectives named above continuing in new novels. The decade was also marked by the books of Dashiell Hammett , who drew upon his own experience as a private detective to produce both stories and novels, notably The Maltese Falcon (1930) featuring Sam Spade . In Hammett’s work, the character of the detective became as important as the “whodunit” aspect of ratiocination was earlier. The Thin Man (1934), with Nick and Nora Charles, was more in the conventional vein, with the added fillip of detection by a witty married couple. Successors to Hammett included Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald , who also emphasized the characters of their tough but humane detectives Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer , respectively. At the end of the 1940s, Mickey Spillane preserved the hard-boiled crime fiction approach of Hammett and others, but his emphasis on sex and sadism became a formula that brought him amazing commercial success beginning with I, the Jury (1947).

The introduction of the mass-produced paperback book in the late 1930s made detective-story writers wealthy, among them the Americans Erle Stanley Gardner , whose criminal lawyer Perry Mason unraveled crimes in court; Rex Stout , with his fat, orchid-raising detective Nero Wolfe and his urbane assistant Archie Goodwin; and Frances and Richard Lockridge, with another bright married couple, Mr. and Mrs. North. In France, Georges Simenon produced novel after novel at a rapid-fire pace , making his hero, Inspector Maigret , one of the best-known detectives since Sherlock Holmes. Other writers who carried out the tradition of Holmes or broke new ground included Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of the poet C. Day-Lewis ), Michael Innes , Ngaio Marsh , Josephine Tey , Carter Dickson ( John Dickson Carr ), and P.D. James . After 1945, writers such as John le Carré adapted the detective-story format to the spy novel, in which he addressed the mysteries and character of the Cold War .

The Mystery Writers of America, a professional organization founded in 1945 to elevate the standards of mystery writing, including the detective story, has exerted an important influence through its annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards for excellence. See also mystery story ; hard-boiled fiction .

Elements of an Essay

Definition of elements of an essay, nature of elements of an essay, function of elements of an essay, related posts:, post navigation.

PoliPhiNosaur’s Musings

Ap lit - poetry prompt - the mystery (dunbar).

The following essay is meant as a study guide only and definitely is not an invitation to cheat. With that said, feel free to borrow from it, paraphrase it, and adopt ideas from it that you like. Sometimes the best way to learn to write well is to read how someone else might have written a response to the same prompt. For many of the AP students I interact with, the primary challenge is learning to form an argument that builds on itself in a logical way. You may find reading my response helps you formulate a strategy for answering the prompt. Learning to integrate evidence in a way that makes sense to the argument is another key skill that can boost an essay score. Read this carefully and see how it compares to your own writing.

If you found this helpful, please email me. I would love to hear what helped and what didn't. Likewise, if you didn't find it helpful, please email me and let me know why. Feedback is the best way for me to learn to best demonstrate the skills students need to see.

Last reminder; if you're doing a "cut and paste" with this essay then that's plagiarism and that can have huge consequences. Plus, your AP teacher will know. Trust me. They know your writing, your voice, and they know when you turn in an essay that doesn't sound like you.

To question one's existence is, for many schools of thought, a fundamental act of humanity. This query to the nature of human existence is at the core of philosophical existentialism. The speaker in Paul Dunbar’s “The Mystery” is grappling with these questions in exactly the way Nietzsche or Kierkegaard might have done. By using figurative language, repetition, and structure Dunbar helps his speaker explore the radical freedom of his existence.

The existential perspective is built upon the founding principle that one does not choose to be born and must decide, for themselves, what to do with their life. Using figurative language, Dunbar illustrates that freedom. He sets up the impact of his figurative language by beginning with language that plainly states “I was not...I shall not be”. Offering the speaker's birth and death as simple statements of fact highlights that the speaker has no choice in those matters. Those statements stand in stark contrast to the figurative language used to describe the period between birth and death. The speaker stands “upon a wide and sunless plain” without instruments to guide “my steps aright”. Seized with constant fear the speaker must “grope without direction” in order to move at all. The speaker has no dogmatic system, does not “hear a voice” or “feel a hand” guiding him through the darkness of his decision making.

By repetition does the speaker express his desire for some dogmatic guide to help him through his life. The reader must question, though, how seriously to consider the speaker's desire for guidance as he begins his discussion of religion with the statement that “some feign” to hear voices or feel a hand guiding them in the dark. Whether the speaker genuinely wishes for that guidance, the reader cannot know. What the reader can is that the speaker follows on with a repeated phrase “tho’ oft thro’” that certainly leaves the impression that there is a desperation to hear a voice in the infinite silence, or feel a hand in the fateful darkness. That repetition extends to the structure of the poem as well, but never gives any hint that the speaker found the guidance they wished for.

The structure of the poem seems to mirror the lifes journey of the speaker. Written as a single, long, stanza, the poem seems to say that life, from birth to death, is a single event without breaks or pauses. Within the poem, as within a life, though, there is a process of acceptance that is illustrated by loose couplets. Lines 1 and 2 and 18-20 mark the beginning and end of life. Lines 3 and 4 establish that the speaker feels powerless, lines 5 and 6 begin to establish that the speaker feels afraid, while lines 7 and 8 complete the thought. Lines 9 and 10 establish the speaker's awareness of religion or dogmatic philosophy. Lines 12 -15 offer the speakers desperate search for a God or some other guide, while lines 16-19 illustrate the speakers search for answers within nature itself.

In the end the reader must reach the same conclusion for the speaker that they reach for themselves. That conclusion being that the speaker is ultimately alone in life and must find their own way. That conclusion comes with the heaviness of being alone but also with the potential joy of complete freedom for the speaker to shape their life as they see fit. Whether the speaker views represent Dunbars cannot be determined from the material and methods of this poem alone.

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Investigating the art of murder mysteries: An interview with Fiorella De Maria

“Father Gabriel’s priesthood,” says the award-winning Anglo-Maltese writer and creator of the five Father Gabriel Mysteries, “is at the heart of who he is, as a man and as a detective.”

June 12, 2024 Rhonda Franklin Ortiz Books , Features , Interview 0 Print

“There is, however, another good work that is done by detective stories,” G. K. Chesterton wrote in 1901 . “While it is the constant tendency of the Old Adam to rebel against so universal and automatic a thing as civilisation, to preach departure and rebellion, the romance of police activity keeps in some sense before the mind the fact that civilisation itself is the most sensational of departures and the most romantic of rebellions… For the present it is enough to point out that this form of art, like every form of art down to a comic song, has the whole truth of the universe behind it”

Chesterton was right: Every fictional story carries echoes of Eden, of what we had and what we lost, and of the desperate measures we take to regain it. This is especially true of the detective story, which explores questions about justice. “Where is Abel your brother?” the first Sleuth asked. “I do not know,” the first murderer answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Catholics do not have a monopoly on the mystery genre, but detective fiction holds a prominent place in the Catholic literary canon. Among the founding members of the famous Detection Club were G. K. Chesterton, who served as its president, and Msgr. Ronald Knox, whose Ten Rules for Detective Fiction helped shape the genre’s Golden Age.

Writing in this tradition today is author Fiorella De Maria , whose most recent Father Gabriel mystery,  Missing, Presumed Lost ,  was recently released from Ignatius Press. Fiorella is an award-winning Anglo-Maltese writer living in Surrey, England who studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge.

She recently shared her thoughts on detective fiction generally and the Father Gabriel series specifically.

CWR:  One thing I’ve learned as an author and editor: there’s always a story behind the story. How did the Father Gabriel series come about?

Fiorella De Maria:  I have always wanted to write a series. There is something about being able to develop a character over multiple stories that really appeals. I read my first Sherlock Holmes story when I was seven years old—I scared myself half to death reading  The Speckled Band,  but I was hooked on classic crime fiction from that moment. I grew up on a diet of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Chesterton, and other crime writers, so creating my own detective was probably an accident waiting to happen.

I grew up in Wiltshire in the South-West of England, near a Benedictine abbey, so the action of the series takes place in and around the beautiful region in which I grew up.

CWR: Had you written murder mysteries before? How well did you know the genre and its conventions before you began work on the Father Gabriel series?

Fiorella De Maria:  I had never written a murder mystery before the Father Gabriel series, though another novel of mine,  A Most Dangerous Innocence,  is a mystery story set in a quintessentially English setting, a 1940s boarding school.

CWR:  Do you have a favorite murder mystery trope?

Fiorella De Maria:  There’s nothing like a good denouement, though it is surprisingly easy to get wrong—the author has to work very hard to ensure that no clues have been left out and that the big reveal does not turn into an epic info-dumping session. I quite enjoyed playing with the Incompetent Policeman figure too, which features in most classic murder mysteries because of the failure of Scotland Yard to find Jack the Ripper.

Father Gabriel and Inspector Applegate do eventually develop a grudging respect for one another, and it has been interesting to develop their relationship along more positive lines.

CWR:  We know that murder mystery conventions can be used in any setting, but the setting will dictate how they’re used. Regarding motive, method, and means, science fiction must take futuristic technology into account. Fantasy fiction incorporates magical elements, while historical fiction must consider the particularities of its own setting. In what ways does the post-World War II English setting shape the Father Gabriel stories?

Fiorella De Maria:  The post-war rural setting means that much more of the act of solving the crime comes down to deduction and intuition. It was a world without DNA testing and other aspects of modern forensics, but also without easy communication, such as mobile phones, or any telephones at all in some cases. In the late 1940s, rationing was still in place for many products—foodstuffs, clothing, petrol—and car ownership was a rarity.

Father Gabriel has to rely on his deductive powers and fortitude, as at times he ends up physically isolated in dangerous situations without any possibility of backup arriving in time.

CWR:  The post-war setting works especially well for a murder mystery series, doesn’t it? People are reeling and suffering and acting out their anger and grief.

Fiorella De Maria:  Absolutely. It was one of the reasons why I chose this setting. People are suffering and living with the effects of extreme trauma, but there are also thousands of people uprooted, struggling to settle in a new country, trying to bury the past or reinvent themselves.

Also, there are many unresolved war crimes. Each of my books looks at a different aspect of the war: the concentration camps, stolen Jewish art, the collusion of scientists in the development of weapons of mass destruction, etc. The peace following a major conflict is a time of reckoning, and that is very much reflected in the Father Gabriel mysteries.

CWR:  By now, the priest-sleuth is a well-established archetype. What makes Father Gabriel distinctive?

Fiorella De Maria:  I wanted Father Gabriel to be convincingly a priest and a Benedictine as well as a detective.

I love the Father Brown stories and have been heavily influenced by them as a writer of mysteries, but my one complaint is that we never really see Father Brown being a priest, saying Mass, hearing confessions, etc.

Father Gabriel is a late vocation, and there has been a lot of tragedy in his own life, making him aware of the lifelong consequences of sin. He knows that everyone touched by murder will suffer in some way, that following a guilty verdict someone is going to hang, and the family and friends of the victim will struggle to heal their broken lives. You see Father Gabriel comforting the bereaved, counselling a suspect to tell the truth, rushing to anoint a condemned person, even entering the death chamber.

Father Gabriel’s priesthood is at the heart of who he is, as a man and as a detective.

CWR:  Would you say that Father Gabriel is a man of his time?

Fiorella De Maria:  I try to make him as much a man of his time as possible. One of the biggest weaknesses of contemporary fiction is the tendency to put entirely modern characters into period dress, expressing ideas and attitudes that would have made no sense at the time. Father Gabriel is a man forged by the events of the first half of the twentieth century. He had an Edwardian childhood, he had a public school education—private to Americans—and he served in the Trenches. His outlook on life has to reflect that. However, as an English Catholic, Father Gabriel would also have grown up with a strong sense of being an outsider, judged and misunderstood in a country where anti-Catholic bigotry was commonplace.

CWR:  I’m reminded of Umberto Eco’s  The Name of the Rose , in which the setting is a fourteenth-century Benedictine monastery, while the sleuth, Brother William, is a Franciscan. The sleuth is often an outsider, and given the story’s setting, a mendicant was perhaps Eco’s only option. In your series, however, we have the reverse: Father Gabriel is a Benedictine who, despite the Benedictine ideal of stability, ends up being sent away–and then stumbling upon mysteries which he can’t help but solve. The tension between his sleuthing and his Benedictine vocation is a frequent theme.

Fiorella De Maria:  It is, and the reader frequently sees Father Gabriel getting himself into all kinds of awkward situations, trying to solve crimes and remain faithful to his vocation at the same time. It is almost inevitable at the end of the first book, that Father Gabriel is going to be sent into exile, after repeated rule-breaking, but my favourite moment is where Father Gabriel is dashing to the police station between parish activities, trying to work out how on earth Father Brown ran a parish as well as solving crimes!

CWR:  When I read mysteries, I’m always interested in how the sleuth character develops through the course of a series. For example, Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey is almost cartoonish in the early stories. Sayers later developed Lord Peter’s backstory, especially the impact his service during World War I had on him, which helped. But not until she introduces Harriet Vane does Lord Peter’s character develop to its fullest extent—which makes perfect sense to me. The mystery story is usually plot-driven, and the love story is character-driven. Put them together and they bolster and correct each other. With Father Gabriel, however, the love story is in the past—he had a wife and daughter who died tragically. From the beginning of the series, he is grappling with their deaths. Father Gabriel’s character continues to develop, and you reveal more and more of the backstory as the series progresses, but you didn’t begin his story with only his outer shell.

Fiorella De Maria:  I always envisaged Father Gabriel as a late vocation, and I have always been aware that many priests and religious have left behind very different lives. There were monks I knew growing up who had been city lawyers, who had served in the army, and in some cases, had been widowed young. One of the priests at my parish lost his wife very suddenly, and his experience of bereavement has helped him reach out to others who are suffering loss

In Father Gabriel’s case, he is motivated to seek justice for the victims of murder because he was unable to save the lives of his beloved wife and child.

CWR:  The fact that Father Gabriel is a widower also fits the post-war setting. He, too, is reeling and grieving.

Fiorella De Maria:  Yes, in some ways his grief is symbolic of a grieving nation. Suffering and grief are a lived reality for Father Gabriel, and it gives him a sense of solidarity with the thousands of families left reeling by the death of a loved one. Few families in Britain escaped the War unscathed, and some families in cities such as London and Coventry were destroyed altogether.

CWR:  Chesterton’s description of the detective “cross[ing] London with something of the loneliness and liberty of a prince in a tale of elfland” seems apt when thinking of Fr. Gabriel living in this post-war world.

Fiorella De Maria:  I couldn’t have said it better than Chesterton. Father Gabriel is of the world and also not of it.

CWR:  Do you have favorites among the series’ cast of characters? I’m fond of Abbot Ambrose myself.

Fiorella De Maria:  Not sure I’m allowed to say; it would be like having a favourite child! Besides Father Gabriel, of course, I am fond of Cuthbert because he forms a connection with the old century, but cheeky, straight-talking little Brother Gerard is my firm favourite. My husband’s grandfather was from Catholic Lancashire, and I feel very close to him whenever Gerard appears on the scene.

CWR:  Do you have any more Father Gabriel mysteries in the works? Does the series continue?

Fiorella De Maria:  Possibly. Given half a chance, I would keep going back to 1940s Wiltshire indefinitely.

CWR:  I hope you do, for your readers’ sake! Thank you, Fiorella, for the interview.

• Fiorella De Maria’s Father Gabriel Mysteries— The Sleeping Witness , The Vanishing Woman ,  See No Evil , Death of a Scholar ,  and the latest release,  Missing, Presumed Lost —are available from Ignatius Press.

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