The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit Read Free Page B

lawyer-sleuth hero of my mystery series, likes to ponder difficult cases from the banks of a trout stream or the little balcony off his waterfront apartment in Boston. The process is identical to what I, his creator, go through trying to think up puzzles for him to solve:
    I drank and smoked and thought. The breeze came at me from the sea, moist and organic. The bell buoy out there clanged its mournful rhythm. From behind me came the muffled city noises—the wheeze of traffic through the night-time streets, the occasional punctuation of siren and horn, the almost subsonic hum and murmur of dense human life.
    I remembered the Vermont woods, and my picnic with Kat, and how the birds and bugs and animals and river sounded, and how the pine forest smelled, and how my rainbow trout never missed his mayfly.
    And while one part of my mind registered all of these surface things and wandered freely on its own associations, a different part of it looked for pattern and purpose in three North Shore murders, and a third part watched what was going on and tried not to judge it or guide it.
     
    That, as well as I can state it, is how I think through a story idea. It’s a process of disciplined free association, at once random and purposeful. If anyone watched me do it, they’d accuse me of daydreaming.
    I do it on long automobile trips. I tend to miss highway exits when I’m driving. During conversations, I find myself saying, “Excuse me. What were you saying?” Sometimes I lie on my bed and stare at the insides of my eyelids. Now and then I scribble a note about a character or a place or an event on a scrap of paper. Periodically I enter my notes into my computer. I build scenes around them and explore them and try to see where they lead.
    More often than not they take me to a dead end. I expect that and keep at it. A good idea is worth working for.
    An idea isn’t a plot, and a plot isn’t a story. An idea is a spark that ignites the individual creative imagination. It can usually be stated in a simple declarative statement, such as, “An elderly woman dying of cancer yearns to reconcile with her estranged daughter before she dies.”
    Or, “The owner of a million-dollar stamp, thought to be the only one of its kind in existence, is contacted by someone who claims to possess a duplicate of that stamp.”
    You may not find either of these ideas particularly promising. But I did, and I developed each of them into a novel. An idea that excites me may not strike your imagination, for the obvious reason that you and I have different interests and experiences.
    An idea sets off a complicated chain reaction, a sequence of imagined events which the writer converts into scenes populated by imaginary people. That is a plot. When the writer puts it all onto paper, it becomes a story.
    In their search for ideas, some mystery writers hang around with newspaper reporters, or sit in courtrooms, or lurk in barrooms, or ride with police officers. I know one writer who tunes in the afternoon television talk shows. He claims he’s gotten several story ideas from the oddball people interviewed by Oprah and Jerry Springer.
    Always be alert for ideas. Read compulsively and eclectically. Eavesdrop shamelessly. Visit new places. Study people. Engage strangers in conversation. And when you get an idea that excites you, resist the powerful temptation to sit down immediately and start writing. Instead, find a quiet place where you can practice the discipline of controlled free association.
    The best way to create a complex mystery plot from a single exciting idea is to keep asking yourself: “What if?” Here’s an example of how this works for me:
    The idea for my first novel, Death at Charity’s Point , came from the news story of a fugitive from the law who, after several years of living quietly under an assumed identity, a pillar of his little rural community, decided to turn himself in.
    What if , I asked myself, someone in this fugitive’s