Free Write Your Own: Mystery by Pie Corbett Page A

to make the mystery work:
    Â Â the ‘sleuth’ or detective
A mystery story has a main character who tries to solve the mystery. It could be a real detective or an ordinary person who acts like a detective.
    Â Â the villain
This is the person responsible for the mystery. The villain could be an evil person or it could be something more innocent like a magpie that steals jewels!
    Â Â the suspects
The suspects are characters who might have been responsible for the mystery. It is good for your story if the suspects appear to have a reason for committing the crime. This is called a motive.
CUNNING READS
    If you want to write mystery stories then you will need to read plenty. The more you read, the more you will become familiar with the basic ingredients that a mystery writer needs. Try to read as many mystery stories as possible from this list before planning your own story:
    Â Â 
The Rat-a-tat Mystery,
Enid Blyton
    Â Â 
Sam, The Girl Detective: The Case of the Missing Mummy,
Tony Bradman
    Â Â 
Bug Muldoon Stories
, Paul Shipton
    Â Â 
Diamond Brothers Stories
, Anthony Horowitz
    Â Â 
Holes
, Louis Sachar
    Â Â 
Harry Potter Series
, J K Rowling
    Â Â 
The Castafiore Emerald
, Herge
    Â Â 
Mystery Stories
, edited by Helen Cresswell
KEEP A WRITING JOURNAL
    Writers are always on the lookout for ideas. Most writers keep a writing journal. This is a place for jotting down ideas before they get forgotten.
    Look out for:
    Â Â unusual characters who might make great villains or suspects;
    Â Â strange places where weird things might happen;
    Â Â curious things that people say or do;
    Â Â news stories about local crimes or happenings that you could use as a basis for your mystery ‘problem’.
    Â 

    Writing Tip!
    Get a cardboard box and use it to store possible ‘clues’. These could be any odd or unusual items you find. When you come to write you may not use all the items in your box, but they might give you some ideas.
    You might save:
    Â a black feather;
    Â a scrap of a letter;
    Â a match box;
    Â a strand of hair from a barbed wire fence;
    Â a strange photograph;
    Â a button found on the pavement;
    Â a news clipping about a burglary.
PLOT TRIGGERS
    Always be on the hunt for ideas that will trigger your story into action. One way to do this is to read newspapers or watch the news on television and make a note of any unusual stories. Another way is to daydream up some lists of ideas, for example:
    Supposing …
    Â Â you hear an odd noise coming from an empty house;
    Â Â coming home from school you see two men carrying a rolled up carpet out of a deserted house;
    Â Â you get a letter warning you not to make friends with the new girl at school;
    Â Â the new teacher is overheard talking about kidnapping;
    Â Â a conjuror performs a disappearing trick and does not reappear.
    Â 
    Time to Write!
    Â Start your writing journal with a list of your favourite mystery books. Make notes on how the author:
    Â creates suspense and uses cliffhangers;
    Â keeps up a fast pace;
    Â drops in clues;
    Â uses ‘red herrings’ to mislead you from the real villain;
    Â ties up the loose threads at the end.
    Â Now start collecting some possible triggers to fire up the plot. Cut out extracts from newspapers that could provide plots and stick them into your journal.
    Â Make a list of ‘Supposing …’ ideas in your writing journal.

WRITERS AT WORK
CREATING YOUR OWN MYSTERY
    All writers have five ‘servants’ to help them when they sit down to write a mystery: who? where? when? what? and how?
    1. Who?
    Think about your characters, especially the sleuth, the villain and the other suspects. Draw up a ‘gallery’ for your main characters so that they become ‘real’ people to you! Be on the lookout for the sort of thing that makes people look suspicious and make a note of these details.

    For