Of course you can! That’s the whole reason to skip lines, and be ready to cross things out, or hit the delete key. Sure, by the time your reader sees the story it looks neat and polished, but that’s because you’ve kept the biggest secret of all from your readers the whole time: Writing a mystery takes very careful planning, and sometimes a lot of rewriting. It only looks easy to the reader because you work to make it look easy.
If you got here by flipping forward from this page, flip back and keep reading!
* * *
THE END:
CRACKING THE CASE
DETECTIVE’S NOTEBOOK: CONFESSION AND CONSEQUENCES
We’ve arrived at the end of our mystery—not the very end, but close enough that we can now show you the Top Secret Culprit Case File for Digging Up Danger on this page.
The dark figure Eliza saw hovering around the front of the plant store when she first arrived, the shadow she saw behind the greenhouse that she thought might have been “just a dog,” the terrifying shape with the yellow eyes she saw through the window, all turned out to be William, Eliza’s “ghost.” But also, in a super weird twist, William’s plant turned out to be the co-culprit: many of the weird things Eliza observed, from Tommy’s suspicious behavior, to the Carrolls’ yellow eyes, were actually caused by the plant!
When the culprit finally admits they’re behind the mystery, this is called the confession. How does the detective get a culprit to confess? In our case, Eliza did a sting operation to lure the culprit out. Many detectives don’t need a sting operation, however; they simply find enough clues to prove the culprit did it, and tell everyone how they solved the mystery. The culprit has no choice but to confess.
The mystery writer’s job is to make that confession as interesting as possible. After all, William didn’t just say, “You caught me. I took the plant because it’s from my island where dog people live. Good-bye forever!” He told an exciting story with his confession. Here are a few ideas for how the confession might go:
Make the culprit sympathetic. The culprit doesn’t have to be a bad guy. Sometimes they have good reasons for what they did, like William, trying to save his people from the outside world (and to save the outside world from his people). Even if the culprit isn’t quite as sympathetic as William, it can make the story more interesting if the reader can feel sorry for them and understand why they did what they did. (“I had to train tigers to guard my mansion! I own lots of valuable stuff, and I needed to make sure no one tried to rob me!”)
Make the culprit a real villain. You might also do the opposite of making the culprit sympathetic. It can be a lot of fun to make them into a big villain when they confess. What the villain is saying might be so strange, or the speech they’re giving is so evil, it’s just plain fun to read—and to write. (“Once I have an army of trained tigers, I’ll be able to go shopping wherever I want and never have to pay for anything! Nobody will dare to stand in my way!”)
Explain how the mystery happened in more detail. Sometimes the detective catches the culprit, but the mystery is so weird they still don’t understand exactly how it happened, and they need the culprit to explain. (“I suppose you’re still wondering how I trained all those tigers in the first place? You see, I used to be the owner of a zoo, which was when I made a startling discovery about how to communicate with big cats….”)
Finally, every confession has consequences. In a lot of mysteries, the consequences are simple: The culprit goes to jail.
This has been done OVER AND OVER AGAIN, however, and there are many more interesting ways for a mystery to turn out. That doesn’t mean every mystery needs to be as weird as “the culprit must take his plant that turns people into dogs back to his island, to avert chaos.” But you should try to make the consequences more surprising than “jail.” Maybe the culprit needs to do something to apologize for the mystery. (“I’ll donate the treasure I found to get all the pools in town fixed again.”) Maybe the culprit was doing something good all along, and everyone else needs to make it up to them. (“I drove my spaceship to Earth to help you. Now that you’ve found me, I need your help to make it back home.”) Or now that the mystery has been solved, maybe there’s an even bigger, more dangerous secret that’s been uncovered, and must be dealt with. (“It turns out I trained the tigers too well. Soon, they’ll be smarter than any human who ever lived, and I’m scared of what they’re planning.”)
IDEA STORM: GET A CONFESSION, AND DECIDE ON THE CONSEQUENCES
It’s the moment you’ve been planning for since way back in the beginning: the end! Now you just need to explain to your readers how all the clues fit together, and tell them about your culprit.
Think about how you want your culprit to confess. Are they going to tell a story that makes them sympathetic to the reader? Or are they going to turn out to be a real villain? Maybe they’ll clear up some final details about how the mystery happened?
What will the consequences be? Try to find some consequences that are different, and more interesting than “jail.” One place to start is to look back at your Culprit Case File (see this page) at the question: “What will happen if someone finds out this person is the culprit?” If you already had an interesting idea listed there, use it!
If you got here by flipping forward from this page, flip back and keep reading!
* * *
DETECTIVE’S NOTEBOOK: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE
Ahhhh, finally time to relax after a job well—uh-oh.
In some mysteries, just when you think the case has been solved, and everything is over, suddenly the detective is in danger once again. In Eliza’s case, it’s because Leif has realized how valuable the berries from that rare plant would be, and wants to keep some for himself…even if it means he has to push Eliza out the window so she can’t tell anyone.
There are a lot of different places this sudden danger could come from at the end of a mystery. Here are a few examples:
The culprit escapes, or the culprit confesses, but then immediately tries to get revenge on the detective.
The culprit goes away…but they secretly had a helper in the setting that the detective didn’t know about! This helper is very angry now.
The case is solved, but there’s a new danger in the setting. For example, we finally know that the tiger in the restaurant escaped from the mansion…but now the detective is stuck in the mansion, surrounded by super-intelligent angry tigers. Or we finally found out why all the water was missing from the swimming pools, but now the culprit accidentally caused a flood, and the town is in danger!
IDEA STORM: WRITE ONE LAST SURPRISE
Do you want to put your detective in sudden danger at the very end of the story? Think about what might put them in danger: Is it the culprit? A friend or helper of the culprit’s who we didn’t know about? Is it some other danger in the setting?
How does the detective get past this sudden danger? You can look back at “Detective’s Notebook: Running Into an Unexpected Obstacle” on this page for more ideas about how to get the detective back to safety! As always: you have PERMISSION TO GET WEIRD!
If you got here by flipping forward from this page, flip back and keep reading!
* * *
DETECTIVE’S NOTEBOOK: A MYSTERIOUS PROLOGUE, REVISITED
Secrets love three things…
We’re finally at the end! So what was happening in that mysterious prologue? Go back and read it one more time. After reading the whole book, you’ll probably have a much clearer idea than when you started.
Did you do it? Here were the basics: Leif and his crew arrived at the docks in their boat. They unloaded their plants into a truck and drove away. Then William snuck out of the boat, turned into a wolf, and chased after the truck (“one secret following another”).
It seems so obvious, now that you’ve read everything! But it took a whole lot of careful planning to get ther
e.
IDEA STORM: MYSTERIOUS PROLOGUE
How do you write your own mysterious prologue? This is your biggest mystery writer challenge of all:
Finish a whole mystery story! Seriously, your mysterious prologue will work much better if you know exactly what’s going to happen in the story.
Think about what happens before your story begins. What interesting secrets are in the setting, which may eventually have something to do with the mystery? Is there suspicious behavior happening? Some mysterious prologues show us what it’s like when the mystery first happens…even if they don’t give too many clues about how it happened, or who caused it.
Tease the reader. Tell them just a little bit about the secrets you’re hiding. Not too much (definitely not so much they can guess the culprit). Just enough to get them hooked.
This is the last Idea Storm. Did you do them all? If so…
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU JUST WROTE A MYSTERY!
If you followed along the whole way, then you:
Came up with a setting
Imagined a mystery in that setting
Created a detective to solve the mystery
Decided on a culprit who caused the mystery—but kept the culprit’s identity TOP SECRET
Carefully chose which clues you wanted the detective to find
Planned an investigation, in which the detective looked for clues by snooping around, watching out for suspicious behavior, identifying suspects, following leads, and questioning witnesses
Added excitement to the investigation by having the culprit strike again and the detective run into an unexpected obstacle, and possibly by wrapping it up with a sting operation
Cracked the case, got a confession, and had interesting consequences (just when your reader thought it was safe…)
Finally, you brought it full circle, and wrote a mysterious prologue to begin the story.
What can you do now?
Go back to the beginning, and make it even better! Now that you’ve finished the end, you may find ways to make the whole story even more exciting! Make your writing more suspenseful, put in even more interesting clues, find the perfect piece of suspicious behavior to lead the detective toward the suspect….
OR
Start an even WEIRDER story, with a more baffling mystery, a more unexpected suspect, and the most peculiar trail of clues that any detective has ever had to follow.
OR
Give yourself a high five for a job well done! But secretly…be thinking of more mysterious similes, and suspenseful paragraphs, and cryptic riddles. Keep sharpening that mystery-writer brain for the next time inspiration strikes!
Appendix:
PHOEBE’S ORIGINAL IDEA (WITH SPOILERS!)
Here’s the complete idea that Phoebe originally submitted for Digging Up Danger.
If you haven’t read the whole story yet, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO READ THIS? Because there are spoilers. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. It’s not too late to turn back! Okay, here it is.
When you’re writing, sometimes the ideas that first sparked your story might change and grow while you work. That’s what happened with Digging Up Danger: Jacqueline West started writing, using all of Phoebe’s ideas for inspiration, but then she got this WEIRD idea about what the plant’s mysterious powers could be (if you’ve read all the way through, you know what I mean!), and decided to chase after it and see where it took the story. Eventually, things got SO weird she decided this one detail about why the culprit caused the mystery didn’t exactly fit the story anymore. That’s totally okay—letting your imagination run wild might mean that you have to change around your original plans!
MYSTERY WRITER CHALLENGE:
Setting the Scene
The beach
An amusement park. The screams were from a roller coaster!
MYSTERY WRITER CHALLENGE:
Making Up a Mystery
12 mysterious bananas
MYSTERY WRITER CHALLENGE:
The Right Clues for You
A clown
A dentist (the minty string was dental floss)
A super strong robot with wheels instead of legs (the note was written in “binary,” a language used by computers with ones and zeros instead of letters of the alphabet)
MYSTERY WRITER CHALLENGE:
Where Will the Clues Lead?
A pizza restaurant
Somewhere with lots of dogs. A dog pound, dog kennel, dog park, or doggy day care. The detective will just have to see which of those might be nearby.
MYSTERY WRITER CHALLENGE:
Catching the Witness in a Lie
In the middle of the night with no power, no moon, no stars or flashlight to see by, how did this person see a clown through a window 100 feet away? Even if they somehow saw the clown, how in the world would they be able to see dark blue beanbags?
There was no Internet in 1979.
Show and Tells were the most exciting thing about working at CEASE. When a scientist’s latest discovery was ready to share with others, they held a Show and Tell for everyone at the center. What began at a CEASE Show and Tell often ended in a Nobel Prize, a world-changing new product, a billion-dollar company, or all of the above.
When she walked into the director’s office, Marisa was so excited she could hardly breathe.
“Dr. Palindrome?”
“Hello! Dr….Murray, isn’t it?”
“Morice, actually.”
“Right! Michelle Morice!”
“Marisa Morice.”
“Sorry! It takes me a little while to learn names.”
“I’ve been here for ten years.”
“And we’re SO glad to have you! What can I help you with, Marina?”
Marisa didn’t bother to correct him again. He’d remember her name soon enough. “I’d like to schedule a Show and Tell?”
“Wonderful! How soon?”
“As soon as possible?”
Dr. Palindrome checked his calendar. “How about tomorrow?”
“Okay. Great!”
“Super! Dr. Vasquez is also doing a Show and Tell. So we’ll combine the two. A double feature!”
Marisa’s heart leaped. Maybe tomorrow would be the day she and Dr. Vasquez finally had lunch! “Sure thing!”
Then she thought about it some more, and her excitement turned to worry. Marisa had no idea what Dr. Vasquez had planned. What if it upstaged Marisa’s big invention?
No. How could that be? Marisa had worked on hers for ten years! It had to be at least as good as whatever Dr. Vasquez had planned. There was no reason to worry.
But Marisa worried anyway.
* * *
The next afternoon, fifty-eight scientists and a janitor gathered in CEASE’s auditorium for its first-ever double Show and Tell.
Marisa and Dr. Vasquez stood on the stage with Dr. Palindrome. Marisa stood next to a small table, covered in a black sheet. Dr. Vasquez, her fingernails painted the perfect shade of red for the occasion, stood next to a wheeled cart topped by a mysterious giant box the size of a double-wide refrigerator. It was covered in a much larger (and, Marisa had to admit, much nicer) black sheet than Marisa’s.
“So!” Dr. Palindrome’s voice boomed. “What will you two be showing us today?”
“You first,” said Dr. Vasquez to Marisa with a friendly smile.
“Ummm…okay.”
Marisa stepped forward, her whole body trembling. It was only her confidence in the invention she was announcing that kept her from either fainting or running from the room.
Her voice barely rose above a whisper. Even through the microphone, the other scientists had to strain to hear her.
“I’ve…um…built a working so
lar-cell prototype—” Marisa felt herself getting dizzy and had to pause for a moment to breathe—“that combines graphene and molybdenum disulfide to a thickness of twenty thousand nanometers.”
Marisa pulled the black sheet off the table to reveal a solar panel the size and shape of a small windowpane.
A murmur of surprise went through the crowd. There was even a gasp or two.
“That’s AMAZING!” yelled Tom. “What does it mean?”
“It’s, um, ten times more efficient than current panels,” Marisa answered. “So, um, it’s, uh, kind of a revolution in solar energy. That, um, will solve mankind’s energy needs forever with, um, zero harm to the environment.”
“OHMYGOSH!” yelled Tom. “That is DEFINITELY AMAZING!” He looked around. “Right?”
Tom was right. The other scientists were all nodding, smiling, and whispering to each other with excitement.
As she watched them from the stage, Marisa’s nervousness melted away. Her face could barely contain her smile.
Just look at them! They were so excited! They loved her invention! Even Dr. Vasquez was beaming, and she’d just been upstaged!
The Story Pirates Present Page 17