How to rite Killer Fiction

by Carolyn Wheat

  Instead of occupying more or less the same space at the same time, as in the traditional mystery, the private eye story gives us suspects who seem on the surface to have nothing in common. The private eye travels to the lowest depths of the city and then interrogates a suspect in a six-million-dollar beach house. One of the pleasures of this kind of mystery is figuring out what connects the two characters in the disparate settings. The connections are usually subterranean, running deep underneath the public lives of the characters like underground sewers.

  The private eye picks up few threads and does little apparent ratiocination. Instead, she's more likely to do hands-on investigative research in the public records office, hunting for old birth and death certificates, articles of incorporation, real estate records—tangible proof of links between characters in the distant or not-so-distant past.

  The straight-line narrative is still useful here, but less so than in the traditional mystery, since the murder appears so much more open-ended. There are no locked rooms, few phony alibis, and the "frame" is likely to consist of little more than a phone call to some poor sap who gets caught standing over the body bleating, "But he was already dead when I got here!"

  Clues in the Police Procedural

  If the private eye novel is less realistic than it appears to be, the police procedural is equally fantastic when compared to the truth about police investigations. For one thing, even the 87th Precinct novels fail to capture the fragmented quality of real life detective work. One detective doesn't devote his entire workday to a single case, and one detective doesn't work alone.

  Not only do cops come in pairs or teams, but the investigative functions are divided among crime scene technicians, coroners, fingerprint experts, blood and body fluid experts, forensic entomologists, document experts—a whole host of scientists whose job is to back up the street investigators. The cops themselves question witnesses; that's their primary contribution to the case. Their interrogations are backed up by facts discovered through science, but they themselves don't do the science.

  In the real world, the killer really could be anyone. There's no playing fair in real life, no small circle of suspects or even subterranean links among a small group. All these may be present, but in reality, the killer just might be a passing stranger or a serial killer with no rational motive. As mystery readers, if we want that much reality, we'll read true crime. Fictional police procedurals give the reader the illusion of following real cops through real cases, but they usually edit reality to fit our preconceptions. As with the other forms of the mystery, we'll be introduced to a set of suspects and a case will be made against each in turn. At the end of the book, one of them will be revealed as the true murderer and the others will have been changed in some way by the fact of the investigation.

  Whichever subgenre you choose, you'll need to plant clues for your detective to find, and a step-by-step account of the murder and the cover-up is the best way to develop those clues.

  EVERY NOVEL needs some kind of structure. At the very least, a story starts at the beginning, moves through the middle, and ends at the end.

  What kinds of things need to happen in the beginning of the mystery novel, in the middle, and at the end in order to give the reader the satisfaction she wanted when she bought the book?

  Arc One: The Beginning (The Setup)_

  The beginning of any novel is the setup, in which the reader is introduced to the characters, the setting, and the situation that will dominate the rest of the story. Many cozy whodunits begin by introducing the suspects before the murder is committed. We meet an eminently murderable citizen, and we see that citizen interacting with a number of people he aggravates to the point at which they mutter something about how "he's gonna get himself killed one of these days."

  That's the way Carolyn G. Hart's The Christie Caper begins. We spend Arc One wondering what new outrage cozy-hating mystery critic Neil Bledsoe will perpetrate next, and how long it will take someone to succeed in killing him. Several attempts are made, but our intrepid sleuth Annie Laurence Darling, owner of a mystery bookstore, reminds us of the advice given by Miss Jane Marple: "Nothing is ever quite what it appears to be on the surface."

  Diane Mott Davidson's Catering to Nobody opens with awake marking the passing bv suicide (or was it?) of a teacher. At the wake one of the

  The Four-Arc System for Organizing Your Novel

  The beauty of this plan is that you can use it as a blueprint before you've written a single word, or you can plunge ahead at full speed and then reorganize your material accordingly.

  Think of your novel as having four parts, roughly 70-80 manuscript pages each in length (based on a total length of 300 pages; longer books have longer arcs). Each of these parts has a distinct purpose in telling your story.

  Ten-Minute Hook

  An opening scene or chapter that is self-contained and grabs the reader in someway, by either showing a "day in the life" of the character whose life is about to be turned upside down, or giving a mini-preview of things to come.

  Arc One

  • Set up the conflict or problem, introduce main character and opponent or mystery

  • Establish character's inner need, which s/he may or may not be aware of

  • Start the subplot rolling—either main character's or a secondary character's or both

  • No flashbacks allowed—tell reader only what he must know now

  • Make the contract with the reader through tone and style

  • Use a catalyst if appropriate to get story started and keep things moving

  End Arc One at a crisis: the first turning point scene changes everything and sends the main character in pursuit of a new goal. A decision leads to a beginning level of commitment.

  Arc Two

  • Here come the flashbacks—but only to illuminate the present

  • Main character is tested, trained, given tasks, tries and fails to reach goal

  • One step forward, two steps back

  • Each gain leads to a (greater) loss in the end

  • Subplots deepen, also move toward their crunch points

  • Discrepancy between character's wants and needs grows larger

  • Establish deadline or ticking bomb, beyond which all will be lost

  End Arc Two at a crisis: the Midpoint scene may involve hitting bottom, being convinced there is no hope of success. Or the main character may move from reactive to proactive, from committed to fanatical, from objective to emotionally involved, from wrong goal to right goal. A line may well be crossed. Return to the status quo is now impossible. The character can only go forward, come what may.

  Arc Three

  • Pace increases considerably; chapters and sentences are shorter

  • All threads begin coming together; all subplots will be resolved by end

  • Ticking time bomb or other deadline becomes compelling

  • Build toward climax with ever-increasing conflicts and consequences

  • Character's desire to reach goal increases exponentially

  • Disconnect between character's need and want becomes clear even to him

  • Character tested and trained for the ultimate confrontation

  End with Arc Three crisis, the second turning point, in which the character is forced to make a crucial decision. This can be a low point (if character hasn't already hit bottom), or it can be a recognition that nothing short of a life-or-death confrontation will solve problem.

  Arc Four

  • The showdown at last—Good faces Evil, and only one will survive

  • All the stakes are bet on a single hand; nothing is held back

  • Give the ending its full value—give the reader what you promised in Arc One

  • Use all the elements you set up in the earlier arcs for maximum payoff now

  • Make sure character undergoes both external and internal transformation

  • Show an outer manifestation of internal change—character does som
ething in a way he or she couldn't have done at the beginning of the story

  • Make sure subplot resolution either supports or contrasts with main plot resolution for maximum thematic impact

  • If at all possible, take characters full circle in some way, with a setting or situation that repeats and echoes the beginning

  guests has a stomach attack and the cops suspect poison. Caterer Goldy Bear must delve into the poisoning in order to save her business, but she eventually comes to believe that the "suicide" was murder.

  Both Annie Laurence Darling and Goldy Bear make explicit decisions to investigate the crimes early in the story. That decision to "take the case" is the close of the first act, the place at which the detection begins.

  It's also known as Plot Point One, or the end of Arc One in the Four-Arc System. The murder itself is not, as some might think, the turning point—after all, people are murdered every day and their friends don't step in to solve the crime. Murder itself is not the essence of the detective story. It is the amateur detective's decision to "take the case" and solve the crime that makes the book a classic mystery.

  The police officer is different. It is, after all, his job to solve murders, so "taking the case" is assumed. Many police procedurals begin, not with a lineup of suspects, but with the dead body on the floor. This means one of the author's main tasks in the first arc will be to introduce the reader to the victim—a task the cozy writer did while the victim was alive.

  When does Arc One reach Plot Point One if the body is already on the floor in the first chapter? One answer: when the case becomes personal, takes on meanings that make it more than just another case. This can involve the cop's personal emotions, or his relationship within his community, or larger political and social implications. Being warned to lay off a major suspect because he's connected makes the case personal for some police officers. The important thing is that something near the end of the introductory material changes the nature of the case or the nature of the cop's relationship to the case, forcing a different attitude and approach in Arc Two.

  Private eye novels have their own unique variation on this structure. Usually, the P.I. "takes the case" in chapter one—but the case she takes is seldom a murder. She is asked to find a lost daughter or tail an unfaithful husband or check out a bogus insurance claim. The routine case turns into a murder case at the end of Arc One, thus raising the stakes and changing the detective's focus. Instead of (or in addition to) a murder, the P.I. may find that her client has lied to her, or be warned off the case by cops or people with power in the community. In any case, the routine matter she started with has turned deadly, and that will alter her behavior and focus in Arc Two.

  Arc Two: The Big Bad Middle_

  Writing the middle of a novel is a lot like driving through Texas. You think it's never going to end, and all the scenery looks the same.

  So what breaks the monotony? How can you keep the tension high as your detective essentially plods through the detail-oriented work of criminal investigation?

  In a detective story, the detective detects. In case you think that's too obvious to need mentioning, take notes when you read your next mystery and ask yourself whether its amateur sleuth is really detecting or overhearing things, listening to confessions, making wild speculations and wilder connections—in short, is that detective detecting or just getting lucky? The true detective story involves deductive reasoning, the use of logic, and speculation based on concrete evidence.

  When the detective detects is in the middle of the book. How the detective detects depends in part on the subgenre we're in. The amateur detective and the private eye are limited by the fact that nobody has to talk to him. The cop can compel answers, but she also inspires fear, and fear leads to lawyers, who will definitely call a halt to questioning.

  Detecting: The Q&A

  Questions and answers are a major source of information for the detective. This is dangerous for the writer because it leads to a lot of talking heads scenes, which can become boring and repetitious. How to spark up those scenes?

  • Choose an interesting setting. This might mean tracking the witness down at work—and making that work as fascinating as possible. If you take the Q&A into the witness's house, give us a house to remember.

  • Don't let all the witnesses roll over. Someone, somewhere, sometime should refuse to talk to the detective. This at least breaks the rhythm of one "confession" after another.

  • It wouldn't hurt if someone threw a punch instead of answering questions. The workplace setting can be of great help with this, particularly if it's a place with dangerous objects all around.

  • People have been known to lie. Maybe they could lie to your detective. The downside is that he probably won't know it's a lie until later.

  • Evasion is good, too. What if our witness is amazingly forthcoming about one aspect of the case and then clams up as soon as a certain name is mentioned? That adds interest to the scene without resorting to violence.

  • Even if you have to use the talking-heads-over-coffee setup for your Q&A, there are other ways to put spin on the ball, most notably by making the witnesses very interesting characters with a lot of quirks and zippy dialogue. Humor helps. Always.

  Ever watch Law and Order? You should; every mystery writer can learn from that first half hour of police work as the detectives track down the perpetrator of the crime we saw in the first two minutes of the show.

  What are the lessons of Law and Order (which owes a great deal to its predecessor, Dragnet) when it comes to presenting zippy Q&A?

  First, the cops waste no time getting to where they're going. We start the scene at the witness's home or workplace without wasting time showing the cops making the trip.

  Unless they're doing a quick discussion of exactly what it is they want to learn from this witness, in which case the point of the scene isn't to show them eating a hot dog while strolling down Seventh Avenue, it's to let the viewer know which piece of evidence this witness will or will not deliver into their hands and to remind us where that piece fits into their theory of the case.

  Once they're in place, the detectives get right to the point. "Where were you on the night of the twelfth?" The answer given by Witness A takes them directly to Witness B, Witness B puts them on to Witness C—sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly—and quite often Witness D sends them back to A now that they realize A was concealing something.

  The show's writers make a point of varying ages, races, genders, and economic backgrounds. The detectives go into the penthouses of the rich and famous and then to the cardboard box that's home to another witness. One witness has a Wall Street office with a view to die for, the next works on the loading dock. The rich threaten the cops with lawyers; the

  poor just threaten. The variation, and the deliberate insertion of the cops into alien territory, adds interest to what are essentially talking heads scenes.

  Because they're cops, they have the option of "squeezing" witnesses who don't want to talk. Sometimes this leads to one witness ratting out another, or it may allow the cops to move up the chain of command in a criminal enterprise.

  And it all happens so fast. That's the real magic of that first half-hour. We saw a crime in progress and in twenty-two minutes the detectives have a suspect arrested and ready for trial. They've spun and discarded four or five theories of the case, interrogated eight to ten witnesses, followed three or four distinct lines of inquiry, and they even had time for snappy banter, not to mention that hot dog.

  Detecting: Physical Evidence

  Questioning suspects and witnesses isn't the only way to get information. In the Golden Age, the Great Detective got down on all fours and checked the carpet for loose threads, mainly because the police didn't understand or respect scientific evidence, but today the police know all there is to know about forensics and they're the ones on their knees. So if your detective is a police officer, you can use all the forensic tricks you want to nail your suspect. J
ust make sure those details are interesting to the reader.

  If your detective is an amateur or a private eye, you have a problem. The crime scene technicians and homicide detectives aren't going to let your sleuth anywhere near the sources of physical evidence. Only if your detective finds the body before the cops are called is there a chance of seeing that evidence firsthand.

  Not that seeing it will be enough. The scientific knowledge and technology needed to match hairs and threads, blood and saliva, just don't belong to ordinary people. You need science, and the cops have all the science.

  Your detective, however, might borrow a little science by finding out what the cops know. This is one reason why so many female amateur detectives have cop boyfriends—it's one way to be certain that such details as time of death are revealed to the detective. Some facts will be reported in the newspapers, and the private detective often has sources on the papers who turn over what the newspaper withholds.

  Private eyes are expected to have people they can turn to for information outside of official channels. Amateurs, on the other hand, are ordinary people, and the writer who gives them unlimited access to inside information is in danger of losing credibility.

  If you can't get your detective to the body, how can your detective make use of physical evidence?

  How about the victim's house, car, office, gym locker? Your detective just might have a chance at beating the cops to one of these places, and all of them present interesting opportunities for clue finding. Messages on answering machines, computer disks, letters, diaries, notes, prescription drugs in medicine cabinets, lipstick on the collar, whips in the closet, stacks of money under the floorboards, diamonds in the ice cubes, narcotics in the briefcase, blood on the fender, a dead body in the bathtub— the possibilities are endless.

  In Catering to Nobody, Goldy Bear has a free hand in her investigation of the supposed suicide because the police discount the idea that it was murder. Through a series of ruses and assertive moves, she gains access to the dead woman's house, her car, her gym locker, and her pharmacy records. She also listens to small-town rumor and finds evidence in her son's desk drawer at school. She collects enough evidence to force the police to consider that the woman was murdered.