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How to Create Intrigue in Fiction Rob Parnell I'm working on an old story at the moment that I dusted off recently. It's one I wrote about ten years ago and thought I might begin submitting again. It's a murder mystery, originally set in London, England - and I'm now re-writing it, changing the setting to Adelaide, Australia - the rationale being that I'd ideally like to sell it to an Australian publisher. What struck me reading it, now I have a significant distance from it - and don't take this wrong way - is how clever it is. I don't mean that it's a superb piece of writing or anything - but just that I'd forgotten how cleverly I'd introduced the characters. Being a murder mystery, it was important to set up clues and false clues at the beginning of the story, so that the reader wouldn't quite know what was going on. I introduce one character, Patrick, as he's injecting himself. You're supposed to think he's a drug addict. It's only later you realize he's a diabetic. Another character I introduce as a male philanderer, only to reveal later that he is, in fact, gay. I realized as I was reading the story that this was how writers can create a sense of intrigue in their fiction. By deliberately misleading a reader, especially in a murder mystery, the story remains compelling because the reader is having to do some work - mentally juggling the facts to arrive at solutions the author is leading them to - only to find they've been duped. I know that most mystery readers really hate guessing the outcome. They like to be presented with all the facts and clues but if they decide early on who the killer is, they can feel let down at the end when they guessed right! I love novels by Sue Grafton and Jennifer Rowe. I get really involved in them, making predictions about the identity of the killer as I'm reading. And guess what? I'm always wrong! To me this is a sign of real talent - even genius - to be able to divert my attention away from the real murderer, even though they're right under my nose all the time. You might like to try writing a short mystery to stretch your skills as a writer. They're good practice because they usually take a lot of planning - right down to a minute by minute foreknowledge of how a crime or murder unfolds. The mystery comes directly from the plot - it's usually about exactly where characters are - and where they say they are - when the crime was committed. Traditionally, the story is told from the point of view of the investigator trying to sift through the evidence and the clues - although this is by no means exclusively the case. Sometimes it can be fun to tell the story from the point of view of a prime suspect - or from the detached omniscient viewpoint where everybody is a supect. Mystery writers say there is one story all writers should try at least once. It's the 'locked door' scenario. You've probably read several - and seen some on TV - not realizing it's considered a genre piece. Here are the rules: 1. A person is murdered in a room locked from the inside. 2. The victim is found alone with little or no evidence there was a murderer with him. 3. There can be no secret passages. 4. The old 'knocking the key out of the lock onto a piece of paper on to the floor and pulling it under the door' trick is not allowed. Then, it's up to you to decide how the victim died - and who was the murderer. You probably don't get it in your part of the world - it's a UK program - but 'Jonathon Creek' uses this premise as the plot of each of its stories. It's a fun scenario - deliberately baffling - and requiring much skill and dexterity from the writer. And not a little inspiration! Why not have a go? Keep Writing!
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