help with a mystery story

[gimli7410]

anyone do mystery stories. what are some good red herrings (i thinnk that is hwat they are called) i have to write one for english.

[Agalayth]

If I remember correctly, a red herring is something that leads you off track from solving the mystery, right?

If so, a common red herring is having evidence of someone's "dark past" and trying to find out as much as they can about that person. Later you can say that that person is innocent. Another thing that was done in the Scream movies that I've seen is having the culprit trying to prove their innocence throughout the whole book, making you really believe they're innocent. At the end of the first Scream when I found out that Billy was indeed the killer, I was pretty shocked. It makes for a good ending. ;)

[Lief Erikson]

I haven't written any mystery stories yet, but I definitely enjoy having mysteries in my plots. As I just recently proved in recent developments in the RPG Hytorax :D.

Is your mystery supposed to be a short story?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I intend to write a murder short story (along with a lot of other things :p), but I doubt I'm clever enough for a mystery.

[Lief Erikson]

I'm sure you'd be great at them, Gwaimir :D.

[Lief Erikson]

It really just takes organization, as coming up with any plot does. First comes motive and the way the villain's goal is to be carried out. Considering what type of a character the villain has might help. Background also is very useful for giving key clues as to who did it.

Though . . . it can be rather tough thinking of those. I'd imagine short story ones that are meant to be serious would be the harder ones. Because you don't have time to build suspense, get people attached to characters or anything like that. The whole sequence has to fit into just a very few scenes. So doing it in brief would probably be tough.

[Arat-Falathion]

This is an exellent idea! Getting the more experienced writers to share their knowledge and tips others who are interested in writing... really nice!! :D

[Lief Erikson]

Most everyone shares their opinions based upon experience or hearsay; I hope I won't be alone in that :(. I haven't written any stories that belong in the genre "mystery" yet, as I said, but I'm trying to transfer my experience with making mystery plot lines in other fantasy works of mine.

[Agalayth]

When I was in fourth grade I wrote a mystery story for school, but that was about it. I've read many mysteries though. My favorite mystery might be the book Holes. I can imagine that the easiest way to write a mystery is to work backwards.

[gimli7410]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
I haven't written any mystery stories yet, but I definitely enjoy having mysteries in my plots. As I just recently proved in recent developments in the RPG Hytorax :D.

Is your mystery supposed to be a short story?


yea

[Lief Erikson]

Well, I probably wouldn't make it a drama, then. I just can't see a way to make a drama in that amount of space.

But then, there are a lot of people who've done more with mystery then me. There might be a way.