Essays

How To Write A Murder Mystery 3: [Please Subscribe To Premium For A Witty Caption]

A Multi-Part Guide

By the increasingly unqualified Joaquin S.

DISCLAIMER:

This is part three of my self-indulgent yammering on crime tropes that not a single, solitary soul cares about except the people grading this. For context on whatever my neurotic god complex comes up with this time, please go into the archives and read the past two pieces in the series. Or not. I don’t really care.

Well. So this is happening again.

After my general hiatus from this series (this long-forgotten magazine only comes out once per season, after all) I have absorbed more forms of media that may or may not bring effects upon my articular styles, such as Knives Out (which is VERY relevant) and the first four acts of Homestuck (which are irrelevant but still funny, and may come in handy if I do a series on science ficHA GOTCHA). So where were we? Hold on, excuse me while I frantically rifle through my files and attempt to figure out what sort of Practical Japery I shall unload today…

Ah, so you want to write your mystery’s protagonist? No? You actually just stumbled upon this article and have no intention of penning any sort of noir epic, renowned by the press, reviled by the dunces of the world? TOO BAD!

Let’s start with some recaps of the villain archetypes from the last issue:

1. Psychopath / Your Mother: Killed one of her family members for ill-constructed ulterior motives

2. Self-Deluded Antihero / Attractive 20-ish Nice Person: Killed an important civil servant because they were a big meanie

3. Villain That’s Just Plain Depressed / Stressed-Out Housewife: Killed her husband because he cheated on her (but now she regrets it, like an idiot)

4. Literally Everybody / Some Random Guy: The whole village, angry at one specific dude - now said dude is dead, and you don’t know whodunnit!

5. 1950s Cartoon Villain / 1950s Cartoon Villain: No secret identity for this guy. He twirls his curly ‘stache and ties you to train tracks: Livin’ the dream.

6. Literally Nobody: No murderer - unless you count a bookshelf, a ladder, and an unabridged copy of Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text as complicit.

So now the question y’all are (hypothetically) asking yourselves is “How do I turn one of these prompts (or actually original ideas, if your three remaining brain cells got lined up long enough to make a coherent thought) into a main character?” And to prove I am not about to make you write a five-page essay on the subject (double spaced, 12 point, Times New Roman or Arial only, for the record), I will answer the question for you: Make the protagonist fit the crime. For the next list format I’ll just be listing the villain archetype and not the alter ego, as the former is who your hero / heroine is attempting to stop, and the figuring-out of the latter is saved till the end of the work.

1. Psychopath (stopper): This person is shocked when their (brother / sister / cousin / father / et cetera) is murdered, and pledges to discover whodunnit

2. Self-Deluded Antihero (defeater): Someone who didn’t really like the victim but has a sense of moral justice (prolly a cop or something)

3. Villain That’s Just Plain Depressed (finder): Little old lady who manages to bump into a murder case every other week, and whose name rhymes with Bessica Vletcher

4. Literally Everybody (discoverer): A hard-boiled detective, stumbling into a small town and uncovering the dark secrets of the murderous members - no this is not a Problem Sleuth reference

5. 1950s Cartoon Villain (foiler): Golly gee whilikers, Batman! Looks like the Trolley Transgressor’s captured more of the townspeople to serve in his twisted psychology experiments! I sure hope nobody sues me!

6. Literally Nobody (if you need someone to defeat a person that doesn’t exist, you may want to reevaluate your priorities): Any of the above ideas, but make them a witty Terry Pratchett protagonist and hopefully this dumpster fire of an idea can be resolved without much (bloodshed / angel tears / my tears / Terry Pratchett tears / tears of Balgok-Uth, Eater of Universes / kittens)

(Oh, and try to have some measure of originality here: Just make your protagonist directly relate to your villain in some regard and you'll be good.)

Right, my sanity has run out, and the computer’s at 12% battery: I’m calling it a night. Remember: If by some incredibly insane chance someone actually uses this series as a writing tool, credit me or I’ll set up your lower intestine as tasteful party streamers, with the liver as a nice frontispiece on the mantel. I do believe your fibula would look nice near the coat rack, and I’m sure I could pull something off with your rather aesthetically pleasing hippocampus -

Oh, hey guys! Hold up, I’ve got my computer set on dictate, let me just -

What do you mean, “stop killing people?” I’m LITERALLY neurodivergent and a minor, LOL. 

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