Write Your Own: Mystery (8 page)

 

Time to Write!

 In your writing journal:

 Create a character ‘gallery' for your main characters – sleuth, suspects and villain, including a name and some special details about them and what type of person they are. Beside the characters make a list of possible motives for their crimes!

 Write down some ideas for settings for the different scenes in your story.

 Jot down some basic plot outlines to choose from.

 Dream up some ideas for thrilling ‘hooks' that will capture your readers and keep them on the edge of their seats!

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

All the best writers do a lot of thinking before they put pen to paper. This chapter reveals a few tricks of the trade that writers of mysteries use to mystify their readers by creating realistic characters and exciting settings.

1. Describing your characters

To make your characters seem real, you need to describe their appearance. The details you mention should suggest something about the type of person they are. For example, a shady character might wear dark clothing, or a ‘showy' person might wear loud, bright colours.

  what their features are like
Describe your characters' features. For example:
Eyes: dark, brooding, grey, sharp, mean, cruel …
Mouth: thin lips, tense, like a slit, tight, broad grin …
Teeth: white, jagged, one gold tooth, uneven …
Hair: slicked back, greasy, thin, glossy, cropped …
Hands: like a bird's claw, thin, gnarled, bony, fat and stubby, grimy, chewed fingernails …

  how they walk
How your characters walk can suggest what kind of character they are. For example,
Bitzer Malone sidled over to the gate …
or
Tim Poplar strode into the room.

  how they talk
Your characters' voices could be high-pitched, squeaky, whispering or slow; booming, grating, rasping or sing-song.

 

Writing tip!

Try using a ‘sentence of three' to describe your characters. For example:

Mrs Maples was wearing a shiny overcoat, black wellingtons and a peaked hat. Or, Buster McVey had slicked back hair, brooding eyes and hands like shovels.

  use special details
Small details are important when building up a picture of a character. For example:
His small, diamond ring sparkled in the lights …
Her shiny, snakeskin shoes squeaked with every step …
The ends of his spectacles had been chewed almost to nothing …
A red, silk hanky poked out of his top pocket …

2. How your characters act

Think carefully about how different characters will behave. Shy people may want to withdraw but bossy and aggressive characters will act quite differently. You can build your character's personality by showing how they act. See how these two pieces of writing can convey, for example, either a confident or a shy person: