 Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash Body Details to Improve Your StoryMost writers don’t think of anatomy and physiology when they are creating a story, but you can enhance reader engagement with body part details. If you find your characters all nodding in agreement or sighing in resignation, try expanding your view of the character. Every emotion sets off physical responses in the body. You can use the details of these responses to enrich your story. The next time a character has a response, think of their whole body from head to toe. What are their hands doing? How are they breathing? What is their body position? Use one of those responses in your story. Many writers act out a scene to get a better feel for how characters feel. You may feel self-conscious the first time you try, but putting yourself in your characters’ roles and physically acting out a scene gives you details you wouldn’t think of typing on your computer. Your Head-to-Toe ChecklistThink about every part of your character’s body to create detailed reactions. You be on your way to creating vibrant and complex characters. You’ll make your characters knowable to the reader and the details create empathy. They’ll know when your sleuth has a worthy opponent and when a suspect is lying. And, they’ll know your sleuth’s reactions to those characters. Each time you need to create action between characters give each character a body review. Here’s a list to help you go from top to bottom.
The reactions you use for each character depends on the point of view (POV) in the scene. Your sleuth can’t know what’s going on internally - brain, stomach - but she can use her powers of observation to note other physical reactions. Breathe Life Into Your CharactersReaders identify with physical reactions. They understand because they experience these reactions themselves. Tie the physical reactions to emotions bring characters alive. Seasoned writers use this technique as they write. Beginning writers may focus on these bodily reactions during editing. In the speed of just getting it written you may write He nodded. During editing you have time to expand the physical reactions. Two handbooks can help you work with these details:
Both books are available in both digital and print format. They are both great reference guides when writing character reactions. Add them to your library. Realistic detail brings your characters alive for your readers. Use one or two examples for each reaction (don’t overload your reader) to keep them engaged, sympathetic, and turning pages. Zara Altair
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 Photo by Joao Tzanno on Unsplash Give Your Reader a Sense of PlaceSetting is more than a backdrop for a story. A backdrop is a painted cloth hung at the back of the stage to create the appearance of a larger scene on stage. In a novel, you have room to bring your setting to life by placing your characters in the scene and interacting with the world around them. Setting gives readers a sense of place. The more you integrate the setting the deeper connection you build with your reader. Your story makes them feel as if they are there. As you integrate physical details of the setting into the story, your reader empathizes with your characters, especially your sleuth. Rather than a paragraph explaining (telling) the setting, scatter setting details throughout a scene. Use the five senses - taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight - to get your reader feeling the setting. Here are four ways to get those details into a scene without a long descriptive passage. MoodHow many television mysteries have you seen with a full moon at night shining through tree branches? Bang! You know it’s a mystery. This image is overused so I don’t recommend the full moon through tree branches. But, you can set the mood of threat, with dark spaces like the woods, a dank basement, or even the proverbial graveyard. A quick sentence can set the mood without slowing down your reader with a long, descriptive passage. PhysicalWhen your sleuth reacts to the setting, you build empathy for your reader. Get your sleuth and characters react to the physical details through sensory imagery. When you use these details, setting becomes like another character in your story influencing character actions. Jane Harper used these details effectively in her debut mystery, The Dry. And James Lee Burke’s characters interact with the Louisiana bayous and New Orleans city streets in his Dave Robicheaux series, beginning with his first mystery, The Neon Rain. EmotionalSetting can set off emotions in your characters. Frustration in the cold, lethargy in the heat, discomfort in a sterile room with no personal touches and other emotional responses to the setting can cloud your sleuth’s reasoning missing important clues that appear later as signals to the villain. Obstacle GeneratorSetting is a treasure trove of obstacles for your sleuth to overcome. From tripping in a messy room just when she needs to confront the villain to fainting in the heat, your setting details mess up your sleuth’s life. They are useful in scenes that need an obstacle to raise tension. Use Setting DetailsSpecifics make your story come alive. It doesn’t matter where you place your story. Your hometown, a far-away exotic location, an historical country manor, a big city all have the ingredients your need to let setting add impact. Michael Connelly sets Harry Bosch in L.A. Place names, street names, sounds, and tastes all add to making the city of Los Angeles part of each story. Your challenge as a writer is to illustrate the details that impact your characters. Show emotional depth when your protagonist love the sunset over the mountains/plains/coastline. Place a chase scene on a crowded highway with a soccer mom with an SUV full of kids impeding your sleuth’s high-speed chase. Hide a clue in the detritus on the forest floor. When your sleuth interacts with the environment, you give your reader a sense of place. Zara Altair  Why Read?You read long before you started writing. You probably started writing because you are a reader. Jane Friedman, writing and publishing coach/blogger underscores reading as the basis for good writing: Establish a reading habit that matches roughly what you hope to write and publish. Make it as important as anything else you schedule in your day, As your writing practice develops, you’ll read with a critical eye. On the first read, you notice various places in the story. Ah, what great dialogue! Here’s where the plot turns. I’m feeling this character’s pain. What You Learn ReadingWithout consciously noticing or reflecting, you learn a lot about story just from reading. If you apply a critical eye, you’ll start to balk at things that don’t work for you as a reader and examine what bothers you. For me, re-reading helps me focus on craft details. The first read is for the sense of story flow. The second reading is much more critical. I’ll stop to take notes.
How You Benefit from ReadingThe deeper you delve into your writing craft, the more details you notice as you read. The compilation of knowledge you gain reading grows over time. You’ll find your writing improves and even during the writing process you’ll have a sense of what works in your story. Gain the most benefit from reading by diversifying. Reading in your genre will up your game. But the lessons you learn reading outside your genre are just as beneficial because you will incorporate your sense of storytelling into your own writing. Zara Altair Photo by Ben White on Unsplash  Why Casting Your Characters Helps Your MysteryTo make your character function in your story world, you need to create details that set each one apart from the others. While the most important feature of your character in the story is the context, how they serve the story, help your readers identify each character with details.
Thriller writer Dana Haynes recently spoke at my local Sisters in Crime chapter. He advised something I’ve been doing for years, “Cast your characters.” Use film actors and personalities to embody your character as you write. It doesn’t matter if they are living. What you want is the sense of how they move and speak. I cast footballer Ádám Bogdán as one of Argolicus’ bodyguards, in my present work in progress The Grain Merchant. I wanted the energy and fierceness always in my head when writing.  Character TraitsYou can differentiate your characters with distinct character traits. It’s OK to borrow from those famous people. Use your character Bible to keep notes so when you bring a character back after 50 pages, you know the details. Create a background for each one of your characters. Some writers use a binder, others use built in character notes from software like Scrivener or StoryShop. Whatever tool you choose, enumerate the character traits that differentiate the character to make them memorable for your reader. You’ll guide your readers through the maze of characters you create with specific details. If a character gets left behind for 50 pages, one outstanding detail will refresh your reader’s memory. Borrow freely from your actor. As well as physical and personality traits, your actor may inspire the perfect secret and the lies your character constructs to make them a suspicious suspect. The actor’s voice and speech patterns will help you write dialogue unique to each character. When you cast each character, you’ll have an immediate fix on their personality as you write. You’ll have a red head with attitude, a debonair ex-husband, or a sultry, pouting mistress. (Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, Gloria Graham.) Your Casting CallOnce you have your character’s context in the story, start searching for your cast. If you already have an actor in mind, gather some images and put them in your character Bible. If you need to get a better fix on a character, perform an online search with terms like sex, age, and hair color. A broad search will give you plenty of results. Narrow your choices down to one or possibly two. This selection process helps you understand your character, because from the wide range of choices, you’ll see that many don’t fit. And, you’ll discover that an actor you hadn’t thought about, is just the right persona. Both the search and the final choice will help you write a character that readers remember. Zara Altair  No Mystery Without a Puzzle Mystery readers love a puzzle. More than one is more enticing. While your developed detective leads the reader on discovery search, the puzzle is the draw of a mystery. All the work you do in developing your characters, creating suspects, and planting clues has one aim to create a mystery. Giving away too much at the beginning spoils the tension. Readers will tolerate backstory, a love interest subplot, and even descriptive setting passages, but without the puzzle, there’s no mystery. The Set UpYour sleuth is the reader’s guide through the story. Creating a detective with quirks and strengths invites your reader into the story. The reader expects the detective to solve the mystery at the end, but not until the end. A solid introduction to how your sleuth works initiates reader trust that their guide has what it takes to collect the puzzle pieces and put them in place. The murder victim is the key to the mystery. As the detective learns more about the victim and the victim’s world the reader follows along anxious to see how things develop. They are eager for clues and suspects to confound them and your sleuth. The last part of the setup is when your sleuth takes on solving the mystery to uncover the villainous murderer. The Discovery Once your sleuth takes on the case, you set the puzzle pieces in place. What evidence and clues are at the scene? How was the victim killed? Then, your sleuth enters the victim’s world. He uncovers the victim’s friends, loved ones, and enemies. Each of these characters sheds new light on the victim’s life. The reader learns from each of the suspects a bit more about the victim. The victim’s likes and dislikes, their shortcomings, and their secrets are revealed as suspects contribute to painting a picture for the sleuth and your reader. The sleuth and your reader begin to form an opinion of the victim and possible reasons the victim brought on their own death. Toward the middle of your mystery your sleuth and your reader discover that they didn’t have a full picture. A midpoint event illustrates how wrong those first assessments were. On The HuntEverything seemed to go along in the discovery until the big obstacle pointed out the sleuth did not have all the facts, was headed in the wrong direction, and needed to rethink everything. Once your sleuth reconsiders all the facts, evidence, and statements, she must find a new direction to unveil the killer. Without reversals and twists your reader will feel your story is episodic and is not creating the puzzle they crave. This is the point where a beginning writer often lose the puzzle thread. They know the villain and the suspects and want to lead the sleuth and the reader to the revelation. But it’s much too soon in the story sequence. And it’s the reason both writers and readers complain about a sagging middle. But mystery writers have no reason to sag. Whether you call it the last part of Act II or Act III, in a mystery the hunt section is the place where tension builds, your sleuth is overrun with false starts and obstacles, and the villain confounds your sleuth’s search. The RevelationBefore you get to the revelation, give the antagonist one challenging twist. Your reader knows they are coming to the end, create more mystery with one last big challenge for your sleuth. Tie up any loose ends or subplots, then the final reveal. All mystery leads to this moment. Zara Altair Photo by Tim Johnson on Unsplash  What’s A Red Herring?In logic, a read herring is a fallacy of distraction bringing up another point to distract the argument. In the financial world, a red herring is a prospectus of an upcoming business that is not complete but indicates the future stock. In a mystery, a red herring is a false clue that leads the sleuth away from the villain. The red herring distracts the reader from knowing the true culprit. The origin of the term is vague and entomology scholars debate the source. Some people believe it originated in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett. He claimed that he used a red herring, cured and salted, not fresh, to mislead hounds following a trail. At the time of publication the term served as a metaphor for false news accounts. How to Use Red Herrings in a MysteryRed herrings create mystery in your story by testing your sleuth’s abilities and decision-making skills. Each false trail creates another obstacle for your sleuth keeping them from discovering the true villain. Use red herrings as a device in the middle section of your story to build tension. When you’ve built a strong protagonist, the reader will believe, as the protagonist does, that a true clue is at the root of the discovery path. Here are some examples of using red herrings and build suspense for your reader.
The essence of the red herrings you use is diverting attention from the real clues and the right suspect. Limit Red Herrings in Your StoryAlthough red herrings are fun to create for a writer, adding too many in your story will frustrate your reader. Aim to keep a balance between real evidence and clues and the false ones. Have no more than three red herrings in your mystery. Readers love a puzzle but they don’t want to be tricked. Make sure the red herrings you create integrate with the overall theme and mystery, otherwise they will feel “added” to pad the story. The same holds true for too many false starts. Your reader will feel they are being cheated from solving the crime. You need to balance frustrating your sleuth and losing your reader. Readers Expect Red HerringsRed herrings are a standard trope in mystery novels. Readers love to follow your hero’s challenges. They enjoy rooting for your sleuth and discovering how he meets each challenge to solve the crime. Keep your readers guessing with well-placed false clues inherent to your storyline. Zara Altair  Scene ChecklistsScenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction. When you go through the first edits of your story make certain that all scene components are in each scene. You’ll take your reader by the hand to lead them through the story. Two Types of ScenesAlternating between Proactive and Reactive scenes is a cycle that builds story in increments. The Proactive Scene challenges your protagonist.
By the end of the scene, the protagonist not only did not reach his goal but has a setback that leaves him worse off than at the beginning. Checklist for the Proactive Scene
Put your hero or heroine in the worst situations as they seek what seems like an obtainable goal at the beginning of the scene. The Reactive SceneNow that you have thwarted your protagonist, it’s time to give him some space. This scene is where your heroine decides what to do next.
Checklist for the Reactive SceneThese are the basic elements to include in the Reactive scene when your protagonist makes a decision .
Reactive scenes provide a way for your character to make terrible decisions which will create even greater conflict later on. She may be blind to the motivations of another character. He may find that getting into the boardroom isn’t a slam dunk. Reactive scenes are your opportunity to build conflict and tension because the following action scene may be based on a very wrong decision that seemed right at the time for the character. Why This Structure Helps For beginning writers, all this alternating of scenes may seem forced. I know, I was a beginning writer, and thought the same way. But my stories went nowhere and lacked tension. Readers want and expect your characters to have problems and overcome obstacles. Unless you are very compulsive, you don’t need to write these lists down. Just know which type of scene you are writing, create the obstacles either to action or decision making, and write the scene. Your story will benefit and your readers will love your story. Scene Editing When Your Story is Finished Once you have written each scene with all the writer passion you hold, go back to edit your story with a cold, clear eye. Scene Checklist for Editing
Practice story editing with an objective eye. Be as unbiased as possible about the elements in each scene. Use your critical mind to objectify the story. I think of it as switching from the story creator, the one who loves the story, to a person looking at a thing. Use whatever mind tricks you can to be as objective as possible. Do this work on your story and scene structure before you send it to an editor. Some writers switch into editing mode and stop writing during the process. I like to balance editing and writing so I do some of each during the editing process. Find what method works for you, but don’t skip story editing. Keep writing! Zara Altair Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash  Make Your Sleuth Reach for a SolutionCreating a great mystery for readers depends on page turning events in your story. Create tension with challenges to your sleuth. Each time you create a challenge your reader keeps reading to see how your sleuth gets past a stopping point. That point may be a small as a suspect hesitant to answer questions to a life-threatening event with the opponent. The events may vary in intensity depending on the sub-genre of your mystery, but every story needs challenges to the protagonist. Your challenge as a writer is to create hurdles in your storyline. The more the better. Make your sleuth work for the final resolution. Complications, Roadblocks, and ReversalsThree plot devices for giving your sleuth a tough time are complications, roadblocks, and reversals. In your story-crafting process brainstorm as many ways as you can to frustrate your sleuth. Complications A complication is an event or factor that slows your detective’s progress. As your sleuth attempts to discover the villain things get in the way.
These complications are often daily events that happen at an inconvenient time, but the result is you’ve delayed the sleuth’s progress.. Roadblocks Roadblocks are just that, they stop your sleuth. Roadblocks are impediments to your sleuth’s progress. These are points in your story where your sleuth has to change direction. They occur at major plot points in the story.
Once your sleuth encounters the roadblock, you take your reader in a new direction. Reversals A reversal alters your sleuth’s course into the opposite direction. If she is gaining traction, a new circumstance shows she needs to rethink everything. A reversal increases the stakes and sends the story in a completely new direction. Emotional reversals create a clash between the protagonist’s inner goal and the outer goal in a disastrous way.
Your Obstacle Course as a Mystery WriterYour aim in creating an intriguing mystery is to create obstacles for your sleuth. As your story moves forward, create obstacles that increase in difficulty and challenge for your protagonist. Complications, roadblocks, and reversals create story tension. That tension complicates the mystery solving puzzle . There’s no set order of how to use your obstacles. At each stage of your story think of the worst outcome your sleuth could have for their current course and set the challenge. Your readers will thank you. PRO TIP: Each scene is a mini-story that requires an obstacle. For example, if you have a chapter with three scenes, each of those scenes will present a hurdle for your sleuth. By the end of the chapter, you’ve created three different obstacles. Keep them coming. Zara Altair Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash  What is Foreshadowing?Foreshadowing is a literary device which is an advance hint of something that will happen later in the story. Foreshadowing creates an atmosphere of suspense as the reader continues on with expectations over later events. Foreshadow upcoming events with character dialogue, plot events, and changes in setting. Each method supplies a way to hint to the reader of what is coming. And each instance builds suspense for the reader who wants to know how that dialogue, event, or setting change will lead toward discovery of the killer. Clues as Foreshadowing EventsEach clue your sleuth discovers in a mystery foreshadows the final revelation. But, the mystery writer has a challenge, how to plant the clues without giving away the villain before the end. You want to foreshadow, without foreshadowing. In the mystery novel, you want to tantalize your reader without calling emphasis to the clues that point toward the final discovery. The device works like a secret foreshadowing to keep your reader guessing. Ten Ways to Tantalize Your Reader Invite your reader into the puzzle without giving away the secret of who the villain is. Sequence Diversion – Put the real clue right before the false one. Readers and your sleuth often focus on the last clue presented. If you’re getting started with mystery writing, this tactic is a great place to start. Mention or show the clue first and then immediately focus on a different clue or red herring. Secret Emphasis – Emphasize the unimportant, but de-emphasize the clue. The reader sees the clue but doesn’t see what’s important about it. For example, your sleuth may see the value of a company report and the statistical details but doesn’t look at the man who researched and wrote the report. Before It Counts – Early on, plant the clue before it has any context. Your sleuth may walk by a man cleaning his yacht with chemicals before a business partner dies of toxic chemical poisoning. Carolyn Graham uses this tactic in her Inspector Barnaby mysteries. Missed It – Your sleuth misinterprets the meaning of a clue. The murder took place in a room with open windows. Your detective believes that’s how the murderer escaped. But the windows were open to let in the evening breeze and the murderer escaped through the door and out the back staircase. This is a great tool to use with a flawed sleuth whose flaw keeps her from seeing the real meaning. The Not a Clue – The clue is what isn’t there. Although the sleuth deduces certain actions happened, the real clue is absent. A classic clue that isn’t there is when Sherlock Holmes realizes the dog didn’t bark in “Silver Blaze.” There was no intruder. Piece by Piece – A time-release method to scatter pieces of the clue in different places through the story. Then mix up the logical order. Your sleuth finds an empty aquarium, water but no fish in a suspect’s room. Later on she finds six fish bodies tossed out a window. She has an “epiphany” when she remembers the empty aquarium. In Plain Sight – Create a cluster of clues and squeeze the real clue in with all the others. Hide the clue in plain sight. This technique works well in a story with multiple suspects from Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express to John D. MacDonald’s hard boiled Travis McGee (pick one). Distraction – Draw your reader’s attention away from the clue. The sleuth and the reader follow a false trail. What seem like the most evident clues are not the real trail to the suspect. In Adrian McKinty’s The Cold, Cold Ground the clues seem to lead toward a serial killer who targets homosexuals. Not the case at all. Time Seed – Create a time problem. A suspect has an alibi for the time of the murder. Later it turns out that the murder was earlier and the alibi does not work. Or the suspect claims a time as an alibi but could get away during the time covered by the alibi. Camouflage with Action – Camouflage a clue with action. Just as your sleuth glances at a scrap of paper on the floor, he’s hit from behind. In the ensuing action and consequences—trip to the hospital, a missed appointment because of time in the hospital, etc.—your sleuth overlooks the clue. Jo Nesbø uses action camouflage in his Harry Høle series. Satisfy Your ReaderForeshadowing with clues is a challenge for mystery writers. Building suspense in other genres with foreshadowing leads to events later in the story, but the reader keeps those foreshadowing moments in mind. The mystery writer needs to subdue the foreshadowing by hiding the clues. At the end, your reader may realize all the clues were there, but while reading you want to keep those clues hidden. Zara Altair Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash  Your Villain Right and WrongThe true pleasure of mystery readers is trying to discover who the killer is before your detective does. It’s the big puzzle and the draw of the genre. The challenge for you as a mystery writer is to create a villain who is understandable, relatable, and yet hidden until the last moment of your mystery. The best approach to understanding your villain is to look at their world view. In the villain’s eyes, their beliefs and actions are justified. The villain may feel unjustly harmed by the victim. Or his killing may feel, to him, like justifiable revenge. Or, her cold-blooded calculation is rational in her belief system. However you conceive the villain’s motivation, throughout the story they will remain firm that their world is correct, and the killing justified. So, your villain is right in their world while wrong in the world of your story. The Villain Portrait in the MysteryThe villain can be a smooth talker, a buffoon, or a monosyllabic thug to the rest of the world and the other characters in your story, but you need to present the villain as he sees himself as you write your story. When he speaks with other characters, especially your sleuth, the villain sees himself as the good guy. He will portray himself that way in the story. You can reveal the villain layer by layer as he moves through the story.
In your background, focus on the relationship between the villain and the victim. Their relationship is the basis for the murder and the sleuth’s involvement. Think of ways the two connected, then the ways things went wrong, and finally the one incident that tipped the villain to murder.
Like any story research, you may use only 20% of the relationship you create. Experienced writers know that rich background allows for opportunities to use details as they are writing. Even, you, the writer, may not know which details you will use in your mystery until you are writing. The Open Good and Hidden BadWriting a believable and concealed villain for a mystery requires consideration of how you present and reveal their beliefs and actions. You may feel that all the clues you plant are obvious because you know who committed the murder, but if you balance the villain’s view of himself and his actions as good, you can save the hidden reality until the final reveal. You sleuth and your readers will appreciate your skill. Zara Altair Photo by ahmed zid on Unsplash |
Zara Altair, Author The puzzle of politics, the mystery of murder in ancient Italy. After Rome, before the Middle Ages, Italy belonged to the Ostrogoths. Archives
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