Six Ways to Find New and Exciting Plot Ideas for Mystery Novels

Novel ideas come to writers in many different ways—by what they’ve personally seen or experienced, through an interesting event they’ve heard about, or because of something read about in a nonfiction book.

As an author, sometimes ideas just come to you, other times you have to dig for them.  Here are a few places to look for plot ideas.

1. Read the Newspaper

The newspaper is a good place to find mystery plots or those involving intrigue and scandal.  Murders and other crimes, the details stranger than fiction, are planned and executed daily by real criminals.  Who would believe that a man could get away with keeping women hostage in his house for decades without being apprehended?  Celebrities are always getting into mischief.  Husbands and wives sometimes commit murder for unknown reasons.  How many books have been spin-offs of the Scott Peterson case?  If you get ideas from a news source, it is best not to use real names and to change the events and the settings for legal reasons and so your book will not be just a re-hash of the news.

2. Search the Internet

There’s also a wealth of information in the Internet about true crimes, forensics, and other aspects of murder.  By “googling” certain keywords such as “murder”, “crime” or “forensics” a list of good sites to browse will likely appear.

Crime Library (http://www.crimelibrary.com/index.html) has a huge listing of serial killers, gangsters, and spies.  The Writer’s Forensic Blog (D. P. Lyle, MD) (http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/)  also has quite a few good links for crime and mystery writers.

3. Watch True Crime TV Shows

TV documentaries such as the Forensic Files (on Netflix) can provide valuable information on the details of crime scene investigation.  Taking notes while watching these types of true crime programs can add realism to fictional crime scenes.

4. Read Books on Crime and Forensics, and History

There are many good books on true crime and forensics where a reader can find ideas.  Author Jay Robert Nash has about ten books on murders and disappearances in the United States.  Two books that are good for starters are: Murder, America and Homicide in the United States from the Revolution to the Present.

History books also can provide good ideas for stories that might happen in a certain time era.  Loretta and I often read books on the Old West and travelogues of certain areas to get background and ideas.  When traveling, it is a good idea to visit the book rack of tourist attractions for stories about unusual crimes, ghost sightings, and other bits of history related to a certain area.

5. Visit Museums

A trip to a museum can often be rewarding when it comes to finding an idea for a story.  My sister and I have found several in that way.  Sometimes a display or one of the stories below an exhibit will spark the imagination.  We were going through a museum when we came upon an old class photograph.  Under one name someone had written in pencil, NEVER GRADUATED.  This gave us an idea for our Jeff McQuede mystery, Murder in Black and White, where a young man goes missing just before graduation.

6. Take a Course or Talk to Locals about the Area’s History

If there is a local university or place where you can take a course, this is also a good way to find a plot for a mystery.  In the local area, there are some archaeological digs that my sister and I plan to sign up for.  While living in Wyoming, I took a few classes in forensics and Wyoming history.  The tale of the Pedro Mummy, who had been found in the 1930s by miners near Shirley basin, began to spark my interest.  The tiny mummy was examined by scientists at the time, then disappeared.  This led to our writing Whispers of the Stones, where this curious artifact appears to have resurfaced--along with collectors who might kill to own it.

Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson are authors of the Jeff McQuede High Country Mystery Series: Murder in Black and White, Whispers of the Stones, Stealer of Horses, and The Executioner’s Hood.  To read more about the Pedro Mummy visit  Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson's Writing Tips and Fiction. 

Vickie Britton andLoretta Jackson’s Writing Tips and Fiction.

Suppose You Write a Book...

...And what?

Why do we tell stories? For me, this activity became a lifelong occupation from the age of three. One night, I woke from a nightmare that, to this day, fills me with dread and a feeling of sick emptiness. I crawled into my parents' bed for safety. I had no words for the terrible dream or the terror I felt. 

Instead, I told a story to my wakeful father about the house I wanted to live in when I grew up. My father was a carpenter, so it was possible to believe he would build the house for me. Concentrating on a future possibility took me away from a present danger.  

From that night on, I found great comfort in using my imagination to tell stories about an alternative reality. I spent long hours alone, content to fill my thoughts with the people and events I created, and 'rewriting' the endings of movies I had seen. During my teenage years, I added drawing to my work box of tools but the stories still took place in my head. 

Not long after this, my first year in high school, I moved to another state. I made two friends in my new high school, both of whom had a similar story-telling penchant. We told each other stories, interactive between the three of us, exchanging ideas and characters, building worlds around make-believe situations. In my second year in high school, back in California, I continued this collaborative effort with other friends and again during my early college years. 

In college, my first choice of a major was art but, finally, writing emerged as my true avocation. Once the decision was made, I entered a phase of my education that was so incredibly rich and textured, I have continued learning ever since. Fortunately, writing is an art form that demands constant discovery. 

But why do I write? One answer is clear: not for the money!  

Our ancestors told stories to explain the mysteries of the

environment, for comfort, for entertainment during the long dark, winter nights. Our own reasons for story-telling are similar. In antiquity, knowledge of the forces of the universe were explained by the imagined existence of magic and the supernatural. How is that different from our own society's love affair with Dracula, Terminators, Angels and the Once Upon a Times of 21st Century entertainment? 

What was formalized by Aristotle and Euripides is our premier source of coming to terms with a universe we understand only marginally better than our cave-dwelling progenitors. The depth and breadth of human imagination, and the drive to express it, cannot be contained, no matter how frequently a story is told. Every one of us has our own, individual interpretation of events. If our telling strikes a chord with others, we have succeeded in expressing a basic human truth and kept the terrors of dreams at bay.

Words to Remember

I’ve put aside my fiction La-La land world for the moment and am contracted to write a book of devotions/encouragement for mothers. As a single of mom of three grown children, I took on this Herculean task with little thought. Surely having juggled for years rearing those three kiddos I learned something I might pass on. Wow! I think I am the one learning. 

When you put pen to paper (okay, Times New Roman to blinking cursor) and begin to think of words of wisdom, you realize it’s a daunting task! What might I say to another—something they might read several years from now—which has any impact at all? 

I can speak of how different everyone is.Much like these lovely Texas bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush, we are individuals, no two are alike. Take my two daughters: one is a morning person, one doesn’t know there is a morning. How did I manage to get them running on the same clock?

  

I can speak of endurance; running the race; organizing; coping. My son is the leader of the pack in his company. Did I help him learn the skills he uses today? Is he the one in charge like this guy seems to be? 

 

I can’t answer those questions. I can plot a book, jot a story in make-believe land, create fictional characters who act like I think they should, but as a mother I did the best I could. That’s all any of us are called to do.

What I know I can pass on which will be of value, everlasting, and meaningful is God’s Holy Word. Nothing I say can ever improve on what He says. So. That’s what this writer is currently dealing with. Praying, then combing through the Bible to find words which will speak to a mom’s heart.   

But you know, praying? That’s how I begin every story I write! I heartily recommend that strategy. 

Signed: A-Mom-Who-Tried-Her-Best 

(Thanks to Gerry Olive Brown of New Braunfels, TX for the beautiful pictures!)

Eileen Key retired after teaching school for thirty years. She is a freelance writer and editor.  Mother of three, grandmother of four, Eileen resides in San Antonio, Texas.

 

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

by Sandy Cody

If you really want to get to know someone, sneak a peak into their diary. That’s where you’re most likely to find their unguarded thoughts - the things they don’t let themselves express to the world at large. Everyone has to let their hair down sometimes and a diary or a journal is one way to do that. Maybe that’s why so many famous people have kept diaries.

 I remember reading The Diary of Samuel Pepys way back in high school. He was an important figure in his day and he wrote in his diary faithfully for ten years, from 1660 until 1669, leaving us a record that is probably more insightful of the time than the official historical records. His pages detail not just the facts about big events like the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, but also his feelings regarding these things. About the plague, he wrote “... how sad it is to see the streets empty of people.” Thumbing through an old copy of his diary, I see entries like that on almost every page. In the privacy of his diary, it was people in the street who mattered, not matters of state.

 Another book most of us read in school was The Diary of a Young Girl. The girl, of course, is Anne Frank and the book is perhaps the most poignant reminder of the

damage done by intolerance and racial hatred. In one passage, just after she describes hearing the “approaching thunder” of Nazi boots, she writes: “And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better.” We know that for her, it didn’t, but her thoughts, both the frightened and hopeful ones, have survived and have helped put a human face on an evil that, taken in totality, is almost impossible to comprehend.

 This is becoming much more serious that I intended. Let’s move on. Harry S. Truman (the only president from my home state of Missouri) kept a diary while he was in office. Here he recorded the opinions he dare not express publicly. One example, written after an appointment with an important official: “This man not only wants to run the country, but the universe and the entire Milky Way.” Of someone else, he wrote: “Baloney Peddler.” How’s that for telling it like it is.

 As for me, I don’t keep a diary in the usual sense, but I do keep a journal of the books I read. Not particularly enlightening to future historians, but I enjoy looking through it and remembering the stories and the thoughts they prompted. It serves as a reminder of what I was thinking and feeling at a certain time. Maybe that’s what diaries do, even for famous people.

 And now ...

 I hope you’ll forgive a brief commercial message. I admit it. All this talk about diaries was inspired by my recently-released book, Lethal Journal. In this story, the victim kept a journal and it is through his entries there that we get to see him as something other than a corpse. We come to understand the reason he was murdered and, ultimately, figure out who killed him.

 How about you? Any journalists or diary-keepers out there?