Mystery stories are a pain in the proverbial. I should know, I'm writing one.
I enjoy detective stories, with tastes ranging from Christie and Sayers to Dexter and (Caroline) Lawrence, but until recently I didn't feel I had the confidence to either plan it out or carry through on something that required so much careful preparation or forethought. But that November, I was struck by inspiration. I knew the mystery story I wanted to write, the detective I wanted to craft. When I decided to start writing that detective story. I wanted to create a fantasy-themed detective story. Non-human characters, a classic Christie-style premise with an unconventional resolution. But then my father died.
As you can imagine, I found myself lacking in any real wish to continue. At least my description of the corpse was real enough, but it was after that point that my writing just petered out. It took me a whole month to get back to my work, when I started writing a different Japan-themed story I've just finished within the last fortnight. And I found myself freshly confronted by the difficulties of the form.
Quite apart from the usual issues related to writing about death within a year of my own father dying (and me being the first to discover the body, on top of that), I realised I had to define a lot more than just the characters. I had to settle the layout of the location as it relates to incidental and plot-relevant details, the time frame for the incident, note details about the condition of the corpse and the mechanics of the murder method, be realistic about who my detective acts in the wake of the death.
It's all complicated by the fact that it's a story where there is no simple magic trick to show that there is only one way the crime was committed and only one person capable of it. It's very like real detection; a grind of interrogating witnesses, examining evidence over and over again, and struggling through to a solution that best fits the facts. Well, that's not such a huge problem. I don't like stories that do that. You'd think the culprit would be less silly about committing the crime if its circumstances pointed so clearly to them.
Well, here's hoping it works out. I'm still pushing to find agents and/or publishers to take my work. And my latest completed work will arrive on Amazon through my self-publishing channels. And I continue pushing forward while eyeing other things, and keeping my dream alive in the best way I can. Here's to hope.
