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So ignore what I said in my previous post - I think I'm going to take a (short) break from this story. I've realized I'm missing a subplot/red herring that I think will solve my issues with pacing, but I need to brainstorm with my beta, who's currently on vacation (I know, in this pandemic?!). And then, hopefully, once I have that sorted out, my "first draft" will be slightly less of a complete disaster.
Hopefully, also, I will have learned enough from writing this book that I won't be such a complete moron the next time I write a murder mystery.
So, my first two (indie-published) books both had primary romance plots and secondary mystery plots, plus I used to watch a lot of police procedural shows and I read a lot of Agatha Christie books since the pandemic started, so I thought, writing a murder mystery should be no big deal, right?
WRONG.
SUPER WRONG.
For one, I...probably did not do a good job writing mysteries in first two books. (Because my indie publisher didn't do developmental edits.) I reread Novel #2 a few months ago, and while I thought it held up pretty well overall, one thing that was painfully obvious to me in hindsight was that I had no red herrings whatsoever, so the villain was super obvious from ten miles away. I haven't even dared to reread Novel #1 because I'm afraid I'll think it's horrible now, but considering I wrote it before I even touched a single Agatha Christie book, I don't have high hopes that its mystery was all that good.
For another, I probably didn't approach writing this murder mystery in the optimal way.
I'm a discovery writer; extensive outlining at the start of writing a book never works for me. (I mean, I do outline, but my outline is so vague and parts of it gets tossed out the window during the writing process.) But I studied Alexa Donne's thriller writing videos religiously (since thrillers and mysteries are similar), and I know her process is to come up with the motive and/or twist first and discovery-write backwards from there.
I...did not do that. Heh.
I literally came up with the premise first: I wanted to write a fantasy story set in a certain setting, with a certain kind of protagonist, that explores a certain theme, and use noir tropes to do so. From there, I decided on the major characters (without even knowing much about what kind of role they would play)—because my mind tends toward romantic subplots for purposes of tension and angst, so I had to come up with the love interest—and the murder victim, since I knew only one kind of murder victim would lure my protagonist out from semi-hiding.
So I didn't know who the murderer was, I didn't know the motive for the murder, and I didn't even know the cause of death.
Honestly, for murder mysteries in general, I tend to come up with either a murder victim or a setting for the murder first (usually the latter). Maybe it's because I've watched multiple seasons of police procedurals like Elementary and Lucifer, and the way I usually remember episodes/get interested in watching new episodes has to do with the premise of the murder.
But I do see how, if you come up with the motive/twist first and build everything backwards from there, you definitely have complete freedom to design scenes and characters based on whatever works best for the murder mystery.
But I didn't. I had characters first and knew I needed specific character development scenes, and then I had to fit the murder mystery around those scenes.
Oh well.
Another thing that has been hard for me: I was probably too ambitious with this murder mystery. Not only is there the protagonist's murder investigation to deal with, but I also decided that the antagonist was manipulating everything from behind the scenes, and yikes, my story became very complicated very fast. (This is not something I'm going to do again, lol.)
On top of the fact that I'm not a detailed outliner in general, I was so enthusiastic about this story idea—since it had been nearly two years since I drafted a new book, and because this idea struck me as very "pitchable" and sellable to a publisher—that I immediately jumped into drafting without a ton of forethought. And now I'm paying for that by having to slow down during my drafting process to reevaluate, um, major subplots that I didn't come up with the details for ahead of time.
Discovery writing, I've found, is way easier for a romance than for a murder mystery. A romance doesn't require as much foreshadowing and is more about emotions than logic.
My perspective might also be skewed since Novel #3 had a relatively clean first draft, since it was not only a retelling but also a very close retelling of the source material. And it didn't have action scenes (which I love but I generally feel like I suck at).
And before that, Novel #2 was my "just for fun, didn't know it would end up being so well-received" project that I literally had very low expectations for.
The last time I felt like I struggled with making a book match my vision for it was with Novel #1, and that was freaking 6 years ago (I drafted it from 2015-2016).
...
This was supposed to be a "lessons learned from writing a murder mystery" but it devolved into a bunch of rambling thoughts. I'm going to wrap up by trying to go back to my original intention for this post:
When/if I write the sequel to this murder mystery, I'm hopeful that it will be less disastrous because I—hopefully—will have less of a preconceived character framework that I'm trying to shove the murder mystery into. And hopefully I will have learned enough about red herrings and weaving clues from writing this book that it won't be as difficult.
Fingers crossed.
Hopefully, also, I will have learned enough from writing this book that I won't be such a complete moron the next time I write a murder mystery.
So, my first two (indie-published) books both had primary romance plots and secondary mystery plots, plus I used to watch a lot of police procedural shows and I read a lot of Agatha Christie books since the pandemic started, so I thought, writing a murder mystery should be no big deal, right?
WRONG.
SUPER WRONG.
For one, I...probably did not do a good job writing mysteries in first two books. (Because my indie publisher didn't do developmental edits.) I reread Novel #2 a few months ago, and while I thought it held up pretty well overall, one thing that was painfully obvious to me in hindsight was that I had no red herrings whatsoever, so the villain was super obvious from ten miles away. I haven't even dared to reread Novel #1 because I'm afraid I'll think it's horrible now, but considering I wrote it before I even touched a single Agatha Christie book, I don't have high hopes that its mystery was all that good.
For another, I probably didn't approach writing this murder mystery in the optimal way.
I'm a discovery writer; extensive outlining at the start of writing a book never works for me. (I mean, I do outline, but my outline is so vague and parts of it gets tossed out the window during the writing process.) But I studied Alexa Donne's thriller writing videos religiously (since thrillers and mysteries are similar), and I know her process is to come up with the motive and/or twist first and discovery-write backwards from there.
I...did not do that. Heh.
I literally came up with the premise first: I wanted to write a fantasy story set in a certain setting, with a certain kind of protagonist, that explores a certain theme, and use noir tropes to do so. From there, I decided on the major characters (without even knowing much about what kind of role they would play)—because my mind tends toward romantic subplots for purposes of tension and angst, so I had to come up with the love interest—and the murder victim, since I knew only one kind of murder victim would lure my protagonist out from semi-hiding.
So I didn't know who the murderer was, I didn't know the motive for the murder, and I didn't even know the cause of death.
Honestly, for murder mysteries in general, I tend to come up with either a murder victim or a setting for the murder first (usually the latter). Maybe it's because I've watched multiple seasons of police procedurals like Elementary and Lucifer, and the way I usually remember episodes/get interested in watching new episodes has to do with the premise of the murder.
But I do see how, if you come up with the motive/twist first and build everything backwards from there, you definitely have complete freedom to design scenes and characters based on whatever works best for the murder mystery.
But I didn't. I had characters first and knew I needed specific character development scenes, and then I had to fit the murder mystery around those scenes.
Oh well.
Another thing that has been hard for me: I was probably too ambitious with this murder mystery. Not only is there the protagonist's murder investigation to deal with, but I also decided that the antagonist was manipulating everything from behind the scenes, and yikes, my story became very complicated very fast. (This is not something I'm going to do again, lol.)
On top of the fact that I'm not a detailed outliner in general, I was so enthusiastic about this story idea—since it had been nearly two years since I drafted a new book, and because this idea struck me as very "pitchable" and sellable to a publisher—that I immediately jumped into drafting without a ton of forethought. And now I'm paying for that by having to slow down during my drafting process to reevaluate, um, major subplots that I didn't come up with the details for ahead of time.
Discovery writing, I've found, is way easier for a romance than for a murder mystery. A romance doesn't require as much foreshadowing and is more about emotions than logic.
My perspective might also be skewed since Novel #3 had a relatively clean first draft, since it was not only a retelling but also a very close retelling of the source material. And it didn't have action scenes (which I love but I generally feel like I suck at).
And before that, Novel #2 was my "just for fun, didn't know it would end up being so well-received" project that I literally had very low expectations for.
The last time I felt like I struggled with making a book match my vision for it was with Novel #1, and that was freaking 6 years ago (I drafted it from 2015-2016).
...
This was supposed to be a "lessons learned from writing a murder mystery" but it devolved into a bunch of rambling thoughts. I'm going to wrap up by trying to go back to my original intention for this post:
When/if I write the sequel to this murder mystery, I'm hopeful that it will be less disastrous because I—hopefully—will have less of a preconceived character framework that I'm trying to shove the murder mystery into. And hopefully I will have learned enough about red herrings and weaving clues from writing this book that it won't be as difficult.
Fingers crossed.
