writing a mystery | Bertram's Blog

Writing For Fun

December 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Several years ago, I participated in a round-robin writing project where everyone took turns adding to the story. It frustrated me because it seemed as if many, if not most, of the writers made a point of changing characters or adding ridiculous elements, making it impossible to create a cohesive story. So I got the idea of doing a project like that, but each person got to create their own character and no one could change it without their permission.

Getting people to agree to participate was fairly easy. Back then, there was a site similar to Facebook, but for writers, so everyone I knew online was interested in writing. Getting them to follow through, however, was a completely different story. Even before we started, people wanted to change things.

My idea was that a horrendous crime was committed in the neighborhood, and I wanted to show how everyone was affected, but oh, no. That would be a boring story. Huh? We hadn’t even started so how would anyone know it would be boring? Besides, they were writers. They could make it not boring. Still, they decided it had to be murder mystery, which was in no way at odds with my original plan. Because if there is a crime in a novel, there has to be a resolution, right? I thought that went without saying.

My publisher at the time was one of the participants, and he said to me, “The hard part for you will be to relinquish control.” Again, huh? The point was for us each to be in charge of our character, each to post our segment to the blog on our assigned day, each to keep with story so that each segment followed the timeline in order to keep from making blunders that couldn’t be fixed. (In a novel written offline, obviously, one can edit at the end, but in a blog novel, as this one was, there is no editing afterward. It is what it is.) But almost no one did what they were supposed to. I ended up having to remind people when it was their turn, had to edit their hastily written segments to get rid of the worst of the typos, had to post the segments to the blog myself because no one wanted to do it.

So, the hard part for me was not in relinquishing control but being forced to take control. That was so not fun! Still, we did a did a trilogy, and by the third one, the authors that remained were very good, so that one was a bit more fun for me.

Afterwards, I tried to do a different collaborative novel with other writers, and again, before a single word was written, people wanted to change things. Instead of a mystery, we ended up with a sort of steampunk anthology with loosely connected stories. As it turned out, the person who insisted on steampunk dropped out, but by then we were committed to the story.

What has made me revisit all this is that I’m considering doing a blog novel, but with myself as the sole author, which should make things a lot less stressful than trying to do it with other people. I also like my original idea — how a certain crime affected people in a neighborhood. Did it make them revisit their life choices? Did it make them grateful for what they had? Did they decide to move away? Were they the one who committed the crime, and were they glad or sorry they’d done it?

One of the problems with the first such project was that each person had to write as if their character could have done the crime, but at the same time, make it possible to prove they didn’t. That could be the same problem here, but it’s possible the crime wasn’t committed by one of the neighbors — I won’t know until towards the end anyway. I want to try writing a story where I don’t know the end, to just follow along with the characters and see what happens.

I still have other commitments — my job, for one — which makes it harder for me to want to commit to a time intensive project like a blog novel, but at least this gives me an idea of what to start thinking about.

And maybe, this time such a project would be fun for me.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: a collaborative novel, blog novel, group writing project, how a crime affects people, round-robin, writing a mystery. Leave a Comment »

Creating a Story

September 21, 2021 — Pat Bertram

When I first moved here and started having work done on the house as well as working around the place myself, I kept finding odd things, such as a deep pit under the enclosed back porch, a bloody shirt that had been buried, bone fragments. Back then, I considered writing a “Pat as protagonist” mystery using all these various oddities, but at the time, I had no interest in writing. Now that I’m getting the itch to write again, my own experiences seem like a good place to start.

My sister, who spent a couple of nights here, wouldn’t sleep in the second bedroom because she claimed the ghost of an old woman sat and watched her. I’m sure it was some sort of lucid dream because no one around here remembers anyone dying in this house. Still, that old woman seems to have served herself up as a handy victim.

I have no idea where to go with the story, which makes sense since if it turns out that the fictional woman was murdered here and her body disposed of, perhaps in the cistern under the porch or maybe in the dungeony basement, I can’t see that there would be any resolution to the story.

Would you dig up part of your house on the mere suspicion that someone was buried there? (I really would like to know.) I sure wouldn’t, especially since I spent so much money pouring a new basement floor and redoing the back porch (foundation, new sewer line, new floor).

And anyway, if it happened a long time ago, the person who did the dastardly deed might even be dead now, too, so there’d be no resolution to that, either — no bringing the killer to justice. I suppose the mystery could be why she was disposed of in whatever way I choose to deal with her, but there’d still be the problem of no ticking clock. If it happened a long time ago (even a decade or so ago is a long time) and no one seems to miss the woman or even know or care what happened to her, where’s the urgency to solve the mystery?

Obviously, there is no urgency for me to write the story, either, since it’s been percolating (albeit exceedingly slowly) in the back of my mind for more than two years, and it will probably be another year before all the current foci of my life have been dealt with so as to give me the mental space to write.

In all my previous books, I knew how the story started, and I knew how it ended, so it was just a matter of making the convoluted journey from one point to the other. It’s entirely possible that this book will be different, in that I might not have a clue how it ends. Or even begins.

If, in fact, it ever does begin.

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Posted in life, writing. Tags: creating a mystery story, creating urgency, creating urgency in a mystery story, ghost watching someone sleep, ticking clock in a story, writing a mystery. 8 Comments »

What Happens When You Find a Dead Body?

June 11, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My dance class suggested I write a book about them. One woman even volunteered to be the victim, though I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her. She is lovely, charming, and utterly delightful. Yesterday we discussed what we would do after we found her body on the dance and before the cops showed up, and we decided we’d have dance class anyway. Why not? It was a mostly empty dance floor (except for the body, of course), we’d be dressed for the occasion, and our minds would not yet have processed the information that our classmate was truly gone. The will-be victim’s comment? “I am truly hurt that you would not mourn me.” In real life, of course, we’d mourn her, but a — hopefully — humorous book about aging women dancing despite the deaths they have had to deal with (not their own death, obviously) should be more about dancing than death.

I can never start writing a novel until I have the beginning of the story, and the end, which I do have. I begin with our plans to write the book about the murder, then segue into the “real” murder. I end with our dancing the perpetrator to death. (Well, it is a dance class, after all. Dance should have a significant part in the story.) I even know who the perpetrator is, and I think I know why he killed Ms. Delightful. (He thought she was Ms. Teacher.)

Most of all, I have everyone’s permission to use them in the story. A couple of the women were wary, some were looking forward to what I’d say about them, and most lit up with excitement at the thought of being in a book.

Now comes the hard part. (Well, the second hardest part. The hardest part will be actually sitting down and putting words on paper.) What happens after we discover the body? Who comes to the scene? What do they do with us? How/where do they take our statements if in fact they do take our statements? How/where do they take our fingerprints?

Most of what I know about crime scene handling comes from movies and TV shows, so most of what I know is probably wrong. And anyway, such information is from the point of the cops, and in the book, I won’t be a cop. I’m only one of a half-dozen women who discover the body. So where am I when the cops, the criminalists, the DA, and everyone else are there? Have they taken preliminary reports — perhaps names, addresses, relation to the deceased — and sent us home? If so, when do they take our statements? Do they call us to come in to the police station?

I found information about the review process here: Criminal Defense Witness Interviews & Statements, which answers many of my questions about the interview process but not actually the beginnings of the process.

Some of those questions are answered here: Investigating the Crime Scene. According to this article, the first cops on the scene are supposed to preserve the crime scene, isolate witnesses, take “names, addresses, dates of birth, and telephone numbers, etc.” (Etc? what the heck does that encompass? It’s those etcs I need to know.) According to this article, the patrol supervisor will interview witnesses. The detective will interview witnesses again and arrange transport for witnesses to be sent to headquarters and will take written statements. Another article about searching and examining a major crime scene contains no mention of anyone but various law enforcement folk.

So, are those who find the body considered witnesses? I guess. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be much online about what happens to those who find a dead body, except for articles about how doing so can mess you up for life. But those people obviously weren’t taking dance classes. Dancing can unmess you up.

I’ve been trying to find out how those who find a body are dealt with by the police, but most answers to that question involve describing what the police do. In my proposed book, I’m not a cop. I’m me. What do I do? Or more to the point, what will they do to me? (I did come across this humorous (at least, I hope it’s supposed to be humorous and not someone’s experience of what actually happened) article about what to do if you find a dead body. Another article I came across is HowTo:Commit the Perfect Murder. Oh, my.

Nor can I find out how long before the crime scene will be released. We want to dance! How can we dance if the studio is barred from us? It also will need to be a quiet little murder, not much smell or gore, because . . . well, that would put a damper on dancing.

Hmm. Maybe I need to think about this a bit more.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in writing. Tags: crime scene investigation, handling a crime scene, police and witnesses, what happens after discovering a body, witnesses to finding a body, writing a mystery. 10 Comments »

Let’s Play the Cliché Game!

May 13, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My exercise class suggested I write a book about them. One woman even volunteered to be the victim, though I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her. She is lovely, charming, and utterly delightful. I wasn’t going to write the story since it seemed a good way to lose a lot of friends, but at the lunch the other day, I almost whacked one of my classmates with my exercise bag, and she deadpanned, “I’m not the one who volunteered to be the murder victim.” So I decided to write the book. I mean, how could I not use such a perfect line?

I’d like to do the book campy with exaggerated uses and sly mentions of mystery clichés. For instance, I could get a call from one of the women who says she has information, but won’t give it to me over the phone. I immediately rush over there, of course, since such a call is a precursor to being murdered in cheap mysteries, but when I get there I find . . . I don’t know. Something innocuous. That the cell phone battery went dead. (Or better yet, I call the cops, and they think I’m hysterical.) Then there’s the “Don’t Go There” ploy, advice that a character ignores. When she does Go There, she almost gets herself killed. (Someone suggested this should be a buxom blonde, and of course, I know the perfect person for the role — a lady in red who is a buxom blonde or rather a buxom sometimes-blonde, and she definitely would Go There.) Of course I would also mention the old fictional women from small towns who stumble on so many murders, there couldn’t possibly be anyone left alive in the vicinity. Perhaps even use the alcoholic, donut-eating cop, misogynous cop.

I’m going to start out writing the book the way the idea unfolded in real life, beginning with the suggestion of my writing the book, our planning the murder, etc. leading up to the day we go to class and find her dead for real. The victim is such a good sport, she let me take a photo of her being dead to use for the book cover. (She sank to the ground gracefully, and fell into the perfect pose. Hmm. Maybe she is an eminently suitable victim after all. In the mystery world, she would be too good to be true.)

For now, I’m collecting clichés to use in the book. What do you think are the top clichés in mystery/suspense/thriller fiction? Who are the stock characters? What clichés and other mystery genre conventions do you absolutely hate?

But be careful! You might just end up in the book.

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