  Mystery
This week: Edited by: MaryLou  
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| Mystery stories are so popular because they fulfill one of humans' deepest instincts - the need to explore, to question, to find out. Humans are incessantly searching for answers to life's greatest mysteries. Since those mysteries are so difficult to unravel, we can find comfort in reading and writing mystery novels and short stories. Thus, our need to discover is satisfied...until the hunger strikes again. |
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I've read many other newsletters by Writing.com editors describing characterization, so I decided in this issue to outline what I believe makes a memorable character. 
1) Quirky people. Nothing is more memorable than someone who has an oddball habit or personality. Hercule Poirot would walk miles in tight-fitting patent leather shoes because he was a hopeless dandy. He also hated fresh air and had a mania for square objects.
What makes the private detective Adrian Monk so interesting and humorous is his obsessive-compulsive disorder and his unending phobias. Monk is, of course, way over the top but creating characters that have some kind of quirkiness will make them stand out in your reader's mind.
It might be little more than a tendency to pronounce certain words in a manner not commonplace. For example, my husband gets highly amused when I say any word that has a double T in it, like bottle. I always pronounce it "bot-tul," and he's never heard anyone else say it like that.
Sometimes a person's peculiarites can play an intricate part in your story. In one novel, "After the Funeral" by Agatha Christie, the murderer is discovered by tilting her head the wrong way when she masqueraded as someone else and tried to imitate the woman's habit.
2) Characters who have a zest for life. These are the people who live each moment, not just muddle along day-by-day. I am not talking about adventurers who are continously rock-climbing or jumping out of airplanes, but rather people who, no matter what they are doing, enjoy every moment of their life. These types of characters are optimistic, cheerful, humorous, and can see the absurdity all around them. A wonderful example of this type of character is Elizabeth Peters' Sir John Smythe in the Vicky Bliss novels.
3) Characters with vivid imaginations and/or a flair for dramatics. These types of characters are the most interesting because they're unafraid to be silly or laughed at. They can imagine all sorts of possibilites, both realistic and unrealistic.
In short, when developing your characters, it's not enough to give deep insights into their personalities. After all, whatever personality traits you give your characters (kind, thoughtful, boring, determined, vindictive, etc.), none of that will really distinguish him or her from other people.
What makes us different from others is our habits and mannerisms. Develop these little quirks in your characters.
See ya next month,
MaryLou |
Here's a few items for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to rate and review!
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Feedback
billwilcox: Heya, Doomed Kitty,
A great newsletter! I think that a relunctant detective is a great angle for mystery stories because like relunctant heros, they really don't know what they are doing and stumbled through the mystery looking at the clues just like the reader.
 , Bill! You just gave me a great title for a story: Mystery of the Doomed Kitty 
robi4711: Good newsletter this month.
Thank you!
Marguerite : I'm a big fan of the "ordinary people" mysteries. While I do occasionally read the ones about professional detectives, I've learned about everything from archeology in the late 19th and early 20th century (the Elizabeth Peters "Amelia Peabody" series) to how to make gourmet dishes (the Diane Mott Davidson "Goldy Bear") and what it's like to be a middle-aged millionare with two cats up north (Lillian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who"). Incidentally, I'm a fan of Vicky Bliss as well.
Maybe I'll check out the Diane Mott Davidson series. I know my husband wouldn't mind if I picked up a few cooking tips.
Mini Mystery
1000 GPs for your correct answer.
The Stockbroker's Last Morning
from Great Book of Whodunit Puzzles
Shortly after nine one morning, Inspector Walker's car pulled up in front of a large office building in downtown Royston. With Walker was Thomas P. Stanwick, the amateur logician. Stanwick had been visiting Walker at headquarters when the call reporting the sudden death of Charles Steinberg came in.
Stanwick and Walker hurried to Steinberg's seventh-floor office suite, from which he had run a prosperous stock brokerage. Passing through the carpeted reception area, they entered Steinberg's spacious office.
Steinberg's body was slumped in an easy chair near a small, circular table in the center of the room. His tie and collar were loose. He had been dead for less than an hour, and showed no sign of bleeding. On a small table by the wall, a typewriter contained a typed note, which Stanwick read aloud.
"I see no further purpose to my life and have therefore decided to end it. I hope my family, friends, and associates will not blame themselves. Goodbye."
Walker turned to the man in his early 30s who was standing near the office door. Jon Golding was a vice president of the firm.
"What can you tell us, Mr. Golding?"
Golding coughed nervously.
"I entered Mr. Steinberg's office earlier this morning to see him on urgent business. He was sitting in the easy chair with a cup of coffee in his hand. As soon as he saw me, he hastily drank it down. The cup had no sooner left his lips than he was seized with terrible convulsions. A few seconds later he was dead. I was horrified and ran out to the receptionist's desk, where I phoned for help. No one was allowed into the office until you arrived."
"Did you see the note in the typewriter?"
"No, sir, I did not."
"Thank you." Walker went over to Steinberg's body and searched his pockets. In the right jacket pocket he found a small glass vial, which he sniffed. "This probably contained the poison."
Stanwick sniffed it and, taking out his handkerchief, picked up the emptied coffee cup from its saucer on the table and sniffed it also.
"I can detect a whiff of it here, too," he said.
Stanwick put down the coffee cup and faced Golding.
"Mr. Golding," he asked, "did Mr. Steinberg usually have his coffee in that chair?"
"Yes, sir, he drank his coffee and read the paper in that chair every morning about this time."
Stanwick pointed to a newspaper folded neatly on the table. "Did you put that there?"
Golding flushed slightly. "It was there when I came in. He wasn't reading it."
Stanwick abruptly left the office and walked to the desk of the young receptionist.
"What can you tell us, Miss Gwynne?"
"Why, little enough, I'm afraid. I heard some typing in Mr. Steinberg's office, and then Mr. Golding came out of his own office to pick up some documents for Mr. Steinberg. He went into Mr. Steinberg's office and a few moments later came rushing wildly out here and phoned for help."
"What documents did he want to show Mr. Steinberg?"
"Why, some draft pages of our weekly newsletter. He dropped them on the floor as he came back out."
Re-entering Steinberg's office, Stanwick put another question to Golding. "I see there is a door between your office and his. Why didn't you use that when you came in to see him?"
"Miss Gwynne, our receptionist, had the newsletter pages I wanted to show him," Golding answered.
Stanwick quietly drew Walker aside. "Golding is lying, Matt," he said. "This isn't suicide, but murder!"
How does Stanwick know Golding is lying?
Answers to the last mini-mystery:
Breezy-E ~ In College : He who makes it, makes it to sell,He who buys it, does not use it, He who uses it, does not know it. What is it? A coffin.
patrickstar: Professor Moriarty intended to send Mr. Holmes a coffin.
Great newsletter, by the way!
tinkerbell16: The present that the professor intends to send is a coffin
karabu: Mini Mystery: I think I've heard this riddle before. It's a coffin.
paw_00: Here's my answer to the mini mystery: "He who makes it, makes it to sell, He who buys it, does not use it, He who uses it, does not know it."
Is it a coffin?
Yes, it is. |
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Mystery: March 29, 2006 Issue [#950]
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