Critical Thinking; Preparing the Crime/Mystery Story

After our pop quiz, please make sure you have completed your character sketch exercise from last class. See handout.

Tips on Writing in the Detective Fiction Mystery Genre

• 5 Tips to Improve Your Critical Thinking
• Writing Detective Fiction

Extra: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (and become smarter...)
Now try these strategies and solve these riddles/puzzles: 13 Short Detective Stories & Math Riddles to Test Your IQ

Let's pick a crime. Please watch the video, then record a crime & a "country". The crime will be used in the prompt below. The "country" will help you further define your character or victim(s). Most common crimes in the US:

• Theft (the action or crime of stealing)
• Larceny (theft of personal property)
• Burglary (entry into a building illegally with intent to commit a crime)
• Assault (physical attack or violence against a person)
• Robbery (theft using force or threatening force)
• Drug use (illicit drug use)
• Drunk driving (DUI)
• Fraud (a person deceiving others intended to achieve financial or personal gain)
• Blackmail (demanding money or profit in return for not revealing information about the victim)

How to Observe a Person (Things to Look For)--building a clue list. Using the information in this linked video, create a list of 4, 8, or 12 clues that might go along with the kind of crime you have selected.

From: edeverell.com (Eva Deverell)

• Choose 1 of the prompts below.
• Write whatever details come to mind for 5 minutes. Do not leave off your writing or disrupt others or stop writing or leave the room or put your pencil down (or you have "died"). Survivors will receive a prize at the end of this exercise. 
• You may start a new prompt from this list if you finish one before time is called.
• Stories do not have to be linked to events that occurred before you started writing (you do not need to write from beginning to middle to end...)
• This is just an exercise. 

Choose 1 Prompt to Start & Write for 5 Minutes without Stopping:

01	A note is discovered.	Who was the intended recipient?
02	A character who was thought lost or who departed reappears.	Why did they stay away until now?
03	A new (contradictory) clue is discovered.	Is it a red herring?
04	An old clue is reevaluated.	How has the evaluator’s perception changed?
05	Suspicion shifts to another person.	Why were they not previously suspected?
06	The investigator examines the scene of the mystery.	What seems out of place?
07	A previously innocent or unrelated person is connected to the mystery.	Why wasn’t their connection noticed earlier?
08	The investigator explains their own interest in the mystery.	Are they qualified to try and solve this?
09	A character puts two and two together.	What leads them to the connection?
10	A character finds they’ve misread someone’s MOTIVATION.	How were they misled?
	Write a scene... NOTE: this is not a complete story in itself!

HOMEWORK: Please read the short stories: "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", & "The Five Orange Pips." Continue to take notes about the stories in your journal.