After today's quiz, please begin working on your detective story. Use the time in the lab to prepare, plot, and write your story. The following may help you:
1. Start planning with the crime. Choose a crime and the motive for at least 3-4 characters. Consider how each one might enact their plan and identify what motivates each character to consider committing the crime.
2. Choose one of your suspects as the criminal.
3. Name/list clues that might lead a reader to choose your suspect. You will want a list of clues that are "red herrings" or "MacGuffins" for your other 2-3 characters innocent of the crime.
4. Once you have all your answers--who done it (and why)?--it's time to get the story started.
5. Sherlock Holmes stories always start with status quo--Holmes or Watson are often together in the evening when someone with a case arrives. Holmes & Watson listen to the interested party's case and then they usually take the case and begin their investigation.
6. The middle of a Holmes story usually involves some adventure or misadventure as Holmes goes about collecting clues and/or interacting with suspects.
7. After a scene with all the possible suspects, Holmes catches the criminal in some adventurous fashion including cab chases, stakeouts, and life/death situations. The solution to the crime is explained (usually to the interested party--or sometimes just Watson) by Holmes and the end of the story occurs.
8. The end.
The basic plot elements of the mystery form:
1. Start planning with the crime. Choose a crime and the motive for at least 3-4 characters. Consider how each one might enact their plan and identify what motivates each character to consider committing the crime.
2. Choose one of your suspects as the criminal.
3. Name/list clues that might lead a reader to choose your suspect. You will want a list of clues that are "red herrings" or "MacGuffins" for your other 2-3 characters innocent of the crime.
4. Once you have all your answers--who done it (and why)?--it's time to get the story started.
5. Sherlock Holmes stories always start with status quo--Holmes or Watson are often together in the evening when someone with a case arrives. Holmes & Watson listen to the interested party's case and then they usually take the case and begin their investigation.
6. The middle of a Holmes story usually involves some adventure or misadventure as Holmes goes about collecting clues and/or interacting with suspects.
7. After a scene with all the possible suspects, Holmes catches the criminal in some adventurous fashion including cab chases, stakeouts, and life/death situations. The solution to the crime is explained (usually to the interested party--or sometimes just Watson) by Holmes and the end of the story occurs.
8. The end.
The basic plot elements of the mystery form:
- The baffling crime
- The singularly motivated investigator who is hired to solve the case (your protagonist)
- The hidden criminal (one of 4 or more characters)
- The cover-up (often more important than the crime itself, as the cover-up is what conceals the criminal. This leads to a variety of clues)
- Discovery and elimination of suspects (in which creating false suspects is often part of the criminal's plan)
- Evaluation of clues (sifting the true from the untrue clue(s))
- Identification and apprehension of the criminal.
Use the handouts and possibly scenes you have written during our exercises to help you with your story. Mysteries are generally longer types, so start today. We'll discuss due dates later.
HOMEWORK: Please complete the rest of the stories in the collection. Continue to brainstorm, write, and think about your mystery draft.
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