Writing Exercise: Can you Plot a Murder Mystery? Write three brief synopsis of three possible novel plots. Outline the murderer, the victim, the murderer's motive, How the murder happened, who will conduct the investigation, and the investigator's motives of taking the case.
Scenario #1:
Murderer: a lover with a grudge
Victim: a homeless man on the street
Murderer's Motive: Homeless man saw something he wasn't supposed to see: the lover beating her man with a baseball bat and torturing him to death
How the Murder happened: The woman saw the homeless man staring into the the window of the apartment during the lovers-spat-turned-bad. She came after the him with the same bat she used to kill her lover.
Who'll conduct the investigation: a hard-boiled private investigator.
His motives: He had recently caught his wife cheating on him with another man. This case brings up painful memories for him, but he can't refuse it. The police department gives him the cases they can't touch, and he needs the money.
Scenario #2
Murderer: a cop gone bad
Victim: his partner
Murdere's Motive: To hide his connections to the Mob. The victim was on the verge of exposing him.
The Investigator: an investigator in Homicide, from a different part of the precinct.
His motives: He'd lost several partners in the past, so many that no one wants to be his partner. At first he believes the murderer's story (the Homicide investigator identifies with the perps supposed 'grief and pain') but as inconsistencies crop up, he begins to get suspicious and digs deeper.
Scenario #3
Murderer: a female ninja
Victim: a ruthless British businessman
Motive: to secure a company takeover by her employers.
The investigator: a cop of Japanese descent
His morive: He knows people in the ninja organization--his family and theirs are rivals. He turned his back on the Ninja Way, but the temptation is always there.
