story essay about mystery

• Writing Prompts

70 Mystery Writing Prompts That’ll Keep Your Readers Hooked

From whodunits to unsolved crimes, here are over 70 mystery writing prompts that will keep your readers hooked from beginning to end. 

The mystery genre is all about gathering clues and evidence to solve a crime or mystery of some sort. Common mysteries to solve may include murder, kidnappings, theft and any other unsolved crimes. The thing that makes a mystery story so appealing is that no one knows who the true culprit is until the very end of the story. And the big reveal at the end is always shocking to the reader. The secret to a good mystery lies in the plot twist . You have to be two steps ahead of your readers – Get inside the head of your readers and think, “Who would your readers think the main culprit is?” Then switch it around, and pick someone who is highly unlikely to be the real baddie.

You can pick a random prompt from our mystery writing prompts generator below to practice your plot twist skills on:

In a mystery novel, characters are a huge part of the mystery. Common characters may include:

• Street smart detective – They ask all the right questions, but are the answers to be trusted?
• Bent cop – Known for planting fake evidence at crime scenes.
• Mysterious guy – No one knows anything about them, and therefore they could be an easy suspect in the case.
• The scapegoat – The one everyone is blaming.
• The obvious suspect – All clues point to this person.
• The unobvious suspect – No real evidence against this person, but somehow they link to the crime in question.

When writing your mystery story think about the characters you would include carefully before diving in. We even recommend creating character profiles for each character, and maybe even a mind map to show their connection to the crime in question.

Take a look at this collection of the best mystery books for teens for some more ideas!

70 Mystery Writing Prompts

List of over 70 mystery writing prompts, from unsolved murder cases to items that vanished into thin air:

• The richest man on Earth has a hidden vault filled with millions of dollars, expensive jewellery and gems. One night he goes to add to his collection of gems and notices a sentimental piece of jewellery missing.
• One-by-one random things keep on going missing in your house. First your watch, then a teapot. Who is taking them and why?
• One of your classmates mysteriously stops coming to school. It’s been nearly 2 weeks since you last saw them. What could have happened to them?
• A police officer finds a dead body at a barber’s shop in town. The cause of death was drowning. No one knows how the body got there and who did it.
• A person takes a game of snakes and ladders too literally. In random locations around the city, snakes and ladders have been placed. Where do those ladders go? Why are snakes placed in these random places? Can you solve this strange mystery?
• You wake up in a warehouse with no memory of how you got there. The warehouse office is filled with newspaper clippings of missing people from the past 20 years. Who is the kidnapper and why are you in this warehouse?
• Last night a series of supermarkets and warehouses across the city were robbed. The thief or thieves only steal toilet paper. Can you solve this case?
• Meet Benji, the cat detective. Benji is a feisty feline who is on a mission to capture the great tuna can thief. 
• At exactly 7.08 pm last night a scream was heard from 59 Pebble Lane. The neighbours knocked but no one was home. Later that night, the police arrived at approximately 2.13 am to find a cold dead body on the floor in a pool of spilt tea.
• You are a reporter for the Imagine Forest Times newspaper, you are writing an article on the missing bird eggs in the local forest.
• Imagine you are a security guard. It’s your first night shift at the local art Museum. The next morning a priceless painting goes missing, and you are blamed. You need to prove your innocence before you are sent to prison, but how?
• Write a time travel mystery story where the main character keeps going back in time to find out who really murdered their parents.
• You and your friends go to the fairground. You decide to ride the carousel. Round and round you go, and then the ride stops. When it stops you notice one of your friends is suddenly missing. Where did they go? (See our list of writing prompts about friendship for more ideas.)
• The main character in your story is caught red-handed with the missing jewel in their hand. But did they really steal this jewel?
• Write a diary from the perspective of a paranoid person who thinks their neighbour is stealing from them.
• Write down an action scene where the main character trails the secondary character to an abandoned warehouse. What do you think will happen next?
• Someone has been stealing mobile phones at your school. You think you know who it is, so you set up a try to catch the thief.
• A bent police officer has been planting false evidence at crime scenes for years. Who are they protecting and why?
• Write a script between two characters who are meeting in secret to discuss some new evidence in a murder trial.
• Imagine you are a detective interviewing a suspect in the crime of jewellery theft. Write down some questions that you might ask the suspect. If you have time, you can also write the possible answers from the suspect’s point of view.
• You discover a note in your bag. It says, “I know what YOU have done!” – Who can have left this note, and what are they talking about?
• Write a story about a young police officer who is solving the murder case of his best friend from high school. The twist is that this police officer turns out to be the murderer.
• For over 10 years, your twin sister was missing. But there she is – Suddenly walking in the middle of the street. Where has she been? What happened to her?
• Imagine you are an investigator examining the scene of a murder crime. What types of clues would you look out for? Can you make a list of at least 10 possible clues you might find?
• A police car is chasing a potential suspect in a murder trial. Halfway through the chase, the police car disappears. The suspect slows down their car, and wonders, “What happened? Why did they stop coming after me?”
• You come home from school one day and notice that your mother’s things are gone. Your first thought is that she left you and your father. But the truth is that she was kidnapped by someone.
• A mysterious person has stolen all your teddy bears and is holding them for ransom somewhere. Each day you get a cryptic riddle. If you can solve each riddle you will receive one teddy bear back each time. 
• It’s the year 3,000. Your main character is a lawyer for a robot. They must prove this robot’s innocence in a human murder trial. (See this list of sci-fi writing prompts for more inspiration.)
• Someone keeps stealing textbooks from your school. One day you go to school and see a huge statement art piece outside the school made from the stolen textbooks. Can you find out who did this?
• Cinderella has turned into a detective. She needs to solve the case of the stolen glass slippers. After all those glass slippers are super rare.
• The main character in your story must prove their innocence in a murder trial. How would they do this? What evidence would they need?
• The main character in your story discovers that their brother is the real killer. They then try to destroy all evidence linked to their brother to protect them.
• “Poppy! Poppy! Where are you, buddy?” Mindy searched for her pet Labrador everywhere. But she was nowhere to be seen. It turns out all the dogs in town have been missing since last night. What could have possibly happened to them?
• Someone has been leaving embarrassing photographs of various people all over town. Can you track down this person? Why are they posting these photos? 
• Write a mystery story titled, ‘Piece-by-Piece’ about a jigsaw puzzle thief who is stealing random puzzles pieces.
• You notice some muddy footprints leading into a thick forest at your local park. You follow this trail of footprints to a secret hatch in the woods. The door of the hatch has been left open. When you go inside you discover something shocking.
• Your dog digs up an old lunchbox in your backyard. Inside the lunchbox, you find a key, an address and some old newspaper clipping of missing people. You think you can solve this case of the missing people by just visiting that address. But things get a little more complicated…
• This is a mystery story about a boy named Billy who’s home alone and is playing with a toy truck when he finds a strange box. His mother, a lady with a past, is suspicious of this mysterious box, so she calls the police. Billy’s mother is a detective, and they find that the box is really a trap, and Billy is kidnapped.
• Write a crime mystery story about how a little girl’s dream of becoming a scientist led to her death. Why would anyone murder a young girl who wants to be a scientist? How did this happen?
• A small-town sheriff gets caught up in the biggest robbery in history. When over a million dollars just vanish into thin air, people are quick to blame the shifty-eyed sheriff from out of town. But is he really the culprit in this crime?
• When Sara was a young girl she was kidnapped by a strange man and woman who took care of her. But now Sara wants to know what happened to her real parents. Are they still alive? Are they still looking for her?
• The clock is ticking. Somewhere in the city, a group of hostages are locked up. With every hour that goes by, one hostage will be killed. The main character, a street-smart detective must solve the clues to find the location of these hostages in time.
• A police officer finds himself in a very unusual situation. It is just before 6 pm on a Friday night when police were called to a disturbance in the street. The call came from a man who was allegedly threatening a woman with a knife. The man was arrested at 6.05 pm and taken to the police station. However, it was later revealed that the woman left at home has been murdered by someone else, but who?
• A murder mystery party takes a dark turn when one of the guests is murdered for real.
• Write a mystery story titled, ‘Who Stole My Homework?’ The main character’s A* worthy English essay is stolen by someone, but who?
• Use this sentence as inspiration: Inspector Robins pulls out his notebook and writes down two words: Green fingers.
• “10 car windows broken in 10 days! What does it all mean? What does it mean?” Exclaimed Detective Riley.
• During a stop and search, a police officer finds a dead body in the boot of a car. But is the car driver really to blame?
• A lost bracelet ends up in your best friend’s locker at school, along with other precious items. Your best friend is wrongly accused of stealing these items.
• One girl must find her stolen prom dress before the prom. In the days leading up to the prom, more and more of her accessories for prom night are being stolen. Who is this thief?
• Write a mystery thriller titled, “Come and Get It”. It’s about an arrogant criminal who is stealing sentimental items from each police officer in the state, He leaves these items in random locations in the city, along with a note that says: Come and get it!
• Every night the car alarms for every car on your street turn on at exactly 2.03 am. why is this happening, and who is responsible?
• A mysterious hacker has hacked into the city’s power grid. They have the power to on and off electricity whenever they want. Can you catch them before they do any more damage?
• A secret admirer is leaving expensive gifts for your main character. At first, these gifts seem great, but then they soon take a dark twist (see our Valentine’s Day Prompts for more inspiration).
• Your main character is at their senior prom. Dancing the night away. Suddenly the lights go off. Pitch darkness for a minute. When the lights come on, your best friend is gone. And there’s a message in red paint on the wall: You’re next!
• Your teacher gives back your English assignment, and you got an F! Looking closer, you realise that this is not your assignment at all! The same starts happening in your other classes. Someone has been swapping your assignments – But who?
• For the past few days, you have been receiving anonymous emails from someone. The emails are telling you not to be friends with him. You don’t take any of these emails seriously until the police come knocking on your door.
• A family picnic at the park becomes unbearable when you open up the basket to discover every family members untold secrets.
• You are at a Chinese restaurant with your family. It’s time to open up the fortune cookies. When your mother opens up her fortune cookie, it says: “One of your children has been very naughty!”. Then your father opens his cookie up, it says: “Who’s been sneaking around behind mommy’s and daddy’s back?” All eyes at the table are on you. But what did you do?
• Your main character is a bent cop. Trying to manipulate the course of justice, and helping real criminals get away with murder. One day, someone plants evidence that gets this bent cop arrested for a murder they did not commit.
• Write down a scene between two characters. In this scene, the ‘real’ criminal is trying to convince a detective that someone else is guilty of the crime of stealing from a church.
• There are three potential suspects in the murder case of Phillip Green. You are the lead detective on this case. What questions would you ask these suspects to find the real murderer? Make a list of at least 10 questions you may ask.
• A health inspector arrives at a vegan restaurant to discover rotten vegetables, and raw, old meat. The owners know nothing about this and believe someone planted this as sabotage. Who can have sabotaged the vegan restaurant?
• Write a short mystery story for kids titled, ‘Why is the sky blue?’ One child’s curiosity about the sky leads them to discover a secret playground in the park.
• Your main character is a news reporter who is convinced that the killer of Rosie Moore is still out there. They know that the police have convicted the wrong person for this heinous crime. Can your main character find the real killer before the wrong person is sentenced to life in prison?
• Someone has been replacing all shampoos around town with a hair removal solution. When half the town’s hair starts falling out, it is up to you, a top detective to solve this crime.
• Write a mystery story set in the future where a secret cyber group called the ‘Merry Man’ are hacking the bank accounts of rich people and giving this money to the poor. Your main character is a police detective trying to hunt the members of this cyber group down.
• A mysterious person is playing a nasty game of hide and seek with you. They have kidnapped your friends and family members and hid them in various locations within the city. You have exactly 1 hour to find each person before something bad happens to them.
• Someone has left a note in your locker at school. The note reads: Help me, please! You ignore this note, but more notes start appearing in your notebooks, bag and even at home. Until eventually you get a package through the mail. You open this package and scream…
• Write an animal mystery tale about a dog who wants to find the original owner of a doll he found in the park.
• Can you solve this bonus mystery prompt: Someone has been stealing socks from the locals at night. Who could this be and why would they be doing this? (See video prompt below for more ideas.)

Did you find these mystery writing prompts useful when writing your own story? Let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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How to Write a Mystery Story

Last Updated: July 7, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Lucy V. Hay . Lucy V. Hay is a Professional Writer based in London, England. With over 20 years of industry experience, Lucy is an author, script editor, and award-winning blogger who helps other writers through writing workshops, courses, and her blog Bang2Write. Lucy is the producer of two British thrillers, and Bang2Write has appeared in the Top 100 round-ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life and is a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK. She received a B.A. in Scriptwriting for Film & Television from Bournemouth University. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 568,176 times.

A good mystery story will have fascinating characters, exciting suspense, and a puzzle that keeps you turning the pages. But it can be difficult to write an engaging mystery story, especially if you have never tried to before. With the right preparation, brainstorming, and outlining, you can create a page-turning mystery of your own.

Preparing to Write

• When it comes to mystery, one of the key elements is tension and making the story compelling from the very beginning. [1] X Research source
• In mystery stories, your reader does not know who committed the murder until the end of the novel. Mysteries are centered on the intellectual exercise of trying to figure out the motivations behind the crime, or the puzzle.
• Mysteries tend to be written in the first person, while thrillers are often written in the third person and from multiple points of view. In mystery stories, there is usually a slower pace as the hero/detective/main character tries to solve the crime. There are also limited action sequences in mysteries than in thrillers.
• Because mysteries are often slower paced, the characters are usually more in-depth and well rounded in a mystery story than in a thriller.

• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. The 19th-century mystery novel was originally written in serial form, so the story moves forward in measured steps. Much of what became standard in crime fiction was done by Collins in this novel, so it is an engaging and instructive introduction to the genre.
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Chandler is one of the genre’s greatest writers, creating engaging stories about the trials and tribulations of private detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is a tough, cynical, but honest P.I. who becomes entangled in a plot with a General, his daughter, and a blackmailing photographer. Chandler’s work is known for its sharp dialogue, great pacing, and riveting hero, Marlowe. [3] X Research source
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the genre’s most famous detectives, along with his equally famous sleuthing partner Watson, solves a series of mysteries and crimes in this collection of stories. Holmes and Watson inject their unique character traits into the stories along the way. [4] X Research source
• NANCY DREW by Carolyn Keene. The whole series is situated in the United States.Nancy Drew is a detective. Her close friends Helen Corning, Bess Marvin and George Fayne appear in some mysteries. Nancy is Carson Drew's daughter. Carson Drew is the most famous lawyer in River Heights, where they live.
• "Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon.This is similar to Nancy Drew.It is about two brothers: Frank and Joe Hardy, who are talented detectives.They are the sons of a very famous detective, and they sometimes help in his cases.
• A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne. This recent mystery novel is set in 1970s suburban Washington. It centers on the “crime” in the neighborhood, the murder of a young boy. Berne intersperses a coming of age story with the mystery of the death of the young boy in bland, boring suburbia, but manages to make the story anything but bland or boring. [5] X Research source

• For example, in The Big Sleep , Chandler’s first-person narrator describes himself through his clothing on the first page: “I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with the dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be."
• With these opening sentences, Chandler makes the narrator distinct through his way of describing himself, his outfit, and his job (private detective).

• For example, in the second paragraph of the first page of The Big Sleep , Marlowe places the reader in the time and setting: “The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high.”
• The reader now knows Marlowe is in front of the home of the Sternwoods and it is a larger home, possibly wealthy.

• In The Big Sleep , Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to “take care” of a photographer who has been blackmailing the General with scandalous pictures of the General’s daughter.

• In The Big Sleep , Chandler complicates Marlowe’s pursuit of the photographer by having the photographer killed in the early chapters, followed by the suspicious suicide of the General’s chauffeur. So Chandler sets up the story with two crimes that Marlowe has to solve.

• The resolution of the mystery should feel surprising to your reader, without confusing them. One of the benefits of a mystery is that you can pace the story so the solution unfolds gradually, rather than in a rushed or hurried manner.

Developing Your Main Character and Outlining the Story

• Body size and shape, hair and eye color, and any other physical characteristics. For example, you may have a short female main character with dark hair, glasses, and green eyes. Or you may want a more typical detective character: tall with slicked-back hair and a five o’clock shadow.
• Clothing and dress. Your character’s clothing will not only create a more detailed image for your reader, it can also indicate what time period your story is set in. For example, if your main character wears heavy armor and a helmet with a crest, your reader will realize your story is set in medieval times. If your character wears a hoodie, jeans, and a backpack, this will tip off your readers that the story is likely set in modern times.
• What makes your main character unique. It’s important to create a main character who stands out to your reader and feels engaging enough to sustain many pages in a story or novel. Consider what your character likes and dislikes. Maybe your female sleuth is shy and awkward at parties, and has a secret love of reptiles. Or perhaps your detective is a complete klutz and doesn’t consider himself a strong or smart person. Focus on details that will help to create a unique main character and don’t be afraid to draw on details from your own life or your own preferences and tastes. [7] X Research source
• What matters most is that your main character has a burning question or burning need to solve the mystery.

• If you decide to set your story in a time period or location you are unfamiliar with, conduct research on the time period or location through your local library, online sources, or interviews with experts in a certain time period or location. Be specific with your research and during your interviews to ensure you get all the details of a setting or time period right.

• An item is stolen from your main character or someone close to the main character.
• A person close to the main character disappears.
• The main character receives threatening or disturbing notes.
• The main character witnesses a crime.
• The main character is asked to help solve a crime.
• The main character stumbles upon a mystery.
• You can also combine several of these scenarios to create a more layered mystery. For example, an item may be stolen from your main character, a person close to the main character disappears, and then the main character witnesses a crime she is later asked to help solve.

• Create a list of possible suspects your main character may encounter throughout the story. You can use several suspects to point the detective and/or the reader in the wrong direction to build suspense and surprise. [8] X Research source
• Write a list of clues. Red herrings are clues that are false or misleading. Your story will be stronger if you include several red herring clues in the story. For example, your main character may find a clue that points to one suspect, but it is later revealed the clue is actually tied to a different suspect. Or your detective may find a clue without realizing it is the key to unlocking the entire mystery. [9] X Research source
• Red herrings are all about saying "follow this thread" when the "thread" in question is completely wrong. A good writer can put something in the way that stops readers from realizing what's going on.

• The main character is investigating a possible lead alone and encounters the murderer or killer.
• The main character begins to doubt his/her abilities and lets his/her guard down, allowing the murderer to kill again.
• No one believes the main character and he/she ends up trying to solve the crime alone,and he/she ends up getting kidnapped.
• The main character is injured and trapped in a dangerous place.
• The main character is going to lose an important clue if he/she can’t get out of a certain location or situation.

• The main character saves someone close to them, or an innocent person wrapped up in the mystery.
• The main character saves himself/herself and is changed by his/her courage or smarts.
• The main character exposes a bad character or organization.
• The main character exposes the murderer or person responsible for the crime.

• Introduction of main character and setting.
• The inciting incident, or the crime.
• The call to adventure: The main character gets involved in solving the crime.
• Tests and trials: The main character finds clues, encounters potential suspects, and tries to stay alive as he/she pursues the truth. Close ones might be kidnapped as a threat
• Ordeal: The main character thinks he/she has found a key clue or suspect and believes he/she has solved the crime. This is a false resolution, and is a good way to surprise your reader when it turns out the main character got it wrong.
• Major setback: All seems lost for the main character. He/She found the wrong suspect or clue, someone else is killed or harmed, and all his/her allies have abandoned him/her. A major setback will amp up the tension in the story and keep the reader guessing.
• The reveal: The main character gathers all interested parties together, lays out the clues, explains the false leads, and reveals who the murderer or guilty person is.

Writing the Story

• Think what your main character might see in a certain setting. For example, if your character lives in a home much like yours in a small town, you may describe his/her bedroom or his/her walk to school. If you are using a specific historical setting, like 70s California, you may describe your character standing on a street corner and looking at the unique architecture or the cars that drive by.
• Consider what your main character might hear in a certain setting. Your sleuth may listen to the birds chirping and the sprinklers on the lawns on the way to school. Or your detective may hear the roaring of cars or the crashing of ocean waves.
• Describe what your main character might smell in a certain setting. Your main character might wake up to the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen by his/her parents. Or your detective may be hit with the smell of the city: rotting garbage and body odor.
• Describe what your character might feel. This could be a light breeze, a sharp pain, a sudden jolt, or a shiver down his/her spine. Focus on how your character’s body might react to a feeling.
• Think about what your character might taste. Your main character may still taste the cereal she had for breakfast in his/her mouth, or the drink from the night before.

• Think about being concise with your language and description. Most readers continue reading a good mystery because they are invested in the main character and want to see his/her succeed. Be brief but specific when describing the main character and his/her perspective on the world.
• For example, Chandler’s The Big Sleep starts by situating the reader in a setting and gives the reader a sense of the main character’s perspective on the world. “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
• With this beginning, the story starts in action, with a specific time, date, and description of the setting. It then presents the main character’s physical description and job title. The section ends with the main character’s motivation: four million dollars. In three lines, Chandler has covered many of the essential details of the character, the setting, and the story.

• Think about how you would react in a situation if you were angry or scared. Have your character react in ways that communicate angry or scared, without telling the reader about the character’s emotions. For example, rather than “Stephanie was angry,” you could write: “Stephanie slammed his/her water glass down on the table so hard his/her dinner plate rattled. She glared at him, and started ripping the thin, white napkin into shreds with his/her fingers.”
• Showing, rather than telling also works well for descriptions of setting. For example, in The Big Sleep , rather than tell the reader the Sternwoods were wealthy, Chandler describes the luxurious details of the estate: “There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills.”

• Plot. Ensure your story sticks to the outline and has a clear beginning, middle, and an ending. You should also confirm your main character shifts or changes at the end of the story.
• Characters. Are your characters, including your main character, distinct and unique? Do all the characters sound and act the same or are they different from each other? Do your characters feel original and engaging?
• Pacing. Pacing is how fast or how slow the action moves in the story. Good pacing will feel invisible to the reader. If the story feels like it is moving too fast, make the scenes longer to draw out the emotions of the characters. If it feels like the story gets bogged down or confusing, shorten the scenes to only include essential information. A good rule of thumb is to always end a scene earlier than you might think or want. This will keep the tension from scene to scene from dropping and keep the pace of the story moving.
• The twist. The twist can either make or break a good mystery story. This is completely optional, but many of the best stories have a twist at the end. Make sure that a twist is not too "cheesy". The more unique a twist is, the easier it is to write. When writing an overused twist, such as "then they woke up", you'll need to be a very good writer to make it sound good. A good twist not only fools the audience, but fools the character(s) too. Consider hinting towards the twist during action scenes, so that when the reader looks back on the story, they'll wonder how they missed it. Try not to make the twist evident too early on.

Mystery Story Help

Community Q&A

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pen and/or a computer with a word processor (like Word)
• Mystery books/stories
• An idea/plot for the story

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-tips-writing-great-mystery-suspense-novels
• ↑ http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/59582-the-10-best-mystery-books.html
• ↑ http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bigsleep/summary.html
• ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/970720.20careyt.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-mystery.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/how-to-write-murderously-good-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-fiction.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery-part-two.html

About This Article

Before you write your mystery story you’ll want to create some characters and outline the plot. You might make your main character a detective or just a curious citizen who witnessed a crime. Once you have characters, choose a setting and a mystery such as a murder or a robbery of a precious artwork. If you want to make your story dramatic, add in cliffhangers and red herrings, or clues that lead to dead ends. When you’re ready to write your story, scroll down for tips from our Creative Writing reviewer on creating a well-paced and exciting narrative. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Want To Write A Murder Mystery? Here’s How

Congratulations! You’ve picked one of the reading world’s all-time favorite genres.

And with all the subgenres , you have loads of opportunities and choices when writing a murder mystery.

Although there’s room for a LOT of variety in this genre, the overall structure is pretty consistent.

In this guide on how to write a murder mystery, we’ll show you what makes mystery a great choice for your first debut as a fiction author — especially if you enjoy reading and watching them.

You probably have your favorites, too. And the more you learn about how to write mystery, the better sense you’ll have of which subgenre you want to focus on.

Let’s cover the basics before we get down to business.

• Writing a Murder Mystery

Murder Mystery Story Lines

Murder mystery outline, murder mystery plots, murder mystery characters, murder mystery plot, murder mystery clues, essential tips for writing a murder mystery novel.

Writing a murder mystery can be just as fun as reading one. Sometimes, it’s even more fun.

Sure, it’s more work. It’s on you to make sure the reader doesn’t regret buying your novel instead of someone else’s.

And there’s plenty of work involved in not only writing your mystery but also editing and revising it — not to mention everything you’ll do to get it ready for publication .

But when you’re done, and your first reader tells you, “You kept me guessing until the very end! I LOVED this story! This is the first of a series, right? … Right?? ” you’ll know it was worth it.

And the more you learn how to get that kind of response from a reader, the more fun you’ll have cranking out one murder mystery after another.

How to Write a Murder Mystery

What makes mysteries such an ideal genre for new fiction writers is its predictable (but highly customizable) overall storyline sequence:

• Discovery of a murder victim.
• An investigation by a sleuth — professional or amateur.
• Red herring (the reader is invited to suspect someone other than the murderer).
• Sleuth walks into a compromising situation and discovers the truth.
• Sleuth makes a narrow escape, and the murderer is caught.

The particulars of your murder mystery storyline will depend on your book’s subgenre. And there are quite a few. Here’s just a sampling from a long list of subgenres at WritersDigest.com .

Once you know your story’s structure and key moments, you can draft a rough outline .

From there, you can either flesh it out with more detail — for your characters, clues, red herrings, etc. — or use it to launch right into writing your first chapter.

The following questions can help you create a motivating story outline:

After answering these questions, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what happens in your story. An outline helps keep everything sorted by providing a timeline for all the key moments and clues in your story.

It’s up to you whether you want your chapters to have titles related to their content.

Some authors enjoy crafting chapter titles that tease the reader. Others simply number their chapters and rely on tantalizing hooks at each chapter’s end.

If you have to choose one or the other, though, definitely hook your reader at each chapter’s end. You want them to feel conflicted about putting your book down — even when they have to. Give them a reason to come back.

Make it easier to include these hooks by writing an outline like the following for each chapter:

• Key moment #1 (at the beginning of the chapter)
• Key moment #2 (somewhere in the middle) — optional
• Key moment #3 (at the end of the chapter)

In other words, lead your reader through the chapter with moments that make it worth their while to keep reading. Make them care about what’s happening with the mystery and with your main character’s life and relationships.

Spell it out in moments. And put those in your outline.

The basic mystery plot follows the overall storyline mentioned above but each story fills in the blanks differently — based in part on your subgenre and in larger part on your specific story and its characters.

As a murder mystery author, you want to keep your readers guessing about the murderer’s identity without straying from the basic murder mystery story structure.

Keep their interest with something familiar (the story structure they’ve come to expect) along with something new and captivating. Entice them with the promise of surprising revelations. Give them a reason to care about your story’s characters.

Get them asking the following questions (or some variation thereof):

These will also depend on your chosen subgenre. For example, if you’re writing a cozy mystery, your main character will probably be a female amateur sleuth who runs a shop or eatery of some kind.

She’ll often have a best friend who helps her with her sleuthing. And more often than not, there’ll also be a love interest who either helps her solve mysteries or tries to curb her sleuthing ways.

If you’re writing a classic whodunnit or detective mystery, your main character will probably be a seasoned detective adept at noticing things other people miss or disregard. This detective will probably have a sidekick, who may or may not have a life of their own.

To learn more about the kinds of characters and character types typical to each subgenre, you’ll want to read many by different authors. Once you have the basics down, you can add your own flavor to each character and each relationship.

Remember the five-act story structure from Freytag’s Pyramid? Here’s a refresher:

This works well with fantasy novels. With a murder mystery, though, it’s easier to think of the story in three acts:

Mysteries tend to be shorter, anyway — with a lot happening in each chapter. Mystery readers generally want something fast-paced. And the three-act story structure helps with this.

In Plot Point #1 , your main character engages with the inciting incident — which is the catalyst launching them into the story’s main conflict.

At the Midpoint in Act 2 , something happens that leads your character inexorably toward plot point #2. The midpoint often involves a disaster of some kind. It’s not the climax, but it does get things rolling more quickly.

At Plot Point #2 , your main character is at a low point — thanks mostly to the disaster at the midpoint.

Maybe they thought they’d discovered the killer. But when they followed a lead, hoping for success and satisfaction, it led instead to humiliation and disappointment.

All is not lost, though. Give them time to reflect on how things went wrong. Then give them a reason to pivot and head in a new direction.

Act 3 starts with the inevitable confrontation between your main character and the murderer/antagonist. This is the Pre-Climax, and from here things move very quickly toward the Climax.

The Climax , of course, is where your main character/sleuth narrowly escapes becoming the murderer’s next victim. At the climax’s end, the murderer is caught — or stopped (with some degree of finality).

The Resolution is where you tie up the loose ends and show how the case and your main character’s actions have affected them and everyone else in the story.

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It’s important that your reader has access to all the clues your sleuth has.

If they suddenly reveal the name of the killer and only then mention the clues they found that were never mentioned before, your reader will feel cheated of the chance to deduce the murderer’s identity themselves.

Mystery readers like to be involved in the sleuthing. Keep them in the loop.

If you write a detailed outline before starting your first draft, you can plug in your murder mystery clues — what they are, who will find them (first) and where, and how your characters interpret them.

Having these details already in your outline can give you the confidence to get started writing your first chapter.

It doesn’t mean those details won’t change. A lot can happen when you’re writing, and often the ideas you get when you’re in a flow state are better than the ones you had when you were brainstorming.

That said, some writers (those who lean more heavily toward the pantser end of the author spectrum) do better with a rough outline so they can add clues and other details as they write their draft.

You know your process better than I do. Do what works for you.

But if you get stuck, sometimes brainstorming with an outline or voice-journaling for your main character will help you get unstuck.

And sometimes a shower or a long walk can do what sitting at your desk cannot. Just like clues, sometimes you find inspiration when you’re not looking for it.

If you sat down with a group of murder mystery authors and asked them for their best tips on writing for this genre, you’d likely end up with a list like this one:

Ready to write your murder mystery?

Now that you know how to write a murder mystery, what ideas are percolating in that creative mind of yours? What characters are just begging you to bring them to life on the page?

A year from now, you could be working on the next installment in your bestselling murder mystery series, thrilled by the response of readers all around the world.

Where will it all begin? And how can I help you earn a good living writing murder mysteries? Because it can be done.

Check out other Authority Pub articles (like this one on writing dialogue) to get closer to your goal of becoming a bestselling author.

May this be the first of many bestselling novels with your name on the cover.

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How to Write a Mystery Story: 12 Powerful Writing Tips

Mystery stories have a unique allure, drawing readers into a world of crime, suspense, false clues, secrets, and intrigue. If it’s done well, they will imagine themselves in the sleuth’s footsteps, shrouded in a cloak of apprehension, unraveling the enigmatic clues that lead to a spine-tingling revelation.

But what makes a mystery story truly engaging, and how can you write one that will keep your readers guessing until the very end?

In this guide, we’ll share 12 powerful mystery writing tips that will show you how to write a mystery novel, transforming your storytelling process and leaving your readers eager to turn the pages, desperate to uncover the truth.

What Makes a Mystery Story?

Mystery is a genre that revolves around a puzzle that needs to be solved. This question can be a crime, but it can also be another type of mystery, such as a supernatural occurrence or a missing person.

These stories contain a central character who takes on the responsibility of unraveling the mystery and uncovering the truth. Readers are invited to follow the investigator’s thought processes, reasoning, and fact-finding methods as they diligently pursue leads, analyze evidence, and piece together the puzzle’s fragments.

To heighten the narrative tension, mystery stories usually employ elements of conflict , suspense and surprise. Authors reveal clues and evidence gradually, as well as introduce red herrings—misleading details or plot twists meant to divert attention away from the real villain or actual solution.

As the story progresses, readers become amateur detectives themselves, actively participating in the investigation by piecing together clues, speculating on motives, and attempting to solve the mystery before the characters do.

As such, this genre harnesses the innate human fascination with the unknown, the uncanny, and the insatiable curiosity to unearth hidden truths.

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9 Types of Mystery Stories

Mystery stories come in various subgenres, each with its own unique elements and characteristics. Here are some of the different subgenres, along with descriptions of each.

1. Cozy Mystery

Cozy mysteries are known for their light-hearted and non-violent approach to crime-solving. They typically feature amateur detectives, often in a small-town or village setting, who solve crimes with wit, charm, and the help of their community. These mysteries emphasize the puzzle-solving aspect rather than graphic violence or suspense.

Some popular cozy mystery series include Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow novels, and Leslie Meier’s stories with reporter/investigator Lucy Stone .

2. Hard-Boiled Mystery

These unsentimental mysteries are gritty and realistic, featuring tough, cynical, and morally complex protagonists, often private investigators or police detectives. These stories delve into the darker aspects of crime and society, with a focus on urban settings, violence, moral ambiguity, and the bending of rules to solve cases.

Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade series, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories, and Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer books represent this subgenre with aplomb.

3. Police Procedural

Police procedurals offer an in-depth look into the workings of law enforcement agencies. These stories emphasize the step-by-step investigation process, including interviews, forensic analysis, and legal procedures. Authors often research and accurately depict police work and criminal justice systems.

Here you will find Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta forensic pathologist novels, and Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.

4. Legal Mystery

This mystery type is centered on lawyers, prosecutors, or legal professionals who solve mysteries within the context of the courtroom or legal proceedings. These stories often involve complex legal dilemmas, courtroom drama, and ethical quandaries.

The most famous contributor to this subgenre is John Grisham, ably accompanied by Scott Turow, Steve Martini, and Richard North Patterson.

5. Medical Mystery

These science-focussed mysteries involve the investigation of perplexing medical cases, diseases, or outbreaks, often featuring healthcare professionals, medical detectives, or amateur sleuths who strive to uncover the underlying medical cause, solve medical puzzles, or prevent potential health crises.

Almost all Robin Cook and Michael Palmer books fall into this category, together with Leonard Goldberg’s Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series and Michael Crichton’s ” The Andromeda Strain”.

6. Historical Mystery

Historical mysteries are set in the past, often featuring a historical period, event, or figure as a backdrop. These stories provide readers with a sense of time and place while incorporating historical details and mysteries that fit within the chosen era.

In this subgenre, you will find Anne Perry’s Thomas Pitt novels situated in Victorian-era London, C.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series from the Tudor era, and Lindsey Davis’s Falco series set in ancient Rome.

7. Supernatural Mystery

Paranormal or supernatural mysteries incorporate elements of the paranormal, such as ghosts, vampires, or supernatural phenomena, into the mystery plot. These stories often blur the lines between the natural and the supernatural, creating an eerie and mysterious atmosphere and an unusual mystery that requires substantial out-of-the-box thinking to solve.

Some of the most famous authors include Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen King.

8. Whodunit Mystery

Whodunit mysteries, also known as classic or traditional mysteries, emphasize the puzzle aspect of the story. The central question is “Who committed the crime?” Readers are presented with clues and red herrings, and they are encouraged to solve the mystery alongside the investigator. The crime is usually a murder, and the protagonist is a detective who is trying to solve the case.

Here the classics are Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books, and the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers.

9. Psychological Mystery

Psychological thrillers, also often called psychological mysteries, blend elements of mystery and suspense with a focus on the psychological and emotional aspects of the characters. These stories usually involve unreliable narrators, mind games, and the exploration of the human psyche.

These books have been particularly popular since the turn of the century and include “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins, and classics like “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith.

How to Write a Mystery Story

If you feel motivated to write your own mystery story but you feel like you need some guidance on the practical aspects of constructing one, this section provides a step-by-step guide on the art and craft of writing a mystery novel that will keep your readers eagerly turning the pages. So, let’s get started.

Step 1: Understand the Genre

By immersing yourself in the genre, you’ll become familiar with its conventions. This knowledge helps you create a story that resonates with readers who appreciate the specific characteristics of mysteries.

From cozy to supernatural mysteries, explore the subgenres so that you can choose the one that aligns with your writing style and interests. Knowing the nuances of each subgenre helps you tailor your story effectively.

While reading, analyze the structure of the novels. Identify common tropes and plot devices used in the genre. Consider how authors introduce clues, red herrings, and character motivations.

Take notes on what works well in the novels you enjoy. Pay attention to character development, pacing, dialogue, and how authors handle suspense and revelations.

Step 2: Craft a Mystery

While this step looks impossibly huge, you don’t have to work out all the details here. You can fill in much of it in later steps, so don’t feel overwhelmed.

But at least start by clearly defining the central mystery or crime that drives your story. This is the core puzzle that your protagonist will aim to solve. The mystery can be almost anything: murder, theft, missing persons, kidnapping, identity theft, sabotage, blackmail, cybercrime, a political conspiracy, a secret society/cult, or some other unexplained phenomenon.

Consider your own interests and passions. Writing about a mystery that fascinates you will make the storytelling process more enjoyable and authentic.

Real-life events, news stories, or historical incidents can serve as inspiration for your story. Adapt these events and add fictional elements to create a compelling narrative.

Use the “what if” technique to brainstorm potential mysteries. Start with a simple question like “What if a famous painting went missing?” or “What if a small-town librarian discovered an old diary with hidden secrets?”

Step 3: Develop a Backstory

Every crime or action to be investigated should have a motive. Why did the perpetrator commit it? The motive should be logical and compelling, providing a strong reason for the actions taken. Some possible motivations include the following:

• Greed: Greed or financial gain are powerful motivators for crimes like theft, embezzlement, fraud, and murder.
• Revenge: Revenge and personal vendettas can lead to crimes such as murder, blackmail, or acts of sabotage.
• Envy: Jealousy can drive individuals to commit stalking, harassment, or even violence against those perceived as rivals.
• Desperation: Dire circumstances like financial ruin, addiction, or a desperate need to protect loved ones may lead to criminal actions as a last resort.
• Power and Control: A desire for dominance and control over others can motivate crimes like kidnapping, human trafficking, or abusive behavior.
• Political or Ideological Beliefs: Some characters may commit crimes in the name of political or ideological beliefs, leading to acts of terrorism, espionage, or subversion.
• Love and Passion: Romantic or passionate relationships can lead to crimes of passion, including murder or acts of violence committed in the heat of the moment.
• Curiosity and Experimentation: Some mysteries may stem from characters’ curiosity, experimentation, or a desire to test boundaries, leading to unforeseen consequences. Think scientific experiment gone wrong, exploring forbidden areas, opening sealed containers, dabbling in occult rituals, AI experimentation, dark web exploration, etc.

Together with constructing a reason why the mysterious event happened, start thinking of the relationships your story will have to include to make sense of this reason. While you can develop your characters in depth later, describe the family dynamics, friendships, rivalries, or past connections that may have contributed to the events.

Step 4: Establish Clear Stakes

Define what’s at stake in the story. Why is solving the mystery important? What consequences will result if it remains unsolved?

Stakes give your protagonist a compelling motive to investigate the mystery. They also create tension and suspense, as characters race against time to unravel the mystery and prevent negative consequences. In short, they make readers care about the outcome.

The most immediate and high-stakes consequence of failing to solve a mystery is life or death. But such a failure can also lead to imprisonment, reputational damage, financial ruin, loss of valuable artifacts or knowledge, trauma, guilt, or danger to a community or political system.

Step 5: Create a Protagonist

Your detective or main character serves as the driving force behind the narrative, and their qualities, quirks, and motivations can greatly influence the reader’s engagement. Include the following in their profile:

• Characteristics: Consider unique physical traits, personality quirks, or habits that set your detective or protagonist apart from the typical investigator.
• Motivations: While you can include the stakes of investigative failures here, also describe personal or ethical reasons why your character wants or needs to solve the mystery.
• Backstory: Explore their past experiences, traumas, successes, and failures. Understanding their history will help you portray their motivations and vulnerabilities effectively.
• Flaws and Weaknesses: Introduce character flaws, weaknesses, or personal challenges that your detective or protagonist must overcome. Weaknesses that relate to the challenges they will confront are particularly appealing.
• Unique Skills or Expertise: If there is a particular profession, hobby, or talent that make your character well-suited for solving mysteries, describe them here.
• Character Growth Arc: Consider how your protagonist’s experiences throughout the story will shape them and lead to personal development.

Step 6: Create Supporting Characters

Populate your story with a cast of diverse and interesting characters, including potential suspects, witnesses, and allies for your investigator. Each character should have their own motives, secrets, and function in the story.

The allies will be people with unique skills, knowledge, or expertise that complement the protagonist’s abilities. They should have their own motivations for helping with the investigation. To make it interesting, you can also develop complex relationships between the protagonist and their aids in the form of conflicts or tensions that arise as the investigation progresses.

The potential suspects can be either heroes or villains, but should, by definition, not be the main character responsible for the crime or mystery. Consider these elements of suspects:

• Motives: Give each suspect a clear and distinctive motive for being involved in the mystery. These motives should be believable and provide a plausible reason for their potential involvement in the event.
• Backstories: Explore their personal histories and experiences to understand what drives them and what secrets they may be hiding.
• Alibis: Establish alibis for your suspects that can be investigated and verified by your protagonist. This will help you to construct clues and red herrings later.
• Relationships: Consider the relationships between suspects. Do they have alliances, rivalries, or conflicts with each other? These dynamics can create additional layers of intrigue.

Step 7: Build a Setting

Building a rich story setting is essential for immersing readers in your mystery and enhancing the overall atmosphere and believability of your narrative. A setting can be so suitable and well developed that it almost serves as another character.

Draw inspiration from real places, events, or settings that align particularly well with your narrative. For example, a snowed-in Victorian Mansion is a good place for a paranormal investigator to investigate a haunting, since they cannot simply leave when events become too scary.

Sherlock Holmes did this particularly well in his Arthur Conan Doyle stories, where the foggy and atmospheric streets of Victorian-era London with their ancient alleyways, echoing footfalls, and glimpses of silhouettes contribute to the sense of menace and intrigue in the stories.

Alternatively, you can pick a setting that contrasts with your mystery in a way that is memorable in some way. In “Death on the Nile,” for example, Agatha Christie transports readers to the beautiful, exotic, and romantic setting of a luxurious riverboat on Egypt’s Nile River, where a murder mystery soon develops.

Engage readers’ senses by describing sights, sounds, smells, textures, and even tastes that characterize the environment.

Step 8: Craft Clues and Red Herrings

Layering clues and red herrings is a crucial step in crafting a captivating mystery story. Clues propel the investigation forward and guide readers closer to the truth, while red herrings are false leads designed to misdirect and create suspense.

Clue vs. Red Herring

If a detective finds a hidden compartment in a suspect’s desk containing a photograph of the victim and an old love letter, it can either be a clue or a red herring, as follows:

Clue: The suspect had a romantic relationship with the victim, potentially leading to a motive for the murder.

Red Herring: The photograph and love letter were planted by someone else to frame the suspect, diverting attention from the real culprit.

Crafting Clues and Red Herrings

To craft good clues and red herrings, keep these factors in mind:

• Core Clues: Identify the core clues that are essential for solving the mystery. These are the pieces of information that, when combined, lead to the ultimate solution. These clues should be logically connected and scattered throughout the story to help readers solve the mystery, but avoid introducing them too early.
• Red Herring Opportunities: Look for opportunities to introduce distractions, misdirection’s, or false leads that divert the protagonist and reader away from the true solution. Avoid using more than two of three simultaneously, as readers will then not notice them.
• Character Motives: Consider the motives of characters, including potential suspects, witnesses, and allies. What reasons might they have to provide false information or create deceptive situations? Align red herrings with character motivations.
• Progressive Revelation: Start with minor or subtle clue hints and progressively escalate to more significant revelations. This builds suspense and maintains reader interest.
• Character Involvement: Involve characters actively in the discovery of clues and red herrings. Allow them to interpret and react to the information they encounter, deepening their engagement in the mystery.
• Balanced Revelations: Ensure that genuine clues and red herrings are revealed in a balanced manner. Avoid having a long stretch of the story with only one type of revelation. Mix genuine progress with moments of misdirection.
• Seamless Integration: Incorporate both types of lead naturally into the narrative. They should arise from character interactions, evidence, dialogue, or the environment. Avoid making them too obvious or contrived.
• Clue Variety: Use different types of clues and red herrings to keep the mystery engaging. These can include physical evidence (e.g., a bloodstained shirt), verbal hints (e.g., a cryptic message), or character behavior (e.g., an unexplained absence).
• Foreshadowing: Foreshadow major clues with subtle hints or references earlier in the story. Foreshadowing helps make the ultimate reveal feel earned and logical.

Step 9: Plan the Investigation

Now that you’ve specified the potential suspects, the clues, and the red herrings, you can plan the protagonist’s investigation. Much of it will fall into place with the insertion of the details in the previous steps, so a good approach is to develop a timeline or chronology of events related to the mystery to lead your protagonist down a logical investigative path.

Decide when your protagonist will stumble onto the clues and red herrings. At the beginning, they will probably encounter more false than real clues. Once they eliminate these, the clues will start playing a bigger role in their investigations and their thinking.

Establish how they will encounter the information that feeds into their investigations. Physical evidence, witness testimonies, research, undercover investigations, anonymous tips, characters’ suspicious behavior, coincidentally crossing paths with a suspect, the noticing of patterns, or any other method can work.

Step 10: Build Suspense and Tension

The stakes you identified in a previous step will help you to build tension, but you can also use other methods to convey a sense of urgency that propels the investigation forward. Time constraints, impending danger, or impending consequences can intensify tension and keep readers on edge.

Control the pace at which you reveal information. Gradually disclose clues, red herrings, and key revelations throughout the story. Avoid overloading the reader with too much information at once, as this will lead to wildly exciting periods interspersed with long, tedious parts.

Foreshadowing allows you to hint at future developments and create an atmosphere of anticipation. Drop subtle clues or suggestions about what’s to come, leaving readers eager to see how these hints will play out.

Use the setting and conflicts between the investigators and/or the suspects to build further tension.

Another way to prevent readers from getting bored is to include emotionally charged scenes that resonate. These scenes can involve personal revelations, confrontations, or high-stakes confrontations with suspects or adversaries.

Step 11: Write a Satisfying Resolution

This is the culmination of your mystery story, where the central mystery is solved, loose ends are tied up, and the reader experiences a sense of closure and fulfillment.

The resolution should unveil the truth behind the mystery in a gradual and logical manner. Avoid a sudden, last-minute revelation that feels contrived. Instead, let the protagonist piece together the final clues and deductions.

A good way is to orchestrate a confrontation between the protagonist and the culprit or key players involved in the mystery. This showdown can be emotionally charged and provide the outstanding answers.

Ensure that the resolution is plausible and consistent with the clues and information provided throughout the story. Readers should be able to look back and see how the solution was seeded throughout the narrative.

The resolution should explain why the crime or event occurred, who was responsible, and how it was carried out. Provide a clear understanding of the “whys” and “hows.”

Show the impact of the resolution on the characters, particularly the protagonist. Allow them to experience growth, closure, or transformation as a result of solving the mystery. Address any personal stakes introduced earlier in the story.

If your story has a theme, use the resolution to reflect and reinforce it. The resolution can offer insights or lessons related to justice, morality, or the human condition.

Step 12: Revise Your Story

Read through your story to examine it for plot holes, inconsistencies, contrived plot points, character depth, inappropriate pacing, and the incorrect placement and effectiveness of clues and red herrings.

You should ideally hand copies to friends, relatives, and beta readers who enjoy mystery fiction. Readers who read regularly in this genre will be able to help you identify tropes, clues, and investigative details to improve.

Based on these insights, revise your story until it is ready for professional review.

8 Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Mystery Writing

Even the most experienced mystery writers employ editors to delete their cliches, close their plot holes, and fix their logical inconsistencies. There are certain traps that beckon all mystery writers, so it’s important to be aware of them if you want to write a mystery story that is polished and professional.

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid in mystery writing:

1. Too Easy to Solve

One of the biggest pitfalls that mystery writers can make is making the mystery too easy to solve. If the reader can figure out the solution to the mystery too early on, they will be bored and disappointed.

To avoid this pitfall, make sure that you plant enough clues throughout your story, but don’t make it too easy for the reader to figure out the solution. Use red herrings to misdirect the reader and keep them guessing until the very end.

2. Too Difficult to Solve

While mysteries often involve intricate plots, avoid making them overly convoluted or completely impossible to solve. If the reader can’t figure out at least potential solutions to the mystery, they will be frustrated and confused.

To get around this pitfall, make sure that you give the reader enough information to solve the mystery, but without giving everything away. Leave some of the clues up to the reader to interpret.

3. Too Few Potential Suspects

Readers of mystery stories know that the main villain is usually someone who seems likeable and is a good friend of the protagonist. So, if you have only one or two such characters in your story, it will be far too easy for readers to identify the villain.

Accordingly, make sure that there are enough suspects who are basically likeable, at least until seventy percent through the story.

4. Predictable Ending

A mystery with a predictable ending can be disappointing. Strive for a resolution that surprises and satisfies readers, even if they’ve made some correct guesses along the way.

In other words, even if readers can predict the villain, make sure that the motivations for their crimes or the details of how they committed them are surprising.

5. A Deus Ex Machina Ending

A Deus Ex Machina ending is an ending that is resolved by a sudden, unlikely, or unexplained event that is not foreshadowed or explained in the story. It can make the ending feel unsatisfying, unrealistic, and like a cheat.

You can avoid this by making sure that your ending stems from something that has gone before in the story. You should write the story in such a way that the reader has all the information they need to understand the solution to the mystery.

6. Overuse of Coincidences

Coincidences can sometimes be useful, but not if your protagonist coincidentally stumbles onto most of the clues they need to solve the mystery. Your readers want to believe that the mystery is resolved through your protagonist’s efforts and intelligence.

Consequently, try to minimize coincidences or, if necessary, provide a plausible explanation for them.

7. Neglecting Character Development

Well-developed characters are essential in any genre, but they’re especially important in mysteries. Avoid creating one-dimensional characters solely driven by the plot. Readers should care about what happens to them.

Formulate backstories, motivations, and personalities for the more important characters.

8. Too Many Red Herrings

While red herrings can add intrigue, using too many can overwhelm readers and make the story feel contrived.

Make sure each red herring serves a purpose in the narrative. It has to lead to a potential suspect or a direction for the investigation.

Literary Genre Quiz (Hard)

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we will answer some of the most common questions about the definition and characteristics of mystery stories.

What Defines a Mystery Story?

A mystery story is a narrative that revolves around an enigma, puzzle, or unresolved question, typically involving a crime or unusual event. It engages readers by presenting a central mystery that propels the plot, characters, and readers on a quest for answers, often leading to a successful investigation and resolution of the mysterious event.

What Are the Elements of a Mystery Story?

A mystery story has a central puzzle that needs to be solved, a protagonist who is trying to solve it, clues that are scattered throughout the story, red herrings that mislead the reader, often a climax in which the protagonist and antagonist confront each other, and a resolution in which the mystery is solved.

What Are Popular Mystery Story Examples?

Popular mystery story examples include iconic works like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, featuring the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend Dr. Watson solving complex cases; Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series, renowned for their intricate plots and memorable characters; Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” in which a hard-boiled private detective solves a case involving a priceless statue, greed, and murder; and modern mysteries like Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” celebrated for its psychological twists and unreliable narrators.

Final Thoughts

To write a good mystery story, remember that a compelling central mystery is at the heart of it all. Engage your readers with a tantalizing puzzle that invites them to participate in the unraveling. Develop characters that feel real, with motives that drive their actions and reactions. Master the art of suspense, using carefully placed clues, red herrings, and plot twists to keep your audience guessing.

But above all, never forget that crafting a good mystery is not just about the destination but the journey itself. Embrace the challenge, let your creativity flow, and may your stories be the kind that readers can’t put down!

Yves Lummer

As the founder of BookBird, Yves Lummer has pioneered a thriving community for authors, leading more than 100,000 of them towards their dreams of self-publishing. His expertise in book marketing has become a catalyst for multiple best-sellers, establishing his reputation as an influential figure in the publishing world.

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How to Write a Mystery Short Story: 8 Steps with Examples

Last Updated on January 16, 2023 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

A great mystery novel gets readers involved as amateur sleuths from the crime scene to the clues to the perpetrator. Mystery tales have particular aspects that drive their plots and keep readers engaged, using literary techniques that deliver an interactive experience and create maximum anticipation. A principal character is on a mission to solve a crime in the center of mystery tales. A mystery is a tale that pits the reader against the antagonist, who is only revealed after the narrative. Readers are invited to participate in the mystery by mystery writers who distribute clues along the plot.

You’ve come to the right place if you want to write a mystery short story. This post will provide eight steps to help you write a quality mystery story. We’ll also give you an example to illustrate each step. So, let’s start with the essentials of a mystery genre without any further ado!

What type of story is a mystery?

For hundreds of years, readers have been enthralled by the mystery genre. Edgar Allan Poe, with works such as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” from 1841, was an expert in mystery writing. A good mystery incorporates certain literary elements to heighten the mystery and build up to a significant conclusion. These elements include:

1 – An atmospheric environment

To heighten the dread of an unknown adversary lurking in the darkness, stories in this genre should establish an unsettling, uneasy mood. Picture Sherlock Holmes sliding through the London fog in pursuit of a murderer, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described. Placing hints and red herrings in mysteries is also possible.

2 – A compelling hook

A great mystery should entice the reader to want to figure out the crime, and a fantastic beginning is essential for capturing their attention. The first paragraph of a mystery should contain enough information about the crime to pique interest. The opening chapter should hook the reader into the plot, putting them in the shoes of the principal detective on their investigation.

3 – Involve sleuth

The principal character, committed to discovering the crime, is at the center of every mystery. Mystery novelist Raymond Chandler created private investigator Philip Marlowe as a detective who solves crimes. The sleuth’s backstory, which ties them to the crime or the murderer, and their motivation for solving it are critical elements of their character development.

4 – Crime conflict

In a mystery book, a crime is an occurrence that fuels the story. The main character is sent on their quest by a crime, which fuels the narrative arc and creates the central conflict that begins the investigation.

5 – Foreshadowing

Hints about future events are frequently dropped in Mysteries. This is known as foreshadowing. With a little hint or via character dialogue, a writer may imply the possibility of a future occurrence. With foreshadowing, writers may be more or less blunt, either lightly implying future occurrences or plainly announcing what will happen.

6 – Villain

Since the perpetrator is unknown until they are apprehended, a mystery is often referred to as a whodunit. The plot advances thanks to their activities, which are depicted in the story. The protagonist and the reader discover the criminal’s identity near the story’s conclusion.

7 – Narrative flow

Because of a cat-and-mouse narrative thread, a mystery plot is in constant motion. As the plot approaches the climax and the main character gets closer to solving the crime, the pace will quicken.

8 – Clues throughout the plot

The detective follows a trail of clues as an amateur sleuth to figure out who the perpetrator is. To manage what clues they’re generating, when they arrive, and who knows what while writing mysteries, an author must have a well-organized writing process.

9 – Red herrings

The reader is thrown off course by a good mystery. In mysteries, red herrings are a required component. This misleading evidence generates new suspects, distracting the investigator and diverting him or her from the actual perpetrator, thus increasing the tension. By emphasizing an item, event, or character that draws a reader’s interest and making it seem more important than it is to the plot, a writer creates red herrings.

10 – A satisfactory end!

The big reveal is the sleuth’s discovery of the culprit after great mystery books. To strengthen the identification of the actual killer and eliminate uncertainty, a conclusion should also provide an alibi for all other suspects.

What makes a good mystery novel theme?

The basic premise of the mystery is straightforward to understand. A dead body, a precious item, or a riddle invites attention among the earliest finds. The reader knows that questions will have been resolved after the story, which is reassurance in any murder case.

Here are some story ideas you can take clues from to continue your mystery pieces!

1 – The remains of murder victims, like those in Viking culture, are discovered buried with some of their worldly goods.

2 – Two guests at the wedding party have been slain, and the ceremony will be held at a beautiful place.

3 – Someone replaced the lady’s contact lens solution with a harmful liquid.

4 – A detective tracks down a thief who has stolen something that doesn’t seem to be worth anything for a high fee.

5 – An abandoned bunker with security cameras and a generator is discovered in the middle of a wilderness.

6 – Since every unmarried lady at the ball wished to dance with him, it’s a pity the duke was discovered stabbed in the garden.

7 – This investigative reporter’s death seems a little too convenient.

8 – A lady gets a headache upon awakening and goes to work but soon discovers she’s been gone for a month.

9 – On the phone with the inspector, his friend is murdered.

10 – His new, considerably younger wife was the only one on board who even knew him when he was slain aboard a cruise ship on his honeymoon.

11 – At the distillery, the victim was discovered drowned in a whiskey barrel.

12 – A wife sets up a romantic “scavenger hunt” for her spouse, but some of the clues are changed by someone else.

13 – The wrong body is in the casket during the visitation. Nobody knows who the other body belongs to or where it is.

14 – The killings were human-caused, but they resembled animal assaults in several ways.

15 – Although she believes she has never met the author of the book she is reading, it appears to be telling her own story.

The ultimate 8 steps to writing a mystery short story

Fascinating characters, dramatic suspense, and a puzzle that makes you want to keep reading are all hallmarks of a good mystery tale. However, creating an exciting mystery tale may be challenging, especially if you’ve never attempted it. You may build a page-turning thriller of your own with the appropriate planning, brainstorming, and outlining.

Step 1: Prepare yourself to write and identify the characters.

The difference between the mystery and thriller genres is first essential to understand. The majority of mysteries start with a death. Who perpetrated the crime is the most critical question is a mystery. Thrillers often start with a catastrophic occurrence, such as an assassination, a bank heist, a nuclear meltdown, or another catastrophe. In a thriller, the primary issue is whether or not the protagonist can stop the disaster from occurring.

Try reading some of the outstanding mystery tales available to get a feel for a well-plotted, well-developed mystery. Some of the renowned examples include:

• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Chandler is a master of the private investigator genre, with his novels about Philip Marlowe’s difficulties and tribulations being some of the best. P.I. Marlowe is a hard-boiled, cynical investigator. A General, his daughter, and a blackmailing photographer embroiled him in a conspiracy. Sharp dialogue, fast pacing, and a fascinating protagonist in Marlowe are all qualities of Chandler’s writing.

• A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne

In the 1970s, suburban Washington is the setting for this story. The murder of a small child is the focus of the story. Berne manages to make the narrative anything but plain or dull by mixing a coming-of-age tale with the mystery of the death of a young boy in drab, dull suburbia.

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

One of the most well-known investigators in the genre, along with his equally well-known sleuthing colleague Watson, solves a series of mysteries and crimes in this collection of tales. Throughout the route, Holmes and Watson inject their individual character traits.

Consider how the author introduces and characterizes the main character.

Step 2: Consider the plot and check for any obstacles.

Consider when and where the narrative takes place. Marlowe, for example, puts the reader in the period and setting in the second paragraph of The Big Sleep’s first page: “The main hallway of the Sternwood home was two floors high.”

What crime is the protagonist investigating or dealing with? A suspicious suicide, a dead body, or murder might be the case. A good mystery will keep readers engaged by presenting complications or obstacles to the significant character’s goal (to solve the crime). Also, consider how the plot concludes after the tale. The answer to the enigma should not be too self-evident or pushed, yet it should not be too out of the left field or unbelievable.

Step 3: Create your sleuth and analyze the setting

Your primary character may be a private individual or an innocent bystander who gets embroiled in trying to figure out a mystery. What distinguishes your character from the others? Creating a primary character who stands out to your reader and is interesting enough to keep several pages of a narrative or book is critical. What does your character like and dislike?

Maybe your female detective is secretly bashful and strange at parties because she loves reptiles. Perhaps your detective isn’t strong or intelligent, but he is a klutz.

Set the narrative in a familiar place, such as your hometown or school, if possible. Alternatively, research if you’re unfamiliar with a specific time or place. Focus on specific settings, such as a 1970s California home or a 1940s British boarding house, if you use a setting you haven’t experienced firsthand.

Step 4: Create, complicate, and entertain the mystery

A murder or significant crime is not required for all mysteries. The higher the stakes in the narrative are, generally, when a more significant crime is committed. High stakes are essential since they pique a reader’s interest and provide him or her with a reason to continue reading. By making it difficult for your main character to solve the puzzle or mystery, you may build up tension in the narrative. Other people, suspects, false leads, misleading clues, and other crimes are all examples of obstacles you can use.

A cliffhanger is a scenario in which the primary character finds themselves in a predicament that binds or puts them in jeopardy. Cliffhangers keep readers interested and propel the narrative forward, which is crucial in a mystery.

Step 5: Create an ending followed by a story outline

Finish the narrative by solving the puzzle’s solution. The main character’s viewpoint shifts or improves after most mysteries. Create a clear plot outline after reviewing all of your story’s elements. Before you start writing the tale, it’s vital to figure out how the puzzle will be solved in great detail; otherwise, there may be inconsistencies in the puzzle. Your story’s events or plot points should be listed in the order they occur.

Step 6: Start writing the mystery story.

One of the best ways to create a setting or atmosphere is by focusing on the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Descriptions of sensory details may also create the backstory for your character. On the early pages, skip lengthy paragraphs about location or character description. Starting your story in motion, as your main character does, is an effective way to hook your reader.

If you tell someone “the detective was cool,” the person will have to believe you. However, describing the detective’s attire and mannerisms as she enters a room may demonstrate how calm she is to your reader. Showing your reader particular facts is far more forceful than merely informing him what to believe.

Step 7: Don’t confuse your readers

The resolution of a mystery shouldn’t feel sudden or cheap when it’s being created. Rather than bewilder your reader, always strive to play fair and surprise him. Even though there might be red herrings and false leads, the hints provided in the tale should lead to the answer in a logical and transparent manner. If you make your reader think, “It’s so evident; I should have recognized!” he or she will enjoy the conclusion.

Step 8: Revise the draft

Look for critical aspects, such as story, characters, turns, and pace, once you’ve produced the first draft of your mystery tale. Make sure your tale begins, progresses, and finishes according to the outline. After the tale, you should check your central character’s changes or shifts.

The pace at which the story’s events unfold is referred to as pacing. Good pacing will go unnoticed by the reader. If the story seems too quick, the scenes last longer, allowing the characters’ emotions to develop.

The twist might ruin an excellent mystery tale, or it might improve. While there is no obligation to do so, many of the greatest stories have a surprise twist. Make sure that the twist isn’t “cheesy.” It’s easier to write a more unique twist.

Final Words

Mystery is one of the most popular genres among readers. As a result, it’s no surprise that this literary form has received a lot of attention in recent years.

We hope you enjoyed reading about how to write a mystery short story and will start writing your own stories soon! In case you want more tips or need some editing help on your work, don’t hesitate to leave a message in the comments section below.

How to write a murder mystery short story?

When planning to write a murder mystery short story, it is essential to start by thinking about the main characters. Who are they, and what kind of person would do such a heinous thing? Once you have determined who the murderer is, it’s time to develop the plot. How did they find out about incriminating evidence? What was their motive? So, how are they going to execute their evil plan?   It’s time to flesh out your scenes after you’ve answered these questions. Where does the victim live and work? What are local landmarks that could possibly be used for cover purposes?) Is there anyone nearby who may be suspect?) Are any of those people friends or relatives of yours?) How well do you know them?). And finally, what happens during each scene – from inside the victim’s home until after they’ve been killed)?   All of these details need to be meticulously planned in order not only to make sense as a written piece but also to provide clues that will lead readers towards discovering the whodunit before it’s even revealed!

Where can I find examples of other people’s works and learn from them to improve my own work?

One of the most significant ways to improve your work is to take inspiration from other people’s work. This can be accomplished by looking at examples of their work online or visiting a library and reading their manuscripts. You may also communicate with them through social media and provide feedback. By doing this, you will gain valuable insights that will help you improve the quality of your own work.

Any tips for writing a short mystery story?

One of the best ways to improve your writing skills is by participating in online forums and submitting short mystery stories. By doing this, you will get feedback from other writers and learn from their mistakes. Additionally, read critically and make sure that every scene contributes to the overall narrative. Don’t give too much away early in the tale while building suspense. Build slowly, then in a climactic moment, everything falls into place all at once.

How many words should the first book be?

Generally speaking, a first book should be between 50,000 and 100,000 words in length. This may seem like a lot, but it will go faster if you write consistently and avoid shortcuts or filler content. Make sure to research writing styles before beginning (e.g., fiction vs. nonfiction), keep an eye on grammar rules, pay attention to pacing issues, etc., so that your manuscript flows smoothly from start to finish. Remember: Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality! So don’t be discouraged if your 1st draft isn’t perfect – there’s always time for revisions later down the road!

How long should it be?  How many pages should it be?  What genre is best for my mystery short story?

Sticking to the genre guidelines when writing a mystery short story is essential. This means that your story should be set in the contemporary period, have a plot with suspense and thrills, and be written from the first-person point of view. Additionally, ensure that your protagonist is engaging and likable so that readers will want to discover what happens next. Your ending should also resolve the mysteries while leaving enough room for future stories in this series or further exploration of this character’s backstory.

https://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-mystery.html

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/59582-the-10-best-mystery-books.html

https://prowritingaid.com/red-herring#:~:text=Here%20are%20some%20examples%20of,blackmail%2C%20or%20an%20unpaid%20debt.

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The Mystery Genre Essay

The mystery fiction attracts many readers because of the plot richness and strong emotions evoked while reading mystery stories. The vividness of a mystery story and the effectiveness of unexpected finales depend on the author’s talent. The prominent masters of the American mystery fiction are Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Flannery O’Connor.

Dashiell Hammett is the founder of mystery fiction as a genre. Thus, the writer developed characteristic features of the hard-boiled fiction as well as the principles of developing the mystery story which are followed by many writers even today (Hammett, 2001). Raymond Chandler is also the follower of Hammett.

Chandler is the prominent detective fiction writer who contributed to the further development of a genre while creating a range of crime stories. Philip Marlowe, the protagonist of Chandler’s many stories, is the favourite character of many readers who prefer mystery stories because he embodies the traditional vision of a detective (Chandler, 2001).

It is also important to pay attention to the works by Flannery O’Connor as the famous female author who created the wonderful world of mystery in her short stories. O’Connor’s story “The Comforts of Home” is a good example of the author’s use of the Gothic elements, grotesque, and ethical questions in the mystery story (O’Connor, 2001). These three authors are the real masters of the American mystery fiction who stated the main principles of the genre.

A good mystery story should contain several important elements in order to attract and even grab the readers’ attention. These elements are a perfect mystery which is associated with the crime, a brilliant detective who is able to use his logic and mind in order to resolve the puzzle, a detective’s assistance, many secondary characters which can be the main murderer or stealer, and a lot of specific details which should be carefully analyzed by the detective.

The role of a detective in the story is the main one, but the readers’ focus is on the process of solving the mystery. Thus, a good mystery story can be compared with the pepper sauce with a lot of ingredients which are intricately combined and mixed. This story makes a reader worry and empathize with the detective till the finale when the mystery or a puzzle is solved.

The mystery genre has a lot of similarities with such genres as suspense, thriller, and suspense thriller. It is possible to state that there are more similarities than differences between these genres. The mystery genre is based on depicting the process of the problem’s resolution which is often a crime. Nevertheless, a mystery story can depend on resolving any problem and any crime when thrillers are predominately based on murders.

These three genres are closely connected because their elements can be observed in stories belonging to various genres and categories. Thus, suspense as a literary device and an element of creating the story can be presented in the mystery genre and thrillers because of adding to the emotional depth of the story.

Detectives who are depicted as the main characters in mystery and suspense stories can overcome a lot of difficulties while resolving the key secret or a problem, but the difference between these two genres is in the readers’ knowledge of the hidden information. Thus, reading a mystery story, a person follows the actions of a detective, and the detective’s eyes are the reader’s eyes.

Reading the suspense or thriller story, a person can know more than a detective or main character because of the author’s intentions to use the effect of suspense. The historical development of the mystery genre is associated with the development of civilization because crime stories can be discussed as the part of the people’s life since the Biblical times.

From this point, the first crime story was described in the Bible with references to the personalities of Cain and Abel. During the late part of the 19 th century, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes became the example of the perfect detective in Britain and in the USA.

Focusing on the history of the mystery genre’s development in the USA, it is important to determine such periods as the second part of the 19 th century when Edgar Allan Poe writes his first mystery stories, the period of the 1920s-1940s when the American writers develop a specific genre of the hardboiled mystery stories and unite in a specific organization of the Mystery Writers of America to protect their interests as authors.

The second part of the 20 th century is associated with developing the mystery stories full of the elements of thriller and suspense. Thus, the combination of genres can be observed. From this perspective, the heyday of the American mystery story is the 20 th century when the norms of the hardboiled mystery stories were determined by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (Hillerman & Penzler, 2001).

The era of a brilliant detective was changed with the era of an active detective who can operate successfully in the world full of violence, corruption, and lie.

Chandler, R. (2001). Red wind. In T. Hillerman & O. Penzler (Eds.), The best American mystery stories of the century (pp. 235-245). USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hammett, D. (2001). The Gutting of Couffignal. In T. Hillerman & O. Penzler (Eds.), The best American mystery stories of the century (pp. 105-120). USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hillerman, T., & Penzler, O. (2001). The best American mystery stories of the century . USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

O’Connor, F. (2001). The comforts of home. In T. Hillerman & O. Penzler (Eds.), The best American mystery stories of the century (pp. 489-500). USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, July 3). The Mystery Genre. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-mystery-genre/

"The Mystery Genre." IvyPanda , 3 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/the-mystery-genre/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Mystery Genre'. 3 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Mystery Genre." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-mystery-genre/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Mystery Genre." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-mystery-genre/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Mystery Genre." July 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-mystery-genre/.

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100+ Mystery Story Ideas – A Guide to Spark Your Imagination

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: September 20, 2022  - Last updated: December 28, 2023

Categories Writing , Inspiration , Storytelling

Are you a lover of a gripping mystery? Well, you’re in for a treat!

As an investigative documentary film director, I’ve always been fascinated by the art of mystery storytelling.

In this article, I’ll give you a treasure trove of 100 mystery story ideas, sorted by genre, to ignite your imagination and get your creative juices flowing.

Whether you’re an experienced author or just beginning your writing journey, these imaginative prompts will inspire you.

As you explore these enticing story ideas, you will find intriguing plotlines and unique elements that make your mystery stand out from the rest.

From cozy mysteries and crime fiction to false clues and fascinating characters – we’ve got you covered!

Key Takeaways

• Discover 100 mystery story ideas sorted by genre, perfect for igniting your imagination
• Uncover unique plot elements and tips to create a captivating narrative
• Enhance your writing with intriguing characters, false clues, and unexpected twists

10 Mystery Story Ideas

• Lost Girl: Imagine a young girl vanishing from her small town, leaving everyone puzzled about her whereabouts and the events leading to her disappearance.
• Unsolved Murder: Picture a murder case with many baffling aspects, lacking a definite suspect or reason behind the crime.
• Forest Secrets: Envision a shadowy forest concealing innumerable mysteries and hidden forces.
• Haunted Mansion: Delve into a spooky mansion with dark, dust-covered halls and empty rooms echoing with peculiar sounds throughout the night.
• Murder Series: Think about a series of horrifying murders with no apparent links or discernable patterns, leaving law enforcement utterly perplexed.
• Cryptic Riddle: Explore a mysterious riddle guiding you along a winding path full of unexpected twists, resulting in disorientation and bewilderment.
• Ancient Secrets: Contemplate an ancient book containing cryptic symbols and mysterious text that appears to unlock forbidden or hazardous knowledge.
• Town Mystery: Visualize a quaint, eerie town where inhabitants seem to protect a deep, dark secret.
• Cult Mystery: Consider a person disappearing after attending an enigmatic cult gathering, never to be seen again.
• Family Secret: Ponder the sudden reappearance of a long-lost family member believed dead, not explaining their absence or return.

10 Murder Mystery Plot Ideas

• Werewolf Suspect: In a small town, the sheriff looks into the homicide of a local woman and starts suspecting that the murderer could be a werewolf.
• Vanishing Killer: A detective is on the trail of a serial killer who appears to vanish without a trace after each crime.
• Conspiracy Discovery: While trying to figure out the cause of their friend’s death, a group of friends stumbles upon a conspiracy, making them believe the government is involved in the murder.
• Crime of Passion: After discovering her husband’s infidelity, a woman kills him in rage, leading the detective on the case to start suspecting her involvement in the crime.
• Robbery Gone Wrong: A man’s death seems to be the result of a botched robbery, but the investigation goes awry when it turns out someone close to him might have been involved.
• Rose and Glasses: A murder victim is found in an alley with just a pair of broken glasses and a single red rose as the only clues to solve the case.
• Forest Symbols: The naked body of a woman discovered in the middle of the woods appears to be covered with bizarre symbols.
• Undercover at School: A detective goes undercover at an elite prep school to solve a student’s murder and begins to suspect that the killer may be one of the student’s classmates.
• Mysterious Cruise Death: After a wealthy businessman’s death at sea on a cruise ship is declared a suicide, his wife begins to question if there was foul play involved.
• Computer Clue: The mysterious death of a man leaves behind only a puzzling note on his computer as the sole clue to solving the murder mystery.

In each of these scenarios, you’ll have the opportunity to engage with elements of murder, whodunits, and murder investigations, all while keeping readers guessing until the very end. So, sharpen your detective skills and get ready to solve these captivating murder mysteries.

10 Cozy Enigma Ideas

Here are some cozy mystery ideas you can explore:

• Detective Retreat: Imagine a group of amateur detectives visiting a small-town bed and breakfast, only to find themselves entangled in an intriguing mystery.
• Bookstore Sleuths: Picture a cozy mystery series starring two sisters running a charming little bookstore while solving perplexing crimes together.
• Countryside Mystery: Imagine a retired detective moving to the countryside for a peaceful life but unexpectedly becoming involved in an exhilarating mystery when her neighbor is discovered dead on her front lawn.
• Book Club Conundrums: Contemplate a lively neighborhood book club that delves into thrilling mysteries and scandals while attempting to untangle each one.
• Sherlock the Cat: Think of a crime-solving cat named Sherlock, strolling through his snug neighborhood and assisting his human friends with investigating mysterious occurrences and disappearances.
• Sleuth’s Journal: Visualize an amateur detective with an insatiable curiosity, writing a personal journal that documents every case she cracks, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
• B&B Mysteries: Consider an aspiring detective who transforms her home into a bed and breakfast in the hope her sleuthing abilities will come in handy if any of her guests encounter trouble during their stay.
• Baking Detective: Ponder is a sleuth who loves baking and works as a private investigator, unfolding various exciting cases and striving to solve them all.
• Moonlit Mysteries: Imagine an amateur investigator haunted by images of a mysterious woman wearing a long white dress whenever she walks out under the moonlight.
• Divorce Dilemma: Picture a series of murders connected to a man’s acrimonious divorce, where both parties receive a fortune in truffles and a sinister warning, demanding they sign the divorce papers within a month.

These ideas feature elements such as small towns, cozy mysteries, and elderly women to enjoy as you create captivating stories.

10 Crime Fiction Ideas

• Heist Betrayal: Imagine a group of criminals joining forces to execute a daring heist, only to discover one is a traitor. The tension mounts as they scramble to figure out who’s betraying them.
• Detective’s Dilemma: Envision a seasoned detective hunting down a relentless killer. As the investigator gets closer to cracking the case, they are shocked to realize they might know the culprit better than anyone else.
• Amnesiac’s Mystery: Picture a woman waking up in a hospital with no recollection of her identity or how she arrived there. She soon learns she’s been accused of a crime she can’t recall committing, making her quest for the truth even more harrowing.
• Friend’s Quest: Consider a young woman brutally murdered, leaving her best friend determined to find the killer. As she delves into the investigation, she stumbles upon a tangled web of secrets and surprises.
• Wrongful Conviction: Put yourself in the shoes of a man wrongly convicted of a crime. Desperate to clear his name and uncover the perpetrator, every minute counts as he strives for exoneration.
• PI’s Predicament: Follow a private investigator as they take on what appears to be a simple case at first. But everything changes when they realize they’re on the trail of a ruthless psychopath who won’t go down without a fight.
• Writer Detective: Explore the world of a crime writer who doubles as a detective. They embark on a chilling cold case revolving around the murder of a woman with an enigmatic connection to their family.
• Officer’s Investigation: In the shoes of a police officer moonlighting as a private investigator, uncovering chilling evidence that deeply implicates a serial killer in a string of gruesome murders. The proof is so damning that it leaves everyone involved reeling.
• Underworld Debt: Picture a man trying to make quick cash to pay off his debts, only to find himself entangled in the dangerous underworld of organized crime. He quickly realizes that extricating himself from this web of deceit will be no easy task.
• Mobster’s Trap: Imagine a woman unwittingly immersed in a world of crime and corruption when she attempts to help a friend repay a debt owed to a ruthless mobster. The stakes couldn’t be higher as she navigates this treacherous terrain.

10 Murder Victim Mystery Writing Prompts

• The Stolen Dreams: A young woman’s life is tragically cut short before realizing her dreams and ambitions.
• The Silenced Musician: A talented young musician’s life is senselessly ended without any clear motive.
• The Deceptive Accident: An elderly woman’s death is ruled an accident, but suspicious circumstances suggest foul play.
• The Night Out Nightmare: A college student meets a gruesome end during a night out with friends, shocking everyone.
• The Businesswoman’s Unsolved Murder: A prosperous businesswoman’s baffling murder leaves her community in disbelief and confusion.
• The Innocent Victim: A tragic murder of an innocent bystander caught in a gang shootout, leaving a painful void in their family and community.
• The Philanthropist’s Dark Ties: A wealthy philanthropist’s death reveals deep connections to dangerous criminal organizations, shocking those around him.
• The Truth Seeker’s Demise: An investigative journalist’s dedication to uncovering the truth ultimately leads to their untimely death.
• The Tragic Addict: A young man’s life is abruptly ended due to his addiction, leaving behind a legacy of unfulfilled potential.
• The Lost Artist: A young woman with exceptional artistic talent and the power to inspire others is senselessly robbed of her future.

10 Murder Weapon Ideas

• Calculated Poisoning: Imagine a meticulously calculated poisoning where the ideal dosage is used to guarantee a swift, painless end.
• Sniper’s Choice: Envision a sniper rifle or another long-range firearm employed to eliminate a target from a safe distance, avoiding detection.
• Deadly Meal: Picture a razor-sharp blade secretly placed in someone’s meal or drink, causing a quick and excruciating end.
• Bomb Trap: Think of a bomb concealed in a person’s dwelling or office, resulting in instant death from the blast or a slow demise due to unattended injuries.
• Poison Dart: Consider an untraceable poison dart aimed with lethal precision and effectiveness at its target.
• Assassin’s Knife: Visualize a keen-edged knife in the hands of an expert assassin, capable of inflicting deadly wounds effortlessly and accurately.
• Savage Beating: A savage beating brings about various severe injuries to the victim, who eventually dies in agonizing pain on the cold ground.
• Hidden Gun: A firearm concealed within a folded newspaper or newsstand, ready to be used at any moment to abruptly terminate someone’s life.
• Remote Explosion: A remote-controlled explosive device set off by someone knowing their target would be nearby, granting the victim little opportunity to flee.
• Rampaging Fire: Picture a rampaging fire that burns uncontrollably, with an insatiable hunger to engulf everything in its path.

10 Investigative Agencies

• Shadow Police: You come across a shadowy organization functioning as a high-level police unit, focused on dismantling criminal networks.
• Secret Intelligence Agency: A secret agency gathers intel on various foreign governments and extremist factions, acting as a key crime-fighting asset for the government.
• Elite Agents Group: Discover a hidden group of elite agents highly skilled and trained to handle the most demanding cases.
• Private Detective Agency: A private detective agency partners with local law enforcers, offering valuable insights and support for complex cases.
• Missing Persons Organization: A private organization excels in locating missing individuals, acting as detectives for those who vanished without experiencing violence.
• Abduction Specialists: A detective agency specializes in finding abducted or forcibly detained missing people.
• Paranormal Detectives: A covert team of detectives and investigators focus on solving paranormal or supernatural cases that can’t be addressed through regular methods.
• Quirky Investigators: Meet a quirky and charismatic team of private investigators skilled in unraveling peculiar or challenging cases with grace and expertise.
• Innovative Crime Solvers: A group of proficient detectives armed with cutting-edge tools, much of which they invented, solves the most difficult crimes.
• Dark Secrets Uncovered: A team of seasoned detectives shares collective experience in uncovering the world’s darkest secrets and bringing them to light. Remember to keep a friendly tone and maintain a second-person point of view while discussing these investigative agencies in your article.

10 False Clue Ideas

• The serial killer’s deceptive trail : Imagine a serial killer leaving false leads to mislead investigators and keep them busy searching for non-existent clues.
• Accomplice-planted misinformation : Consider an accomplice or associate of the culprit providing investigators with false information to protect the true offender.
• Personal vendetta setup : Picture someone with a grudge against the victim planting fake evidence to frame them for a crime they didn’t commit.
• Deliberately withheld key details : Visualize crucial facts intentionally kept from investigators, possibly by the killer themselves or by someone shielding a loved one from punishment.
• Shifty informant misguidance : Envision an informant or criminal enthusiast willingly feeding false information to bring the case closer to resolution.
• The killer’s fabricated alibi : Ponder a killer weaving an intricate web of lies to appear innocent and drive suspicion away from themselves.
• Contradictory witness accounts : Think about witnesses providing conflicting accounts of the crime, whether due to faulty memories or intentional deception.
• An uncontainable rumor : Contemplate a rumor that spread rapidly after the crime, causing confusion among witnesses and investigators about the true events and perpetrator.
• The wildfire false lead : Reflect on a phony clue that gained traction and was taken as fact, further clouding the case and helping the actual culprit escape.
• The victim’s puzzling narrative : Imagine a story crafted by the victim before their demise to confuse investigators and guarantee the actual offender gets away.

Keep these false clue ideas in mind as you craft your mystery masterpiece, carefully weaving in elements of misdirection and intrigue to keep your readers enthralled until the very end.

10 Ideas for False Witnesses

• Bribed Witness: Imagine a witness who is bribed by the criminal to point the finger at someone else, effectively steering the investigation in the wrong direction.
• False Testimony for Escape: Consider a witness hoping to disentangle themselves from a crime by testifying falsely, thinking it will help them avoid being implicated.
• Perpetrator as Witness: Envision a witness who is the perpetrator, providing a dishonest testimony in hopes of receiving a lighter sentence.
• Protective Witness: What about a witness shielding the actual offender they care about and providing a misleading testimony?
• Evading Responsibility: Picture a witness trying to evade responsibility for their role in a crime by framing someone else entirely.
• False Claims for Leniency: A scenario exists where a witness makes false claims to dodge charges and achieve a more lenient punishment.
• Inconsistent Testimony: You may encounter a witness whose testimony is confusing, leaving the investigators puzzled about the truth and reliability of their recollections.
• Self-Protection: Consider a witness attempting to protect themselves from blame by avoiding another person’s accusations or appeasing their guilt-ridden conscience.
• Compulsive Liar Witness: Beware of a compulsive liar witness willingly fabricating stories to throw the detectives off the trail of the actual wrongdoer.
• Traumatized Witness: Sympathize with a witness who is so gravely hurt that their account of events is likely to be inaccurate due to their impaired mental state.

10 Crime Scene Ideas

• The Devious Setup: Picture a murder scene where the culprit cleverly staged everything to mislead investigators and throw them off track.
• Tampered Evidence: Imagine a dead body that has been manipulated to destroy evidence or plant false clues, making the case even more baffling.
• Gruesome Encounter: Visualize a crime scene so horrifying and shocking that it leaves you and other investigators feeling deeply disturbed.
• Calm Amidst Chaos: Consider a crime scene that appears eerily tranquil and peaceful, in stark contrast to the savage nature of the crime that occurred there.
• Clean Sweep: Envision a crime scene meticulously wiped clean of any DNA evidence, leaving investigators struggling to solve the case.
• Isolated Incident: Ponder a crime scene situated in a remote, secluded location, making it difficult for you to access and conduct a thorough investigation.
• Crowded Environment: Consider a crime scene in a bustling area, where constant interruptions make gathering evidence and speaking to witnesses challenging.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Imagine a crime scene in an ordinary location, with no apparent signs that something sinister has occurred there.
• Public Sphere Complications: Visualize a crime scene within a public building, surrounded by witnesses and people with conflicting interests, further complicating the investigation.
• Contaminated by Accident: Consider a crime scene inadvertently compromised by first responders, unwittingly tainting any potentially useful evidence.

What Makes a Good Mystery Story?

Engrossing plot development.

An intriguing mystery story thrives on suspenseful plotting. You want your story to grasp the reader’s attention from the get-go and hold it until the very end. Incorporate unexpected twists and turns, keeping your readers guessing and deeply engaged with the story. Crafting a mysterious and puzzling plot will leave your audience hungry for more.

Multifaceted Characters

To create a captivating mystery, you’ll need complex characters. Not just your protagonist, but also the supporting characters should be well-developed and believable. The most compelling mystery stories are those that make readers genuinely care about the characters and their predicament. Make sure your audience feels invested in the characters’ journey and eager for them to uncover the secrets and motives behind the mystery.

Gratifying Conclusion

Lastly, a rewarding resolution is essential for a great mystery story. Ensure that your story is well-crafted, tying up all loose ends in a neat and satisfying manner. The conclusion should make sense while avoiding any sense of disappointment or deception for your readers. Remember, the power of your mystery lies in your plot twists, suspense, and the unwrapping of hidden secrets, all culminating in a satisfying ending.

What Are Some Good Mystery Genre Topics to Write About?

Here are some captivating mystery genre ideas to inspire your creativity in crafting short stories or thrilling novels:

• Delve into an unresolved cold case that has captured public attention for years, leaving readers wondering about the truth.
• Explore supernatural occurrences in a haunted house where no one can stay for more than a year.
• Uncover a dark secret simmering beneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic small town.
• Chronicles the search for a missing person with an unexpected outcome, either found dead or alive.
• Investigate an identity theft ring specifically targeting people within a certain profession.
• Connect the dots between a series of murders and determine whether they point to a single suspect or multiple perpetrators.
• Follow the elusive con artist who always manages to outsmart the police.
• Delve into the unexpected consequences of a botched hostage situation and who is responsible for it.
• Question the honesty of a witness who has come forward with vital information about a crime.
• Reveal the family drama stemming from buried secrets and lies, and the upheaval caused when the truth finally surfaces.

Remember to keep your writing engaging and friendly as you invite your readers to become part of these mystery genre stories. Good luck in your creative journey!

How to Craft a Cozy Mystery

Step 1: develop an intriguing set of characters.

To create a captivating cozy mystery, start by designing a group of characters readers can relate to and invest in. Your main character should be someone they can empathize with and support, while your villain should evoke dislike. Reflect on your favorite books and movies to identify the emotions you want to invoke in your readers.

Don’t forget to fill your story with an interesting array of supporting characters. They can offer humor, assistance, or play a role in the crime itself. Make sure each character is well-developed and captivating.

Step 2: Concoct an Ingenious Offense

Next, focus on the crime your main character needs to unravel. Consider creating a puzzling situation that is not immediately evident to keep things challenging. Rather than murder, opt for crimes like theft, embezzlement, or fraud. You can also personalize the crime for your main character, such as having their pet kidnapped or their home burglarized.

With the crime in mind, delve into the details. Who is the perpetrator? How did they commit the offense? And most importantly, for what reason? Addressing these questions will help shape your story with added intrigue for the readers. For instance, if the victim was at odds with your protagonist, it could provide an extra incentive for solving the mystery.

Step 3: Incorporate Deceptive Red Herrings

An essential component of any enthralling mystery is the use of red herrings—clues or information that mislead and distract both the investigator and the reader. Skillfully weaving red herrings into your narrative can add challenges for your main character and readers as they attempt to solve the case. However, be cautious not to overuse them, as excessive misinformation may result in confusion and frustration.

What Contributes to an Effective Clue in a Mystery?

The Importance of Clue Placement

An essential factor in developing an engaging mystery is the strategic placement of clues throughout the story. Providing key information too soon may leave your readers feeling confused, while delaying its reveal until the very end might result in frustration. To strike the perfect balance, aim to introduce crucial clues around two-thirds into the narrative. This strategy allows readers ample time to process previous events and gradually piece together the puzzle.

Subtlety: A Crucial Element

When crafting clues, it’s essential to be subtle and avoid any heavy-handedness. Overemphasizing vital information may cause readers to overlook or grow annoyed by its obviousness. Instead, sprinkle hints carefully and allow readers to make connections on their own. Trust us; they’ll appreciate the challenge and feel a sense of accomplishment when everything falls into place.

Focusing on Crucial Details

In a mystery, less is often more, especially when it comes to presenting clues. Including an excessive amount of evidence can overwhelm your readers and detract from the central storyline. Concentrate on one or two essential details that drive the narrative forward, and remember that additional information can be unveiled later if needed.

By following these guidelines, you’ll be able to craft engaging stories filled with satisfying clues and intriguing mysteries that keep your readers captivated until the final reveal. Make sure your clues are well-placed, subtle, and to-the-point to provide your audience with the gripping experience that they desire.

How to Create a Mysterious Character

Crafting a hidden past.

To establish an enigmatic character, it’s crucial to devise their hidden past. Consider the secrets they conceal, the hardships they’ve encountered, and the reasons behind their guarded nature. Developing answers to these questions will help you create a well-rounded character that intrigues your readers. As you work on their past, maintain a delicate balance—don’t disclose too much too early, but avoid making your character seem hollow. You may want to jot down potential secrets and gradually incorporate them throughout your story.

Describing Their Look

Another essential element for constructing a mysterious character lies in their physical appearance. Reflect on their appearance: do they don all black clothes and a lengthy trench coat, or do they have a more understated style? Similarly to their past, avoid revealing too much about their appearance too soon—only include essential details and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination.

Finding a Voice for Your Character

Discovering the appropriate voice for your mystery character can be challenging, as they should be hesitant to share information about themselves while avoiding being dull or flat. A helpful strategy is employing short, concise sentences for your character’s dialogue. This approach adds a sense of mystery and allows them to express themselves and engage with other characters throughout the story.

Deciding the Number of Suspects in a Mystery Novel

Choose suspects based on book length.

When determining the number of suspects in your mystery novel, consider the length of your book. A shorter book should have fewer suspects, as there’s limited space to develop multiple characters. On the other hand, a longer book can support more suspects, allowing you to explore their motivations and backstories in greater detail.

Keep Your Readers’ Abilities in Mind

It’s essential to think about your readers’ ability to track multiple characters. If your novel targets a younger audience, they might find it challenging to follow along if there are too many suspects. In this case, focus on one or two primary suspects. However, if your mystery novel appeals to adult readers, you can introduce more complexity by adding additional suspects.

What Do You Want the Story’s Resolution to Be?

Lastly, consider the type of solution you’d like for your mystery. If you want the readers to have a fair chance at guessing the solution, it’s better to limit the number of suspects. However, if you’d like to surprise your audience with an unexpected twist, more suspects can help you achieve that surprise element.

Mystery Writers to Study

As a budding mystery writer, immerse yourself in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the legendary Sherlock Holmes. Additionally, explore Chris Van Allsburg’s intriguing collection, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Happy reading!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are engaging mystery story themes.

You might be wondering what themes can make your mystery story more captivating. Some themes to consider include haunted places, secret societies, or even cursed objects. Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources can help create a fresh and engaging story.

How to Craft a Unique Mystery Plot?

To create a unique mystery plot, focus on developing interesting characters, unexpected twists, and a strong setting. You could also try experimenting with different narrative structures or incorporating subplots to keep readers on their toes.

What Are the Main Elements for a Mystery Romance Story?

When writing a mystery romance story , it’s important to mix elements of both genres effectively. This means crafting a suspenseful mystery while also developing a compelling romantic storyline. Add layers of intrigue, emotional connection, and conflict to create a gripping tale.

How Can I Create Intrigue for Young Readers?

To make a mystery story appealing to young readers, consider featuring relatable characters and age-appropriate themes. Keep the plot moving at a steady pace and be mindful of your target audience’s attention span. Remember to maintain a sense of fun and adventure throughout.

What Makes Exciting Mystery Suspense Ideas?

Great mystery suspense ideas can be found by combining elements of danger, tension, and unpredictability. To create an atmosphere of suspense, consider placing characters in high-stakes situations or introducing a ticking time bomb (literal or metaphorical) to keep readers engaged.

How Should I Add a Surprising Twist to a Thriller?

To add a surprising twist to your thriller story , you could include well-hidden clues, unexpected character motivations, or a shocking revelation that sheds a new light on the central mystery. The key is to keep readers guessing while staying true to the overall story and logic.

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Mystery Essay Examples

Bermuda triangle: the mysterious world.

Have you ever had visions or heard strange and otherworldly moments. We live in a world that’s full of mysteries. Throughout the time of man there have been many strange and mystifying happenings. For example, the Bermuda triangle is a much unknown area and is...

Analysis of the Literary Genre of Mystery Fiction

“Crime fiction satisfies in us a secret yearning for justice, the unappeasable appetite for a fair world, which begins in childhood and never leaves us. It satisfies our need for conclusions, both moral and narrative” (Nick Eliot). A mystery story is a genre of fiction,...

The Mystery Around Lady Alroy in the Sphinx Without a Secret

A Sphinx is known to be secretive and have mystery surrounding it, many questions and wonderings revolve around it such as why and how it came to be. In this story, two old friends reconnect and Lord Murchison explains how he is trying to figure...

Review of All Good Things: a Jack Hart Mystery by Rosemary Reeve

All Good Things: A Jack Hart Mystery by Rosemary Reeve is a suspenseful, action-packed mystery. Jack Hart is an associate at a prestigious law firm in Seattle. He has a warm friendship with (and secret crush on) his coworker, Harmony. When her dad (who is...

Eros, Mystery and Fantasy in Mircea Eliade’s Writings

My research topic focuses on predominant elements: Eros, mystery, and fantasy in “Șarpele” and “Domnișoara Christina”. These three elements are characteristic of Mircea Eliade and they can remark of Mihai Eminescu, in the writing “Cezara”, which is similar to “Șarpele”. Eros is a central theme...

History Mysteries - the Notorious Killer Jack the Ripper

There are some mysteries in history that will never be solved. Whether it is lack of information surrounding the mystery or sheer indifference toward discovering what really happened, some historical mysteries have not been solved till date and may never be solved in the future....

Literary Analysis of the X-files Episodes

The X-Files is always somewhat of a mystery for the viewer, always leaving behind some question to ponder as the credits roll. Whether its wondering how someone can survive being burned alive, raised from the dead, or survive a run in with a horde of...

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The number of hostages still alive in Gaza is a mystery, officials say

More than six months since Hamas militants attacked Israel and seized more than 250 hostages , it remains unclear exactly how many of the captives are still alive in Gaza, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

The uncertainty has caused anguish among the families of those held in Gaza and undermined international efforts to negotiate a cease-fire deal and the release of at least some of the hostages, the officials told NBC News.

A proposed cease-fire formula calls for Hamas to free 40 hostages who are women, children or sick and elderly men, and in return, Israel would release possibly hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. But Hamas so far has been unable to confirm it has identified 40 hostages who meet those criteria, and that has bogged down the negotiations, U.S., Israeli and Western officials said.

In November, more than 100 hostages were released as part of a four-day pause in the fighting in Gaza. Israel says more than 130 hostages remain, and about a quarter of those are believed dead.

Far fewer hostages may be alive than is publicly known, but it is difficult to say for certain, given there has been limited visibility into the locations and conditions of some of the hostages, U.S. officials said. 

Asked whether there was a firm estimate of how many hostages remained alive, a former senior Israeli official said: “Not at all. No one reliable has this information. It’s all speculation.”

U.S. officials accused Hamas of making demands that it knows are unobtainable.

"Hamas’ refusal to accept a hostage-cease-fire deal shows their disregard for the lives of the Palestinian people," a senior Biden administration official said Wednesday. "They started this war and seem to be perfectly fine with this conflict continuing."

An Israeli official said, “Hamas is dragging its feet, is not interested in a deal and continues to hope for a regional escalation, which is why the negotiations remain stalled.”

Hamas said in a statement Saturday it was prepared to sign on to a “serious and true” deal but renewed its demand for a permanent cease-fire and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops.

According to Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, whose country has acted as an intermediary for the hostage-cease-fire talks along with Egypt and the U.S., the talks have hit a “stumbling block.”

“We are passing through a delicate phase with some stumbling,” he said at a news conference Wednesday, without elaborating. “We are trying as much as possible to address this stumbling block and to move forward.”

Last week, a Hamas official, Basem Naim, said in an interview that a ceasefire is essential to identifying the number of hostages.

“Part of negotiations is to reach a ceasefire agreement to have enough time and safety to collect final and more precise data about the captured Israelis, because they are in different palaces by different groups, some of them are under the rubble killed with our own people, and we negotiate to get heavy equipments for this purpose," Naim said.

A relative of one of the several Americans believed to be held in Gaza said families are in the dark about the fates of their loved ones: “For 185 days, we have received no verification of life of any of these hostages — absent a limited number of videos released early on by the Hamas terrorists.”

The family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid putting their loved one’s fate at risk, said that Israeli security has shown Americans who have traveled to Israel and met with Israel’s security forces that they know where many of the hostages are but that the captives are constantly being moved. 

“Every day they are there, we also know that they could die of starvation, illness, injury or murder,” the relative said.

The Biden administration is working under the assumption that five U.S. hostages are still alive and unaccounted for, a U.S. official said. But Washington has better visibility into the locations and conditions of some hostages than others, making it difficult to say with any certainty that all five remain alive. 

Beyond the five, the U.S. believes Hamas is holding several more bodies of Americans believed to have been taken into Gaza after they were killed in the militants’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel or shortly thereafter.

Israeli troops have searched hospitals, tunnels and even graveyards in Gaza for hostages or their remains. In February, an Israeli raid in Rafah in southern Gaza rescued two hostages.

Aviva Siegel, who spent 51 days as a hostage in Gaza until she was released as part of the November deal, said her experience in captivity was a terrifying nightmare.

“I was treated like I’m nothing. I didn’t have any human rights. We weren’t allowed to talk. We weren’t allowed to even stand,”  Siegel told  NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell last week.

“They used to starve us and eat in front of us. They used to drink water, and we begged them for water. They used to sometimes bring us just a little bit of water and say that’s the water until tomorrow at 5 o’clock. So we used to have one sip every couple of hours, each of us."

Her husband, Keith, of North Carolina, remains captive.

CORRECTION (April 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated in a quote how long Aviva Siegel was held hostage in Gaza. It was 51 days, not 186. The quote has been removed.

Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. 

Peter Alexander is chief White House correspondent for NBC News.

Monica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.

Anna Schecter is a senior producer in the NBC News Investigations Unit.

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

• Katherine Maher
• uri berliner

Everett No More? Days of Our Lives' Stephanie Struggles to Make Sense of an ‘Unsettling' Change

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We thought it was finally over. Not Everett's mystery on Days of Our Lives , of course, but at least his marriage to Jada. He made a big show with Stephanie about signing the divorce papers after initially balking. That was it. All that was left was filing them. Heck even Stephanie was so confident that it was all over that spoilers had her telling Jada today!

But we've thought the marriage was over before, and that turned out to be false, too. Everett's gone and tossed the papers in the trash, is shrugging off Stephanie and Jada's questions and seemingly trying to cozy up to his ex wife - while turning cold and distant with the woman he went out of his way to convince he was moving on!

And then to snap at Stephane and run off? It's no wonder that she, as Abigail Klein told Soap Opera Digest , is wondering, "‘Hey, what's going on here?'"

Heck, we're wondering that too! Stephanie, Klein said, very much notices that he's done "a 180 with her. She finds that unsettling and is confused."

There are still camps of viewers who feel Everett is just playing one long con. Bobby is just an alias for him - or maybe we should say Everett is. But the point is, his kinder side is all just an act and "Beverett" has been knowingly leading a double life. Now that he's been caught in it, he's doing the only thing he can, and feigning ignorance.

But if that's the case, he's not doing that great a job. If Everett really wanted to keep up the ruse, he wouldn't have such a massive personality and attitude shift, nor would he have made a show of signing divorce papers, only to toss them. If he didn't want to divorce Jada, then he simply would have kept up his insistence that he's not Bobby, so signing them would be a lie.

Doing it this way has just made a scene and gotten Stephanie to realize something's off with him. "So when he flips and does this 180," her portrayer told SOD, "all of a sudden she's taken aback, and it definitely leaves her with more questions."

This isn't the maneuvering of a master conman who leads multiple lives. It seems a whole lot more like multiple personalities. So our question is: Has Bobby taken over to stop Everett from divorcing Jada? And if that's the case: Why?

What do you think? Is Everett just conning everyone or does he have multiple personalities? Have we been getting glimpses of Bobby here and there… like today?

Good and evil? Check out our photo gallery of daytime's best twins , ranked, below. 

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Trump’s long, strange history with the tabloids

The new york city papers gave him the headlines he craved; the national enquirer buried the ones he didn’t.

When Marla Maples was about to give birth to Donald Trump ’s fourth child, Tiffany, in 1993, then-New York Daily News gossip columnist Linda Stasi had her editor’s orders: Get in the room to see the baby.

Maples objected, but Trump invited Stasi to the hospital, where she walked into the private room after the birth, conducted a quick interview, then asked if her photographer could snap a photo. Maples shooed her out, Stasi said in an interview. Trump soon followed, holding an empty blanket. “Here, take my picture. Just pretend there’s a baby in here,” Stasi recalled Trump saying. The camera flashed.

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The photo was never published, but the incident highlights the lengths Trump was willing to go to accommodate the tabloid press, which in turn accommodated him in his insatiable, years-long pursuit of headlines long before he ran for office.

Yet when it came to his 2016 campaign for president, he needed to bury stories about his personal exploits, not promote them. That called for what former National Enquirer CEO David Pecker, during testimony Monday in the first trial of a former president, described as the “checkbook journalism” of a supermarket tabloid. Stories Pecker’s tabloid bought and buried are now at the heart of Trump’s trial, playing out in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan. Pecker was the first witness for the prosecution, with testimony continuing Tuesday following an abbreviated start on Monday.

While the New York City tabloids had greased Trump’s rise as a business executive with a constant churn of publicity, when he turned politician, aiming for the highest office in the land with no stops in between, he found a ready partner in the National Enquirer, according to former employees, court filings and people familiar with the dynamic who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships in the industry. The Manhattan tabloids catered to a wide swath of New York society — and did not pay for stories — while the Enquirer and its ilk have always occupied a down-market position on newsstands and reached deep into the country through their prominent placement in grocery store checkout aisles. The story that resulted in Trump’s trial never made it to those aisles.

The prosecution’s case centers on the argument that Trump intended to help his campaign when he covered up a $130,000 payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. The money allegedly kept her from speaking out during the campaign about an extramarital sexual encounter she says she’d had with Trump years earlier. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide his reimbursement payments to his former longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen for the money paid to Daniels. Prosecutors say the coverup involved altering business records to conceal the crimes of violating federal campaign finance contribution limits and New York tax and election laws.

The trial promises to spotlight lurid details of Trump’s sex life and look closely at granular bookkeeping statutes, but prosecutors will also delve into Trump’s long-standing ties with the tabloid press, using aspects of them against him.

Years before he entered politics, a young Trump ventured onto the real estate scene in Manhattan as a small player, busting out of his developer father’s Queens and Brooklyn stomping grounds. Propelled by his father’s money, the lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn’s ruthless tactics and his own self-promotion skills, he made his name in Manhattan power circles by making his life a fixture in the city’s vibrant tabloids. Trump deployed juicy bits of gossip and bombastic quotes to craft his image as a billionaire playboy for the consumption of millions of daily commuting readers. He impersonated his own PR representative to plant stories and used the cutthroat competition between columnists to his advantage, according to tabloid reporters who spoke to him regularly.

During Trump’s rise as a real estate figure, he nurtured relationships with individual tabloid writers. They gleefully chronicled Trump’s escapades in his business and tumultuous love life. Two tabloid doyennes captivated New York with the breakdown of his first marriage, to Ivana Trump. She had the ear of the late Liz Smith, the former star Daily News columnist; he had that of the New York Post’s Cindy Adams. The two columnists squared off, dishing out dueling narratives fed by their respective sources. Trump reportedly supplied the Post with the famous headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” ascribed to Marla Maples, to retaliate against a Daily News item about Ivana Trump that had angered him. But countless other stories found their way into the tabloids with his help, burnishing his image and settling scores with his foes.

People magazine’s Sue Carswell described Trump’s introducing himself on the phone as John Miller, Trump’s PR person. Trump used other aliases, including John Barron, according to former columnists who received such calls, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about their sourcing.

“Donald has always been in love with publicity and the front page of the New York Post and the New York Daily News,” said R. Couri Hay, a mainstay of New York gossip circles who wrote for the Enquirer, Interview magazine and others over many decades.

The relationships paid mutual dividends. After weeks of nonstop Trump stories in February 1990, an irate Staten Island reader wrote in a letter to the Daily News: “I have suffered through your tacky journalism revolving around the Trumps’ every move. There’s enough garbage tabloids floating around without lowering your standards to that level.” An in-house newsletter that month in which the paper congratulated itself on its coverage acknowledged that many readers had expressed similar sentiments, “but circulation was up 30-40,000 a day,” the newsletter said, “so it’s safe to assume far more readers enjoyed the coverage than were turned off by it.”

Such a staple of the tabloid diet was Trump that he often featured in the annual Inner Circle parody show staged by City Hall reporters, who take on the mayor and other powerful New York newsmakers. The mayor routinely produces a rebuttal sketch — which is how an infamous video of Rudy Giuliani in drag, with Trump nuzzling his bosom, came to be in 2000.

Trump and the tabloids were “a love affair with multiple divorces,” recalled Hay. It’s an image of Trump that many New Yorkers, possibly including some of those who found their way into the jury box of his current trial, remember well.

Last week before jury selection, prosecutors received New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s permission to discuss before the jury a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower with Trump, Cohen and Pecker, then the top executive at National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc. — and the first witness called by the prosecution. At that meeting, the government alleges the three men discussed publishing positive stories about Trump and negative pieces about his political opponents.

“The entire point of the Trump Tower meeting was to control the flow of information that reached the electorate to accentuate the positive, hide the negative and exaggerate information that would be harmful to Trump’s opponents,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass argued before Merchan last week. The defense team countered that such meetings with media representatives are common for candidates, and said that the meeting was not part of any charged criminal conduct.

In addition to the meeting, the judge said he would allow into evidence a series of National Enquirer stories attacking Trump’s opponents. Those stories, one by one, skewered Trump’s Republican primary rivals.

Some of those stories were shared before publication with Cohen, who acted as a key intermediary between the Enquirer and Trump, The Washington Post has previously reported. At trial, the prosecution argued that “many of these headlines and the stories behind them were shown to Mr. Trump before they were published so he could approve, reject or suggest changes.”

Pecker did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Dylan Howard, who has since left the Enquirer but at the time was chief content officer of AMI. Howard denied to The Post at the time that the Enquirer shared articles before publication with Trump or his intermediaries. Howard told The Post that the Enquirer published positive stories about Trump because they performed above average on the newsstand, as did negative stories about his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. The Enquirer covered them accordingly, Howard said.

Before Trump faced off against Clinton, he bested a wide field of Republican primary candidates. The Enquirer weighed in on nearly all of them.

“Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge In Patient’s Brain!” read the headline in October 2015, describing the renowned former brain surgeon Carson, just as he was surging in polls. After the story ran, Carson told an interviewer that “the people who oppose me have been crawling through every ditch,” and pushed the story to the Enquirer, which found five or six disgruntled patients out of the 15,000 operations he conducted.

“Pervy Ted Cruz Caught Cheating — With 5 Secret Mistresses!” read a headline in March 2016 about the Texas senator. Cruz called the story “garbage” and accused Trump of enlisting his “friends” at the Enquirer to “do his bidding.” At the time, Howard denied to The Post that the story had come from Trump’s camp, instead accusing the Marco Rubio campaign of planting the story, an allegation Rubio’s former campaign manager denied.

During the general election, the Enquirer turned its attention to Clinton, alleging in several stories that she suffered from an array of serious health concerns. The publication doctored photographs to make her appear sickly, according to former Enquirer staffers who requested anonymity to describe internal Enquirer business. One piece predicted that she would be “dead in six months!” She turned 76 in October.

Coverage of Trump had a different flavor. In early 2016, the Enquirer published a glowing, two-part interview with Trump, and the publication endorsed him in March of that year, declaring that “nobody understands the economy better than this self-made billionaire, and only he is willing and able to fix it.” Other headlines included, “Trump’s Plan For World Peace!” and “Proof! FBI Plot to Impeach Trump!”

Trump’s connection to AMI may have been unlike his connection to the city tabloids, but it was just as binding. A former executive of Trump’s casino business was a member of AMI’s four-member board of directors. Trump and Pecker have been friends for years, after meeting at Mar-a-Lago in the late 1980s, Pecker testified on Tuesday. In July 2013, Trump tweeted that Pecker should become CEO of Time magazine. “He’d make it exciting and win awards!” Trump wrote at the time.

The two overlapped in their professional lives. Pecker testified Tuesday that he persuaded Trump to launch a magazine called Trump Style, which Pecker oversaw when he was CEO of publisher Hachette Filipacchi’s U.S. division. Trump introduced Pecker at Pace University in 1998 when Pecker received an honorary doctorate.

Pecker testified that he had “a lot of dealings with Mr. Trump because as a celebrity in his own right at that time, he was very helpful in introducing me to other executives, other people in New York.”

Trump had maintained a good relationship with the Enquirer, according to Iain Calder, who edited the paper for 20 years, into the 1990s, and described Trump in his memoir as someone who “loves publicity — but only if he controls it.” Calder added that “sometimes we let him influence an angle or delete something that really infuriated him.”

But the relationship deepened when Pecker moved to AMI in 1999. Quickly, Pecker discouraged reporters from writing negative stories about Trump, according to former employees who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. Trump was known as a “Friend of Pecker,” these people said, which protected him from negative stories in the publication.

The Enquirer accumulated tips, articles and documents on a wide array of story subjects, but only some of that material was deployed, they said. Some Trump material, such as old stories about a rape allegation against Donald Trump from his first wife, Ivana, (an allegation arising from their divorce proceedings that he denied and she retracted) were kept secure. But files on Bill and Hillary Clinton were regularly mined for stories, they added.

What many of the staff didn’t realize, however, was that there was a different batch of stories that the Enquirer’s parent company had contractually agreed to keep out of circulation. The details of those arrangements were closely held by a small number of executives at the top of the company, including Pecker.

Despite Trump’s long-standing close relationship with Pecker, his relationship with AMI shifted when the company signed a non-prosecution agreement with authorities in 2018 and admitted to paying $150,000 in hush money to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged a 10-month affair with Trump. AMI agreed that it had paid McDougal to “suppress the model’s story” and “prevent it from influencing the election,” the non-prosecution agreement states. As part of that agreement, AMI said it would cooperate with prosecutors.

Though the trial will focus on the Daniels reimbursement, the prosecution plans to present to the jury other examples of Trump-related stories the Enquirer paid for but never ran. McDougal’s is one. A Trump-related story that the Enquirer purchased in late 2015 involved a $30,000 payment to a onetime Trump Tower doorman who was offering an embarrassing story about a “love child” fathered by then-candidate Trump. The Enquirer said in a statement it never published the claim because of questions about its credibility. In his testimony Tuesday, Pecker said, “I made the decision to purchase the story to avoid potential embarrassment it would have to the campaign, the campaign and Mr. Trump.”

Merchan has ruled that McDougal and the doorman, Dino Sajudin, can be questioned about the payments they received from AMI to keep their stories quiet.

As for Daily News and New York Post coverage of Trump, it could seem transactional, but it could be hard-hitting, too, delivering scoops that managed to cut through the thicket of fictions Trump spun up, even if the winking, punning headlines gave the tabs — and Trump — cover either way.

“It was great because if you had a story, you knew you could get him on the phone,” Richard Johnson, former editor of the New York Post’s Page Six, said in an interview. The one drawback? “He’s not the most trustworthy source.”

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Trump New York hush money case

Former president Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial is underway in New York. Follow live updates from the trial .

Jury selection: A full jury of 12 jurors and six alternates has been seated. Here’s what we know about the jurors .

The case: The investigation involves a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress , during the 2016 presidential campaign. It’s one of many ongoing investigations involving Trump . Here are some of the key people in the case .

The charges: Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Falsifying business records is a felony in New York when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” another crime. He has pleaded not guilty . Here’s what to know about the charges — and any potential sentence .

Can Trump still run for president? The short answer, legal experts said, is yes. The U.S. Constitution does not forbid Trump, or anyone else, from serving as president if convicted of a felony.

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Do Not Make Survival Even More Difficult for People on the Streets

By Laura Riley

Ms. Riley is the director of the clinical program at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Homeless Advocacy.”

In 2013, Grants Pass, Ore., came up with a strategy to deal with a growing homeless population in the city of roughly 40,000, one that might best be described as kicking the can down the road.

Through a series of ordinances, the city essentially made it illegal to sleep outside in public. In particular, anyone sleeping anywhere in public with bedding, a blanket or a sleeping bag would be breaking the law.

“The point,” the City Council president explained at the time, “is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”

Unhoused individuals wouldn’t have much choice. There are no homeless shelters in Grants Pass. At least 600 people in the city were unhoused in 2018 and 2019, according to counts by a local nonprofit that serves the unhoused.

Now the United States Supreme Court is being asked whether the enforcement of the city’s camping regulations, which apply to all of the city’s residents but affect them in vastly different ways, violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday.

Of course, weighing the legality of camping obscures the real issue, which is how, in a nation with roughly 650,000 unhoused people, the federal, state and local governments can make sure there are enough beds for people to sleep in. Forcing unhoused people to the next town does not create housing that is affordable or available.

The case is an appeal to a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that prohibited Grants Pass from using citations to enforce its public camping ordinance. The Ninth Circuit had earlier prohibited cities from enforcing criminal restrictions on public camping unless there was access to adequate temporary shelter.

In the decision being challenged by Grants Pass, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the city “cannot, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go.”

Which there rarely is, in Grants Pass or elsewhere, and which is why people often have no choice but to sleep outside.

In a friend of the court brief, the National Homelessness Law Center argued that Grants Pass had “rejected” its obligation to care for unhoused residents and that vulnerable groups would continue to be marginalized unless the court decides once and for all that those ordinances are cruel. In its brief to the court, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund noted that the laws disproportionately affect people with disabilities and don’t serve any rehabilitative or deterrent interest.

If nothing else, one thing this case has done is unite many officials on the left and the right of the political spectrum, from San Francisco to Arizona. They have complained in briefs to the court that the Ninth Circuit has hamstrung their communities in dealing with homeless encampments.

But homelessness arises from policy decisions, not from a ruling by an appellate court. The Supreme Court should uphold the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. Otherwise it will open the door for communities to pass local laws that effectively punish unhoused people for existing within their borders, making what is clearly cruel permissible.

It would not be unexpected for the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to give the green light for the kind of camping bans at issue. Unhoused people would be pushed further to the margins, increasingly out of sight and mind. They will still be out there, parked in cars in rural areas or subsisting on urban streets, perhaps after being fined or jailed for the crime of trying to survive without a roof over their heads.

This case shines a light on the abdication of responsibility by governments at all levels to their unhoused residents. Instead of arguing about the legality of bans on sleeping in public, we should be asking: Why move people down the road to another community, one that is likely also short on shelter beds?

There is no doubt that the path to creating permanent housing (and more temporary shelter) is politically challenging and expensive. But there are many solutions along this path that go beyond what lawyers and the courts, even our highest one, can accomplish, and that the public should be demanding.

Governments at all levels should invest in homelessness prevention programs and strategies. Those include providing housing subsidies to people who otherwise could lose their housing and supportive transitional services for those leaving mental health treatment and correctional centers.

People on the brink of homelessness should have a right to counsel in eviction proceedings and should be offered the possibility of mediation in housing courts to give them a chance to remain in their houses or apartments.

Businesses should be increasing employment opportunities by not requiring a permanent address in job applications. Lawmakers should create more pathways for people to clear their criminal records, some that arise from targeted enforcement of low-level, nonviolent offenses, because those records can make it much more difficult to get a job.

For populations with unique needs, such as young people and veterans, social service agencies should pursue particularized interventions that address the underlying reasons that pushed individuals into homelessness.

And, of course, we should be building more housing, plain and simple, and we should be providing affordable housing incentives in areas with grocery stores and medical care nearby.

The Supreme Court should not further criminalize homelessness. But whether it does or not, this case should put governments at all levels on notice that humane policies can help to reduce homelessness. We don’t have to let this crisis continue.

Laura Riley is the director of the clinical program at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Homeless Advocacy.”

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