They Can’t All Be Red Herrings, Right?
By Lois Winston
I’m currently writing my 12th Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. This one is tentatively titled A Crafty Collage of Crime. As some of you may remember, I moved from New Jersey to Tennessee a year and a half ago. Since then, many people have asked if Anastasia will eventually make the move south. My answer is an emphatic, “No!” Anastasia is a diehard Jersey Girl and will remain firmly planted in the Garden State.
However, I have decided that in this book, Anastasia and Zack will take a trip to Middle Tennessee wine country. Yes, there are wineries in Tennessee. Who knew? Certainly not me until I moved here, but it turns out that there were quite a few wineries in the area before Prohibition, and after Prohibition ended, the wine industry slowly began to revitalize. It’s now once again thriving.
Anastasia and Zack find themselves in Tennessee because Zack has accepted an assignment to photograph the local wineries for a spread in a national wine publication. Anastasia travels to Tennessee with him. Of course, she immediately discovers a dead body. (Doesn’t she always?)
Now, here’s my dilemma: I have a basic plot and characters fleshed out, but I have so many potential suspects, that I’m finding it difficult to choose which will be the killer. Any one of them would work. I’m thinking I may have to write the book several ways, with a different killer for each version, before I settle on the real killer. That’s a lot of extra work. So I’m hoping that as I continue to work on chapters, the killer will eventually reveal himself to me.
If you’re a reader, have you ever read a mystery where you thought one of the other characters should have been the killer? If you’re an author, do you always know right away who your killer will be, or does the killer sometimes change as you write the book?
Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, is now available as an audiobook through Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. If you’d like a chance to win a promo code for a free download, post a comment.
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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.
I love the surprise when I was totally wrong about the killer.
Barb, that’s how I judge whether a mystery was good or not. I love when the author winds up fooling me, but it has to be a character that makes sense, not some obscure character who had little presence in the book.
Sometimes it is easy to narrow down the list of suspects to two and then the clues will lead me to one person, but then the author changes things up a bit and on a rare occasion, I think they picked the wrong one.
Dru, for me if the killer is obvious from the start, the author chose the wrong character for the killer. I’m very disappointed in a book when that happens.
Brilliant to give the Jersey girl a change of scenery. I think it’s common, and maybe necessary, for a mystery writer to “hover” over each suspect-character’s motivations and actions, playing the “what if” game. Otherwise, how would we lead readers through the puzzles we’ve set up for them to solve? I might change my mind as I write, but I usually have the killer in mind before I start. I do like to leave myself open for new possibilities as the characters dictate the story.
Thanks, Saralyn! “What if?” is a game most mystery authors play all the time. It’s how I get my best plots.
Interesting post! I don’t always pick the right culprit in a murder mystery, but I love it when there are lots of twists and turns!
Kathryn, those twists and turns are what keep me reading. I get bored with linear plot lines.
For my third mystery, I’ve waited to decide who the killer is until now, as I finish the last chapter. I’ve told myself that if I don’t know, it’s almost impossible for the reader to guess ahead of time. But the fact is, like you, Lois, I’ve had a hard time deciding who it will be!
P.S. I’ve also planned the next in my series to take place at winery. Our good friends own one of the best in Texas, and I’m looking forward to a lot of research time there.
Gay, great minds think alike? BTW, I’m now nearly 20K into Book 12, and I still haven’t decided on the killer!
In my current WIP, the killer is known to all up front or close to the front. So I guess it is not really a mystery, is it? Hmm. Suspense maybe? Thriller? There is an international political element, although it is a bit indirect. Now I am confusing myself. Lol. Good luck, Lois. Maybe you are self entertaining!
T.K., sounds more like a suspense to me. Mysteries are all about finding out whodunit. Suspense deals more with the psychology behind why the antagonist committed the crime, why he chose his victims, and why the protagonist cares enough to get involved in bringing him down. Often the antagonist is even a POV character, although not always named.
I like to listen to the characters because when I don’t, I pick the wrong killer and the book/writing feels stilted. In One Taste Too Many, I wrote the book and thought it was dead from the middle to the end — and then it dawned on me that I was trying to force the killer to be someone who wasn’t the murderer. I rewrote (and the writing flew) the second half of the book letting my subconscious dictate and One Taste Too Many went up on the a Woman’s World Pick of the Week.
You were the one, in a blog long ago, who taught me to listen to the voices in my head when writing – and you can’t go wrong.
Debra, I remember that blog. So glad you found it helpful! I’m waiting for one of my characters to start telling me who the killer is this time. They all seem to be AWOL lately. I’m hoping it’s just because they’re all stuck in holiday party mode and haven’t gotten back to work yet. They usually love telling me what to do! 😉
Most if the time, I start writing knowing who the killer is, although with my last book, I changed it after realizing my original idea wasn’t working. Looking forward to your next great book.
Thanks, Lynn! It’s good that you can realize when something isn’t working. I’ve seen too many books where the author would have been better served if she’d pivoted and stopped trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. 😉
Some folks just don’t have it their heart to be murderers and they keep trying to tell us that. Despite me wanting them to be.
That could make for an interesting storyline…
I’m not published yet so take my thoughts with a grain of salt! When I wrote my first cozy mystery manuscript, I knew who the villain was and stuck to it throughout the drafting process. In fact, I was in a writing group at the time where the leader told me I had to know who the murderer was! Yet, when I went back over my draft, it all felt a little constrained. Fast forward to today, when I’m working on my next cozy mystery manuscript. I started with one person who I thought would be the murderer, but found out that level of violence just wasn’t in the person. But I discovered hidden feelings within another character! In a long winded answer to your question – the murderer changed through the process of writing. (And I like this method better!)
Good for you, Judy! Sometimes the advice we’re given is bad advice.
As a writer, I pick the killer before I start writing. I haven’t yet changed my mind part way through the book, but anything is possible.
“Anything is possible” is the right attitude, Darlene. Writers (and everyone, for that matter) do better by being flexible.
I usually know who the villain is (many of my short stories don’t involve a murder) but I have changed it up once or twice. Once a story idea about sabotage at a cooking contest came to me fully formed, but as I started writing, I realized the character I’d chosen to be the villain was one I needed to stick around for the long haul in my sleuth’s world. Much better with the alternate villain I chose!
Flexibility is the name of the game, Ashley-Ruth. When we open ourselves up to other possibilities, we often find a better way of working the story. Good for you!
Likely, as you flesh out your characters, it will become clear who has killer potential and who doesn’t — good luck!
Thanks, Becky Sue! I know at some point in the process, I’ll have that aha! moment. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve switched killers in the past, but I’ve never written a book where I have so many options, and none has jumped out at me as being the best so far.
Late posting, but I love this topic, Lois. As a mystery reader, I look for those red herrings because they’re part of the fun, and we mystery authors are intent on leaving them! What becomes problematic is A) when the author leaves too many, B) when she/he/they are deliberately vague, C) puts in a red herring once at the end of the story with mo lead in, e.g. the killer was the protagonist’s dead Uncle Harry who was neither listed as dead or named in the entire novel! We have to play fair with the reader!
Absolutely, Donnell! If you don’t play fair with your readers, you’ll lose them.
When I begin writing a new mystery, the book is rife with suspects. Sometimes I know early on who the villain will be but most of the time I let the plot unfurl until the killer reveals themselves. One time I was at the climatic reveal when I realized I had it totally wrong. Glad the protagonist figured that out for me! Love your books, Lois.
Thanks, Cindy! I’ve found it’s always a good idea to listen to my characters. Love your books, too!
Some red herrings are so obvious that they become a distraction. I love the very subtle ones that put me on edge but keep me guessing.
George, red herrings have to keep the reader guessing. If they’re so obvious that the reader dismisses them as too obvious, then they’re not red herrings, just unnecessary distractions that don’t belong in the book. At least that’s my opinion. 😉
Congratulations to Judy Jones, the winner of the promo code I offered for a free download of Death by Killer Mop Doll. Judy, I’ve emailed you privately.
Happy New Year, everyone!