Developing Your Cozy Mystery Story Concept

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

One of the questions I’m most asked when I speak is how I come up with my ideas.  This,  of course, is probably the number one question that all writers are asked when they’re public speaking.  At least I usually am asked a variant of the question because they want to know how I come up with mysteries.

I usually say that I start with the victim.  And that’s true … about 75% of the time.  It’s an easy way to start out a cozy mystery.  You can develop someone who’s either really hateful and has plenty of enemies or create a character who seems too good to be true…and is.

Once I have a good idea who my victim is, it’s easy enough to come up with my suspects. Who would most want this person dead?  An ex-wife?  A neighbor he’s had disputes with? The husband of the woman he’s having an affair with?  The suspects come together naturally when you really know your victim.

Sometimes, though, I’ll start a different way.  I’ll have an idea about the type of mystery I want to write or some element that I want to explore.  A couple of times I’ve wanted to do a ‘road trip’ mystery where I took my characters away from their usual setting (on a cruise, for instance).  Once I wanted to try my hand at a traditional ‘manor house mystery’ where the characters were all trapped by weather in a house with a murderer. Once I wanted to give a go at writing a cold case murder.  Or I’ll want to write a book with two different killers, working alone.  With these books, I’ll start with the setting or style of murder and then start figuring out my victim and suspects.

I’ll give an example for those of you who might be new or just starting out with cozies.  I recently wrote an outline for book 10 of the Southern Quilting Mysteries (and a caveat here–this is book 10. I am using backstory more at this point in the series and this may or may not be great for a book 1 in a series).  I decided that I wanted to bring in a newcomer to the small town I set the story in…someone from my sleuth’s past.  I also wanted my sleuth to be considered a suspect by police. This was the story spark for the whole outline.  Once I’d decided that, I brainstormed a character who might work well in that role: a past friend? Boyfriend? Coworker?  I settled on coworker because I didn’t really need any story conflict between my sleuth and her new husband (an annoying friend or boyfriend wouldn’t have served my story as well).  Then I created a character that had caused my sleuth stress in her past and moved her into town…where she was promptly murdered.  Hey, it’s a murder mystery. :)

Then it was easy enough to come up with a list of suspects for the death of this annoying character.  Then I filled in my cozy outline. 

So that infernal question, where do you get your ideas from, sometimes provokes a little thought.  Obviously starting with the victim doesn’t always work for me…it’s good to know how else I can effectively brainstorm a cozy mystery.

Where do you get your ideas from.  :)  What’s more, do they come to you in routine ways?

Photo on VisualHunt