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smokesalty
Nov '22

I want to leave this thread open to people discussing their own writing frustrations, so if you want to do that and don't wanna read mine, go right ahead! (again, I like to ramble about my own experiences)

Lord, I love writing murder mysteries but it's so freaking hard!!

For context- I'm currently working on the outline for a murder mystery/killing game visual novel (think multiple cases like in danganronpa) and I absolutely adore this project but working out the actual mystery is creating your own puzzle and then having the characters and audience work it out, and is not easy!!

And unlike my other stories, I can't just work linearly, I have to work out a) character motivation b)how the murder occurred c) clues left behind d) red herrings e) how the characters will solve it. And with how I've structured the story- there are MULTIPLE cases that happen within the same group of characters, which have them and the worldbuilding built up on through the course of the story.

So I'm now sitting here with a murder case I've figured out (I reckon the reveal is pretty cool and makes sense with all the clues) but what I realised was that IT MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE. Like if you use 3 braincells you will work out who did it so quick. So now I'm sitting here, trying to figure out how to alter the events so that it is in fact a mystery :cry_02:

This story is gonna take me much longer to figure out, is what I'm realising. I have faith in my own writing abilities, and having this challenge will make me all the more proud when I pull it off. But like DAMN. I've really gotten my work cut out for me (but I love it so I'm not too mad about it)

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TheLemmaLlama
Nov '22

Oh hecc, I'm also writing a (non-murder) mystery VN, and I feel you on the 'what if my mystery is too easy?' thing :'D

But I flip-flop, and the next second I'm like 'but what if I just THINK it's too straightforward because I have the benefit of hindsight and if I try to make things obscure enough that I think it's decently challenging, it'll be TOO challenging and no-one can solve it?' XD

BoxForAFox
Nov '22

Seems like mystery is a pattern here. I started writing a murder mystery about 6 years ago, and am taking a wee little break from it at the moment and working on some other stories.

It's just... more tiring to write than others. Don't get me wrong, I love the story and I've planned out the whole series, but the amount of times I've written 50k words for this book and then gone "hmmm, nope that's too easy" or "NO ONE is going to be able to figure it out because there are no clues" and then I'll just restart the whole thing.

But the story is so good, and I just want to finish it but it's so HARD. Because, I want it to be hard to figure out the killer, but at the same time I want it to be possible if you're really paying attention. Or, like, when the killer is revealed and you reread the book you're like "OHHHHH, yeah, should've seen that."

I'm gonna have another crack at it soon, but my GOD.

LackofCoffee
Nov '22

Remembering my character's eye colours. Even when I write a cheat sheet for myself, I'll change them from green to brown to yellow.

Emalie
Nov '22
1

My biggest frustration, and I've mentioned it before, is that I want to post chapters more frequently and not so much every two weeks. But this is the first time that I take something as seriously as writing a novel and I want it to be as well written as possible. It's not that it takes me two weeks to write a 5 or 7 page episode (in fact I already finished it). It's mainly because of my real life and my work. I don't have enough time to review what I write well. So I prefer to take it easy.

KeithRW
Nov '22

It's a difficult balance to get right, and I'm no expert on it. But I'd say one thing about whether you think you're making it too easy or difficult to guess. I think the most successful books are the ones that actually do make it difficult to guess. The real treat as a reader (and the same goes for TV shows too) is reading it a second time and realising that there were one or two clues there that just aren't obvious. So my personal preference is for limited clues, that are vague and barely hinting at what may come :slight_smile:

My writing frustration is writing several chapters before thinking whether the story is going in a particular direction because the plot requires it at the expense of whether the character would realistically do what they're doing. It's like I'm constantly battling against doing that! I guess that's the same for everyone?!

RobertBMarks
Nov '22

Have you run this by a beta reader yet?

The reason I say this is for the same reason that writers are often the worst editors of their own work: they know what it is trying to say, so they impose that meaning on it in their minds, regardless of if it is actually communicated or not. In this case, you know what the solution to the mystery is because you wrote it, so when you read it, the clues are all obvious to you. It is very possible that they are not nearly as obvious as you think.

EDIT: As for my frustration, this year is has been making time to write. I have had unprecedentedly bad health this calendar year, particularly in the last six months (as in my personal best for healthy days in a row is 8). The fact that I completed two books this year is kind of amazing in retrospect.

powerplantanimations
Nov '22

Little lines that contradict events. Every line matters for me, so I gotta make sure EVERYTHING is consistent. Gets old real fast.

TheLemmaLlama
Nov '22
KeithRW

I guess that makes sense for a linear story like a book or a TV show because you'll eventually get to the end and see the 'solution' regardless of whether you've solved it or not, but for an interactive thing like a game or a visual novel, it's probably more frustrating if it's so hard you can't solve it if you can't progress the story until you do?

I tend to start with key scenes (which are always in-character because my characters at this point are by definition 'the kind of people who would do the kind of stuff in these scenes') and then vaguely outline the rest of the story around them, with the outline being subject to change if I realize something else would follow from the actions my characters would realistically take :stuck_out_tongue: Or of I'm incredibly happy with the plot progression, I'd tweak my characterization a bit such that it makes sense for the characters to do the things that would result in the plot

Basically, I like to keep things nebulous; like I don't write several chapters in full, nailed-down detail until I've already planned out the whole thing in a rough, sketchy kind of way where the characterization fits with the plot, if I'm making any sense XD

korivernon
Nov '22

I've written murder myseries before and what I do is I have a an outline of how the crime happened, who did, why they did it etc and after that I have the other characters just go through the thing through their own interpretations

By the way I could really do with reading a Danganronpa style story, there's honestly not enough of those!.

22 days later
FliosRegular
Dec '22

When I wrote a murder mystery on wattpad.com, it only took me 2 chapters to drop it, because honestly, I quickly found plot holes in my draft around the murder XD.

1 month later

closed Jan 3, '23

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