Mystery Writing

by Adam Baron

All good books have a mystery at their heart, even ones that don’t seem to. The best way to think about mysteries in your own stories is to come up with something that you would be intrigued by. For instance, I loved Stig of the Dump when I was a child because it asks so many questions. Who is this strange person? Why is he living where he is, in the modern day? What will happen when Barney becomes friends with Stig? I often use objects that seem to be in the wrong place. In my latest book, This Wonderful Thing, a girl called Jessica finds something in a stream on a day out with her family. The first mystery is simple: it’s covered in mud, so what is it? Jessica then has to work out why someone seems to want to steal it, and who its original owner is. More mystery is created when we meet the owner – Cymbeline Igloo, who I also wrote about in Boy Underwater, and You Won’t Believe This. The mystery then concerns how Cymbeline lost the object in the first place and how on Earth Cymbeline and Jessica are going to meet.

You can’t rely on one mystery when you are writing a novel,
however, as it will soon run out of energy. You need to keep asking new
questions and setting yourselves new challenges. I often create events with no
idea what caused them. If I’m interested in solving them, then maybe the reader
will be too. One example from This Wonderful Thing comes when Cymbeline’s house
is burgled. I had no idea who the culprit was when I wrote this scene. I only
knew that it would be dramatic and dynamic and that Cymbeline wouldn’t rest
until he’d discovered the truth. I was so surprised when I worked out who’d
done it (with Cymbeline’s help). If I’m surprised by an outcome, then it’s more
than likely that the reader will feel the same. The same is true of Boy
Underwater. I had no idea why Cymbeline’s mum never took him swimming when I
first came up with the idea, and had to investigate his past to find out.

So, the most important thing about mystery writing is that
you have to be interested in the mystery yourself. You have to feel that it’s
dangerous and important. If you do, then your story will really work.