Hello readers,
You may have been wondering where I have been. More importantly, you’re probably wondering what happened to our illustrious students Bex, Duckie, and Laila. Rest assured that they are right where we left them—trapped in that supply closet.
We haven’t heard from them recently because I was lending my creative writing skills to another enterprise: a murder mystery party.
It was my first time tackling such an endeavor. In my experience, I found that writing a murder mystery party is a lot like writing a story. You have to have an interesting plot and compelling characters. You have to avoid plot holes like drivers avoid potholes. You have to rewrite and edit to the point where your finishing point is almost unrecognizable from the start line.
Murder mystery parties are, of course, different from stories. Stories largely involve a one-way relationship between the writer and reader. Unless, of course, you’re a reader that writes fanfiction or otherwise adapts the story into another form of media. In a murder mystery party, the characters and plot you write as an author take on a new life during the event. There’s a lot of improv involved—which was one of my favorite parts of the party.
Writing a murder mystery is somewhat difficult. But it’s incredibly fun. If you’re interested in this bold and exciting undertaking, I’ve outlined some steps you can take to write your very own murder mystery party.
setting
I planned the party with a friend, and we decided that she would play the deceased, an heiress. I was to be the butler. There was to be a group of characters at this party who knew the deceased. They were all invited to Willow Manor (our house) under different, mysterious circumstances. One or more of them was responsible for the murder.
characters
Murders are very character-driven stories. Without complex characters, there would be no murder—no intrigue. It’s the characters’ psyches and relationships that make these stories interesting. We took inspiration from classic Agatha Christie whodunnits as well as movies Clue and Knives Out: we wanted a colorful and diverse set of characters trapped in a web of mystery, conceit, and deception.
Before determining their connections to the deceased, we focused on creating interesting, complex characters. Once we developed their personality enough, we could figure out what motivates them—why would they commit murder, and how? We then connected them with the deceased in a way that led to an authentic motive for the characters.
We had a final guest list of 12 people who either had first- or second-degree connections to the heiress. For those with a motive to kill the heiress, their reasons differed from love to blackmail to financial gain.
Once you create your characters, you’re ready to write invitations that compel them to arrive at your murder mystery party setting. I’ll confess that our invitations bore many similarities to those in Clue…
clues
Writing the clues for a murder mystery party is very different from writing a mystery story. In both cases, characters finding clues drives the plot. In the case of a murder mystery party, however, you need to give every character directives, in the form of clues, so they can discover more about the people they came there with. What would motivate them to commit murder?
We had three rounds of clues, with each round taking a different form.
plot
When everyone arrived, they had the opportunity to get to know one another. Some characters already knew one another. Others were meeting for the first time.
Then, the heiress is murdered. The butler (me) produced a packet of twelve envelopes—one was distributed to each character. Round 1 had begun.
Round 1
Round 1 was broken into three parts. Each part was designed to be a 1:1 conversation with another character. Guests were instructed to talk for 15 minutes with prompts like this:
“If someone asks you about your beginnings in theater, talk about your experience as a child and then if someone mentions high school, mention your rivalry with the heiress. You’ll end up going into a huge rant- you can’t stop yourself”
In real life, people’s pairs bled together—which we didn’t plan for. It didn’t ultimately change the experience, and it gave characters more time to get to know each other.
At the end of Round 1, the murderers found out who they were and had the opportunity to form a strategy to cast suspicions off of themselves.
After the three clues in Round 1, we moved on to a larger-group structure.
Round 2
This was an opportunity for everyone in a large group to share what they learned in round 1. Many characters used improv to accuse and defend. When the plot needed a little nudge, we would text and whisper prompts to some of the characters. After everything we wanted to be laid out in public was done in round 2, we moved on to the final round.
Round 3
We decided to shake things up with Round 3 by introducing a new format: the puzzle. We instructed two guests to look in certain hiding spots, where they found a crossword puzzle and a list of clues. They were to work together to solve the puzzle.
The answers to the crossword ended up being either a part of a message or a term that was meant to be discarded. All the throwaway terms were synonyms or expressions that meant trickery or deception, like “rabbit hole” or “misdirection”.
Once decoded, the message was a note from one guest to another, revealing the means of murder—a poison bottle stolen from one of the other guests. This tipped the group off that there was not one, but two murderers.
With this final clue and the rest of what they learned throughout the evening, everyone went around and accused each other—Mafia style.
And it was a smashing success!
I definitely want to do this again. There are a few things we could improve and add. There were a number of plot devices suggested by guests during the evening that I would like to incorporate. One was the addition of a secret inspector. Another was having a guest die during the party and being reintroduced as another character.
so you want to write your own murder mystery
Here are some things that I learned while co-writing this murder mystery
Teamwork
Writing this would have been more difficult and less fun alone. If you can, plan it with a friend! Having two people to manage the plot was also incredibly helpful.
Characters
Plan for absences. Things come up. The chance that you have 100% attendance is low. Be prepared to step in and play a character, find subs, or edit the story to combine or cut characters. When writing the characters and their clues, think about how the plot would change if that character wasn’t present.
Guest list
It’s good to start small. We had 12 people (not including two hosts), which was a lot. It’s definitely too many guests for one person to plan for. If this is your first time writing a murder mystery, I’d cap it at six guests if writing alone, and twelve if writing with another friend.
Food and libations
Do your party potluck style. Less work as a host. Leftovers for days.
Writing
ChatGPT is your friend. It can help you come up with names, phrase things in certain ways, and offer edits/advice on clarity. The only thing it can’t help you with is anything involving violence. We had many tries with the words “murder”, “kill”, and “blackmail”—ChatGPT refused to help us. We got around it by using terms like “heist” and “whodunnit”.
And that’s about it! If you have experience with planning or attending a murder mystery party, I’d love to hear about it.
This Week’s Top 3
- “Iodine” by Leonard Cohen 🧪 – heard this one at a trivia night (which we won, by the way)
- My first time top-roping 🧗🏾♀️ – here’s to getting over a crippling fear of heights
- Coco 🎸 – this is the wrong emoji, but guitars are key. Very emotional movie.