Most of my fiction writing has been in the murder mystery novel genre, specifically whodunits, in which there usually are four to six suspects. One of the most difficult aspects of writing whodunits is to give all of these suspects roughly equal motives for having committed the murder. The idea is to keep the reader guessing as long as possible.
I try to adhere to the doctrine of fair play in the plot. That is, I put in clues so that the reader could conceivably identify the murderer. Having said that, I bury the clues by making them hard to spot. Many of these clues are embedded in seemingly innocuous details. [In real life, people often commit murder with virtually no motive that makes any sense. Moreover, people with the most obvious motives often turn out to be innocent. In the murder mystery genre the plots have to make sense. In true crime they just have to be true.]
Robert Goldsborough
I try to adhere to the doctrine of fair play in the plot. That is, I put in clues so that the reader could conceivably identify the murderer. Having said that, I bury the clues by making them hard to spot. Many of these clues are embedded in seemingly innocuous details. [In real life, people often commit murder with virtually no motive that makes any sense. Moreover, people with the most obvious motives often turn out to be innocent. In the murder mystery genre the plots have to make sense. In true crime they just have to be true.]
Robert Goldsborough
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