Behind the Scenes of my first cozy murder mystery
Creating characters, world building and weaving in red herrings!
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Hello Lovely Wildhearts,
Today, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of my first Murder Mystery - Murder Most Mystic and share in the delights of creating real characters and building the world of Poeshwick (pronounced Poe-sh-wick) which some of you may recognise as an affluent town in Surrey.
»Watch the video to learn more
Writing a murder mystery was not as easy as the years of watching them whilst enjoying a cuppa with my feet up. I wrongly assumed that you cannot write by osmosis - all those episodes of Poirot, Miss Marple, Murder She Wrote, Midsomer Murders that I’d eagerly consumed would be my training ground for the perfect story.
What helped was having a playlist which captured the mood of each scene. I particularly found this helpful for the romance scenes as initially they were a little awkward to write. Lucky for me cosy mysteries are sweet and vanilla. There is no spice because… well, that’s just not me!
My go-to songs for writing romance are:
Any Other World, Mika
You’re Still The One, Teddy Swims
Save My Heart, Jason Reeves
Slow Hands, Niall Horan
Let You Love Me, Rita Ora
Love is a Game, Adele
Someone Like You, Dina Carroll
Do you know any of these songs? What gets you in the zone to write?
Step 1 - Building a New World
It was easy to write about Poeshwick. For those of you that live where I live, you will see many well-known local places like Two Oaks Academy (St. George’s), Flawless (Collections Hair Dressers in the Queen’s Road) and Cleeqs (which was Sullivan’s Wine Bar).
Poeshwick Hills is the very famous St. George’s Hill Estate where John Lennon of Beatles fame owned a property.
Luna’s giftshop Moonstones is the Shooting Star charity shop in the Queen’s Road and Magda Vandervert’s vegan coffee shop, The Green Room is based on The Juice Smith which is actually in our neighbouring town.
Step 2 - Creating A Real Protagonist
Meet Dr. Dolly Sunflower
Dolly is a quirky and burnt out school counsellor who uses her psychic sleuthing skills to suss people out and ultimately solve this intriguing celebrity murder.
Dolly is named after my Grandma ‘Dorothy Parkes’. I chose the name sunflower because The Sun in the tarot is the card of the inner child and this book is dedicated to my Auntie Gladys who encouraged me as a child to write poetry and stories. Sadly, she passed away in 2023. I felt her all around me as I finished writing my manuscript. Gladys was famous for saying ‘Come on out sunshine!” which is included in her dedication at the front of the book.
Dolly’s challenge in the book is to overcome her fear of love. She must learn to let people in and not feel as if she has to solve the world’s problems single-handedly. First she has to learn to love herself by putting herself first.
I also loved how you tied up the ending. That you brought her closure, growth, and an evolution of her character in healing. That you gave her a baby step toward love and also set her on her journey to focus on herself - to fulfil her dreams of writing and travelling.
Step 3 - Creating compelling believable characters that come to life on the page
This process builds depth and complexity, making characters feel real and relatable. I came up with a name, what they look like, their personality, their back story and their motivation and growth throughout the story. We call this a character arc.
I did this by sketching a rough mind map in my note book. I chose people I already knew. I could see them in my mind’s eye when I was writing which brought their energy to the page. It made writing their voices and stories much easier.
I then took a page in my note book for each character and wrote a profile for each one.
Step 4 - Clues, Alibis & Red Herrings
This is where all my super-sleuth watching came in handy. My editor wrote:
“I loved reading it, and you hid the killer well. You have impressive skills in weaving a mystery without giving away the grand reveal. A hard thing to pull off.”
Just like Dolly did in her journal, I created a grid for each person with their alibi and clues. I’m not going to include the whole diagram here because there will be too many spoilers.
I’m a panther and not a planner when I write because I believe that the creative process is messy. However this book really challenged me and I had to plan some of it. I think that’s what took me so long. I resisting the planning!
Signing the first copy of my book!
My beautiful colleagues at the gift shop were so supportive and enthusiastic about my book. They were the first ones to buy it and full of hugs when I popped in to see them this afternoon. When I got home, I noticed that my pale grey cardigan was covered in make-up!
Available to buy on Amazon today!
»Click here to order your copy of Murder Most Mystic today!
Self-publishing is a wild journey—every like, comment, and share means the world to me.
I hope you fall in love with Dolly, and enjoy reading about the quirky folk of Poeshwick as much as I enjoyed writing about them.
See you next time!
Love
PS. If you enjoyed this post, please click on the heart at the bottom or the top of this email. It helps others discover Murder Most Mystic and as a self-published author makes me happy! I appreciate your support. Thank you ☺️