Thread: Question for crime/suspense writers

I'm in the midst of a murder mystery and I dont actually know much about the murderer. I am sort of discovering the details while writing the murder scenes and through the research of my main character who is a rookie detective. I know the end of my story and the major moments throughout because the story is more about the detective than the murders. I feel like i'm conducting the investigation while i write the story and just hoping the killer's motive and m.o. come to me along the way. Is this common? Or wreckless?

Probably reckless. Without a motive and the rest of the killer's personality pre-defined, you risk the killer's behavior appearing random to your readers. For instance, in one scene you might paint the killer as a sociopath, completely without empathy, but in another scene you might show him feeling remorse - two completely contradictory characteristics. Who is your killer? Did he know his victims before he killed them or were they stranger murders? Those are two very different personalities and there are many others for a killer. C.M.

I agree with Aaron. It would be very helpful for you if you could at least define the MC's primary profile first; his childhood, relationship with parent and siblings in his early years, his junior school life and friends - That will also help in your motive identification. Otherwise you are likely to include too many things along the way.

This is exactly what I'm working on now in my most important project.

In writing it, I couldn't get anything at all done without BECOMING the criminal in my mind and thinking about how I'm going to commit these crimes... then outlining everything he does from his perspective. Most of that won't make it into the final product and it is a very, very disturbing exercise, believe me. But without that I'm completely nowhere...