Let's talk motive

 

When I first started writing murder mystery dinner party scripts I did what ever modern person does, I searched the internet for how to do it.  There are a lot of great blogs that outline the basics.  Personally, I quickly became frustrated by the lack of detail beyond an outline.  Create a plot?  How is that helpful?  I wondered if  they didn't want to go into detail because then it would be selling the cow along with the milk.  Giving away the tricks of the trade and ultimately diminishing their livelihood.  I think I was being overdramatic.  Most likely it's because teaching someone how to write is more than the scope of a simple blog article.  

I don't make a living writing.  I have not been formally trained in the art of writing. I do love to read and I love analyzing story.  I enjoy editing and I enjoy writing murder mystery scripts.  So with that being said, I wanted to get into the nitty gritty of how I proceed once I have a theme for the murder mystery.  Before I can figure out who the "villian" is or what they have done, I have to create the over arching motive.  Because everyone has motive in a murder mystery party, you need all the ideas you can get in my opinion.

So let's brainstorm on the Mystery Writer Convention Murder Mystery Party!

1. Revenge
1. Revenge for stolen success
2. revenge for specific incident
3. revenge for a perceived slight
2. Murder by Death style
1. If you've never seen Murder by Death ... Just do yourself a favor and go watch it.  It basically means that the motive is that the villian, or characters, are trying to prove they are the best.  The best detective, or in our case, the best mystery writer.  They all had information they were trying to hide that was used as a reveal as potential motive for murder but ultimately only has a way for each detective to reveal information about another that would prove they were the best detective.
3. Fear, the need to hide daming information
1. has a ghost writer
2. stole their last book idea
3. dwindling 
4. To stop a crime or abuse to themselves or a loved one
1. generally considered self defense
5. To eliminate a source of debt; either from blackmail, loan, or favor
6. love, lust, or passion
7. impulse
8. jealousy
9. tradgedy
10. to get an object of desire
1. job
2. acknowledgement of acheivement
3. removing competition for love interest
4. win competition

This is going to be a working list for now.  There are a ton of potential motives and I haven't listed them all.  I personally rank motives in my own head based on the likelyhood someone would commit a crime to fulfill the motive but there are a lot of different people in the world and the range of possibilities are very wide indeed.  Certainly wider than the ones that make logical sense to me.  Don't think of this list as too small either.  Multiple characters can be motivated by jealousy but it will look different and be motivated differently in each character.  The final motives of your villian will evolve as you brainstorm and create.  Don't get too married to one idea at first.  You're going to give each character a story, not just a one word motive.