We’ve gone over how to hide evidence, we’ve gone over how to create a good protagonist and a good antagonist. Now we will discuss how to create the rest of the cast: the suspects.
The suspects are the people who could be the antagonist, but the protagonist cannot be sure. Think of Snape from “Harry Potter.” He’s a character who Harry thinks might be the culprit, but he is proven wrong. Suspects are the people your protagonist must investigate. But how does one go about writing a list of suspects? How does one create characters who could have done the deed without making it obvious who the real antagonist is?
It is very difficult to create a list of suspects who could not have done the deed and still have the real perpetrator remain hidden. I have found it far easier to create a lineup where most, if not all, the suspects could have committed the crime. The most important thing to keep track of when writing your suspects is their means, motive, and opportunity.
Means refers to the method the suspect could have used to commit the crime. If it’s murder, then the means is the murder weapon. If it’s theft, then the means is their skill and whatever tools they used. If your suspect is to be, well, suspected, then they need to have means. One cannot kill someone without a way of killing them. Also, if it is a murder, the weapon does not have to be conventional. It can range from a revolver to a freight train. I watched an episode of “Death in Paradise” last night where the means was a cigarette, which burned the room where the victim was sleeping, suffocating them in smoke. Get creative with your means. Make it a puzzle for the reader and the protagonist to figure out, or be outright with it.
Motive is probably the most important of the three. It refers to the reason one would go about committing the crime. For a theft, it could be because they cannot pay for the care their dying child needs. For murder, it could be covering up a scandal. Those are obviously not the only two motives the writer must use. One can come up with tons of different motives, and spread them out across the list of suspects. Motives can also have thematic resonance. They can help bring more meaning into the story, telling the audience something. The story can ask a moral or philosophical question, and the motive can provide the answer, or lead to more questions. You can use the trolley problem. Is killing one person to save more people worth it? Or you can ask other questions, such as what one might do to preserve happiness. The thematic potential is endless.
Opportunity is the when to the crime. The antagonist might know how they’re going to commit the crime, opportunity is the time they commit the crime and where they’re at on the playing field. For instance, anyone without an alibi or a witness does potentially have the opportunity to commit whatever crime has taken place. Make sure to give stories for each of your suspects, putting them at specific places at the time the deed is done. Make sure they all have a part to play in the story somewhere, whether or not they are the antagonist.
Having your protagonist investigate your suspects is fun, and having the protagonist speculate on these three things for each of them makes the puzzle more challenging for the audience. But make sure to remember that these characters are still people, not puzzle pieces. They should have personality, flaws, and a story of their own. Don’t treat them as a plot device, but as an individual.
A bonus tip before I go: introduce the culprit early on in the story, so they blend into the background and the reader suspects them less since they are not on the audience’s minds as much as the new suspects and pieces of evidence are. Having your antagonist appear early is a great way of hiding them in plain sight.
Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day.