Murder mystery
I recently wrote and ran a "murder mystery" game for my husband's birthday. The theme was Agatha Christie, and I wrote the whole thing from scratch - 25 roles worth, plus a role for me and two roles for my husband. We actually only had 22 players as three people dropped out after I had already written the parts, and the size was just about perfect; enough people running around to stay interesting but not so many as to be overwhelming.
One of the coolest parts of the experience was how much I felt I was learning about writing in general. I didn't expect this at all - I just wanted to crank it out as fast as possible and hopefully give my friends, and particularly my husband, a fun evening. But not only did I have an absolute blast writing it (I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan, so combining so many favorite tropes was quite entertaining), but I also felt like I finished it with a better understanding of trope, pacing (partially through running the game), writing clearly but succinctly, and expressing character through language. Each character sheet was about a page long, single-spaced, but for me, at least, most of those characters came alive by the end of their requisite paragraphs. Not only that, but I had an absurd amount of information to pack into a small space, with enough clarity and pop that hopefully most of it (except the names) would be memorable enough that the player wouldn't have to refer to her sheet every five minutes. I'm guessing it worked at least partially, since I didn't see huge amounts of sheet-reading.
My husband noted afterwards that people got more into character than ever before (this is our fourth such party, just the first that I have personally written). I am not sure if this was because of the ease of slipping into that English country house murder mystery trope, or because I was able to express enough character with my words (or some combination of the two), but I am very pleased with the result, no matter the cause!
I also learned a fair amount about plotting a murder mystery. Of course, in a game I as the writer didn't have as much control over how we got to the end (and there were a few interesting and unexpected character interpretations), but I had to lay out all the plot trip wires, all the motives, and the actual series of events. By the night of the party, I had a complex map of interrelations in my mind, who knew what information, how each character felt about the important people in their lives, what secrets needed to come out, etc. Everyone had to be tied into the web of interaction and intrigue in some way. It felt very similar to when I was holding a novel in my head, only possibly better organized.
I'll be posting some more of this year's reading list shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the end of autumn!
One of the coolest parts of the experience was how much I felt I was learning about writing in general. I didn't expect this at all - I just wanted to crank it out as fast as possible and hopefully give my friends, and particularly my husband, a fun evening. But not only did I have an absolute blast writing it (I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan, so combining so many favorite tropes was quite entertaining), but I also felt like I finished it with a better understanding of trope, pacing (partially through running the game), writing clearly but succinctly, and expressing character through language. Each character sheet was about a page long, single-spaced, but for me, at least, most of those characters came alive by the end of their requisite paragraphs. Not only that, but I had an absurd amount of information to pack into a small space, with enough clarity and pop that hopefully most of it (except the names) would be memorable enough that the player wouldn't have to refer to her sheet every five minutes. I'm guessing it worked at least partially, since I didn't see huge amounts of sheet-reading.
My husband noted afterwards that people got more into character than ever before (this is our fourth such party, just the first that I have personally written). I am not sure if this was because of the ease of slipping into that English country house murder mystery trope, or because I was able to express enough character with my words (or some combination of the two), but I am very pleased with the result, no matter the cause!
I also learned a fair amount about plotting a murder mystery. Of course, in a game I as the writer didn't have as much control over how we got to the end (and there were a few interesting and unexpected character interpretations), but I had to lay out all the plot trip wires, all the motives, and the actual series of events. By the night of the party, I had a complex map of interrelations in my mind, who knew what information, how each character felt about the important people in their lives, what secrets needed to come out, etc. Everyone had to be tied into the web of interaction and intrigue in some way. It felt very similar to when I was holding a novel in my head, only possibly better organized.
I'll be posting some more of this year's reading list shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the end of autumn!