Two murders, two perps, one book...does it work?

Bluestone · Jan 18, 2009

I really like my first novel (which is finished) and I really like the premise of my second (50 pages into it), but I'm feeling that the first could benefit from more sustained suspense and the second may not have enough for a full book, but it's a good story.

The same characters are in both books (except for the person who is murdered in the first), so I'm wondering if they can be combined, so that there are two unrelated murders and two distinct and unrelated murderers, resolved separately, but with an intertwining thread of characters, scene and some overlapping development. Does this work? Have you seen it work? Have you done it?

GirlWithPoisonPen · Jan 18, 2009

The only way I can see it working is for the person trying to break the case to initially think that that both murders were done by the same person. It's only when more evidence comes in that the investigator realizes that the are unrelated.

JamieFord · Jan 18, 2009

I think you're going to have to weave them together somehow, so they don't compete for the reader's attention. Like Silence of the Lambs, where there were two criminals on the loose.

Inarticulate Babbler · Jan 18, 2009

Have you read the John Sandford Prey series? (There's 19 of them.) His 3rd--Eyes of Prey had two killers.

Bluestone · Jan 19, 2009

I love John Sandford. I haven't read that one, but I'll definitely look for it. Coincidentally, I just finished his book, Dark of the Moon, yesterday - a Davenport spinoff. Thanks!

Just a thought: did you feel Eyes of Prey worked as well as the others?

Prawn · Jan 19, 2009

If you are a first-time novelist, I wouldn't complicate things for yourself. I'd write book 2 until it was done. If it isn't long enough, you could combine with it with 1 later, or you may move on to book 3. You will do a better job of combining things if you have 2 novels under your belt than if you have only written one. Book 2 may surprise you and be better than 1. Just because Stafford did something in one of his 19 published books is no reason to believe it will be easy for you to do in the first novel you've ever done. If it was such a great plot device, why is only in one of his 19 books? I wrote 4 novels, then came back and combined 1 and 2 (trimming about 80K words in the process) and that is the book that got me an agent. If I had not written 4 novels, my efforts and combining books 1 an 2 would have been harder, and the ultimate result not as good.

Bluestone · Jan 19, 2009

Prawn said:
I wrote 4 novels, then came back and combined 1 and 2 (trimming about 80K words in the process) and that is the book that got me an agent. If I had not written 4 novels, my efforts and combining books 1 an 2 would have been harder, and the ultimate result not as good.

Okay, point taken. I'm not wed to the concept, but since I've abandoned the idea of making this a series I thought it might be a good idea to beef up the first one. BTW, do you have two murders in the combined book?

Prawn · Jan 19, 2009

No, there were not two murders. You are doing well to have finished your first novel. Good luck on the second!

wrinkles · Jan 19, 2009

I assume the murder solver is the same in both stories. I agree with the idea of combining both into one book if you have any doubts about the strength of either. I'm unpublished, so what do I know, but I'm proceeding on the assumption that in order to get published the first time, your manuscript has to be at least a story-and-a-half, if not two stories worth of writing. After that, you can write just a story's worth at a time.

So again, assuming that the detective, PI, or whomever is the same in both books, I think two seemingly unrelated murders is a good thing, but I'll bet you can find a way to relate them somewhere along the way. Maybe some connection between the victims, the perps, or maybe a third party connects both, maybe a connection with the detective, a place, a historical event, still another murder, something.

Do you have a good beta reader?

Inarticulate Babbler · Jan 19, 2009

Bluestone said:
I love John Sandford. I haven't read that one, but I'll definitely look for it. Coincidentally, I just finished his book, Dark of the Moon, yesterday - a Davenport spinoff. Thanks!

Just a thought: did you feel Eyes of Prey worked as well as the others?

If you've read Rules of Prey and Shadow Prey then Eyes of Prey and Silent Prey work awesomely, they are a definite progression.

Bluestone · Jan 19, 2009

Thanks, Prawn.

Yes, wrinkles, they are the same "murder solver"! I bet I can find some way to weave them together, but they'd still have to be two distinctly different murderers, because the motivation is entirely different.

And Inarticulate Babbler, I just picked up Eyes of Prey today. I want to see how that worked!

Novelist in Paradise · Jan 19, 2009

A trite sounding answer is that anything will work if in fact you can make it work, but my gut instinct is that having one "murder solver" solving two unrelated murders is going to be tricky with dangers of plot dilution -- two chains of clues, two foci of evil, etc. Maybe one murderer, the first one uncovered, could be a disciple in some manner of the greater evil dude?

Bluestone · Jan 20, 2009

Thanks Novelist. Unfortunately, one is a man, the other a woman, and so completely unrelated by motive as to be at opposite ends of the motivation spectrum. United by players, yes, so I could have the protagonist, who fires the first victim (she's an employee), be the red herring suspect in both murders, but otherwise it's not too easy to tie together. Oh well.

Stlight · Jan 20, 2009

Bluestone, I agree with Prawn, but if you want to read a series where the detective solves three crimes (usually murders) in one book, head for Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik. Classical Chinese dectective stories and extermely readable (is that really a word?)

S

Bluestone · Jan 21, 2009

Stlight said:
Bluestone, I agree with Prawn, but if you want to read a series where the detective solves three crimes (usually murders) in one book, head for Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik. Classical Chinese dectective stories and extermely readable (is that really a word?)

S

Hi Stlight: thanks. And yes, readable is a word...but extermely isn't!

Just teasing you. I know it was a typo.

James D. Macdonald · Jan 21, 2009

Give it a try. Cops generally don't have only one case to work on at a time.

djf881 · Jan 21, 2009

The thing needs to tie together into a plot.

For example, in "The Dain Curse," a number of seemingly unrelated catastrophes occur surrounding the same woman, but at the end they're revealed to have a common cause.

This is the best thing to do with seemingly unrelated events in a mystery; have them tie together in an interesting way.

If you don't want to twist the thing together, your two murders still need to both be related to the plot, even if they aren't related to each other. Maybe one killer slips through the protag's fingers, but he redeems himself by nailing the other one.

Two murders, two perps, one book...does it work?

Bluestone

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