Trouble cooking up a mystery for my UF

I guess I'm not having trouble, per se, because I do have a good idea of the mystery that's going to take place in my current work, but it's a bit vague and sketchy.

Primarily? I don't know the killer's motives.

Secondarily, I don't have this whole thing planned out ahead of time and you always hear that with mysteries, you have to plan the whole thing out ahead of time.

I should mention that this is not a police procedural type novel, given that my "sleuth" is in no way a detective or in law enforcement or really anything more than just an inquisitive and persistent woman who more than anything craves justice in the world. See, I grew up reading Nancy Drew and honestly those are the kinds of mysteries that I wouldn't mind writing, and my main female character loves getting her hands in this kind of stuff, so writing it from her perspective comes easily (if I think about plotting a mystery, it bores me). She's absolutely fascinated with it. But I can't seem to get into the villain's head and worse - don't really want to.

Just feel like I'm screwing myself here but then another part of me says that what I've got going right now is fine. That of course the story isn't going to look all neat and tidy and wrapped in police tape and reports because my character isn't a cop. She's just a concerned citizen who possesses an ability that allows her to do something about those concerns. Much more than the average citizen could do.

Since urban fantasy novels do typically feature some kind of mystery as the central plot, do you guys plan it out ahead or just let it unfold as you write it? As it unfolds before your protagonist?

Thanks!

Yeah, I guess I should have figured that my question was basically a plan-or-pants type question, but somehow it felt different at the time. Mind you, I did write that post very early in the morning so I wasn't quite fully awake yet.

Anyway, the mystery isn't even a huge part of the story - it's a menage HEA type thing - but because the girl in the story is working this "case" the men get pulled in to it, too. The story will mostly revolve around the three of them falling in love. Each of the characters starts out loving or being romantically interested in another of the characters, but it's an unrequited wheel thing going on, as in: Gina loves Tommy loves Jody loves Gina, so no one's love is immediately returned. The story tells how the love does come about to be requited, if that makes a lick of sense. So the mystery is just the... well, the plot device I guess, that brings them all together.

Ugh. I feel like I'm yammering and making this all about as clear as mud - I often feel like I should double-post about stuff like this: once here in UF and another time in romance. I still can't seem to figure out whether what I write is "in-line" enough to be a romance or if I'm still struggling with calling myself a romance writer or if I just bristle at the thought of the "rules" that seem to rule over the romance world or what. I guess what I really write is paranormal romance because it's often the love portion of a story that gets my creative juices flowing and all.

I admit, there's still some part of me that doesn't want to be identified as a romance writer, and I don't know why that is, and I'm ashamed of it - of my making a big deal over what is really nothing. There is so much junk in my brain in regards to gender roles and that dumb little voice that just sits there and says, "Well of course you want to write romance because you're a woman and that's all women can write about is emotional stuff and lurve, and la-la-la. They can't write about anything important or big or about anything that has a huge social impact," etc. and it's just shitty and horrible that there's that programming still in me from who knows where. I want to get rid of it and I want to be proud of what I write and I do love what I write. I do. I just don't want to tell people what I do and then have that voice pop up in my head and tell me that when those same people encourage me or say, "How good for you," they're really thinking, "Oh, how sweet. A woman writing about idealistic love. That's real original. Good for her. Bless her little heart," and all that crap.

I just... I want to write something BIG, you know? I want to write a book (okay, books - loads and loads of them if I'm able) that really and truly touch hearts and change minds and all that kind of stuff. I want to write books that people will talk about long after I'm gone because they so speak to the human condition and they're universal in that way, and...

I suppose y'all get what I mean. And I guess I feel like romance novels, even at their best, are only so much wish-fulfillment and nothing more. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I've never heard anyone rave to their friends about how a romance novel changed their lives or gave to them a whole new outlook on life the way they might about others. Now, I have seen where some people have said that reading MMF's or MM's or FFM's or what-have-you's made them more sympathetic to the gay and lesbian community and that is very encouraging to me because I want that - I want the reader to let their guard down while they read my books and walk away with maybe a new perspective or a challenged belief, etc. - but that is the only time I've heard that.

Anywho, delusions of grandeur, much? Because I want to be George Orwell, I want to be Cormac McCarthy, I want to be one of the big guys whose names are recognizable by almost everyone - not because the fame part sounds appealing to me but because I want my name to be recognizable due to the number of lives and hearts touched by my books.

Okay, I did NOT mean for this to get so long. I swear it's this part of me that wants to spill my guts to people I've never seen and will probably never meet that makes me a good writer. Right?

I'll post some more later (hopefully something more on topic).

Oh, yes. Wanted to add that I will definitely try and get in my villain's head even though the "mystery" part isn't quite as huge to me as the falling in love bits because it is important to the story, and even though my first reaction is to balk at getting in a villain's head.

Also, I am wondering if my aversion to plotting or outlining or whatever you want to call it will fade with time. I'm hoping it's like when I first encountered mention of "rules" like "use adverbs sparingly," and that type of stuff where my first reaction was "Mofo, don't tell me what I can't write - writing is art and in art there are no rulez!!!" and now I read books that break these guidelines and I'm like "Damn, them rulez is right on, Dani." I had to see them broken to appreciate their value. Just like so many rewrites and edits have me looking much more open-mindedly into plotting ahead even though it raises my muse's hackles in that she is convinced that if you can plot it out coldly ahead of time then it isn't really art, isn't really writing.

More rambling later, lol...

Mytherea said:

Possibly, possibly not. I read an article written by a writer who went full-time author and the things she had to change in her process simply because she no longer had the time. One was writing out the full first draft before editing. Another was not outlining/planning ahead. Reasons were, she's now on a tight schedule and a publisher wants to see a solid outline for a book before handing over an advance if you've got a book deal or are becoming a reoccurring author they publish...

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That makes sense. As an unpublished author, I have the luxury of exploratory drafts if I want them. As a published author, I might not.

Hmm....

Might be best then to at least adopt a "middle-of-the-road" approach now, before I'm published and while I've got time to find which method is the right fit for me. I can't imagine how stressful it would be to try and figure out - among the many, many methods of outlining there are out there - which one to adopt, and all with the pressure of a deadline looming over me.

johnhallow said:

About the whole romance thing, I get you. The books that people discuss over time/that become classics tend to be the ones jam-packed with insight.

I think you could just create a similar pen name and do both. Write compelling but deep and meaningful stories with one name, and use the other name to write pure wish fulfilment... because I get the vibe that you do enjoy the pure wish fulfilment aspect but your feelings about how you want people to perceive you are throwing a wrench in the works.

You'll have a lot of trouble deciding on what to stick with until you sort that out, because there'll always be this tug of war between what you want to put down and what you FEEL you should put down (i.e. something that will be in keeping with your perceived persona).

To cut this short post, you CAN have your cake and eat it

And you get the added bonus of wowing the ignorant "romance sux" crowd when you kindly point to the long list of deep, insightful stories you've produced.

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Thanks for your kind words. I think you're right on in that I do enjoy the wish fulfillment aspect. I just wish I didn't, lol. I guess it's aggravating to me that I enjoy something that is pretty much not real. Because then I want it to be real and it isn't and that makes me mad, if that makes sense.

And yeah, it's something I need to sort out and am actively trying to do, before trying to get published. But I do see what you're saying in that I could do both. I suppose the only thing stopping me is me. Well, that and the fact that I don't know that I have anything really deep or insightful to share with the world, as it were.

Anyway, thank you again. Your words were really comforting to me.

MumblingSage said:

^This. I mean, 2 words: Jane Austen.

Romance is awesome, is one of the most widely-read genres, and can totally go along with all the deep insights you want. Same with wish fulfillment. Being happy and being smart are not opposite faces of human existence!

I hear you on the 'rules of romance' sometimes chafing, but really they're just broad guidelines (at the least, I've been publishing stuff marketed as romance which frequently flouts the rules, so).

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Thank you. This is very encouraging. I'm frequenting the romance board here lately, trying to get my romance pride on, as it were and so far it seems to be doing wonders. There's no sense in my fighting what it is I really want to write, and if I'm going to write it, I might as well go on and be proud of it, right? Easier said than done, but I am trying.

Just wanted to let y'all know that I took some time and wrote a bit from my villain's POV and man is this dude a sick puppy. Anyway, it gave me some insight into his motives and such so I'm hoping it'll help me figure out how he commits these murders and why.