The different types of villains and scenarios in mysteries (especially whodunits)

writera

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(I posted a similar but different topic before - about the best ways to hide a murderer, see here: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/in...thods-to-conceal-murderers-in-a-story.360814/ but this time I want to talk about the types of villains/murders as well.)

I'm choosing three main types I can think of but at the bottom of this post I've also listed a couple more, and there's many more. So feel free to discuss other types as well as the ones I've listed. (I'm also mainly focusing on murder mystery and thrillers here but we can also incorporate all sorts of non-murder mysteries such as crime capers/heist stories into the discussion too so thieves, con men/women, etc. They don't all have to be killers as there's a lot of great mysteries without murders too - it's just easier to come up with examples of those types off the top of my head.)

1. The "obvious" killer - if the writer at least attempt to make us doubt it?

You know, the character that might as well have a neon sign over their head screaming THIS GUY (OR GIRL) IS A KILLER! They're often the horrible, mean-spirited character - the abusive ex, the frenemy type, the nasty neighbour, or the deadbeat guardian. The type of person that just screams KILLER early on. And often they're so obvious the reader (or viewer in the case of a movie/TV show) dismisses them instantly. And usually they do end up being innocent, just a red herring.

But sometimes, just sometimes, they ARE the culprit. A classic example in movies that comes to mind might be the movie
SCREAM, where the skeevy boyfriend is clearly the killer but we're made to doubt that as he's so obvious and then near the end of the film he's apparently killed until it turns out he wasn't really

How do you feel about them when you read a book (or watch a movie or TV show)? Do you feel disappointed even if the writer made you feel they were too obvious to be the killer and you dismissed them - does a lingering sense of disappointment still show up once they're revealed even though you'd already convinced yourself it wasn't them?

Usually I'm disappointed to be honest. Less so if I've since ruled them out because they had a strong alibi or seemed to be dead or even just they were so obvious, but still I think there's some residual disappointment. What tips would you give a writer who might have one of those obvious killers in their book but still wants it to be them to avoid the residue of disappointment? Other than rethinking the character entirely and choosing another culprit. I mean, sometimes the obvious nasty type has to be the killer, it can't always be the one you least expect that's sweet and/or on the sidelines or they too become too obvious by virtue of seeming to be the least likely.

2. The "least likely" suspect

Which brings us to the second type. How do we feel about those characters - the ones it seems it possibly couldn't be - the innocent mother, the innocent child - in at least one Agatha Christie novel
"Crooked House"
or the nice neighbour, the sweet little old lady who lives down the road, the best friend with a heart of gold. Sometimes these types seem so obviously NOT the killer that, like I said, to a seasoned reader of crime/mystery fiction (or viewer of crime/mystery movies/TV shows) they too might as well have a neon sign.

Many writers are encouraged to use this type and many do but now readers and viewers are (consciously or unconsciously) trained to look out for them so they too have often become just as obvious as the first type.


3. The "hidden" (or sidelined) villain

Sometimes keeping the character on the sidelines, on the very edge of the novel or movie can work too (countless examples - such as in the novel and movie
The Bone Collector
or the movie
Scream 2
and many more) but if not done carefully it can seem very cheap and comes with its own disappointments as we feel we don't know the character, almost like they're a deus ex machina, barely seen delivering something or fixing a piece of equipment or being a cop or reporter on the sidelines (in many of these stories, they often work as a cop/reporter, or are in the service industry so they seem to be just sideline characters, or are on the sidelines in other respects, popping in here or there but not focused on as main characters, so seemingly unimportant for the bulk of the story) at the start of the book/movie and then pop up at the end, suddenly evil with a big speech.

If done well, these ones DO still work for me though, simply because by virtue of keeping them so hidden, I might not have even noticed them. But, again, that can feel cheap or unsatisfying when the reveal comes.

Other thoughts but Villain Types 4 - 99,000+.

Above are the three main types I can think of. How do we feel about them? What trips YOU up as a reader/viewer - what, aside from the tropes of strong alibi, lack of motive, or seemingly dead, do you find pulls the wool over your eyes?

And feel free to list more - there's lots, the secret relative is another one that springs to mind which often coincides with the last example above, the police detective who turns out to be a baddie, etc. etc. ad infinitum. (I'm not sure if these villain/killer types have actual trope names - if they do, feel free to name them too.)
 
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Friendly Frog

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I've enjoyed reading stores with all three types. Both in thrillers, and more comedic outings like say Arsenic and Old Lace, that wonderfully bonkers movie with Cary Grant.

I dislike the 'obvious killer' if the character is horrible just to be horrible. I like more nuance in characters, even in cold-hearted criminals. I prefer more a 'Red Herring' variant where you can sort of tell the writer is pointing to one specific character as being the murderer (without necessarily being a jerk), and you're just waiting to see how the writer will handle pulling the rug from under you. "Surprise! You (or the MC) thought this person was the purp! You were wrong because of [REASON]!"


But sometimes I dislike knowing where I am in the book, because if you're too early in the book and the culprit is revealed, you just know there will be a reason they're not because there is still so much book yet to fill.
 
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writera

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Been thinking about this topic a bit more, in relation to my own recent WIP and also general murder mystery movies and novels I've enjoyed reading. I present you with 5 scenarios (some of these overlap with the villain types in the OP but not all of them) and am curious on people's thoughts on these:

Scenario 1A: The killer is the first victim (let's say there are a handful of victims) who faked their death and killed someone who resembled them, passing the body of that person (perhaps, for example, with face disfigured) off as their own (perhaps briefly - small town, limited forensics, isolated island setting, whatever, etc.) and then used the opportunity to sneak around and kill other people.

Scenario 1B: Same as 1A - but the victim is a later victim, not the first one, and goes into hiding after their "death". In this scenario, they could either pass someone else off as them or just appear to die themselves without using a decoy body. Agatha Christie has famously used this.

Scenario 2: The main character (and the reader) comes to believe Scenario 1 above, but there's a double twist - the killer is actually the lookalike person whose body the character thought was being used as a decoy. They killed the first victim and the other victims. This is a less known twist but there's issues with it (see below).

I like the idea of this double twist as you get a bit of Scenario 1 and a bit of Scenario 2 - but there's a problem. Apart from it being arguably confusing, it also means when the lookalike (let's call them Mr. or Ms. X), who could be a relative (twin or just cousin who looks like the first victim), when they're revealed at the end, the reader might go "who?" And I can't see a way for you to have them be much of a character in the book as they might only appear for a few scenes briefly before the first victim is bumped off - and then show up at the end for the reveal. They'd have to be kept hidden throughout the rest of the novel for the characters and reader to think they were the body used to disguise the first victim being killed, so there's little room for characterisation. Is this a problem? One solution is to go with Scenario 1B - but, as it's been done by AC and others a lot, I'm more curious how the writer could pull off 1A instead.

Scenario 3: A random person from the cast is the murderer. You could still bring in a little of Scenario 1, maybe even a touch of Scenario 3, but they turn out to be red herrings and it's just one of the cast of characters - suitable motive, hopefully hidden. This is the conventional outcome usually.

Scenario 4 (Also seen in one of the villain types above): The most obvious suspect. This one is tricky. It can be disappointing because the reader already guessed them, but if the writer is smart they can make the character seem so obvious that the reader also quickly dismisses them. So they suspect them, then think no way this person is way too obvious, dismisses them, and then they're revealed.

Scenario 5 (A combo of two villain types above): The least obvious or sidelined suspect. This one seems quite popular as conventional wisdom seems to be the writer should always choose the least likely suspect and make them the villain (or, if they already know going into the writing who the villain is, to characterise them carefully so they seem the least likely) but it's the one I like the least. And that's because I think readers have gotten too savvy and now look automatically for the quiet, unassuming, sidelined, alibi-proof, whatever it is, character. And that person, by virtue of being the least obvious, becomes glaringly obvious to be the killer.

-

Which of these scenarios do you personally prefer? Can you think of better/other scenarios? And particularly interested in people's thoughts on the first 2 scenarios because I've used a version of one of them in a recent WIP and now am rethinking it. I also just like discussing this topic in general as trying to figure out whodunnit has become my hobby at the moment, in various murder mystery novels and movies. It can be fun to write them but it's more fun when you don't already know, trying to figure it out.
 
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lexxi

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What if many potential suspects all have alibis and can be dismissed, so the focus is on the few who don't have alibis and/or who immediately appear to have strong motives. And then as those red herrings get eliminated and new information becomes available, there can be new reason to suspect one of the alibied characters and figure out how he could have done it after all.
 
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1. The "obvious" killer - if the writer at least attempt to make us doubt it?

I think, as with all cases, the efficacy of this trope is in how it's executed. Is this a character that's just designed to be a hate sponge, (thinking Umbridge from HP) or a justifiably cynical douche canoe that you can explore a bit?

I personally like when the MC doesn't bother to look past the surface view or first impression, which can happen for a host of reasons. Our distracted detective sees an imposing, tatted' up, belligerent biker or something, who seems to be actively obstructionist to the investigation. Firmly installed their 'I'm the killer' neon sign themselves.

Because the MC is the readers' POV, that's what we see too. Turns out big bad-biker is a sweetheart, and just doesn't like cops because of (insert one of ten million reasons not to like cops) and is otherwise a pillar of the community. Bonus points if there are clues to that effect throughout.

The obvious bad-guy being the bad-guy is something I like less. Not so much for the bad-guy portion of that statement, but the obvious part of it. I like my mystery thrillers to be mysteries, and ones that I can work on beside the MC. It's not as fun for me if the bad-guy is very clearly the bad-guy. I like my douche canoes to be sprinkled about, have reasonable things to dislike about them and, whenever possible, to be likeable in their own way. Evil politician who's trying to blame immigrants for everything from cost of food to bad weather? Yup, that's a douche canoe there, but he's also charismatic as hell, an avid family man, and runs the local soup kitchen or something. Doesn't outweigh the douche-factor, but also doesn't glue little red-horns and a twirly moustache to his face.

2. The "least likely" suspect

I like these with some caveats. If they're only sweet and nice on the surface, I like it less. I want genuinely pleasant people pushed to their limits and snapping. It's the little peak into the Human condition that I enjoy on these folks. That mom who just couldn't stand by anymore while her kid was abused, the friendly old guy who offed their drug peddling neighbour, the dad avenging his kid. Those things really make you poke yourself and ask what would it take for ME to go ham with a machete?

Dan Brown does it in the way I don't like. The Least Likely murder is almost always there, front of line, being SUPER helpful, just so they can lead Langdon around by the nose to get what they want. It got to the point that by book 3, I was like: "Oh, this super helpful, nice, well meaning fella is DEFINITELY the killer." and there's not good clues pointing at it until the big reveal, which is always annoying. Like I said, I wanna do the mystery part too. If you can't figure out who the murderer is based on the evidence provided in the book by the 3/4 mark, then I'm grumpy about it. That's not to say if you just can't fit the clues together, I mean if you literally CAN'T do it. Not enough puzzle pieces to put together, kind of thing. That's flustering as all get-out, regardless of trope, though.

3. The "hidden" (or sidelined) villain
I generally don't like these, but for, again, a caveat. I'm okay with it if (and you may sense a theme here) there's enough clues to actually pin the bastard. There should be in-story inconsistencies and seemingly out of context bits of evidence that you can use to be like 'oh, heck, that red hair could belong to the barista we saw in chapter two,' or something. At the very least, when the reveal happens, we should see. Generally, for these you need a lot more evidence to overcome that 'hidden' quality, since the reader expects the BBEG to get a certain amount of screen time.
 
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