  Mystery
This week: Elementary (School) My Dear Watson! Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week: "The sweetest smiles hide the darkest secrets."
~Sara Shepard |
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Kids love puzzles, excitement, and surprise, all the elements of a good mystery. If you need help developing those elements in your stories, writing mysteries for kids might be just the practice you need. I don't mean to imply that writing for children is easy. Mystery fans are a tough audience regardless of their ages, and young readers have little patience for a story that bores them.
Murder mysteries may not be appropriate for elementary school children, but a good mystery does not need to involve dead bodies or violence. Lost pets, missing objects, secret codes, and buried treasures are great subjects for this age group. Stories for older children and teens can include more sinister events and characters. For stories you will post on Writing.com, remember to rate your stories appropriately for your target age group. If you will be submitting your story to a publisher or magazine, make sure and find out any content restrictions they might have in advance.
Mysteries for young readers should follow the rules for any good mystery, with a few modifications:
 Introduce all suspects as early as possible, and give the reader all the information necessary to solve the puzzle, without making it too obvious.
Plot twists or surprise endings should be unexpected, but not unbelievable.
All subplots should be related to the main plot. Kids' stories tend to be shorter than those written for adults, so you may need to stick to one main plot with few or no subplots.
Make sure your characters are realistic. Unless you are the age of your target audience, this may take some research. Slang and fashion change rapidly, so you don't need to be old to be out of touch. Try to portray child and teen characters as they are, not as your "ideal" image of a child.
Don't make things too easy for your characters. Let them get in trouble or encounter roadblocks as they solve the puzzle. If your characters are school children, the roadblocks will come naturally. Your young amateur detective may have basketball practice after school, a 10:00 pm curfew, and a math test in the morning. Even Sherlock Holmes might have trouble solving a mystery on top of all that!
Avoid deus ex machina endings. A deus ex machina happens when an authority figure shows up to save the day or explain everything. Don't take the easy way out by letting a parent, teacher, or other adult show up in the nick of time and be the hero. If at all possible, let the child characters get themselves out of trouble or solve the mystery on their own. If you are a parent or teacher, you may identify with the adult characters, but resist the temptation to let them take over the story. Adults should be part of a kids' story only if their role is extremely important. Keep the focus on the kids.
Something to try: Write a story about the main character in one of your stories as a young boy or girl.
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Answer to last month's question: How much is your main character like you?
blunderbuss
That's an interesting question. When I am writing about someone young, there are parts of me which pre-date my adult state and I can recognise that I am not like that now! Also, some of my characters have aspects of my personality which are NOT pleasant - which I suppress I suppose - so it's exciting to write them out!
Question for next time: What did you like to read when you were a child?
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Mystery: March 27, 2013 Issue [#5587]
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