Now and then The Real Me shares a writing tip. Here’s one repurposed from The LadyKillers blog, my other blog home.

I’m working on the manuscript for my 25^th mystery novel, ADDRESSED TO KILL, the third book in the Postmistress Mysteries by Jean Flowers. That’s a lot of victims, killers, weapons, and motives. I worry that I’ll repeat a pattern and there will be no mystery in the next mystery.

So, before I decide on the main elements of a novel, I consult my recorded history. In an effort to have my pub list be egalitarian (as many female as male victims and killers) and diverse (varying the weapons and the motives) I maintain the following chart*

Book   Victim          Killer              Weapon          Motive

1.               M                    F                      gun                  jealousy

2.              F                      F                      vehicle             politics

3.              F                      M                    poison             blackmail

4.            M                     M                      knife                greed

and so on.

* To avoid spoilers for those catching up with my backlist, these entries are fake. But you see the value in the real chart – it helps me spot patterns and avoid predictability. What if a reader notices that a gun is used in every third book, or that a male killer never uses a rope? Not that this guarantees unpredictability, but it helps!

I wonder who else uses gimmicks to support “creativity?”