Writing (And Not Selling) Murder Mysteries
Year #4 Is In the Books!
The fourth installment in my murder mystery series wraps up tonight. For four years in a row, I’ve gathered friends in one or two parties to role-play characters suspected of a murder. Themes vary: In March 2020, days before lockdown, the “murder” took place on a cruise ship, only for the players to discover no murder happened after all. (To be honest, I was terrified that the party wouldn’t be taken seriously, that the person chosen to be the murderer would leave the party halfway through. Screaming and fighting over clues proved me wrong.) The next year was old Hollywood. Then Wild Wild West. Tonight? The 1984 Miss North Dakota Pageant. Next year? Summer camp. As it turns out, 12-15 of my friends, now 24-30, are interested in dressing up, reading from cards, and solving word scrambles. In fact, they look forward to it.
Writing murder mystery parties, as it turns out, is a gateway drug. I cannot properly describe the buzz of peace and passion that envelops me as I put together these parties. I love writing dialogue. The right twist hits like a cold sip of beer. Handing them over to my friends and watching how they play with the characters, discover different arcs, and come to their own conclusion about the killer? I’m high. It wasn’t long before I wanted a higher dose of creativity, and I started seriously pursuing the idea of writing and publishing a novel. Like, a real one. Like the ones you buy in airports. (Bookstores too, but whenever I pass by an airport bookstore and envision my name in bold font held up by a plastic display frame, I feel the rush.)
I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to write novels full-time. Isn’t that the dream? One unattainable enough that my practical mind shoved it into the folds of my brain until the murder mysteries left everything raw and exposed. I want to be traditionally published, to do book tours, make bestseller lists, the whole nine yards — I want my main source of income to come from writing fiction. Will that ever happen? It doesn’t matter. No one indulges in a cold beer or gateway drugs because they’re going to feel like good forever.
Money rules everything around us. People tell me all the time I should sell the murder mystery parties. I won’t lie - I’ve considered it. I threw up a couple of pictures on Etsy, even sold a party, and dropped it off personally to a nice woman in Buda. If I tried a little harder, I could probably find a UT intern to put together a prototype and put together a much better listing, for a decent hourly rate. (Very anti-unpaid-internships.) I could do it. If I wanted to.
But if writing the parties is a cold beer, the idea of marketing them is a shot of spicy tequila that you find out was non-alcoholic the whole time. Blegh. Writing novels? It’s the best feeling in the world. Querying? Pitching? Sending out my novel to agents and publishers? Ooh, that hits, too. So the decision was really made for me. Unless anyone’s got a UT student who needs some college credit, I’ll be hosting parties and working on my novel tomorrow, thanks.
