Murder Mystery Event: How It All Turned Out

The murder mystery event was a success! (For background, the previous post on this topic is here.).

Quick recap: As a fund-raiser for a local history museum, I wrote an audience-participation murder mystery set in our town in 1920. Along with a core group of actors who carried the story, each guest was assigned the role of a specific townsperson: a pharmacist, a car salesman, a schoolteacher, etc. Throughout the evening, actors and guests mingled and clues and red-herrings were shared. Guests could then vote by ballot for whoever they thought committed the murder. At the end of the evening a winner was drawn from all those who had chosen the true murderer.

Chautauqua Performer meets Suffragette

Here are some tips for doing something similar to promote interest in the history of your town:

*Start with your local historical society and/or public library to read about the history of your town and determine a time period/theme for your story. In our case, the 1920s were a time when a lot was going on, locally as well as nationally.

*Research, research, research. Go through local newspapers, archives, and histories of the period and make note of interesting things that happened. While your story will be partly (or even largely) fictional, sifting in as many true facts as you can helps your audience learn real history.

*Stick with a classic storyline and broadly-drawn characters: heroes, villains, allies, enemies, etc. Go for comedy and old-fashioned melodrama; this is not the time for nuanced subtlety, a depressing story, or incisive commentary on the human condition. People are coming to have fun.

Sheriff and Train Conductor

* When casting roles, let actors play to their strengths and interests as much as possible. Got a guy with an interest in trains? Cast him a conductor! Encourage participants to research their own characters and help them find the resources to do this.

*Have fun with the time period. Since Prohibition was in effect in 1920, we enjoyed calling the wine "punch." A surprising number of people were seen carrying hip flasks. We also urged people to support the Nineteenth Amendment giving women nationwide the right to vote (women in Idaho already enjoyed that privilege--another fun fact unearthed in our research).

*Be respectful of the people you portray and their descendents. Even if the true-life characters in your story lived a long time ago, observe the same standards regarding slander and libel that you'd observe with a living person today. When in doubt, assign an evil deed to a completely fictional character. At the end of our production, we had the actors give a short summary of which parts of their characters were true and which were made up for the story.

Here are a few other miscellaneous lessons I learned from the process:

* It takes a village, or rather an eager team of people willing to take charge of various aspects of a

"Intrepid Girl Reporter" and Sheriff

production of our size. Not only did we need the actors (who in turn rustled up their own props and costumes), but as with other fund-raisers, we needed a venue, food, decorations, music, silent auction, etc. In our case we put someone in charge of the drama/story/theatrical portion (me) and someone else in charge of everything else (the museum director, who did a bang-up job but was also mighty tired), and lots of willing volunteers. Next time, we'll let some of those volunteers take a larger management role.

Obviously a smaller mystery party held in a private home would need less coordination. But at an event on the scale of ours, one or two people could burn out trying to manage all the details.

* Grown-ups still love to play make-believe. I was impressed by how many guests really got into their roles. In spite of being given only a line or two about their character plus a few tips on 1920s culture, slang, and fashion, many guests played their parts with great enthusiasm, and seemed to have fun doing it.

* Guests had fun AND learned something. Not only were funds raised for the museum, but another goal was achieved as well--each guests left the party knowing more than they did before about the history of our area. Mission accomplished!

I hope this series on planning and writing an audience-participation mystery party has been interesting to you. If you have any questions about our event or the process followed to put it together, please post it in the comments.

Murder Mystery Update: The Story Comes to Life

The history-mystery fund-raiser plan is percolating along! (For those who are following this event as it unfolds, the previous update is here.)

To recap, I've been writing a history-themed murder mystery to be performed at a fund-raiser on behalf of a local history museum. Last time I explained a little of how the story and characters were developed. Since then I've gotten some questions about the process, so here's a little Q and A.

Is the story based on an actual murder that really took place?

No. The crime is entirely fictional, some of the characters are purely fictional, and even the "real-person" characters do fictional things.It is above all a fun story meant to entertain, but we hope that some nuggets history will be learned along the way.

For example, the owners of a ladies' millinery shop play a role in the story. There really was a millinery shop on Sandpoint's Cedar Street in 1920, and the sisters who owned it really existed. But beyond that, we don't have many facts to go on: what their personalities were like, how they spoke, and so on. I ended up loosely basing those characters on dress-shop owners Ruby and Pearl Pratt in the delightful BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford.

Pearl and Ruby Pratt own the dress shop in Candleford

As with any good historical fiction, we've woven threads of make-believe onto an historical framework. Guests will learn about Prohibition, the local economy, political concerns of the day, fashions, music, and goings-on around town.

Will the guests be involved in the story, too?

Yes. As each guest sends an RSVP to the fund-raiser, he or she is assigned a real character from local history to portray, to the extent he or she is comfortable doing so, along some backstory and suggestions for costume and lingo. We'll have everyone from grocers to bankers to ranchers to loggers to schoolteachers, all partying like it's 1920.

How did you do your research?

Mostly from combing the local newspapers of 1920 and oral histories left by people who lived in the area. As the event is a fund-raiser for a history museum, making use of the museum's resources to do the research seemed appropriate.

Who did the crime?

I'm not telling.

Check back to find out more about "A Little Party Never Killed Anybody." And as always, feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Murder Mystery Party: Update

by Jennifer Lamont Leo


For the last few months I've been writing my first audience-participation-style murder mystery. I thought you might be interested in getting an update on how it's going. (See previous posts here and here.)

To recap, the event is a fund-raising dinner in support of a local history museum. We (I and my brainstorming museum friends) have set the mystery our town in the 1920s, featuring real characters from local history (like a schoolteacher, an actress, and a pair of sisters who owned a shop for ladies), mixed with characters that are purely fictional but represent "types" of the era--i.e., a train conductor, a journalist, a Pinkerton agent, etc.

In addition to a 13-member core cast, every audience member will be assigned a historical persona to portray. Since not every guest will be equally enthusiastic about playing "let's pretend," I've made these characters peripheral to the main story. If a guest is assigned to play, say, Oscar the German butcher, he may choose to come all decked out in a bloodstained apron with a thick accent straight from Bavaria, or he may completely ignore it. The choice is his and won't affect the main mystery one way or another (in my opinion, it will be infinitely more fun to play along--but, of course, I'm biased).

Here's how I and my crack team of brainstormers put this thing together. After deciding on the setting (time and place), we chose the crime--in this case a murder, but it could have been a theft or kidnapping or other evil deed. Next we decided on the victim, the perpetrator(s), the motive(s), and the method of dispatch.

Once we had the main story thread sketched out, we started sifting in false clues and red herrings. Who else in the cast of characters might have had a motive for killing this particular victim? What evidence could be found to make others look suspicious, but ultimately be found innocent? Most important (since we want the audience to actually be able to solve the crime), are there enough clues that an astute observer could figure out the solution, but not so many that the solution is obvious from the beginning?

While my team and I are working on the story (they're helping brainstorm, I'm doing the actual writing), others have been busily finding a venue, planning the food and decorations, and working out the evening's logistics.

This should be very fun! I'll continue keep you posted on our progress. If you have questions about the process, let me know in the comments. In the meantime, if you happen to find yourself in North Idaho on November 13, there could be a murder weapon with your name on it!

How to Write a Murder Mystery Game, Part II

by Jennifer Lamont Leo

This is Part II in a series about how to write and host a murder mystery party. Lest this post seems like a mystery, please read Part I first.

If you've been trying your hand at writing a murder mystery for an event or party after my earlier post, you should now have your setting (locale and time period), the basic plot (the victim and circumstances of the murder), and characters (including several suspects and their motives) well in hand.

6) CLUES: The next thing you need to do is to concoct plenty of genuine clues, red herrings (false clues), and rabbit trails to confound your amateur detectives as they try to guess who the murderer is. Make sure that you have real clues that lead to the real answer--the game is rigged if you don't--but sift in plenty of false clues, too, to keep people guessing and send them on a wild goose chase or two. Remember, you don't want the puzzle to be too easily solved, but it must be solvable.

7) HOW CLUES ARE SHARED: Clues are shared by conversations between guests ("Did you hear that So-and-So was Mr. Victim's ex-spouse?"), arguments and accusations that take place in front of the guests ("I saw you polishing knives in the kitchen on the day of the murder!" "You always hated Ms. Victim for firing you from that job!"), or telltale objects left lying around ("Wasn't this your scarf that was found on the victim's dresser?") along with vehement denials and counter-accusations. Clues should be spoken loudly and clearly for as many guests to hear as possible.

Whoever the murderer turns out to be, he or she must have a clear motive and means, such as access to the weapon or an opportunity to be alone with the victim. In the end, everything must make sense, and all the relevant clues must have been shared with all or most of the guests throughout the course of the party. No fair introducing fresh information at the end that the crowd was not given earlier. Give everyone a fair chance to solve the murder.

8) ENDING THE GAME: At the end of the event, give each guest the opportunity offer his or her opinion of who the murderer is. This can be done aloud, or alternatively by paper ballot. The winner may be the first person to correctly identify the murderer, or you might consider declaring all the correct answers to be winners, or drawing a winner at random from among the correct answers.

These are the rudiments of planning a murder mystery party. Since my own "history mystery" is still a work in progress, in Part III of this series I'll report back how the actual event played out, what went right and what we would do differently next time. In the meantime, if you write a murder mystery game of your own, let us know how it goes!

Have you participated in a murder mystery party? If so, what did you like about it? Any suggestions for improvement?

How to Write a Murder Mystery Party Game, Part I

by Jennifer Lamont Leo

Have you ever attended a murder mystery party? If you ever get a chance to, they are great fun! (Well, if you like that sort of thing, which I do. Think of it as a large-scale game of "let's pretend!")

In brief, a murder mystery party assigns each of the party guests a role to play. In the story, a murder has occurred (or sometimes occurs during the course of the event), and several or all of the guests have some motive for wanting to kill the victim. If you think of the game of Clue, or of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, you've got the idea: one victim, one crime, several suspects with motives. Guests act out their roles and, throughout the party, drop preassigned hints and clues concerning their portion of the story, until someone finally figures out "whodunnit."

I've participated in four murder mysteries over the years, with varying degrees of success. Now I've been given a unique opportunity. The local history museum where I volunteer is planning to host a homegrown murder mystery in the fall as a fundraiser, and I've been asked to help write it. So I've decided to take you along for the ride, in case you ever want to do such a thing yourself.

Here are the first steps in planning a murder mystery party:

1) SETTING/TIME PERIOD: Choose a theme/era/locale. Mysteries I've participated in have been set in a modern-day ski lodge, a ranch, and an ancient palace. You might choose a particular era, such as the Roaring Twenties or Victorian era. Does venue of your party suggest a theme, such as a historic home, school, or a mid-century-modern 1950s suburban home? Like most parties, your theme not only determines your story, but also things like the decorations, food, and invitations. (Hint: If you're the writer of the mystery, ask someone else to take on these other tasks. You already have enough on your plate!)

2) GUEST LIST: Once your theme is chosen, consider your guests. The responsibilities of the guests are to pretend to be the character they've been assigned (costume, mannerisms, accent, or whatever) and to circulate and drop the clues they've been assigned to drop. They will NOT have to learn a script, but should be comfortable at ad-libbing and making things up on the spot. Think through which of your guests are likely to get into the spirit of the game and assign them larger roles. Smaller parts or "spectator" roles can be assigned to shyer or more reluctant guests. When you know who is likely to participate, start planning your mystery.

3) CHARACTERS: You will not be writing an actual script, but scenarios for your characters to follow. Each guest will be given a synopsis of the character they will play, the reason their character is present at the party, and their relationship to the murder victim and other guests. For example, when I was invited to the ski lodge mystery, all the characters were at the lodge for a skiing vacation. I was assigned the role of a single woman who had a troubled romantic history with the deceased. I was given a paragraph or two of information about clues I needed to drop during the evening that would help solve the crime, but otherwise I was on my own to play my character however I saw fit. For our local-history mystery (hey, that rhymes!), the setting will be a house party in the 1920s, and each of the fund-raiser guests is a guests or host of the house party. You'll probably need to adjust your cast of characters as you go along (and find out who is available to attend), but at least sketch out a rough plan.

4) CRIME: Decide on the circumstances of your crime. Who is the victim? What is the murder weapon? For our history mystery, although most of the characters are actual historical figures, we decided we did not want to use a real-life crime or real-life person as either the victim or the murderer, so we fictionalized those roles. Also, in our story we chose to have the murder take place before our party begins, although sometimes the victim dies during the event, by being poisoned at dinner or whatever. (This scenario has the disadvantage of the victim needing to disappear for the rest of the evening and miss some of the fun.)

5) MOTIVES: Now think through each of your suspect characters and give each of them a motive for killing the victim--a broken romance, a business deal gone bad, a deep-seated resentment of some sort--to keep everyone guessing about whom the murderer might be.

At this point you should have the basics covered: your setting/time period, your crime, and your suspects and their motives. I'll continue with the plan in my next post. Meanwhile, feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Do you have any ideas about a murder mystery you'd like to write? Any questions about the process so far?