Anne Fotheringham

I love jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles. And writing my mysteries which are essentially puzzles with crime thrown into the mix.

The thrill of emptying a box of puzzle pieces and then working  with those pieces to create the picture on the cover of the box – great stuff. I find it calming and reduces my stress though I know others find them frustrating. No idea why.

Every mystery story is, in reality, a puzzle. Except that instead of maybe1,000 pieces you have to fit together, you are dealing with events, characters, clues of all kinds. You have to fit that information together to create the picture you want readers to see – a mystery/crime solved, the bad guys off to jail and the good guys back home safe and sound.

But getting those characters back to home base is a job that requires plotting and planning and for me, I prefer using what some would call an old-fashioned method, given all the software available on the market. I use a bulletin board, thumb tacks and recipe cards.

I talk my way through the story line and use a recipe card for each chapter. I put notes such as “bad guy shoots at hero and misses” (thank goodness) or “girl gets abducted.” I then sort them in order and give each card a chapter number when I feel I have the timeline of the novel sorted out. I thumbtack them onto my bulletin board and set it up beside my computer desk.

Then I dive into the puzzle. As I write chapter by chapter, things can change. I may move a piece of the action around or change a character’s role. As I follow the clues that surface, the story builds into a novel in first draft. As each item/chapter is written, I remove the appropriate recipe card from the board. A clean board signals a first draft is finished. Then the big job begins—editing and rewriting to ensure the puzzle all fits together and creates the picture I planned for my readers.

Do you enjoy jigsaw puzzles?

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