Chapter 25: The Clue Bank, and the Action Log

How to come up with clues for your novel

Now that you have an understanding of the five basic clue types, let’s talk about how you can brainstorm clues that work for your novel. You’re going to be creating a document I call your Clue Bank. Just like the Image Bank is a list of story possibilities from which you can pull to flesh out your novel, the Clue Bank is list of clue possibilities from which you can pull to enable your Sleuth to solve the crime. You won’t use every idea you drop into your Clue Bank, and that’s ok—ideal, even. Over the next few chapters, I’ll show you a number of ways you can populate your Clue Bank with a wealth of possibilities. Then you’ll choose only the best, most intriguing clues to actually feature in the book.

The easiest way to begin is by creating the Villain’s Action Log. The Action Log is nothing more than a list of everything your Villain did while preparing for his crime, committing it, and creating his initial coverup.

Let’s say you’re writing a traditional English mystery in which a duke plans to murder a housemaid, with whom he’s been having an affair. The maid has become pregnant, leading to the possibility of scandal and the loss of the duke’s (lucrative) marriage. Here are the actions the duke might take:

1. He stole rat poison from the kitchens.

2. He summoned the maid to his room by leaving a candle burning in his window—their usual signal for an assignation.

3. He slept with her, and gave her the tea before sending her back to her room.

4. He wrote a suicide note purporting to come from her.

5. He left the note in her room, along with the remainder of the rat poison.

This is his Action Log, and now that we have it, we can start coming up with clues that might reveal each of his actions. Let’s start with stealing rat poison from the kitchens. What clues might result from this?

Well, one of the kitchen workers might see him. That’s a witness statement. Perhaps he’ll step on a stray raspberry, and wind up trailing little pink prints up the stairs. That’s a tangible clue. Or perhaps he’ll pick up a bit of revealing knowledge, which he’ll inadvertently allow to slip out during a later scene: “Oh, it shouldn’t be too much trouble for Cook to put dinner back an hour. It’s only roast chicken.”

What else? Well, the rat poison itself could be a clue—what did he use to transport it? His pocket? A small leather purse? Whatever container he used may retain traces of the poison—another great tangible clue. And then we might ask ourselves, what’s a good behavioral clue that might result from this action? Perhaps one of the kitchen maids thinks the duke’s in the kitchen because he’s got the hots for her—after all, he has a reputation for consorting with the help. For the rest of the novel, she’ll keep flirting with the duke, hoping to lure him into an affair.

When I’m working through my Action Log, I like to list several possibilities for clues that might point to each action. I don’t worry about hitting every clue type—tangible clues, behavioral clues, and all the lot—though sometimes going though them can be a good way of prompting my creativity. My go-to tool here is our good old friend: the List of Five. I’ll come up with five possibilities for clues that might indicate each action. The discipline of listing five ideas often forces me past my initial thoughts, which tend to be a hair obvious—like my idea that someone saw the duke enter the kitchens. By the end of the list, I’ve generally hit on something a little more intriguing, like the idea of a kitchen maid pursuing the dastardly duke, at the exact time when he’s least likely to be enticed.

Let’s move on to the second item in our Action Log—the duke summoned the maid with the signal of a lighted candle. That’s something that could easily be observed by witnesses, and which might leave behind tangible clues as well—the exhausted candle in its holder, or perhaps wax drips on the windowsill. What else? Well, what if the maid demonstrated excitement in the hour or so before she disappeared? That’s a behavioral clue—it lets us understand that the maid was anticipating something, which might lead our Sleuth to conclude that she met with her murderer willingly.

How about the assignation itself? We might be able to find tangible clues that would point to what happened in the duke’s bedroom: rumpled bedsheets, two teacups, perhaps with traces of the poison in one of them. Remember that characters often leave behind distinctive traces of themselves during encounters—or else take with them distinctive traces of the locations, objects, or characters they’ve interacted with. What’s something distinctive the maid could leave behind—perhaps her hair ribbon, her stockings, the scent of her perfume? What’s something distinctive she might take with her—oil on her fingers from the duke’s recently polished wooden headboard? Or perhaps cash she filched from his desk?

After the assignation, the duke sent the maid back to her room, knowing that the poison would kill her before the household awoke in the morning. Then he wrote a suicide letter purporting to come from her. There are plenty of ways he can leave behind clues at this stage. Perhaps he used diction that is out of character for the maid. Or maybe he used paper or ink that she wouldn’t have access to. And of course, his handwriting is a perfect opportunity for him to reveal himself. But what if he’s too smart to write the letter by hand? In that case, he probably used a typewriter, and there may be distinctive flaws in the type that allow our Sleuth to pinpoint the exact machine.

Lastly, the duke crept into the maid’s room and left the note on her desk. This, of course, opens up the possibility for a witness to observe him—especially the maid’s roommate, since it would be unusual for a low-ranking servant to have her own room. And any physical trace he leaves behind—his fingerprints, his handkerchief, the button from his coat—can be used to tie him to the location of the maid’s bedroom.

Now that we’ve worked through our Action Log, we have a wealth of potential clues that we might select to feature in our novel. We’ve got tangible clues, witness statements, and revealing knowledge. We’ve got behavioral clues, and perhaps we could even consider that fake suicide note to be an artifact.

But… wait. There’s another clue we didn’t think about: if the duke took the rat poison from the kitchens, that means it isn’t there anymore. Where there should be a bowl of rat poison, there’s now just an empty vessel. Is that a tangible clue? Or something else?

It’s actually an absent clue, which is the subject of our next chapter.