Chapter 39: What's a Suspect Subplot?

You know a lot at this point about what your actual Villain has done, and you’ve got plenty of ideas for the clues he left behind. But before you can actually get down to the business of proving his guilt, you need to first make that task a little harder on your Sleuth—by throwing a number of false suspects in her way.

Or, as I like to say, throwing a number of suspect subplots in her way. Because the fact is, most suspects can be thought of as subplots. The subplot begins when we first notice something fishy about the character. It continues as we investigate them. And it ends when we have a reason to dismiss them from suspicion.

Let’s see how this looks using a suspect subplot from the movie Gosford Park. In this movie, a number of British aristocrats gather at a country estate to hunt, drink, and give vent to their longstanding conflicts with one another—especially with the lord of the manor, Sir William McCordle, who winds up murdered at the midpoint. Also in attendance is an American filmmaker, Morris Weissman, and his valet, Henry Denton.

From the very beginning, Denton seems like an odd duck. He claims to be Scottish—but his accent is off. He asks weird questions of the other servants. And when we see him talking privately with Weissman, his attitude is anything but subservient.

These bits of weird behavior constitute the beginning of Denton’s suspect subplot. They make the audience start to imagine possibilities: maybe Denton isn’t really Scottish. Maybe he’s not really a servant. Maybe he’s here with an ulterior motive.