Chapter 6.5: Brainstorming Money Murders

And now for a blast from the past

Greetings, readers—and to those of you in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving! As many of you know, The Perfect Crime isn’t just a Substack newsletter—it’s a book which I’m preparing for publication. I’ve been writing chapters for almost a year now, and I’ve begun to look back over the manuscript and edit.

Mostly this results in a little tidying up and re-organization, which I do quietly in the background. But occasionally I realize that there’s a whole new chapter that needs to be inserted—and when that happens, I’m eager to share it with all of you! The following is one such chapter, which will find its home between chapters 6 and 7.

Chapter 6.5: Brainstorming Money Murders

The method I’ve just shown you in Chapter 6 is the best way I know of for coming up with Love, Power, and Fear murders—and it works just fine for Money murders, too. But I want to show you one more method of brainstorming Money murders, which tackles the Motive Triangle from a different direction. Instead of starting with with Victim or the Villain, we’ll be starting from the motive—that particular asset that moves our Villain to commit a crime.

This process is both fun and fast, and can often prompt you to come up with ideas that genuinely surprise you. In an hour, you may be able to generate ten or more solid ideas for mystery novels. Then, of course, you’ve got another problem—which do you want to tackle first?

Step One: Assets

The first step of this method is to come up with a list of assets (or revenue streams) that your Villain might desire. Your Villain might be after: