How To Write A Detective Story

(plan your story using post-it notes first)

To begin with, you should introduce your characters. How many people are going to be in your story? Give their names and ages and some information about them.

Then, you should write about the setting. Where does your story take place? In the morning? At night? At a school or at the beach? Somewhere scary or somewhere fun?

Next, talk about the mystery or problem. Is there a strange sound, a missing object, a broken window or a lost possession? Introduce a red herring. Use all of this information to give your story an interesting title.

Finally, add in the clues that will help your characters and the person reading your story figure out what is going on. The problem needs to get solved at the end of the story.

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WAGOLL

The mystery of the missing Mona Lisa

The city of Paris was as quiet as usual. The streets were empty and no one was outside. The beautiful shops and stores were all closed, It was a dismal day. There was no life in anything; it made detective Antone wonder. His mind was filled with questions and curiousity
about this strange, awkward sight. The window from his office overlooked the city centre and the many small lanes that surrounded the centre from the royal palace. His mind was deep in thought until the phone halterd his time. He answered it and with one blink of an eye, his face splutterd out with shock, the famous Mona Lisa was gone!

The panic of the news broke out to the royal family and the people of France. Dectective Antone was called immediately to the French museum La Louvre to investigate the crime that had created panic amongst French citizens.
“Antone…it…it’s… gone!” the museum owner reported hesitantly.
“Yes I know, it has spread panic over France – especially Paris” Antone replied.

It was then that Antone noticed there was the faintest print on the door handle leading to the room were the Mona Lisa was displayed. He looked at it very closesly and could tell it was a finger print.
“Someone has opened this door overnight, I can tell as a finger print mark is on the handle.”

A great start Luke. Excellent use of everyday language and contraction to show informal writing. Excellent choice of vocabulary. I am looking forward to the next part. Mrs B

A Joke Too Far

It was a bright and sunny day in July, a perfect day for the world BMX championships, held at Woodward, California, USA. My friend Harry Main was in the final, also in the finals were: Calum Bibby, Drew Bazanzon, Scotty Cranmer and Adam LZ. Only two points separated Harry and Adam from the earlier runs that day.

Scotty and Harry were getting ready for their next runs. Scotty said that he was going to do a backflip. So Harry left his bike next to a ramp and went back to his car to get his camera. Adam spots Harry leaving the skatepark and, to unsettle Harry, Adam decided to play a joke on Harry by hiding his precious bike behind of the old ramp.

Steve Fly, the skatepark owner, had been watching this unfold on his CCTV cameras. Harry returned with camera in hand, asking Scotty where his bike was, Scotty replied,”I don’t know.” In such a panic, Harry and Scotty searched frantically for the bike, as the final was already underway. Adam saw Harry and decided to tell him where he had hid the bike.

Harry was raging with fury, when Adam broke the news to him. So Harry, Scotty and Adam went back to the skatepark and to the old ramp, only to find the old, worn down and partly broken face of the ramp. Yet again Harry went bezerk at Adam. “This is where I left it, I promise you Harry”. Adam had an idea he said, ” lets go and see Steve Fly to look at his cameras and see what has happened”. On the way to Steve Fly’s office, Adam LZ was called over the loud speaker. So Adam left leaving Scotty and Harry to go to Steve Fly’s office.

Knocking on the door, Scotty and Harry asked Steve to check the cameras around the skatepark. But Steve said “the cameras are not working boys”. Harry couldn’t believe that the cameras were out of order. Harry said to Scotty, “let’s get back Scotty so you can do your run”.
“Are you sure Harry?” Harry replied in a sad voice “I’ll be ok, you do your run and don’t forget the backflip”.

As Scotty ran off to do his run, Harry couldn’t face watching him ride. He strolled around the skatepark feeling confused and upset as to why this had happened. He wondered into Steve’s office. There was nobody there, and Harry couldn’t resist having a sneaky look at the cameras on the computer. He was shocked to discover that after Adam had moved the bike, shortly afterwards Steve appeared. Looking shifty and suspicious, he moved the bike behind the office near the wheelie bins.

Acting quickly, Harry ran out of the office to find his bike. There it was, wedged between the two wheelie bins. He grabbed the bike, peddling as fast as he could hoping not to miss his run. He made his run just in time, and Scotty looked surprised to see him, he nearly fell off his bike! After lots of super stunts and tricks, he won the the world championships. Harry was thrilled and overjoyed.

It was later discovered that Adam and Steve Fly fell out years earlier, and Steve wanted to get Adam in more trouble by moving the bike again. When everyone found out what had happened, and how Harry had been tricked, no one went to the skate park again.

Lovely use of phrase…watching this unfold, searched frantically. Lovely use of fronted adverbials too. Next step: new speaker, new line.

A really interesting case of sabotage James. Glad to see that cctv caught Adam red-handed.

M.I.A.
(MISSING IN ACTION)

Phillip Coutinho was a man that played for Liverpool fc, number 10 and was recovering from a broken ankle injury. During a football match against Manchester UTD, Philip went down to the changing room to get into his kit, meanwhile Zlatan Ibrahimovic was not where he was meant to be, on the bench !!!

Phillip did not come up for about 10 minutes and that’s when the security guards decided to go and check if he was alright. But no, he was not alright, he was gone. The match was paused, everyone was looking for Phillip and everyone was claiming that it was Zlatan but Zlatan denied everything. It was time to get a real detective on the case!!!

The detectives name was J. Mecurial and within seconds of his arrival, the questioning began.
He started his investigations on the bench, the last place that Philip had been seen before he went down to the changing rooms.
There, Detective Mercurial made a small yet significant discovery, the drinking bottle that belonged to Phillip.
It had been drank from but there was evidence that the bottle had been tampered with as there was a strange smell from within the bottle, a smell that Detective Mercurial knew very well.
” I believe that the drinking water in this bottle has had a substance mixed with it” said the Detective ” I have investigated a case similar to this before and suspect foul play is at large here!” exclaimed the detective.

“Foul play?” Shouted the referee reaching for his yellow card
“Take it easy ref!” responded the detective “I don’t mean a football foul, I am referring to a far more serious act of foul play, sabotage!”
Everybody looked at the detective in shock.
One by one each player dropped the drink bottle they were holding.
“I will gather all the bottles and send them to the laboratory for further investigation, but in the meantime it is my main priority to find Mr. Coutinho!” said the detective “I must now move my investigation to the last known place that Phillip was, the changing rooms”

The detective, followed by the manager, the assistant manager and a number of Phillips closest players went down to the changing rooms.
On their way down, they saw the ball boy leaving a store room, his behaviour was very suspicious, the detective also thought this and so went over to speak with him.

“Excuse me young man, may I speak with you for a moment?” asked the detective.
The ball boys face immediately turned very pale
” How may I help you sir?” Said the ball boy.
” I am here investigating the disappearance of one of your players and would just like to ask you a few questions regarding this please?” asked detective Mercurial
” I haven’t seen Philip at all sir, in fact the last time I saw him was on the bench by the pitch when I brought up the teams drinks bottles” he nervously replied
The Detective was quick to reply ” I don’t believe I said which player it was that is missing, why would you say Phillip unless of course you know more than myself?” cleverly asked the detective, ” and you say it was yourself that brought up the players drinks bottles, did you also fill the bottles?” he asked.
The ball boy came clean straight away, by saying that he had been forced to sabotage the bottles by Manchester Uniteds manager, Jose Mourinho
He went straight to Jose to ask him about the bottles. Jose couldn’t get out of it now so confessed and told him that Phillip was locked in the store room in a spare kit bag and the police and medic team came straight away to arrest Jose and get Phillip back to normal.

Absolutely loved this Dillon. A very clever plot with a red herring, I thought it was going to be Zlatan. I loved your vocabulary too. A super detective story with many features of the genre. Great work!

Mrs Beesley