Any thoughts on planning out a paranormal mystery?

[kingaling]

I'm 20 pages into my new script. It's a paranormal detective story..and I've just realized that I'm getting way too much influence from Dresden.

Does anyone have any thoughts on planning out a paranormal mystery? Or hell..any type of mystery for that matter. 'cause I keep hitting wall after wall with this one.

[The Corvidian]

How paranormal?

[Roaram]

read other mystery novels. or true crime.  but if you find yourself copying dresden, try writing with no humor. like none. might change your tone to something less .... pithy? think punsher, not spiderman. check out tammara silver jones, she has excellnt fantasy mysteries. and I have always thought thata a less tongue and cheak approach to urban fantasy might be cool. (i know, a lot of dresdan kids in here, no offense intended) mr butcher does humor well, but not every book needs to be funny, and not every hero needs to be a smart alec

[comprex]

Change paranormal rulebooks.    Step away from Dresdenverse or Buffyverse or Muggleverse definitions of what a ghost/spirit/magic/vampire is.

Read some folk tales. 

[The Corvidian]

Is the protagonist a psychic? A wizard/sorceror? Someone who just attracts the paranormal? A vanilla human who found out about how the world really is?

[Hell's Belle]

It's going to be tough. If you look on the shelves at any bookstore, you'll see that everyone is cranking out paranormal mysteries now (likely in an effort to ride JB's coattales- as if!).  If you're sticking with the genre, you're going to have to do something nobody has tried yet...and you're going to have to do it very well.

Good luck!

[bookivore]

I'm 20 pages into my new script. It's a paranormal detective story..and I've just realized that I'm getting way too much influence from Dresden.

Does anyone have any thoughts on planning out a paranormal mystery? Or hell..any type of mystery for that matter. 'cause I keep hitting wall after wall with this one.

Your main character (detective or sidekick) needs to be able to observe everything relevant to the mystery, but keep his thinking to himself so he can surprise the reader.  Harry does that by being a pain and sometimes leaving out relevant bits when giving directions to other characters, etc. (Like, 'So I placed a phone call and got things arranged' without actually saying what the heck he's arranging).

Sometimes it's easier to use a sidekick who doesn't actually figure out what's going on until the detective explains it.

Your suspects all need decent, visible reasons to want the dead guy dead (or whatever the mystery is), and access / ability to use the murder weapon, and so on.  In a mystery you're not just plotting for the hero and the antagonist but for the other however many suspects.  If you give them all reasons to mess with the detective aside from wanting to be cleared of suspicion, so they can keep on messing with him.