For our January meeting of Mystery by the Sea – The Southeastern Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime, I presented a session of prompts to inspire us all to create new material. I figured others might also enjoy this Micro Mysteries session of Max’s Writers Café. (This is an offshoot of the ongoing series I present for Hampton Public Library. Sessions are for ages 18+ and are free via Zoom, but registration is required for each individual session. I hold sessions each spring and fall; we have more coming up in April 2026).
The purpose of my inspiration sessions is
simply to help fellow creatives get started on something new. It can be
refreshing to let yourself dream up something unexpected from a prompt; and
something about writing with a time limit, especially in the company of others,
with an idea you didn’t expect, can help overcome that “stuck” feeling. So I
wrote these with the intention of inspiring some new rough drafts. Don’t expect
them to be perfect!
For each numbered concept below: read the prompt first, then set a timer for ten minutes and start writing. Stop when the timer ends. Though you’re writing on your own, obeying the timer should still help train your brain to take the prompt seriously and get down to business. (For me, this can help circumvent how daunting it can be to get started.) You might be surprised by how much comes to you that you didn’t expect! And I hope that some of these rough drafts will intrigue you enough to polish and/or continue them later.
1. The Spooky Side: Beyond crimes themselves, there’s something inherently creepy about the mysterious. Think about some elements of paranormal mysteries; supernatural tales with mystery elements; and spooky or haunted situations that might be surprisingly real, or turn out to have a mundane origin hiding a crime. Write a vignette in which your character encounters something truly mysterious that awakens their sense of wonder or dread. Bonus points if discovering this mysterious something—or the truth behind it—also provides a clue about a mystery they’ve been looking into.
2. Secondary Secrets: There’s always a reason for keeping secrets, and it may not be what you think. Think about a particular secret your character may have. When you think about why they keep it, a reason will probably spring to mind. But dig deeper. What are some more unusual or unexpected reasons for keeping that secret? The reason for keeping the secret might in fact be a secret in itself. What if someone discovers the secret or the person keeping it realizes they have to reveal it? They might still hide the reason they kept that secret in the first place. Write a scene about discovering that secondary secret and the impact it has on your characters and the mystery.
3. Puzzles and Games: Think about some of the puzzles and games you enjoy. Use a favorite or two in a scene that solves the mystery or uncovers a deeper truth. For instance, what if the sleuth examines a puzzle solved by the murderer? Or think about two or more people playing a game together; maybe one of them committed a crime, and another is trying to figure it out. Let the game-play and their interactions help bring out the needed insight or clue.
4. Family Resemblance: Those who share their lives may come to resemble one another in various ways. Think about portraits of pets and their humans, couples who have spent decades together, or a group of friends from a certain period in time. It might be a found family, chosen family, or a biological one, either close-knit or reunited after many years apart. What if an elusive sense of family resemblance, the similarities of close friendship, shared tastes, or shared traits could help unravel a mystery? Alternatively, think about how family members who bear a strong resemblance might be confused for one another, or even use this to deliberately protect one another, as your sleuth investigates the crime.
If you’d like more prompts, here are some earlier installments in this series:
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Max Gardner (he/they) is a fiction writer & award-winning poet published under a variety of bylines, including Max Jason Peterson and Adele Gardner. A poetry collection, Halloween Hearts, is available from Jackanapes Press, while over 500 stories, poems, art, and articles appear in Analog, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and more. Gardner serves as literary executor for father and mentor Delbert R. Gardner; Muse Mansion, a collection of poems by both father and firstborn, will be released soon by San Francisco Bay Press.
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