REBECCA CANTRELL

Murder from the Point of View of the Murderer, Victim, and Detective

REBECCA CANTRELL writes the award-winning Hannah Vogel mystery series set in 1930s Berlin, including A Trace of Smoke and A Night of Long Knives. Her short stories are included in the Missing and First Thrills anthologies. Rebecca also writes the critically acclaimed YA iMonsters series, including iDrakula, as Bekka Black. Currently, she lives in Hawaii with her husband, her son, and too many geckoes to count.

 

 

I wanted the murder victim in A Trace of Smoke to have a voice in the book. I wanted us to know Ernst and love him on his own terms so we could understand what his sister, Hannah Vogel, lost when he died. The murderer took away his life, but I didn’t want to let him take away Ernst’s voice, too.

In my early drafts, Ernst talked from beyond the grave. Unfortunately, it was never quite right. My writing group struggled with it, and the first question my future agent asked was, “If I agree to represent you, would you be willing to consider removing the dead brother’s voice from the manuscript?”

I was willing. I removed those sequences, but I knew that the facts and feelings from his passages needed to find their way into a novel written in the first person from Hannah’s point of view. I discovered that my time on Ernst’s murder, his life, and his experiences did give him a strong voice in the novel after all. I also made a surprise discovery: Writing the murder from the victim’s point of view gave me a very clear picture of all the events surrounding it. It gave me the sights, sounds, and feelings for the very heart of the book.

The scene where Ernst was murdered revealed much about both Ernst and the man who killed him. Plot threads spun there would weave through the rest of the book. You would think I would have learned my lesson. But I didn’t. When I wrote my second book, A Night of Long Knives, I did not think to write the murder from the victim’s point of view.

Only after I found myself repeatedly going back to the scene where Hannah discovers the body did I realize that I did not know enough about the crime that she works so hard to solve. So I sat down and wrote the murder from the victim’s point of view. This time I knew that those words would not make it into the final book, but I also knew that the insights and clarity I gained by doing the work would.

EXERCISE

As a writing exercise, I suggest that you think carefully about the crime itself. I want you to focus on specific details and emotions. Try to be as present as you can in each scene.

1. Describe the murder from the murderer’s point of view. Why is he or she killing the victim? Is the crime planned or unplanned? Does the killer leave any clues, either unintentionally or to deceive a future detective? What emotions does the killer experience? Exactly how is the crime committed? Step through every single action. Study every detail.

2. Write that exact same scene, but from the point of view of the murder victim. Does the victim know the killer? Is he surprised? Does the victim fight? Does the victim do something to leave a clue, either deliberately or accidentally? What does the victim feel both physically and emotionally?

When, if ever, does the victim realize that he is going to die? If your murder victim does not realize that he is dying, as might be the case with poison, then write about the last things that the victim remembers.

3. Write the same scene from the detective’s point of view. If the detective is at the crime scene, what does he see? What clues does he find? Have the detective imagine the murder, walking through the events physically or in his imagination. What things surprise him? How does the detective feel about the killer and the victim as he pictures the scene? How does it change him?