I watch the documentary "Wordplay" last night and had an idea for a murder mystery story. "Wordplay" is (in a nutshell) about contenders in a crossword competition. This one dude always comes in third and has a bit of a complex about it.
I thought about someone who wanted to do a guy like that a favor, like his wife, maybe, who kills his competition so that he can come in first. Missing, of course, not only the point of competing in the first place, the rush that comes from being and beating the best -- but also the fact that these guys aren't just competitors, they're friends.
So, in my story, the third place guy would of course figure it out. He'd send his wife home in order to protect her, but they'd end up divorced.
In the documentary, the third place guy finishes first, but missed like two squares that he forgot to complete, so he ends up coming in third again. It's honestly devastating to watch (the documentary was really good) but a moment like that would be great in the story.
There are a couple of things. First, I don't really care about crossword puzzles; I'm not good at them and don't find them an enjoyable version of challenging. But I am a Sudoku fiend. I have eight Sudoku apps on my phone (all by Cracking the Cryptic because the other ones I tried are garbage) and play almost every day unless I get stuck and frustrated, in which case, I'll play Solitaire for a few weeks. The point being that I don't really want to research what makes a good crossword puzzle and how to make up clues and stuff that I can slip into the story, but I WOULD be willing to do that for Sudoku.
Sudoku has an interesting history and even though its popularity is more recent than crosswords but there IS a competition that has been running for twenty years, and it wouldn't be difficult to come up with a fictional one based on the real one.
I want the main characters to be two people who want to compete in this competition. I think the competition is still going but most of the people who played the year the murders happened haven't competed since. You have a building full of puzzle solvers, so a lot of people figured out who the murderer was but didn't want to expose her because they wanted to protect the third place guy.
So, these are a couple of young people who come in, wanting to have fun and not understanding why all of their fellow contestants are also young and why there's just a pall over the proceedings. Maybe one of the two wants to understand and the other one doesn't care, and they can be foils for each other. Maybe the one who doesn't care is the one who accidentally finds out more information.
Anyway, we could have people involved in the competition who were there the year of the murders but they aren't competing. Maybe they're judges or the puzzle creators or whatever. If I wanted to go real dark, I could have the third place guy there and have him attempting to murder the nosy kids in order to protect his ex-wife. His life sucks now, anyway. His friends are dead and a decades-long obsession has been tainted.
That's all I came up with. It's much darker when I write it out but I'd want it to be like a Marple mystery where there's an emotional distance. I think writing about the competition aspects would be fun. And there were a lot of people in the documentary other than the third place guy who I thought were interesting. I will say that I noticed a sea of white, mostly male faces. I imagine Sudoku is a bit different, but then again the main two guys I watch on YouTube are white British dudes and my nemesis, Phistomefel, is German. I can never solve his puzzles without looking at hints. I hate him. Anyway. Just wanted to record that story idea.
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