Cause of Death, by Lori Roberts Herbst

All mystery authors approach a new project in their own unique ways. Some start with a theme in mind. Others plan the ending first. Perhaps they delve into character backstories. Red herrings, suspect lists, first lines—the processes of sitting down to work on a new story are as vast as the number of individual writers.

For me, the storytelling can’t start until I’ve chosen the method of murder.

Before I even know whodunnit, I have to know howdunnit.

I’m not sure what my fascination with the cause of death says about my personality. I only know that my obsession with it has led my husband to say more than once that he’s afraid to go to sleep at night. 

When I sit down to plot a new book, the first thing I do is determine how the yet-unknown victim will be killed. Every further decision springs from that one. The victim must be someone who can realistically die in the way I’ve envisioned. They must have reasonable access to the location. They should be in proximity to the murder weapon. 

For example, when I was in the beginning stages of thinking about Frozen in Motion, book three in the Callie Cassidy series, before I even had a title or a vague rendering of the plot, my husband and I attended a hockey game. At one point, bored with the action, I looked up at the catwalk in the upper reaches of the stadium. “What if someone fell off that metal contraption and down onto the ice?” I thought. “Better yet, what if someone was pushed…” And the book was born.

Obviously, there are a finite number of ways a person can die, and over the many hundreds of years of storytelling, at some point they’ve all been used. So, the goal, for me at least, becomes, “How can I give this method of murder my own unique twist?”

If a victim is stabbed, how about using a candy cane to the carotid artery? Strangling can occur with a photographer’s camera strap. An elderly woman decides to bludgeon someone? What better tool than her cane…or maybe even her walker?

I’ve pushed victims from the aforementioned catwalk, from mountain ledges, from lighthouses. I’ve drowned them in hot tubs and poisoned them with hand cream. I once locked a clown in a lion’s cage at the circus, and…well, you can guess how that turned out.

Here’s the point at which I remind you it wasn’t actually ME who committed these malicious acts. Okay, so they were my characters, fictional beings created in my deviant mind, but still…no cause for alarm. My husband’s insomnia is completely misguided.

Hmm…insomnia…there must be a way to use that as a tool to kill…Go to sleep, honey. Don’t worry. You’re safe.

Writers, what’s your first step in creating a story? Readers, what’s the most unique murder method you’ve come across?

The Callie Cassidy Mystery series is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

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Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado, and the soon-to-be-released Seahorse Bay Mysteries, set in a Texas cruise port town. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com