Mystery – August 28

“She took a powder. The dough went with her.” The Killers premiered on this date in 1946. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist discovers that a double-crosser was double-crossed.

Mystery – August 27

“Better to live in doubt than to die in certainty.”- Ira Levin, born this date in 1929. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist suspects a suicide is actually murder.

Mystery – August 26

“Truth is rare fruit in garden of murder.”- Earl Derr Biggers, born this date in 1884. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist realizes that her/his assumptions about a person’s national heritage are incorrect, which requires reconsideration of the entire situation.

Mystery – August 25

“It was cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.”- Frederick Forsyth, born this date in 1938. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s duty makes the weather seem more extreme than it is.

Mystery – August 24

“At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.”- Alexander McCall Smith, born this date in 1948. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which one night in particular causes your protagonist to become a stranger to him/herself.

Mystery – August 23

“Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.”- Nelson DeMille, born this date in 1943. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist first confronts a transgressor s/he’s been searching for, but cannot believe the person actually committed the transgression.

Mystery – August 22

“Five years before the actual siege did come to their land, they even filed an affidavit with the Boundary County Sheriff’s Office, or the local courthouse, saying, ‘”‘We fear that our land will be raided, we will be forced to kill a federal agent, and in defending ourselves, all be killed,’ which is a shockingly accurate prophecy of what was to come five years later.”-...

Mystery – August 21

“Eliminate the impossible. Then if nothing remains, some part of the ‘impossible’ was possible.”- Anthony Boucher, born this date in 1911. Writing prompt: Set up a locked-room mystery your protagonist cannot solve without help from someone your protagonist does not trust.