Mystery – July 6

Burt Ward was born on this date in 1945. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist gets an earnest, annoying sidekick.

Mystery – July 5

Cecil Rhodes was born on this date in 1853. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist comes to believe that a fabulously rapacious criminal who escaped punishment and has rehabilitated his/her reputation by using his/her ill-gotten gains to do good works is doing bad works, too.

Mystery – July 4

“Look at the Astors and the Vanderbilts, all those big society people. They were the worst thieves — and now look at them. It’s just a matter of time.” -Meyer Lansky, born this date in 1902. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is bested by an antagonist motivated by socioeconomic envy.

Mystery – July 3

“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.” -Franz Kafka, born this date in 1883. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist gives up.

Mystery – July 2

On this date in 1994, a Colombian soccer player who’d inadvertently caused his team to lose to the USA in World Cup competition by scoring a goal for the USA, was shot to death. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist discovers an unexpectedly irrelevant motive for a murder.

Mystery – July 1

“What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship — as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swampland, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term, to a client who has no genuine use for the product.” -Det. Frank Pembleton, embodied for six years on Homicide: Life on the Streets (predecessor to The Wire), played by...

Mystery – June 30

In 1870, Ada Kepley became the first woman to graduate from an accredited law school in the USA. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is upstaged by a person of a gender not typically associated with his/her success.

Mystery – June 29

Patrick Kenzie wakes up in a stranger’s apartment on this date in Dennis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist uncovers a much darker crime while failing to find a missing person.