More on Characters: The Victim

In mystery writing the victim is really the central character to the storyline. Everything that happens is because of this person. Even though the other characters give additional layers to the storyline and have their own stories, it all comes about because of their intersection with the victim. So the backstory that happens before the murder is essential.

In our example that we started on the Character page we decided that the victim was beat to death and it is assumed to have been her boyfriend, Gene Shrock.  Gene is seventeen, so we will make her about the same age. But she needs a name. So keeping in mind that this is a religious area and the age group she’s in…how about Bethany Miller? The name sounds contemporary and the last name is indicitive of the area.

So our victim is a seventeen-year-old high school student. We know that Gene didn’t really commit the murder or we wouldn’t have a story. So who did? Because she is young and a lot of readers will have children this age, you’ll really need to consider what type of person that she is carefully. Is she a young women that didn’t have a chance in life because of her upbringing? Maybe from a grifter family? Or could it be that she saw or knew something and wanted to do the right thing – and was killed to prevent her from telling? In a story, nothing can happen without a reason. Nothing random will work. That cheats your reader. It could be a case of mistaken identity, but never random.

So why was Bethany murdered? Being seventeen she would be at the age that she would want to explore the world and her options. It shows in Bethany’s choice of friends. Her best friend, Cathy, is clean cut and the kind that parents love. But Cathy is Bethany’s cover. Sometimes she would sneak out and go to a party or hang out on the fringes of a group that she saw as exciting and dangerous. And they are dangerous, but Bethany doesn’t have the life skills to understand that they can be dangerous to her. 

Gene knows some of these people, that’s how Bethany met them. But Gene doesn’t know how involved she was with them when he wasn’t around. So he doesn’t really suspect any of them.

Now we know that Bethany was murdered by someone in the fringe group that she hung with. She was beat to death. Maybe like a gang initiation? Or maybe instead of her jumping into the gang, killing her was the initiation for someone else.

So future characters to flesh out will be the gang leader and the person being initiated. Maybe the gang leader wanted to be with Bethany and she rejected him in a humiliating way in front of the other members. Having her killed would show his followers the result of disrespect. So now we have motive.

We have the who – the one being initiated, we have the how – beat to death, and we have the why – to make an example of her.

So now is the time to do any research you may need on gangs. It’s not an area where it would be full of organized gangs, so maybe make it a gang of wannabees. Then the rules aren’t quite as precise.

Now would be the time to write the backstory. Write about Bethany’s last twenty-four hours on earth. Start with the routine and work your way into everything that happened that lead to the murder. Including Cathy covering for her, humiliating the leader, and any other thing that you can think of that will help flesh out your story. This backstory will provide you will clues and help you to keep straight the reason things happened and who was there.