My Perfectly Dreadful Novel

Oy. I am completely hungover. Also, terribly ill.

While in a haze of cold medicine and caffeine, I barfed out a few notes to flesh things out a bit.

Unfortunately, no actual writing has occurred at this point

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This was supposed to be "serious", but I'm obviously incapable of that
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Elderly judge who is a wealthy and eccentric collector of antique firearms throws retirement party & is found murdered in a shocking manner with a large number of suspects and detectives. Who dunnit? People keep dying as they are about to say something. Murder scene: the library? other scenes: garden, fish pond, swimming pool, drawing room, various bedrooms, attic, basement, kitchen, game room, secret passage that everyone knows about, a garage, garden shed, nursery, study, aviary, etc.

Are puns improper in a murder mystery? what about farting, belching and screaming?

detectives keep bickering and screwing up, resulting in at least one shoving match. none of them ever actually solve anything

told in first person? maybe a female lawyer?

The Main Characters
The victim (no name yet, but "Rodney Quizzenberry" sounds good to me). He is found shot, poisoned, strangled AND stabbed. Isn't that a bit excessive? perhaps not

Miss Janet Maple: an incredibly nosy spinster (likes to carry binoculars) who is obsessed with sex and is overly concerned with what everyone else is doing -- a bit of a tattle tale. loves to gossip & is always knitting something completely awful... at one point another character picks up her knitting and sees that it's a sweater with three arms. another time a sock with no opening

Nancy Drawn: a very spoiled and airheaded college-aged girl who may be a bit of a nymphomaniac. drives a blue convertible at highly dangerous speeds. Doesn't work, has no skills whatsoever, sneaks around & is into petty thievery. Has no concept of the value of money

H___ P___ : a foreigner, no one can understand a word he's saying, no one has any idea where he's from, and he keeps making unbelievable social gaffes. Every time he says something, it's "____". Wears a fake moustache. Is terribly vain

Sam Rake and Phillip Merlot: cool, cocky, flippant, hardboiled identical twins. Super macho, always getting into arm wrestling matches. Both sport five o'clock shadows, even when it isn't five o'clock. Favor trenchcoats, booze, and smoking cigars. one or the other have been known to pass out after dinner. possibly gay

Sherwood Helms: a major know-it-all about everything, even the things he knows nothing about, arrogant, plays the fiddle rather badly (but always tries to make everyone listen). Has a dog named Watson who follows him around and always accidentally fetches important clues (but also humps his leg and eats inappropriate things). Everyone tries very hard to avoid him.


at least some of the detectives should get killed off -- maybe all of them?

each detective comes up with a pet theory, each of which is horribly wrong. They do the cliched thing of discussing possible killers until finally saying "but the real killer is..."

"He's been shot?" "thank god"

one scene where the lights go out and shots fired wildly -- everyone has a gun?

Will -- rewritten so many times, so confusing, will hidden everywhere -- in books, behind a painting, three in the safe. One in an old boot, another in the fish pond (they find it while dredging for another body?). One behind the tuna fish salad in the fridge. "How many does that make so far?" "Twelve, I think... no, no-- Nancy found one in one of the medicine cabinets this morning."

Should the butler do it? Maybe one of the detectives turns out to BE the butler? Maybe H

don't forget the deus ex machina! and the climax. denouement.... string? literal flashback.... foreshadowing.

turn plot around in the middle?

Everyone has a motive, clues everywhere

"I think he's dead! Someone must have killed him!" "No shit, Sherlock" "it's Sherwood" "Oh, sorry"

needs lots and lots of blood and guts. Ew! It always seems so tidy in novels

"I would avoid the drawing room if I were you... Helms is in there scraping away at that awful fiddle again. He's cornered Janet in there for the past hour..."

"And THAT is where you made your mistake!" -- repeated

Nancy cooks breakfast -- "must we have poached eggs every morning????"

foul play, one-way ticket, kicking the bucket, bought the farm, iced, mow down, terminated (confusion over term), cashed in, checked out, bite the dust, cash in one's chips, croak, pushing up daisies, pass on, casualty, curtains, sleeping with the fishes, departure, the last word, lapse, hardened criminal, stole away, stainless steal, tied up at the moment, phoney claim, stalking, come clean, found it hard to think straight, open and shut case, you can't pin it on me!, sweat it out, might be able to shed light on the matter, poached eggs, on the lam, did a double take, we have the pros and cons, in a jam, pulled out all the stops, floored, turning point, nerves of steel, on its last leg, she thought she'd try dying her hair although she was too young to dye, rifle through notes, captivating, the will was a dead giveaway, losing ground, it's relative, sunset, on the double, doublespeak, straight face, his lips were sealed, bent out of shape, memories came flooding back, he has my jeans!, he was a marked man, that's the acid test, porn on the computer is quite a graphic display, console him, he's fully recovered now, we've been working on this for 24 hours now -- let's call it a day, break new ground, out of my depth on this one, let's at least try to get down to the nitty gritty, cut and dry, it's pointless, the rest was history, pointed questions, after that he declined, everyone was all up in arms, it's not like it's written in stone, "stop, you're killing me!"

should the library be destroyed by a bomb? have the first murder in the study!

"I'm sorry, but it seems completely unbelievable that: ONE-- the entire house isn't being cordoned off as a crime scene, TWO-- we have such a limited representation from the police force, THREE-- that we're all being requested to stay here, and FOUR-- that you're letting a bunch of lunatics who THINK they know something about crime run amok screwing up the evidence and doing God knows what else?!!" She stopped, completely out of breath.
"My good woman, since when does believability get in the way of a perfectly good murder mystery? Complain to the author"

alarms and excursions

digging holes everywhere

Con words?

Okay, this is getting to be ridiculous.