Writing Mysteries for Kids

by Bryan Patrick Avery

This past weekend, I had the honor of appearing on the Mystery Writers of America, Northern California Chapter’s Facebook live series. Each entry in the series is a short (30-45) presentation and discussion on an aspect of mystery writing. My topic was “Writing Mysteries for Children and Middle Schoolers”.

You can view the full segment here.

For now, though, I’d like to share some of the tips I shared during my presentation. Here there are:

1. Remember that children “read up”. Kids often use books to see into the future. First graders like to see what third grade will be like. Fifth graders are looking forward to seeing what seventh and eighth grade have in store for them. This means that, when you’re writing a book for a certain age group, your characters will likely be a bit older than your readers.
2. Your main characters should be kids and must solve the mystery. Readers live vicariously through your characters. Kids want characters they can relate to and who face the same issues they do.
3. Get the adults out of the way. In order for kids to star in the mystery, you have to get the adults out of the way. This can be done by making them mostly absent, or by making them skeptical or dismissive of the kids efforts. Be careful though, you don’t want to make all the adults same mean or evil. That will put your readers off as well.
4. How will kids solve the mystery? This is very important. How, exactly, would your middle grade sleuth solve a jewel heist or a kidnapping? The solution to this problem lies on how you create your characters. By giving them special kids (every kid has at least one) that they can use to solve the mystery, it will make them more believable as a sleuth.
5. Be fair. Nobody likes to be tricked. The solution to your mystery can’t come out of left field. The reader can be fooled but should be able to see where they went wrong once the final solution is revealed.
6. Don’t overlook puzzles. Your readers won’t. (Almost) everyone loves a good puzzle. Some of the most popular books over the past few years have involved puzzles the characters most solve to move their investigations forward.
7. Humor still reigns supreme here. Kids love to laugh. Injecting humor in your stories can also help break the tension of some of your more serious scenes.
8. Children love to see themselves in books. Make room for everyone. Every readers should be able to see themselves in books. Try to make your writing representative of the world around us.

 
To see some wonderful examples of middle grade mystery and suspense writing, check out these two anthologies from the Mystery Writers of America. While you're at it, pick up a copy of HOW TO WRITE A MYSTERY, an anthology on craft. There’s even a whole section on writing mysteries for kids.

​Well, that’s all for this month. Happy writing and have a magical month.

Bryan Patrick Avery is an award-winning poet and author of books for children from toddlers through middle grade. His middle-grade story, “The Magic Day Mystery”, appears in SUPER PUZZLETASTIC MYSTERIES, an anthology from HarperCollins and the Mystery Writers of America. His debut picture book, THE FREEMAN FIELD PHOTOGRAPH, illustrated by Jerome White, was published by Clearfork Publishing/Spork. His early reader series, MR. GRIZLEY’S CLASS, illustrated by Arief Putra, is now available from Picture Window Press. Bryan lives in Northern California with his family.

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