The Retired Detective's Letters
A retired detective receives an anonymous letter one morning, listing the dates and locations of forthcoming crimes, eerily precise. Driven out of retirement, they must uncover who is sending these letters and why—all while trying not to interfere with ongoing police investigations.
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Make the detective wrong at the midpoint, for a good reason.
- End with the solution in a single line of dialogue.
- Plant the key clue in the first scene, in plain sight.
Writing mystery books
Who did it? You get every clue and a fair shot at the answer.
A mystery opens with a puzzle, usually a death, and closes with the solution. In between, a detective (professional or not) gathers clues and suspects while the reader tries to get there first. A mystery looks backward, at a crime that has already happened.
What readers expect
- A crime or puzzle early on
- Clues, suspects and red herrings
- A detective the reader follows
- A solution that is surprising but fair
A tip before you start
Play fair. Every clue your detective uses should appear on the page first, ideally hidden in plain sight.
More Mystery and Crime prompts
- Sunday Service BurglariesIn a quiet suburban town, a series of houses have been burglarized, all while the families were attending Sunday service. The local sheriff, who was…
- Puzzles for the Crime ReporterA local journalist, known for their crime column, receives anonymous, cryptic puzzles that seem linked to recent disappearances in the city. Each…
- Notes from the Real KillerA forensic psychologist is called to a high-profile courtroom trial to determine the sanity of a defendant accused of a string of gruesome murders.…
- The Typewriter's Cold CasesAfter purchasing an old typewriter from a garage sale, a crime novelist starts receiving typed notes on their doorstep that describe unsolved cases…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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