The New Year Riddle
Every year during the Lunar New Year, a small Asian community in a European city receives an anonymous gift that benefits everyone. One year, however, the gift is a riddle leading to a series of clues about a century-old unsolved mystery involving the founding families. Who will step up to solve it, and what will they discover about their ancestors?
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.
- Start with the confession, and make the story about why it's false.
- Make the detective wrong at the midpoint, for a good reason.
- End with the solution in a single line of dialogue.
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 Multicultural Mystery prompts
- The Missing Market RelicIn a bustling international marketplace, a famed relic goes missing hours before it's due to be showcased. The main character, a local detective from…
- The Sami Activist's FileSet in a snowy, secluded town in Scandinavia, a local police officer of Sami descent discovers an old, unsolved case file from the 1960s about a…
- Murder in a Brazilian Seaside TownCraft a tale in a sedate seaside town in Brazil, where the rhythm of life is suddenly disrupted by the murder of a well-loved priest. The…
- Death at the Sakura FestivalThe quiet town of Shimoda, Japan, is shaken when an esteemed tea master is found dead during the Sakura Festival. A bilingual detective from Tokyo…
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