The Moonlit Rearrangements
On the night of a full moon, a quiet suburban neighborhood reports a series of peculiar break-ins where nothing is stolen, but personal items are strangely rearranged. A philosophical detective sees a pattern that others dismiss, and his intuition leads him to a suspect with a bizarre motive.
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.
- End with the solution in a single line of dialogue.
- Plant the key clue in the first scene, in plain sight.
- Limit it to one location and one night.
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 Police Procedural prompts
- The Crossword TipsterDevelop a story set in a bustling metro police department where officers must solve a crime involving an anonymous tipster who communicates only…
- The Handler's Cold CaseAt the retirement party of an esteemed police dog handler, a retired German Shepherd reacts in an unexpectedly aggressive way towards a guest.…
- The Memento in the AlleyA notorious gang leader is found dead in an alley, and the first officer on the scene takes a personal memento from the crime scene - a decision that…
- The Evidence Room CluesDuring a routine audit of the evidence room, a young detective notices irregularities with the items logged from a decade-old unsolved case. Explore…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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