Wondering where some of your favorite authors get their ideas for mysteries stories?
Well, sometimes, it’s as simple as a child’s nursery rhyme.
No, seriously.
Case in point, actually two cases, Janet Evanovich—One for the Money—the first in her numbered series, is one.
Remember the nursery rhyme “One for the Money”? (3 Plums in One, by Janet Evanovich, 1994, 1996, 1997)
Evanovich uses:
One for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready
And four to go.
Evanovich used the first line as a book title for the first book but changed the others slightly – Two for the Dough (instead of show), Three to Get Deadly (instead of Ready), and then she dropped the nursery rhyme altogether for her later titles.
Janet Evanovich Wasn’t the First to Use Nursery Rhymes for Her Mysteries
Agatha Christie, on the other hand, used the nursery rhyme—”One, Two Buckle My Shoe”—both as the title of her mystery and the subsequent lines as chapter headings.
One, Two Buckle My Shoe,
Three, Four Shut The Door
Five, Six Pickup Sticks,
Seven, Eight Lay them straight – and so on.
According to John Curran in his book Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, 2009, Christie used all the lines from the nursery rhyme as chapter headings, but only one, the shoe buckle, was an actual clue.
However, the work she did brainstorming with herself over the various lines of that rhyme helped her build her novel.
It even sparked some additional books she would write later.
But Ideas are Not Only Found in Nursery Rhymes as Christie Demonstrates
Christie also got ideas for her stories from her own experiences and from broader history.
A tranquil and totally not mysterious setting becomes more as she lets her mind wander over a treasure hunt she invented for her grandson.
A treasure hunt became a story that was a murder hunt, a charity event for boys and girls clubs. [Dead Man’s Folly 1956].
From a single child hunting treasure, to a full house hunting clues to a murder, Christie’s imagination found the clues to turn long past history, mundane, every day status quo into, a thrilling present day mystery.
Evanovich Gets Ideas from History, Too
Evanovich uses the recent past to begin her mystery novel One for the Money, as well, with totally different results and a totally different author tone or style.
For Christie history is a starting point for The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
Her history at Styles also played a role in many of her novels.
Because she lived there she knew it intimately.
But Christie and Evanovich both came up with ideas by starting with thoughts and musings and the ever present, what if?
Ideas for mystery stories and writing prompts are everywhere.
It just takes an inquisitive mind to pull them out of the ordinary and make them extraordinary.
Try it!
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