by Devangshee Khemka, Grade 8
In the masterclass “Perfect Murders”, led by former Neev Book Award winner Shabnam Minwalla, we explored why she enjoys writing murder mysteries so much, what is so thrilling about the writing process of a murder mystery, how to write a murder mystery, and even got an opportunity to craft one of our own.
First and foremost, how did Shabnam end up becoming a writer, that too in the genre of murder mysteries? She started off the session by talking about how she used to be a journalist for The Times of India, but then she was blessed (not really) with 3 babies in 2 years. That was not a very pleasant time of her life as she recalls and she found herself questioning “What do I do with my life?” So she decided to write a book! Originally, she wanted to write a book meant for young adults (not younger children, as she recalled her very unpleasant time dealing with 3 small babies), but she ended up writing a book about dragons and spell-makers and castles and everything you can imagine that would go into a book meant for children (The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street). With that, she started her writing career.
Shabnam has always been interested in thriller and murder and has always wanted to be a part of those secret societies that investigate murder mysteries like Secret Seven. However, she never got to, hence she decided to start writing about “Murders, Motifs and Weapons, all the good things of life”. While writing her book The Body in the Swimming Pool, she drew upon this desire to be part of a secret society; the book featured one such group, christened “The Chicken Pox Club”. She also wanted to write a murder mystery during the 2020 Lockdown, drawing a link between her community’s reaction whenever a COVID case would pop up in their building and murder. This gave birth to one of her most iconic books, Murder at Daisy Apartments.
How to write a murder mystery? What are the ingredients in every good murder mystery? Shabnam Minwalla shared these stories and read snippets from her book The Body in the Swimming Pool, all the while training us to become murder mystery authors of the future. “Writing a murder mystery is like baking a cake,” she said, going on to provide a list of ingredients:
- Murderer
- Victim
- Dead body (can be missing!)
- List of suspects
- Clues
- Motive
- Weapon
- Setting
While reading out from her book, and with us ticking off all of the ingredients in the list, there was one key ingredient missing. We did not have a set or closed list of suspects. Shabnam pointed out that it’s always best to have a closed list of suspects. How do we create that closed list of suspects? Have a character come and tamper with the clues and create a more closed list of suspects!
After identifying these ingredients, we took part in a small activity in which we got to plot our murder mysteries, checking off everything on the list. Towards the end, we got opportunities to share the setting and maybe even the plot of our very own murder mystery, with settings of a school, train, a field, an old family bungalow, crowded areas, quiet mysterious areas, and an old shop in Varanasi coming to light.
By the end of the session, we were able to learn a lot about murder mysteries, how to write our own, and we caught some valuable glimpses into Shabnam’s approaches to writing. Did you know that she doesn’t know who her killer is when she starts writing the book? A true definition of “let the pen just flow.”
As Shabnam said, “The joy of writing a murder mystery is not for your readers to guess who the murderers are, but for the readers to be completely flabbergasted.”
