: Re: How to make the murder's identity less obvious, or make the obviousness not matter? I'm writing a short story following the first person perspective of the MC, who is a young, male writer of

@Kristi637

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It would be difficult to pull off a first person murderer in a mystery format and still play fair with the audience.

About the only way I can see to make it work is to present the entire narrative as a fictionalized story (or perhaps notes for a story) that the narrator is writing about his own experience. With that as the framework, it makes sense that the narrator is deliberately concealing his own guilt --it lessens the presumption of transparent insight into the narrator's mind that we expect from a first person narrative. It also gives you a possible secondary motivation for your MC --he's doing primary research for his own writing (observing people's reactions, etc.).

In essence, you'll be presenting two overlapping stories here --a murder mystery, as written by your MC, and a thriller (where it is not as important to conceal the murderer's identity), as presented by you, the real author. I think this also meets your larger goal of serving up a bit of (hopefully not too) relatable metafiction for an audience of writers.

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