Continued from Part 1

This was Coastal Magic’s first year doing a murder mystery party, and it was one of the parts of the weekend I’d been looking forward to most. I’ve done these in the past with my mom’s family during our summer family vacations, and they’re a huge amount of fun if everyone playing is willing to commit.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, for a murder mystery party, the guests take on the roles of the story’s characters. You receive instructions in advance of the party with information on your character’s personality, behavior, and wardrobe, as well as details about your relationships with some of the other characters and a few secrets you might know.

When the murder mystery takes place at a party where the guests far outnumber the named characters (like at a convention!), the majority of the guests take on the shared role of “Investigator”. In this case, they don’t receive any information in advance of the party, but they’re given a booklet when they arrive that details some juicy tidbits they know and curious things they’ve observed in relation to the named characters.

During the first part of the party, the characters circulate through the room, interacting with each other and the Investigators in-character and dropping various hints/clues as they’ve been instructed. Then at some point, there’s a - gasp - murder!!!

One of the characters is declared to have been murdered. The players themselves have no idea who is going to be killed, or which one of them is the killer - they don’t find out until they open the sealed section in the back of their character booklets in the middle of the party. Then the party shifts into crime-solving mode: the guests find clues that have been hidden around the room, investigate the crime scene, and talk to the characters some more before the characters are publicly interrogated.

At the end of the party, the guests vote for which of the characters they believe is the killer. For the one we did at Coastal Magic, we also voted for the best actor and best costume. The ballots are tallied, the results are announced, and the killer is given the opportunity to explain themselves.

The Jazz Age Murder Mystery was an absolute blast! I played one of the characters myself - Win, stuffy accountant to gangsters and criminals. For my costume, I went with a “nerdy gangster” vibe: black pencil skirt, white button-down, suspenders, old-school black stockings, and of course a jauntily angled fedora.

All of the players committed to their roles 110%, which is honestly what makes or breaks this kind of party. I was also amazed by how genuinely hilarious many of the players were. Some of them had like professional-level improv skills and comedic timing. Special props have to go to Elicia Hyder (who deservedly won “best actor” - she had my vote!), J.D. Monroe, Meghan Maslow (attorney… at law), and Avery Flynn. There were times when I was falling-down, tears-in-my-eyes cracking up!

As for the mystery itself, I was vindicated in having figured out who the murderer was as soon as the victim’s identity was announced. However, it turned out that I had ascribed a much more complex and sinister motive to the killer than the game had, LOL. (I thought the murder was a premeditated conspiracy with another character, whereas the game had it as an unintentional crime of passion, albeit rooted in the same reasons that I thought it was premeditated.) I guess that’s not surprising, given my own personal taste in murder mysteries!

The party also gave me the chance to connect with fabulous author Sarah Nicolas, a person after my own heart, who ended up being the killer. In a weird stroke of coincidence, Sarah had been drinking a gin and tonic during the party - and the murder weapon turned out to be a gin bottle!

All told, I think the murder mystery party was a roaring success, and I hope it becomes a new tradition that continues at future conventions.

Saturday was the busiest day of the convention, starting with my romantic suspense panel in the morning. There were five authors on this panel, and even though we all write romantic suspense, it was interesting to see how we all write it in very different ways. It just goes to show how much story variety there can be even within a single genre!

I had a break between the end of that panel and the start of my next commitment, and for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to return to my room to decompress and recharge my introverted self. Instead, I went to the “Improv Flash Fiction” panel, which is something Coastal Magic does every year. 

For this panel, a large group of authors (I think there were 8 or 9) sit in the usual line facing the audience. The moderator asks the audience for a handful of story prompts, such as the type of protagonist, genre, setting, and main conflict. The authors then use those prompts to craft a story on the spot. Starting with the first person in line, each subsequent author builds on the contributions of the authors before them by adding anywhere from a handful of sentences to the oral equivalent of several paragraphs, introducing their own twists to the tale. As you can imagine, the story gets progressively zanier as it makes its way down the line.

This panel ranked right up there under the murder mystery party as one of the most hilarious parts of the con! And from what I’ve been told, it’s like that every year. The funniest parts, IMO, were the reactions of authors farther down the line when the author before them did something totally unexpected and wacky, then left them to deal with the fallout.

Plus, the panel was impressive as hell: all of the stories (there was enough time for 3) ended up being coherent narratives with interesting twists and turns as well as satisfying resolutions by the end.

I am in awe of people who are able to think quickly on their feet and improvise successfully - in part because it’s in such diametric opposition to my own skill set, haha. I could never, ever participate in something like this; my brain would be in a panicked scramble the whole time. But as an audience member, I love improv. Almost every podcast I subscribe to is some form of improvised comedy, and I got the same kind of kick out of the flash fiction panel.

TBC tomorrow - Lunch with an Author, and my first-ever book signing!