Film Courage: What does the acronym M.O.M. stand for and how does it affect crime writing?
Jennifer Dornbush, Screenwriter, Author, Speaker, Consultant, and Forensic Science Specialist:
In crime writing the acronym M.O.M. stands for Means, Opportunity and Motive.
How does your criminal gain the means to commit a crime? If they're killing somebody with a knife,
where do they get the knife? From who how do they bring it to wherever or if it's a gun or whatever
how or if they're drowning someone how do they how to where are they doing that what is I know
it sounds simple but you do have to orchestrate that like what are the means to committing this
crime and then opportunity is simply like a criminal needs to have access to a victim
so how is that access given granted how does it happen and so that needs to be thought through.
So are they neighbors or people who work together? Is it two spouses? Again just what is and there's
like us people don't always have access to us so how would they gain access to us at a time when
maybe they shouldn't have or wouldn't necessarily have access to us so like if we're in a locked
vehicle sitting in a parking lot we should be pretty safe right but how could well we think
how could somebody gain an opportunity to access us well they could break the window they could pop
the tires they could jimmy the door but however so that's opportunity there has to be an opportunity
for that access and then me motive is the biggie I think and that's just why what is the reason
behind this crime and I always when I'm teaching this I always I'm like okay let's what's the
motive a wife a wife kills a lover okay or a woman kills a lover what's the reason why did she do it
oh she was jealous okay that's a starting point that's the surface let's go beyond that why is
she jealous oh well I don't know he was cheating on her we'll just go with a very cliche well why
was he cheating on her if she's so great why was he cheating well she she cheated on him oh well
why did she cheat on him oh well because and then we go we keep going deeper deeper deeper we go all
the way back to childhood if we have to because Sharp Objects all that stuff that happened goes
stems way back to things that happened to her as a child and so that's the motive that's the
building of of the motive for the crime and the deeper and more layered and intricate you
get that will help you really quickly inform the rest of your story it will help you really quickly
work through that second act which is always a challenge because you'll you'll know so much about
why a person committed a certain crime and it's just a lot of crimes are done in the heat of the
moment some are premeditated but it's this book I was telling about I believe it's called The
Patient with a we're following the killer you go back into his history so much and find out
and her and the K and the victims history and you find out why he actually did this so that by the
end you're like wow I'm really sympathetic toward to him I get why he did that and
that's what you want right you want that deeper understanding of of the crime in the criminal and
how does setting affect mystery you talked earlier about a small town yeah I love setting
for me I almost think that comes first more so than character or even the crime
oh man this is such a cool place well what if there was a murder here or I think setting can
be its own character knives out right that that setting is its own character that whole place
a Breaking Bad that desert setting that small town is its own character
in Sharp Objects that town is its own character the Crawdads [Where the Crawdads Sing] where are
the projects that setting of the marsh is its own character and it lends itself to the crime
and how she was able to gain means opportunity means and opportunity to dispose of kill and
dispose of her victim so and even what the marsh taught her about how to live in the marsh so
that she could get away with it so I think it can be entirely its own aspect to the story
what kinds of characters best fit into a mystery really again I'll just go back to like it can be
any type of character the important thing is to give them really great motive really get really
spend time in the character development because I found at first when I started doing this genre
I was very much a plotter and I was like it was all about the plot and like getting the all the
trails of evidence right and making it this like really interesting weird twisty murder or just
making sure that the murder just made sense right and that the trails of evidence made sense and
that the protagonists could find them all and like tie in like a big jigsaw puzzle pinging
the pieces together and then I quickly realized through feedback that that wasn't near enough
that was interesting to a point but it didn't make it competitive it didn't make it binge-worthy it
didn't make it sellable and that's where we want to be right we want to be sellable and I started
to see that it while that was all very important to know that to be authentic in your forensics and
be authentic in your crime telling and authentic in your your detectives and what they do and your
protagonist and how crime is investigated what what people are left with more than that and even
and obviously me too obviously as a viewer and a reader you're left with who were those people
who were those characters and that's when I had to kind of all right to bump the next step next level
writing and really start paying more attention to the emotional journey and hero's journey arcs of
my characters and that's where motive and really developing deeper level of characters especially
if you're writing a series right whether it's a limited series or series you hope goes on and
on you want to stick with characters that are very interesting and memorable so any character will do
but it has to be any type of person or character you have to find that thing that makes them
memorable and unique and only you can do that because we all come from these very different
backgrounds and very different everybody has very different experiences and we've
all lived in different geographic places and all of that can inform who you create as a character
it's not something anybody can give you or teach you or tell you you have to start digging into
your own experiences to help you create those characters and what is a red herring and how does
it factor into mysteries a red herring is simply a thing that doesn't pan out so investigators
like oh I've got this this fingerprint I'm going to chase after that and they go and they
chase after and they find oh no actually it's just the next door neighbor and she was home
with the kids and she has an alibi so that's that's an example of a red herring it's just
piece of evidence that just takes you in the wrong direction for a second and then doesn't pan out so
it wouldn't be characters because I was thinking about some of the characters all of them like
sort of like their five and they all had their own motives but you don't know you we haven't
narrowed down who it is yet no it could actually be a character you think this one character is it
and they turn out to be a red herring yeah so it could be evidence could be a person yep oh okay
okay great what about rabbit holes rabbit holes are wow we've all been down rabbit holes and at
the end of the rabbit hole there's just a hole there's something there oh I'm sorry okay no but
in in crime writing you want your investigators to be like little rabbits going after what they think
is the right clue but at the end they're just a whole it's nothing and now they gotta climb out
of the hole and they gotta try another trail so we just think about how in real life sometimes
we if we're on the computer when we're surfing we end up going down this crazy I was just looking
for shoes and somehow now I'm going to Hawaii like how did that happen right so yeah and how
much do you like to foreshadow in a story and what does that mean yeah that's a good question
I don't think about it at all in crime writing that's funny I think about it in drama writing
but that's fun funny question good question I don't think about foreshadowing at all in crime
writing what is foreshadowing to me it's you're sort of layering a hint of something to come and
I'm just thinking about all like crime other crime writing books or things that I've I don't think we
talk about it much in this genre because you don't want to do that necessarily like you don't want
to hint you don't want to give us a hint about something that's to come you want to constantly
trick us or take us down make us think we're going this way when actually it's over here so
I think it's a great literary device and I definitely use it for that for more
literary dramatic writing definitely want to put foreshadowing and symbols of things
but I don't do it at all I don't think I use it at all and that I'm aware of so.