Do you enjoy cozy mysteries where the author finds unique, even funny, ways to do away with a character? I do. One of my favorite authors is Kathleen Ernst. She writes the Chloe Ellefson mystery series. Chloe is a curator at Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor living history museum. She finds dead characters in the most unusual places. I won’t give them away. If you enjoy cozy mysteries give the Chloe series a try.
When you combine an unusual death (minus the gore), an amateur sleuth, and a community of quirky characters, you can create a cozy mystery readers love.
What are some humorous ways to kill off a character? Here are a few ideas:
• A star football player is murdered by an imposter wearing his team’s mascot costume.
• Small-town mayor dies when a clown on a motorcycle runs over him during the town’s Founder’s Day parade.
• A futuristic character is approached by a robot shooting paper airplanes–but one of the airplanes is loaded!
• Farmer gets locked in the hen house and is pecked to death by rabid chickens.
• A drunk passes out in a big pile of leaves curbside and is scooped into a garbage truck.
• Candymaker, working overtime and alone, drowns in a vat of chocolate.
• Contestant dies after consuming 10 pounds of baked beans in an eating contest. (Oh, the possibilities!)
• Grammarian is crushed when a shelf of dictionaries falls on her.
• A fisherman on a riverbank is killed when an eagle carrying a tortoise drops the tortoise on the fisherman’s head. (Don’t laugh, this really happened to Aeschylus, the great Athenian author of tragedies.)
• A large molasses storage tank bursts, and a wave of molasses rushes through the streets killing anyone in its path. (This actually happened in Boston in 1919.)
If you are an author stuck looking for a unique way to kill off a character, Wikipedia offers a list of “real” unusual/ ironic deaths that occurred from 620 BC to the present. Also, check out Springhole.net’s “Cause of Death” generator, “Murder Mystery Victim” generator, and more.
Happy writing!
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