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How you write a mystery can depend on whether you're trying to make it the "nostalgic" type (e.g. Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers) or more contemporary.
The old-fashioned style of murder mystery is sometimes referred to as "cozy", because it's a solvable puzzle (that often turns on some technical detail). One writer I know claims that the motive should distill down to either profit, fear, or revenge -- and be sure to make up a bunch of red herrings which can be well and truly debunked by the end of the work, just to leave no ambiguity. (I've actually done some literary analyses on a couple of the subgenres, e.g. academic mysteries, where the setting itself can dictate which motives are acceptable -- fear of being caught plagiarizing or with false credentials is a biggie.) Some writers adopt this style on purpose, just to be ironic and poke fun at the genre. If you're aiming for a comedic or satirical touch, this might be an approach to use.
Symons notes that around the middle of the 20th century, there was a transition into "crime fiction" where a solution wasn't guaranteed, and there was often more emphasis on the situation leading up to the crime rather than solving the crime itself. Ruth Rendell, for example, has been known to throw the traditional "whodunnit" out the window by revealing the culprit in the first paragraph of the story -- she then focuses on why the person did it. If you want a more open-ended story that encourages readers to think about social issues, this might be something to consider. Elizabeth Michaels did an interesting variant where she looked at a "cold case" and had her sleuths come up with 3 plausible solutions -- you think it's going to be a cut-and-dried "cozy" mystery, but it raises a lot more questions than it answers.
This summer, Harper's Magazine published a note from a science fiction magazine listing the types of plots which would NOT be considered for publication because they were considered too trite -- some of them would apply to mysteries as well, I imagine.
Feel free to drop me a line if you want more detailed feedback!
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