After much thought and deliberation, I have finally decided that my topic will be about creating a mystery.  I know that this is slightly different from my original proposal, but I want to leave open the possibility of creating either a written project or perhaps an audio-visual project.  My driving question is how to create a mystery novel or movie.  Questions I hope to answer include how do you decide on a plot? How do you go about doing the research? How do you build suspense? How do you integrate and present clues? How do you develop interesting characters?  I will read mystery novels and watch mystery movies to learn various styles and techniques.  Some authors I plan to study include, Sue Grafton, P.D. James, Raymond Chandler, and Agatha Christie. And some filmmakers I plan to study are Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Orson Welles, Brian De Palma, David Fincher, David Lynch, and Joel Coen.  I see myself writing an analysis of the steps I will be going through to create my mystery, and the techniques I incorporate into my story. 

I was thinking about some of the topics I through out there last week and I narrowed my topic choices down to three.  The first topic I eliminated was what makes a movie a box office success.  I just didn't think this topic was going to be as enjoyable to learn about and to reasearch as the other choices.  The second idea I decided to reject was freemasonry and its impact on the development of America, because although I greatly enjoy conspiracies, this topic would be very difficult to research and write a term paper on.  Also there is no definitive answer to these mysteries and most of the content and data that is written about this topic is speculation.
I kept the other three topics because I believe that they all very interesting and will be fun to reasearch and learn about, and that there will be a lot information on them that will help my research and studies.

I am thinking of selecting a topic on innovative thinkers in history such as Leonardo DaVinci, Archimedes, Einstein and Jules Verne. What inspired them, how were they so ahead of their times and what are some of their innovations that we are just beginning to implement? I am thinking that they were unconventional in their approach to learning and I may connect this topic with the psychology of learning. This topic may be too difficult and too broad to fit into 25 or 15 pages, so I may need to narrow the scope and focus on one particular person.

Another topic that I am considering is what makes a particular movie popular and achieve box office success versus another movie that may achieve critical acclaim from critics, yet is unsuccessful in the box office.

I want to possibly explore how mystery books are written and create a new form of mystery writing where all the clues are presented in the body of the work early on, and revealed to those who have not discovered them during the progression of the story.

How are puzzles created? explore the techniques for creating mazes and puzzles and create a new type of puzzle or maze based on those techniques.

Freemasonry in the development of America and the mysteries of the Freemasons. Part of my research with be to visit the catacombs under Trinity Church and to explore the caves behind Mount Rushmore.  This will be a difficult topic because sources will be limited and much of the research will be speculative with no definitive proof.  It may also be dangerous and I may end up being written about as part of a real life mystery as the target of the Freemasons or U.S. government.  This, however, will provide materials for my mystery novel (see above).

I am thinking that this will be a very interesting project but will require a lot of work. I am somewhat apprehensive, but at the same time very interested in what I might learn or not learn. Or I could not worry and take the easy way out by writing a family cookbook.