The "mystery" genre

[WhiteCrow]

In discussing this, I'm bracketing a whole body of work - not just those crime mysteries, but also anything with a twist or reveal in.



I recently tried writing a short story "with a reveal", and I think I appreciated for the first time just how difficult it is. You have a story with elements of mystery throughout, and at the end you reveal what's really going on. Simple?

Nope. Because I always think there should be just enough evidence of the reveal scattered throughout the story.

Too much and you're almost screaming at the characters "how dumb are you".

Too little and you actually feel cheated by the ending and twists - I felt like this in Lost which is why I stopped watching it after a while. But I remember reading a murder mystery where a character says "I've just been dropped off by a mate" midway through act one. The "mate" character doesn't actually appear until the last few pages of the final act, and turns out to be the murderer - but it feels kind of a cheating way to resolve a mystery.

I think in many ways planning and writing a mystery takes a lot of planning and rewriting.

So over to you - what do you feel makes a good or bad mystery?

How would you go about writing a mystery which works?

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm about to have m'tea so I'll post more later, but I would just like to be annoying by saying this might be a difficult thread to post to without running the risk of posting "in this book the killer was so-and-so, which was cleverly done" type spoilers.

And the Murderer of Roger Ackroyd was...

[WhiteCrow]

That's a good point, but I'm hoping it's something we can still talk about "what makes a good mystery". Can always use spoiler space ...

It's like Sixth Sense, I'd put in this bracket. There is a twist in the final moments of the film, but when you rewatch it, you can actually see it being signposted along the way.

Likewise a lot of Twilight Zone/Outer Limits I'd call "reveal" stories which I think work similarly to mysteries. The story as a whole doesn't make complete sense until the last few minutes, but there are again clues along the way. One such story I remember the Twilight Zone story about the man in the cave, and the Outer Limits story Nightmare.

I guess part of how a mystery has to work is that you're not to be too surprised by the ending - you need to partially suspect it along the way. But then again not totally be able to piece everything together.

I really used to enjoy the Jonathon Creek stories, because solving them (which I'd often get about 80-90% of the way with) was an application of understanding of illusion and imagination.

The only one I didn't like was ...

The one with the Gorilla on the toilet. Where a man dies on a Samauri sword in a locked room. The murderer turns out to be animal rights people who killed him with an envelope. That seems to me the worst kind of Agetha Christie ending.

I do rather like the movie, Murder by Death, which spoofs off a lot of mystery writing ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_By_Death

[Dave Lewis]

Beware! Long, self-absorbed rambling ahead...

Earlier this year I wrote a murder mystery novel.

of course, it also turned out to be a time travel adventure, a story of coping with loss and ultimately about redemption and all kinds of other stuff - not to mention fitting into the story arc of a longer series about a boy called Charlie Holloway and something nasty called the Dark War. However, a murder mystery it was from the prologue right up until what I hope is the OHMYGOD! moment where Charlie - and his faithful friend the reader - finds out, as it were, whodunnit.

Having not read it back since I finished the second draft a few months ago - and because my head is full of its sucessor, which I'm currently a zillion words into, and to a lesser degree its predecessor, which not long ago I redrafted to something approaching its final state* - I can't say for definite whether the clues are too obscure or too obvious, whether the identity of the killer is so much of a surprise it doesn't work as a resolution or if its so ridiculously clear that the reader knows whodunnit before they even know what was 'dun'. I hope that the book strikes the right balance, leaves the right amount of clues but also the right amount of red herrings; I do think the truth is in there if you look hard enough but then again, despite my distance from it at the moment I'm paradoxically far too close to 'book two' (as it was known for aeons) to view it objectively.

All I can say is, I really hope it works - I want an OHMYGOD! moment of my very own... the moment of resolution is what makes murder mysteries such a brilliant fictional genre; I loved Christie as a kid and I still read Rankin, Deaver, Connelly, Robinson and more for pleasure to this day. Even though my books (in this series anyway) are nothing to do with crime fiction it was fun to do.

By the way, the culprit for this rambling post was Dave Lewis, in the Between the Covers forum, with the umpteenth can of lager... or possibly the butler.




*Much better than any previous draft, so if you've read or tried to read an earlier version this one is much better - honest! You know who you are...

[WhiteCrow]

Personally I probably don't let anyone see anything until the 3rd draft - thats my way of working.

I recently did just a brief 10 page story, and it took the best part of 2 weeks of research, writing and rewrites. It's "finished form" was probably draft 5-7.

My advice before you spin off into sequels and prequels is just to keep revisiting that story and toning it up. Although I've had absolutely no success myself - everyone hates my writing - so take it all with a pinch of salt!

[Dave Lewis]

Ironically it took me the writing of one and a half (as it was then) sequels to go back to the first book and change everything that didn't sit right - both stylistically and content-wise - so as to make it stand up better on its own! But you're right about letting anyone see what you're cooking before the pan has come to the boil; I was incredibly reticent to the majority of people I know about writing something proper, yet paradoxically when people asked to see it I was happy to let them do so. I felt - and feel - it gives validity to myself to show the thousands 'n' thousands of words I've written; just to show that I have created something from nothing. In retrospect I'd rather people read the draft of my first book as it stands now; because I think it all hangs together a little better than it did the last couple of times around.

But that's more than enough about my writing; I've hijacked your thread to waffle about myself and I shall now shut the hell up.

[WhiteCrow]

But that's more than enough about my writing; I've hijacked your thread to waffle about myself and I shall now shut the hell up.

Nah - it all seems fair enough to me Dave. I think using a small pool of readership to test how something stands out on it's own is indeed part of "getting it right". If someone comes back with "I wasn't sure why this happened", it allows you to go back and strengthen the evidence.

From Agatha Christies Wiki entry ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, belies this claim.

Sounds a fair enough way to do it.

[Andrew Curnow]

I guess part of how a mystery has to work is that you're not to be too surprised by the ending - you need to partially suspect it along the way. But then again not totally be able to piece everything together.

I think I agree with that. I'm sure I've seen it said somewhere that it would not be considered 'proper' to suddenly produce a murderer from outside of the cast of characters - obviously in real life that happens, but to suddenly say "Well actually it was a hitman from Swansea who we never even met" at the end of a book would be unacceptable.

I'm no expert on what makes a good whodunnit, but I do know what I like! At the moment I'm 3/4 of the way through Busman's Honeymoon (the last Peter Wimsey novel I believe) and have no idea who did it. Years ago I read Dorothy L Sayer's Nine Tailors, and I have to admit I can't remember now who did it, but I do remember the how. That was one of the very best mystery novels I've ever read, and I'm very reluctant to re-read it in case, 21 years later, it's not as good as I thought & think it is.

As for Agatha Christie, I think we're in a sense now so used to her that we perhaps take for granted how ingenious some of her books are. For example things like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (where the narrator did it - inspired, apparently, by her always wanting to read a Sherlock Holmes story where at the end he revealed that Watson had done it!) or Murder on the Orient Express (where EVERYBODY had done it) are both very inventive and original variations on the theme. There's one of her books and alas I can't remember the title, but there's a running theme of a nun in it, which turns out to be a red herring, but it so cleverly wrong-foots the reader.

So, er, in conclusion then - whodunnits, yes, very good, me like!

[Dirk Gently]

Dave, I know it must be very hard to write clues that you know point toward the culprit while keeping a sense of mystery, so I believe less is more. Good clues are the ones that seem innocuous to begin with but as the reader gets to the end of the story they then fall in to place.
I know you will probably hate this comment but it's the only one that springs to mind at the mo...take the Harry Potter books, there are mysteries to be solved & the clues are there but they are so mixed with other things that they are not seen to be significant, other than what they mean within the smaller scene. For e.g, Harry talks to a snake in book 1, this is seen as magical ability & nothing more. In book 2 it appears to be far more significant with the whole Slytherin's heir business but it's not until book 7 that the real significance is known.
Now this e.g is over 7 books but the premise still holds IMO over the story of Harry. Also in book one the clues pointing toward Quirrell are there but only appear to the reader when you know 'who dun it'.

As for Agatha Christie, I'm a fan but I do find her infuriating sometimes, especially Marple. I hate the fact that far too often clues are only revealed at the "get together" with all the suspects in the room. Suddenly Marple will say that she's just received a telegram confirming an idea she had & it proves that so-n-so was the illegitimate son/daughter of Lord whats-it & that's why he/she killed him. It just leaves me thinking "well yes if I'd have known that I'd have thought they were guilty as well!" I like to try & work out who the guilty party is along with the character I'm following in the book & I hate the surprise piece of evidence right before I'm told that's why the person is guilty.

This probably won't help but I just thought I'd throw that in to the mix.

[Captain Tancredi]

Arthur Conan Doyle is on record as saying that the ideas for the Holmes stories came to him fully formed, and if he tried to tinker with them, the spark somehow went out of the story- which makes sense if you bear in mind that a lot of them are about mysteries or problems rather than crimes.

I think it's about right to say that there should be enough clues throughout the mystery to allow the reader to have a good guess, but not so many that you either feel patronised when it's glaringly obvious who did it, or cheated when having laid a false trail, the author suddenly changes tack at the very end. Most of the Christie I've read has been the early books where the workings are a little bit too obvious- with going away next week, I'll have to try one of the later ones and see if she becomes more subtle.

[Jon Masters]

The best mystery stories, for me, are the ones where the clues are clearly scattered throughout the book or script, often as throwaway points or lines, so that you can go back through the whole thing and see them quite clearly once you know whodunnit. My favourite at the moment, Chris Fowler, does just that. Another example would be the film The Usual Suspects.

The worst mystery stories, for me, are the ones which rely on finding out a particular piece of information (often by telegram or an assistant PI etc) which gives everything away at the last minute, or a clue which is deliberately withheld from the reader/viewer and plucked like a rabbit from a hat by the detective (who apparently knew it all along).

As for the writing process (of which I have very lttle experience) I would have thought it would be logical to start at the end and work backwards anyway.

[Dave Lewis]

Dave, I know it must be very hard to write clues that you know point toward the culprit while keeping a sense of mystery, so I believe less is more. Good clues are the ones that seem innocuous to begin with but as the reader gets to the end of the story they then fall in to place.
I know you will probably hate this comment but it's the only one that springs to mind at the mo...take the Harry Potter books, there are mysteries to be solved & the clues are there but they are so mixed with other things that they are not seen to be significant, other than what they mean within the smaller scene. For e.g, Harry talks to a snake in book 1, this is seen as magical ability & nothing more. In book 2 it appears to be far more significant with the whole Slytherin's heir business but it's not until book 7 that the real significance is known.
Now this e.g is over 7 books but the premise still holds IMO over the story of Harry. Also in book one the clues pointing toward Quirrell are there but only appear to the reader when you know 'who dun it'.

I don't hate the comment at all, Tim! In fact the notion of seemingly innocuous things in one book having a greater meaning revealed in subsequent ones is something that is regularly on my mind whilst writing the series of novels I have immersed myself in. Hopefully one day you - and everyone - will be picking up (or not picking up) bits in book one and then in books two or three - or later! - saying "Ahhhh!" as you arrive at that wonderful moment of revelation...