Elements of a Good Mystery
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Welcome to my new series, Elements Of, where I will be outlining the
features that make a genre, character, or subplot great. Today, I want to talk
about mysteries. I love mysteries, both reading or watching them, and writing them mystery. In fact one of my projects for NaNoWriMo last year was a mystery. There are many features that go into making a great mystery,
from the characters, to the pacing, to the setting. In this post, I’ll be going through some of the basic elements of good mysteries, and will take a more in depth
look at how they can help your writing. Bear in mind, these are just some of the elements that good mysteries have in common. There are plenty more. Maybe even
enough for a part two! If you enjoy this post and would like to read a second
instalment, let me know in the comments. And now, on to the post!
Ever since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the legendary
detective, Sherlock Holmes, readers and writers alike have enjoyed the
intricacies of the mystery genre. Whether you’re reading a mystery, watching
one, or plotting one of your own, mysteries hold a strange fascination. There
are all kinds of mysteries, from police thrillers, to the Sherlockian civilian
detective, to the teen sleuth. However, they all have elements in common which,
if written right, can make for a compelling mystery that will have readers
holding their breath to the very last page. But what are these elements?
Elements Of A Good Mystery
A Limited Cast: Having a large cast doesn’t necessarily mean
that your mystery is going to be more interesting, or more complex. In fact, in
many cases, having a smaller cast works better, for several reasons.
Firstly, readers need to be able to remember who the major
characters are. The larger the cast, the more chance there is that your readers
are going to forget who’s who. If they have to stop and flip back through the
pages to find out who Coronel Smith is and why he’s important to the story then
maybe your characters aren’t interesting enough, or you may have too many of
them. Either way, every time your readers have to stop to remember who someone
is, they’re being pulled out of the story.
Secondly, having a smaller cast allows for more interaction with each of the
suspects, and a tighter plot overall. Ideally, the villain should be present to
the readers very early on in the book, along with all the other major suspects.
Some of the best mysteries I’ve read, or seen, have involved the villain in
person throughout the story, allowing readers to know him, but concealing his
true role in the story. It also allows you to give more screen time to the
other suspects.
Thirdly, having a smaller cast means that you can’t be lazy
with your writing. If you want the final reveal to be effective, and you haven’t
got a large cast to obscure the true villain, then you’re forced to be very
clever in your writing to keep readers from guessing too early who the bad guy
is. And the smarter you have to think, the better the writing will end up
being.
Strong Motivations: All the suspects, not just the villain
need strong motivations for why they could conceivably have committed the
crime. The stronger the motivations of all the suspects, the harder it will be
for the detective, and the readers to identify the villain, and the deeper the
mystery becomes. This helps create tension and a sense of breathless
uncertainty as readers are kept guessing who the villain could be. Giving all
the suspects motives for committing the crime is an important part of creating
a tightly woven plot, as well as concealing the real villain for longer.
Complex Characters: Apart from having a strong motivation for committing the
crime, your suspects should stray into the grey areas morally. Yes, they might
not have committed the murder, but they’re also not entirely as blameless, or
disconnected from the crime as they would like people to believe. Often, good
mysteries give all the suspects something to hide, or an involvement that
throws doubt on their innocence. The more complex their background and
involvement with the crime, the harder it is to completely rule them out as a
suspect. As the clues start appearing and the detective unravels the case,
these secrets are then able to come out, and the mystery can thicken naturally,
keeping readers mystified but intrigued.
Plenty Of Clues: When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle effectively
created the mystery genre, it was acceptable to keep readers completely in the
dark about the solution until the very end of the mystery, when it would be
presented to the reader through the Dr Watson character in full. The mysteries
kept readers intrigued, but never gave them a chance to work out the solution
for themselves.
Nowadays, it’s a lot harder to pull that kind of story off.
Readers want to have a fair chance of solving the mystery themselves as it’s
unravelling on the page. They want the satisfaction of putting together the
clues to find the solution before the detective does. And they get a great
sense of achievement if they can do so. Which means that you, as the writer,
have a difficult balancing act to achieve. On the one hand, you want to be able
to surprise your readers with the ending. It is a mystery after all. But at the
same time, you also need to make it transparent enough to give them a chance to
figure it out for themselves, if they’re smart enough to put all the clues
together.
There are exceptions to this rule however, as there are with
many of these elements. Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, for example, never gives
readers a chance to solve the mystery for themselves. However, it compensates
for this by presenting the mysteries with a beautifully unique setting, placing
the stories in Botswana. By including cultural elements and stories, and
weaving it together inside a more relaxed storytelling style, McCall gets away
with keeping his readers mystified. However, should you want to break this rule
yourself make sure you include some other element to the story to keep readers
intrigued and interested.
A Ticking Clock: Every good mystery needs a good ticking
clock driving the plot forwards. If your mystery doesn’t need to be solved in a
certain timeframe, then it becomes much, much harder to create a sense of
tension and urgency in the investigation. Whether your detective has to solve
the crime before a bomb goes off, or a killer strikes again, or even before
unscrupulous relatives steal the inheritance, they need some deadline. Without
this, it’s very difficult to create enough suspect to keep readers on the edge
of their seats. If your mystery could be solved at any time, or there’s no
repercussions of it not being solved, then you’re missing out on a big tool
that can give your story tension and drive the plot along.
A Clear Solution: Throughout the mystery, you’ve been
working to give your readers enough clues to solve the mystery on their own,
while simultaneously trying to hide the solution from them so you can surprise
them. But, at the end of the book, your readers need to be able to understand
the solution, and how you got there. You can plot the most unique mystery, have
the best villain, have great tension and keep your readers guessing beautifully
until the end of the book, but none of that counts for anything if, by the last
page, your readers still don’t understand whodunit and how.
Much of the satisfaction of reading a mystery comes from the
ending. All the plot threads must be drawn together, the solution needs to be
logical, and it all needs to be laid out before the reader in an easy to
understand fashion. Readers want and deserve answers at the end. This doesn’t
necessarily mean that you have to rehash the entire plot in a huge summary at
the end of the book, as Sherlock Holmes does when explaining his process to Dr
Watson, but by linking clues logically throughout the book, when the final
pieces fall into place at the end of the book, readers should be able to
finally see the whole picture. And, after all, a satisfying ending is what
every reader deserves at the end of a book.
Thanks for reading the
first post in my new series. Let me know what you thought of it! Are you excited
to read more of these in the future? What genres, or topics would you like me
to cover in the future? Are you interested in seeing a part two to this post? Or
more posts on other parts of writing a mystery, such as how to plot one? Who is
your favourite mystery writer? And tell me, have you ever written, or
considered writing, a mystery of your own?
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8 comments
*hugs this post* Mystery is probably the genre I am most afraid to write. I think that's partly because I'm a punster, and mysteries seem like stories that would require a lot of intensive plotting, but maybe not? But I really, really, really loved what you said about complex characters, specifically where you mentioned the fact that it's so much better when each character, even the "innocent" ones, are more involved in the case than they would like to let on, and how each one has something guilty to hide. I love it when mysteries do that--I love the moral grayness that raises so many wonderful questions about life and right and wrong and gah. *nods* I would LOVE to see a part two of this post.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite mystery authors would be Steven James. I think his books would be more categorized as thrillers? But they're definitely mysteries as well, and I love how he pulls in a lot of questions about life and morality and God, but not in an even remotely preachy way. And they're just so intense and wonderful. I like Sherlock Holmes a lot, but I do get more gratification from being able to figure out the mystery for myself, which is why I might even prefer Agatha Christie's stories. I also like Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories.
For suggestions on more Elements Of posts (aside from a mystery part two, which I would love to read), I would love to see ones on Fantasy, Science Fiction, Paranormal, good love triangles (because it would be interesting to see your in depth take on love triangles), YA dystopian, and anything else that you might think of. :D (Also, I won't be offended if you don't take all or any of those suggestions, because those are a lot of suggestions.) Anyway, I look forward to your next Elements Of post. :D
I totally understand where you're coming from with mysteries. I'm very much a pantser in many ways, so plotting a mystery is a very difficult process for me, though I'm coming up with a better system at last (which I'm hoping to share in a post at some point if people are interested). But yes, the complex characters do so much for the intricacy and intrigue in a mystery. I've been watching a lot of mysteries recently, actually, and the ones I've liked best have had these complex characters that are nowhere as innocent as they seems. I just love that in a mystery.
DeleteYeah Sherlock Holmes stories seem to have fallen out of favourite more recently, apart from retellings, probably because it's so far removed now from the style of mystery that people really enjoy reading. I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie's books though. And Edgar Allen Poe's are interesting too. I think I had to read a couple of them for uni when we were studying mysteries, and I remember enjoying them very much indeed. I don't think I've read any of Steven James' books yet but I'm noting him down right now to look up some of his books. I can always do with a good mystery writer to track down.
Ooh, such great suggestions! I've written them all down, and I'm definitely hoping to use some of them in the future. Thank you so, so much for these post suggestions. They're going to be so helpful.
Thank you for stopping by and leaving me such a lovely long comment Liz. I'm so glad you enjoyed this post.
I have read some great YA mysteries with a large cast of characters, but as a rule, I couldn't agree with you more.
ReplyDeleteOf course we want the ticking clock. Without that sense of urgency, so much, if at all, of the excitement is lost in the story. I am really diggin' this new feature and look forward to reading more.
Certainly, done well, large casts can work amazingly well. I've definitely read some of them myself. I think the following or not of this rule depends really on how hard the writer wants to work. You have to work hard when you write a small cast, because you don't have the cover of loads of characters, but at the same time, if you have a whole heap of characters, then you have to work extra hard to make them all memorable to the reader and useful to the plot. Both have their own challenges I guess. Thanks for stopping by Steph!
DeleteI LOVE watching mysteries but I haven't read them in a long time and I haven't tried to write one in a long time, either. But I do love watching them. Between Sherlock, Elementary, and Castle, I have been gobbling up murder mysteries as of late... But I don't read them much, for some reason. I used to love the A-Z mystery books by Ron Roy, and I also liked Nancy Drew before it turns out that they were all written by a man and I disagree with a bunch of the things in them. Still... I do love mysteries. Not sure I can write them, but I still appreciate how you've put them out like this so that if I ever want to, I know where to go. I look forward to the rest of the series, Imogen!
ReplyDeleteI used to love Nancy Drew. Didn't realise they were written by a man though, so that's interesting. I'm so glad you enjoyed this post. I always find t interesting just being able to pinpoint what works in the mysteries I read or watch. Hopefully you get something helpful out of these posts.
DeleteThis is neat. ^ ^ I'd like to see more of these. I've thought of writing mysteries in the past. I love Sherlock Holmes. My other favorite mystery is Castle!
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I haven't seen Castle actually, but I've heard good things about it. Perhaps it's time I looked it up. I'm so glad you want to see more of these! Thank you for commenting Victoria.
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