Question concerning technique and personal experience.

kaitie, I think you can do it. But then again, I'm a kaitie fan.

Reading mystery with a writer's eye really killed them for me. I think when we do that, we pick up on the techniques more than the average casual reader.

I always figured out mysteries fairly early, but once I started to write, it got even worse. Now I keep mental track of who I think the killer was, and what page I first knew. Rarely am I stumped, and I usually have it nailed down in the first few chapters. And when I am stumped, often those authors become my favorites.

With the main exception--withholding of evidence. When a writer makes their story harder by withholding key evidence until the end, I don't consider it playing fair. I just read a novel where the first-person sleuth picked up a letter, read it, but we were not able to share the info. And yet it figured prominently in the solution. I was ready to chuck the book toward the nearest wall, when I remembered it was an e-book, and I didn't want to damage my reader.

One of the biggest clues I've found lately, comes from knowing that writers are encouraged to take out all scenes that don't advance the plot. So when I'm reading along in a mystery, or watching a movie, and a scene doesn't seem to do that--it is probably important. I know that sounds lame, but there has to be a hidden reason for that scene or character.

So to play fair with the reader, you have to give them all the evidence, but if you don't want them to figure it out, you have to hide it. I've been playing with various techniques. Maybe we can share a few.

Overshadowing a clue. This would be placing a clue in scene where the reader's attention is drawn to something seemingly more important. Maybe a woman's purse contains nail polish, a pen, a comb, and a gun. The reader's attention is drawn to the gun, but what if the comb is a clue?

Eliminate a suspect. Often in mysteries, the one person who has no motive and is not a suspect is the guilty one. So instead of giving them no motive, give them a motive, and then dismiss it. For example, hint that Fred killed his uncle to collect his life insurance. Only we find out the policy had lapsed, and Fred knew it. Only later do we really see that Fred was having an affair with his uncle's wife, and Fred would profit that way.

Divert. Divert attention from a clue by giving the reader something else in that scene. Make the reader think the scene's purpose is to provide comic relief, or advance a romance. But hide a clue in the background.

I think effective mystery writing is half magic. Slight of hand. Keep people from figuring out what is going on in your left hand, by getting them to focus on your right.

Dorothy Sayers got me all upset once, when she spent a page and a half describing all the flowers in an English garden. I had googled half of them, suspecting poison, only to find out she must have been really into gardens.

I'm not sure how that translates into horror or suspense. But I'd imagine you could surprise your reader by building suspense, appearing to resolve it, and in that moment of safety, whack them over the head with some unexpected event.

I'd be curious to know how you all try to stump or surprise your readers...

Keep yourself guessing

I've abandoned (except in the broadest sense) outlining and taken to "seat-of-the-pants" writing, as Elmore Leonard does. It's impossible to give away your ending if you're not sure what it is until you get there. This doesn't suit many writers, but others swear by it. I suppose the method takes a lot more time than it does to write to an outline, but it's a lot more fun for the writer and, I hope, for the reader.

Once my characters have given me an ending, I'll go back and add or modify clues as need be, but I do the same with red herrings to find a balance that keeps readers guessing. By backtracking to establish your trail, you have more control, I think, over how you sprinkle things in so that you can obscure and weight your clues accordingly to avoid giving anything away.

I would think that the two personal traits you mentioned, (1) not being easily frightened and (2) the ability to figure out mysteries, would make you well qualified to write both. I'd probably never figure out the mystery and you'd scare the hell out of me in the process.

BTW, I didn't see 'Shutter Island,' but I read the book; I really enjoyed it although the ending, with the exception of some minor details, seemed obvious to me. Generally I just read the story with the expectation that the mystery will be solved in the end. In 'Fight Club' the book and movie versions ended differently (couldn't figure that one out either).

> I've been playing with various techniques. Maybe we can share a few.

I would consider Stieg Larsson's Millenium Series to err on the side of information overload. Too many clues, too many leads, too many possibilities. Which one is right? And when you think you got it nailed down, he stuffs in more clues. By the shovel.

There is also 'the crime within a crime' technique. When the villain thinks she's committed the perfect crime, along comes another criminal who steals the spoils and manages to put the blame back onto the villain's. James Patterson's Along Came A Spider is a perfect example of this approach.

-cb

Hi, Kaitie

I think you would be able too write mystery, because you know what you like and well you know what scares you.
I think if you think about it too much when you are writing it, it may not come out the way you like. I write fiction (Mystery, thriller, suspense). But as for the scare part of it, i am not looking for that in my storys i just hope it comes out when i write it. I think you will do fine.
It is alot of work to write something that scares people but once you get that keep going, because that means you have it

Kaitie,
I'm a lot like you in terms of figuring out endings - I got the 6th Sense twist after about 20 minutes and ruined the movie for my wife. Won't do that again.
But I think that skill / flaw gives you an advantage -- it makes you hyper-sensitive to people figuring stuff out, which means you'll be extra good and burying the truth.
One of the questions I had for all my betas was: "Is it too obvious who the bad guy is?" They all said "No." But I also wrote the book so it'd didn't matter too much - the mystery wasn't just WHO the bad guy was (I think my betas were lying. Yes, HeyJude, I'm looking at YOU ; ) but WHY. And not just that, but how was the MC going to stop him?
If you layer your story like that, you reduce the impact of a good guesser.
And I know who did it in your story already: it was the butler, right?

MarkEsq said:

Yes, HeyJude, I'm looking at YOU ; )

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Heyjude does not lie. Heyjude did not figure it out. Heyjude also recently discovered the joys of speaking of herself in the 3rd person.

No, but seriously, I often make a conscious decision to switch off the thinking part of my brain when I read. I don't want to know the ending. It usually comes as a surprise to me.

Don't overthink things.

ToddWBush is excited for kaitie and heyjude. Speaking in third person is almost as fun to ToddWBush as speaking like a NASCAR driver. You know, using the royal we.

"We drove it pretty good today, but when the 48 nearly took us out, we gave him a little love tap in the corner. Otherwise, we're happy with how we finished today."

I reckon someone who can work out puzzles and doesn't scare easily will make a damn fine MTS writer! If you can do it to yourself, you can sure as hell do it to the reader! LOL!

I'm writing a thriller, my first one. My first novel in fact, so I hope you don't mind a newbie jumping in.

I've set it up so that the puzzle isn't who the bad guy is, I pretty much tell that straight away. The puzzle is who, how and why sucked the MC into a bad situation. Then the second half is how that situation gets resolved.

I got quite emotionally involved in writing it so I'm hoping that will come across in the reading too.

That sounds interesting mirandashell!

I'm not worried yet if someone can guess my killer as I haven't decided yet myself.

cbenoi1 said:

There is also 'the crime within a crime' technique. When the villain thinks she's committed the perfect crime, along comes another criminal who steals the spoils and manages to put the blame back onto the villain's. James Patterson's Along Came A Spider is a perfect example of this approach.

-cb

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Yes. Or the disposable henchman, where the first part of the book leads readers to suspect a particular person, who suddenly winds up dead and leaves the reader scrambling for a new suspect.

I studied Film Studies at uni and we learned the techniques of how films are constructed, what the director does to make us subconsciously think of something or put emphasis on a character or situation. Ever since then, I don't just watch films, I analyze them at the same time, and I can spot things many people won't ever see, just because I learnt to do it.

Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Sure, after my first year at uni every film I watched I kept noticing these things to the point where I thought that I was never going to be able to enjoy a film without anylizing it again. I eventually learnt how to switch my analysis on and off. But what that taught me was that knowledge is power.

If you can see what's going to come or how the writer is building up to something, you may say, "Well, I ain't going to enjoy this because I know exactly what is going to come next." But then what happens when they stump you? What happens when they build everything up predictably and then completely turn it on its head and you leave the cinema or put the book down and say, "Well, I did NOT see that coming?" Happened in The Sixth Sense with me (Everything he's done since then has been rubbish though). As a writer, knowing exactly what's going to come next or how to build it up and know how the genre works is perhaps the best thing you could ask for (apart from talent and a bit of storytelling ability). YOU know how to build things up. YOU know how the reader/audience is going to react. YOU know that they've probably guessed who the killer is. Because YOU have thought the same. That gives YOU the ability to make your work stand out from the others because you understand how the genre works. You know what they're going to be expecting, and instead of putting the same junk out time and again, you have the ability to present something different because you know how it works. Understanding how things work and what the conventions are gives you the ability and the freedom to play around with it and make something different.

Just don't put a twist ending into the story for the sake of having a twist ending (That's right, M. Night Shyamalan, I'm talking about you.)

Pery Machado said:

But then what happens when they stump you? What happens when they build everything up predictably and then completely turn it on its head and you leave the cinema or put the book down and say, "Well, I did NOT see that coming?"

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The problem in many cases is that if you've surprised someone who's very analytical, it might not really be believable.

Lousy example, but I just saw Shrek 2. The opening credits tell you that it's a very long trip from Shrek's swamp to Far Far Away, so one would assume that the characters who are house-sitting wouldn't be involved in the plot. But when they see Shrek arrested on live television, they're all there in less than an hour.

Just don't put a twist ending into the story for the sake of having a twist ending (That's right, M. Night Shyamalan, I'm talking about you.)

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The Village was particularly bad.

kaitie said:

Dude. I liked the Village. Granted, I'm about the only person who did, I suppose. I love Shyamalan in general, though.

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I was at Penn Charter while Shyamalan was at Episcopal Academy (both exclusive prep schools that competed in sports with each other). I never met him, but I wouldn't be surprised that we have friends in common.

What I didn't like about The Village isn't based on my ability to overanalyze because I'm a writer, but my familiarity with the region and the time period he was writing about. (Both time periods, to risk a spoiler)

Not even among the Amish would such an isolated village exist. And I recall how people celebrated the approaching Bicentennial by attempting to mimic 18th and 19th century architecture, clothing, music, and food, all with varying degrees of success.

Shyamalan was brilliant with his ideas. Only problem is that he tried to one-up himself so much that everyone went into one his flicks expecting a twist of the same pop as The Sixth Sense and he knew that. He should have done a different style after the first three or four.

And my favorite of his is Signs. The wife hated it because it scared her, but I love the mix of faith and sci-fi. He did it better than anyone else I've seen.