How to not solve the plot-driving riddle without frustrating the reader?

what?

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Usually, at the end of a crime, thriller, horror, fantasy, science fiction, or other action genre novel, the identity of the antagonist is uncovered and the riddle that drives the plot is resolved: the murderer gets caught as the detective understands why he committed the deed; the secret agency wards off the danger to their country, as they identify which foreign government is behind it and what their motives are; the monster is revealed, its origin understood, and its threat overcome; and so on.


But that is not how things turn out in reality. Many murders remain unsolved, many conspiracies unexposed, many mysterious events are never fully understood. Yet, in fiction, such a lack of resolution will leave most readers frustrated and unsatisfied.


I recently finished a novel, in which an innocent bystander is accidentally caught up in what appears to be some mysterious criminal undertaking, forced by the turn of events to commit a murder, and eventually left behind, without ever learning who he was fighting against and what their intention was. I thought I wrote this well, but my test readers all complained vehemently. Apparently the lack of explanation made the story appear random, and the unresolved end left readers feeling betrayed by, I guess, the implicit promise of genre conventions.


Of course I could now come up with who did it and why, but since the basic idea of my novel was to leave the riddle unresolved, I am now wondering:


How can I leave the identity of the antagonist(s) and the purpose of their activities a mystery, without frustrating the reader and leaving them dissatisfied at the end?


It would be especially helpful, if you could provide an example in the form of a published novel or film in which what you propose has been successfully employed.

* * * * * *

In their reply to my post, delb0y asks:

I'd ask why the basic idea was to leave the riddle unsolved? What's driving that decision?

Since the answer to that question might be relevant to others, I'll give it here.

As a reader, I find myself both disinterested and disappointed by the resolutions in most novels and movies. For one, I read for the protagonists emotions and personality development, not for learning what was behind the events in some fictional universe. It is completely irrelevant for my life who the murderer was or what some secret agent is trying to achieve, but following the reactions of the protagonist to those events and the changes they undergo gives me some insight into myself and some impulse to change my own person and life. I am learning from the portrayal of characters, but not from the portrayal of events.

At the same time, the monster, when it finally appears, or the explanation, when it is given, is most often deeply disappointing when measured against the fear the protagonist had or their concern. When I see the alien and the end of the movie of that name, my tension suddenly drops in disappointment. What the protagonists fear is an alien horror, yet what I see is human imagination. Yes, I would be afraid if that thing attacked me in an underground carpark, but distanced as I am from the events in front of the screen it does not have the impact on me that the reactions of the movie's characters made me expect.

Given my own reading experience, I wanted to attempt a story that focusses on the experience of the protagonist and leaves what I perceive as irrelevant, the riddle that drives his experiences, unsolved.

The device of the McGuffin seems proof to me, that many movies are not about the riddle at all.
 
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Brightdreamer

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There's a saying that says something along the lines of a writer's job being harder than God's, because fiction has to make sense and reality doesn't.

In fiction... yeah, you can leave some things unexplained, but you started the story by asking a question (often not in so many words), and in order to feel closure, a reader must learn the answer. This is the main arc. Unsatisfied readers mean there's something not right with that arc's structure.

Two possibilities I can think of:

1 - If you can focus more on your character's arc, the way they're changed and the choices they make and what they learn from events rather than those events themselves, you might be able to get away with leaving some other issues unresolved.

2 - Consider if it's possible to drop enough hints and clues that the reader, at least, can figure out the gist of the Big Picture even if the character never learns (or never needs to learn; issues like wars can be so big and complicated that all one individual can ever hope for is to understand their smaller role.)

3 - It's possible that the readers are confused because you, as the author, aren't clear what the real motivations are behind events, and thus have unintentionally left conflicting clues and signals scattered through the story. For consistency's sake, you should know more than your character, so you make sure all those signals at least point in the same direction. Remember, even if reality often has unanswered questions, it's not going to contradict itself blatantly. A blue Chevy isn't going to suddenly become an orange ten-speed down the block; it may speed or change directions or crash into a phone pole, and Mr. Jones may know it's a Chevy while Mr. Green glimpses it and thinks it's a Ford, but it'll still be a blue Chevy.
Put another way, life is viewed through a series of knotholes in a fence; there will be gaps in one's understanding of the bigger truth, perhaps some misinterpretation of what one glimpses, but a continuous reality is there behind that fence nonetheless. If it's an elephant behind that fence, you might glimpse something like a trunk through one knothole, something like a snake through another, and something like a curving tooth through a third, but they're all parts of an elephant. Make sure your readers aren't seeing parts of a horse and a goldfish and an anteater, when it's really an antelope behind the fence.

Hope that helps!
 

GeekTells

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The first thing that springs to mind is the adage—and I wish I could remember who actually said it: when someone tells you there's something wrong with your story, they're almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong.

[Edit: Ari Meermans was kind enough to remind me it was Neil Gaiman who said that. Credit where it's due, to her and him, accordingly. :)]

Is your story about the mysterious criminal undertaking or the journey of the person who witnessed it? From what little I know, you seem to want the story to be about the latter, while your readers believe it's (also?) about the former. If so, one solution for this pushback might be (re)crafting the story in such a way that the mysterious criminal enterprise is pushed to the background or overcome by events so that the character (and thus your reader) stops thinking about it.

I realize this wasn't what you were asking, but you might be in a situation where thinking differently about the question will take you where you want to get.

GL!
 
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delb0y

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...an innocent bystander is accidentally caught up in what appears to be some mysterious criminal undertaking, forced by the turn of events to commit a murder, and eventually left behind, without ever learning who he was fighting against and what their intention was.

As a reader I suspect I would be frustrated and disappointed, too, if I'd followed the above tale to the end and was offered no resolution or explanation. It's a fine set-up for a story, but - assuming it's a standalone tale - such an ending might well have you crossed off my list for future book-buys.

I'm assuming here that the innocent bystander's story is the main story. That said, even if it was a subplot it would still be a hard thing to pull-off - a huge thread left hanging.

I'd ask why the basic idea was to leave the riddle unsolved? What's driving that decision?

Not helpful I know!
Derek
 

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It’s kind of like the Agatha Christie book “and then there were none” the whole book goes through like ten people scrambling to not die and by the end you’re more confused than ever, flipping through the book again wondering why one person survived, killed everyone else, and then killed themselves. Why did they do it? Why did they hate all those people? Why do it on the island? Why not make it easier to kill them? Why drag it out when all us readers want to know is the identity, only to find out that it still doesn’t make sense when we figure out who it is. I think as a reader we need more of a backstory or something as to why this particular person is in the place at the time, and why they choose to do what they do. Then giving more tips throughout about who it might be and why they did said crimes.
 
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what?

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Thank you, those are indeed all very helpful replies. Derek, I have answered your question in an edit to my opening post.
 

delb0y

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The amendment helps, what? Thanks for that.

Given what you've now said I think the way you write the story may be the key to pulling it off. If you write it in the traditional way - leading us through the various stages to the big revelation, and then don't do the reveal, that's why we're likely to be disappointed. So you need to write it in such a way that we're not being led towards that revelation, instead the psychological, character, emotional, and personality changes that result from being forced to commit the murder are what you need to lead on. You could even be overt and have the lead character say things such as "I came to realise that who was behind this didn't matter. Not any more. I'd killed and I'd learned to be okay with that killing." and so on. i.e. set plenty of seeds that you're not going for the big reveal. That way we won't be so disappointed when it doesn't come. I don't read many of them, so I can't give examples, but I bet there are plenty of literary books that lean towards the character changes rather than the plot. So maybe it's a stylistic thing?

For what it's worth, I'm often disappointed (in horror stories especially) when the monster is finally revealed.
 

morngnstar

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Let the reader decide the answer for themselves.

My example is Total Recall. At the end of the movie, it's still an open question whether he's an interplanetary spy who was given memories of a construction worker, or a construction worker who was given memories of an interplanetary spy.

If instead of giving no answer to the question, you give two or more conflicting answers, each with substantial supporting evidence, then by leaving no clear winner you actually engage the reader, instead of let them down. You can even engage your readers socially, as they debate which theory is correct.
 

JeanGenie

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If the reveal isn’t the main point, and doesn’t really matter to you, why don’t just have it in the book anyway? Not as a big revelation, but to tie up the strings. I realize it may be more about the principle for you, so you may not want to go there, but thought I’d put the question out there.
 

what?

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Kafka's The Trial.

The Trial has no resolution because Kafka left it unfinished when he died. Even the chapters hadn't been given a specific order by the author, but were posthumously brought into differing orders by the different editors.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

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As a reader, I find myself both disinterested and disappointed by the resolutions in most novels and movies. For one, I read for the protagonists emotions and personality development, not for learning what was behind the events in some fictional universe. It is completely irrelevant for my life who the murderer was or what some secret agent is trying to achieve, but following the reactions of the protagonist to those events and the changes they undergo gives me some insight into myself and some impulse to change my own person and life. I am learning from the portrayal of characters, but not from the portrayal of events.

First, there's absolutely nothing wrong with writing the book you wish you could read. I think that's what most writers do, to a greater or lesser extent. However, as a writer, you have to write the book that others want to read, at least if you want to sell units. In general, novels aren't a reflection of reality. They're entertainment, and proceed according to tropes that reflect the genre. Readers who are looking for a particular genre are expecting a particular plot arc, climax, and resolution.

In your case, it kinda sounds like you are trying to write something that's not a suspense/thriller, dressed up as a suspense/thriller. As a result, you're getting readers who are expecting a suspense/thriller, instead of readers who are expecting a character study (which is your real target audience). Your challenge is how to re-target your fiction to the proper readership.
 

Brightdreamer

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It’s kind of like the Agatha Christie book “and then there were none” the whole book goes through like ten people scrambling to not die and by the end you’re more confused than ever, flipping through the book again wondering why one person survived, killed everyone else, and then killed themselves. Why did they do it? Why did they hate all those people? Why do it on the island? Why not make it easier to kill them? Why drag it out when all us readers want to know is the identity, only to find out that it still doesn’t make sense when we figure out who it is.

Wandering off-topic, but the version I read did explain it all. After the last murder - some time after - a fisherman finds a note in a bottle from the killer, a confession and an explanation, which fit perfectly with how events played out. It was either a final chapter or an epilogue - can't recall which at the moment - but it was there.
 

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In regard to the original post, I don't think you can end a mystery novel without the kind of resolution readers expect if you want to satisfy them. It's simply the nature of the beast that there is an accepted formula for every genre that must be followed quite closely. As far as mysteries go, one of the primary reasons people read the genre is because they want to see the transgressor punished at the end or see the clever detective solve the mystery. Ending a story the way you mentioned denies them that satisfaction. If a writer chooses to depart too far from the accepted formula for a genre, in my opinion it becomes experimental writing and probably should be classified as literary rather than in a genre where the expected formula has been ignored.
 

heyjude

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How can I leave the identity of the antagonist(s) and the purpose of their activities a mystery, without frustrating the reader and leaving them dissatisfied at the end?

Speaking only for this reader, you can't.

Life is frustrating enough. I read to escape it.

Sorry. :)
 

Hbooks

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The example I thought of was "Minority Report" where we never definitively find out what happened to the son of the main character, but some alternate ideas are hinted at. The main plot of the movie is the overthrow of the system, the arc/growth of the main character, so the fact that we don't ever definitively get an answer on this subplot is something we can live with.

But it sounds like from what you're saying the unsolved portion of your narrative would be much larger, which, TBH, would probably bug me as a reader if I'd invested time in reading only to be left hanging.
 

Selcaby

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If you're writing in first person, your narrator can skip around in time and even start at the end by admitting, "I never found out the truth." They'll need to be convincing, otherwise readers might be expecting the answers anyway.

You can do that in third person too, of course. It's just less obvious how to go about it.

Some readers will never get it, they come in with such strong expectations. I suppose the solution to that is marketing - which is probably lacking when you hand your work to test readers and leave them to guess what genre it's supposed to be.
 

Layla Nahar

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I think in a lot of cases where the reader/viewer is left guessing (as in above example of 'Total Recall') the writer actually knows, and is playing with the possibilities. fwiw
 

what?

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Again, thank you all for your great feedback and helpful thoughts on my question.

If the reveal isn’t the main point, and doesn’t really matter to you, why don’t just have it in the book anyway?

Because then the now open end would be "closed". Personally, I love the feeling of non-closure – at least in my own writing, I'm not sure how I would feel about it as a reader, as I cannot remember ever having read such a complete non-resolution as mine – and I very strongly hesitate to destroy that feeling I have at the end of my own text.
 
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cbenoi1

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I wanted to attempt a story that focusses on the experience of the protagonist and leaves what I perceive as irrelevant, the riddle that drives his experiences, unsolved.
Then this is not a Mystery story. It's a Myth (aka character study, character evolution, Hero's Journey, ...) in which the Hero evolves from one state to another through a series of struggles. I think you are looking more at something like the movie The Godfather in which the Hero doesn't want to do anything with the mafia but ends up as its leader through a series of confrontations that pose a threat to his family. In your case, the villains are nothing more than what's called Travelling Angels whose role is nothing more than stirr up what was already inside the Hero. Your beta-readers may have balked simply because they are Mystery readers and you have 'sold' them a Mystery story and that's not what was intended, hence the expectations.

Hope this helps.

-cb
 
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