Mystery: The Story of a Hidden Answer

Mystery is the genre of the question: something is hidden, and the pleasure of the story is in the finding of it. Its contract with the reader is fair play — the information needed to solve it must be given before the answer is — so that the solution arrives as a surprise and, looking back, as a certainty. It overlaps with its neighbours in ways worth keeping straight. Crime fiction concerns a crime, whether or not there is a puzzle. A thriller puts a character in danger and keeps them there; a mystery asks who, and the danger is usually in the past. Horror may share a mystery's shape, but where a mystery wants an answer, horror wants the answer to be worse than the question. Characteristic techniques - An inciting discovery, early, that cannot be ignored. - An investigator with a method, and a reason for using it. - Clues placed plainly and hidden by context; red herrings that are honest answers to the wrong question. - A small cast with motive, means and opportunity, so the reader can play. - A false solution before the true one, and a short explanation at the end. An original example, written for this platform The dog had been fed. That was the whole of it, and it was enough. Mrs. Okon had left the house on Friday evening, the dog had been fed at six on Saturday morning, and the bowl was still wet when I let myself in on Sunday. I stood in the kitchen and put my keys down where anyone standing at the window could have seen them, and I did what I always do, which is to ask what a thing would look like if it were innocent. A neighbour with a key, feeding a dog that had been left. It looked innocent. It also looked like a person who knew the house was going to be empty for longer than Friday night. How the example works The discovery is one fact, the wet bowl, and the story's method is stated openly in the last paragraph. Fair play is already in operation: the keys, the window, the Friday, the neighbour with a key — everything a reader needs is on the page, arranged so that the innocent explanation comes first. Practical guidance Decide the answer before you write the first sentence, then place the evidence where it can be seen and not understood. Keep the cast small. Let the reader reach a wrong conclusion honestly, and make sure the true answer uses only what you have already shown. Exercise to try Write the first page of a mystery in which one ordinary fact is wrong, and supply three things the investigator notices, of which exactly one will matter later. Revision tips Check every clue is on the page before the solution and that none is withheld. Check that no suspect is a stranger at the end. Cut any explanation that a reader could have made themselves. Finally, reread the solution and confirm it is inevitable in hindsight, which is the only test that matters.