Discussion

Luke Fellner · Author · added over 7 years ago
@Christopher Huang Thank you for taking the time to write a response. Perhaps working backwards when creating a mystery would be a good idea? I’m not sure yet, I do plan on dipping my toes into the genre though   
Christopher Huang · Author · added over 7 years ago
@Luke Fellner I think a mystery is primarily a puzzle. Ideally, a mystery should be hard enough to keep a reader guessing up to the end, and be open enough (ie, have all the clues available) so that the reader feels they can solve it or could have solved it on their own. There’s a bit more leeway with short stories, though: I think that with a short story, you can break a few rules that you couldn’t with a novel. Either way, the reader should come to the end thinking, "oh, that was clever."
I think the other half of mystery writing is the human element. This is true of all novels, but different genres do it differently. Since we don’t know until the end of a mystery who the murderer is (it’s almost always murder, isn’t it?) we have to spend time with each character, studying their reactions and differences. A really good mystery has characters that are believable and distinct, most of whom are plausible murder suspects even if they are unquestionably good people.
I guess, when writing a mystery, you’d start either with a puzzle (a central detail with an interesting interpretation) or with a collection of characters. And wherever you start, you then work your way over to the other side.
Luke Fellner · Author · added over 7 years ago
@Christopher Huang I love a good mystery and am curious of what your opinions are of what makes a good mystery? I don’t write mystery’s personally but I am curious about the writing process of them for future reference.