  Mystery
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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"All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream"
{i]Edgar Alan Poe
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Welcome to this week's edition of the Mystery Newsletter. A mystery by nature is a question in search of an answer - a puzzle! And when we uncover the answer to the question, effectively solving the puzzle moments before the writer gives us the solution, follow clues tactile and cerebral, the momentary satisfaction is sublime!
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Greetings, a mystery is a puzzle. We know that. We know also that a mystery in prose or verse is as versatile as the writer and reader who enjoin the quest to put the pieces together. To solve the puzzle, the protagonist and your reader find and solve clues you've set along the way and confront opposition either sentient or otherwise. The puzzle is pieced together by uncovering the 'who,' or 'what,' the 'why,' and 'how.'
A Literary Mystery is a puzzle in its most elemental form. I think the 'why' is paramount in this type of mystery. There has to be a reason that compels the protagonist to want or need to piece together the puzzle, to hunt for clues despite opposition, and by solving the puzzle to effect a seminal change not only for him/herself but the community, or world, or universe at large.
Consider the Rosetta Stone or Egyptian pictographs. What did their discovery incite? Why was it important to uncover their meaning? What tombs, artifacts, and knowledge did the sleuths who pieced these puzzles together uncover? And what effect did this knowledge have on the sleuth, and on the community, ongoing?
The puzzles are derived from recorded images in historical fact, literature, the arts, life studies, and the imagination and observation of writers. The writers first incite the readers' curiosity with enough detail to make them want to know, or need to know why, and then plant clues they (along with the protagonist) piece together to solve the puzzle, learning the reason why along the way
For example, your puzzle may begin with a forged manuscript with pages 'revised' to eliminate revelation of something, and your sleuth and readers need to discovery what the pages originally conveyed and Why they were changed. What is being hidden, and Why is it important to know? What will be lost/gained/revealed by uncovering the truth? Why does someone want it kept hidden? Why is your protagonist being thwarted in efforts to piece the puzzle together? What will happen if it is not pieced together? What happens when the clues are put together and the puzzle is solved?
The Literary Puzzle allows for a deeper scenic or atmospheric exploration to discern the why of it; the reason it's necessary to solve the puzzle. There is often adventure and always some mayhem, although not necessarily an ovservable 'crime.' Bodes well for the history buff as well as those who are intrigued by science, literature in all its forms, and mathematics - you see, very versatile.
Or, what if Edgar Alan Poe had kept his 'day job' as a writer of news, and the Cask of Amontilado was in truth a news report - why did have to he change the names? Was it 'to protect the innocent' or himself? Or was there another reason for fictionalizing the story? Why did he give it a twist? See where I'm going with this ???
If you're plagued by ever asking 'Why' and, once you've postulated a probable, reasonable 'what if,' clue your readers in on a creative journey to solve your puzzle in a Literary Mystery.
Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
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Some 'puzzling' mysteries (yes, redundant) plotted by writers in our Community for your reading, sleithing, (and reviewing) pleasure
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Ancient Egyptian mysteries connected with the un-explainable events of Bermuda Triangle.
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Okay, I know you have an ingenuous take on a proven or commonly-held factoid in literature, history, science, or a missing page or two of an epic - care to share?
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Thank you once again for this welcome respite in your literary abode.
Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate |
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Mystery: April 08, 2009 Issue [#2991]
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