  Mystery
This week: Clues and Mis-Cues ~ Play Fair Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Alan Poe
A mystery is an answer in search of a question; knowing what's been done and journey to discovering the how and why of it. It deals with something unknown to the reader, which the writer reveals in bits and pieces with both subtle and overt clues, drawing the reader into the puzzle. Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Mystery Newletter, where we enter and explore the puzzle for ourselves and our readers.
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Greetings, fellow sleuths
What type of story or poem involves a reader? Yes, a mystery
Why? Because it's a puzzle, and engaging a fair puzzle is a fun challenge, an escape from the mundane everyday of bosses and chores and external events over which we have no control.
Note the operative word - fair. Your readers expect you to play fair, to offer clues, subtle or overt, along the way. Your sleuth is no more in the dark than your readers, and your readers see and hear what your sleuth does along the way. It's a challenge to weed through the clues and solve the puzzle either just before or along with the sleuth.
Mystery fans expect writers to play fair. The sudden appearance at the climax of a villain who's never been seen or mentioned before is not playing fair. Instead, the perpetrator -- masquerading as an innocent party -- will show up in early in the story and appear at least a few times during the story. Readers want to know what the protagonist knows, and they expect the writer to provide enough clues to allow readers to either solve the crime along with the sleuth or look back over the story and say, "Ah, now I see what this and this and this meant."
A clue is anything that points to the perpetrator's identity. Clues come in many guises and, far from making a story formulaic, they can be used to create original mysteries that keep readers enthralled to the end.
In addition to genuine clues, you need - just a few - red herrings, false clues, and misdirection. The term, red herrings, actually came from the practice of dragging a dead, smoked fish across a trail to throw hunting dogs off the scent of their prey. They can be factual, but they take the sleuth (and reader) in the wrong direction and don't help solve the crime. Now if there are too many of these smelly fish, don't you think the dogs would eventually grow tired of not finding anything and just give it up?
False clues can be planted by the perpetrator to make an innocent person look guilty and prevent your sleuth and readers from finding the real culprit. Misdirection can be accomplished by burying a clue in a scene, letting it come from an untrustworthy source, or distracting the sleuth immediately after the clue is revealed, so that its meaning is overlooked. Consider placing a clue in plain sight to make it so obvious that both the sleuth and reader dismiss it. Think about it, did you notice today that the trash bin behind the restaurant was overfull and there was a red plaid cloth hanging from the corner? Or did you hurry past because the bin smelled of rotting eggs? Clue, or misdirection, to the headless body later found a block away?
The genuine clues you might use include:
 Forensic evidence at crime scenes -- blood, fibers, hairs, clothing, "signature" objects left by the killer.
An unusual murder method that clues in the killer's profession or emotional state. A bloody meat cleaver stuck behind the trash bin of a restaurant could point to the chef, an irate customer, or simply be a tool discarded by staff because it grew dull cutting steak from bone - a matter perhaps for the health department, if the blood is from last night's dinner.
Items in the victim's or suspects' homes -- letters, jewelry, photos, almost anything that can reveal a relationship between the victim and the killer. As with crime scenes, something that should be present might be missing, or something may be found that shouldn't be there.
Emotional ties to the victim -- love, hate, greed, and jealousy can all lead to murder.
Secrets -- everyone has secrets, and so must your characters. A criminal investigation exposes the secrets of the innocent as well as the guilty, and the need to hide information makes people behave furtively, self-defensively. One secret will lead to the culprit. The rest will engage and entertain your readers and confuse the sleuth.
Now, your readers and sleuth may find and follow the clues, discarding the 'smelly' ones, to reach the believable, yet not expected, result. A surprise ending, an 'aha' moment, comes when the sleuth, and reader, solve the puzzle by finding the clue that ties everything together. The surprise ending that satisfies depends on the reader and sleuth realizing they overlooked or failed ot understand the clues, both obvious and subtle, until they find the one that ties them together. The ending is not abrupt or a case of sleight of hand, but a logical solution to the puzzle.
I invite you to check out some of the puzzles woven by members of our Community and see if they 'clue you in' to the solution, and how effectively you follow the clues, mis-cues, to solve the puzzle
Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Check these out ~ and let the writers know how they 'clued you in' with a review or, perhaps, jump in with some thoughts of your own
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I said, jump in ~ why not
Or if you'd like to try one of your own, how about 'clueing' us in to a satisfying twist?
If you'd like to keep it short and 'clue in' a prompt?
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Thank you for sharing this exploration with me. I invite you to craft a puzzle in prose or verse and share it with us ~ misdirect, redirect, offer the obvious and subtle to engage your readers. Send a link to this newsletter, and you may see it show up on these pages.
Until we next meet,
Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Mystery: June 01, 2011 Issue [#4426]
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