 Mystery: October 18, 2017 Issue [#8558] |
  Mystery
This week: Unsolved Mysteries Edited by: Jeff  
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"Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle; they read it to get to the end.
The first page sells that book, and the last page sells your next book."
-- Mickey Spillane
Trivia of the Week: Author D.M. Pulley was working as a structural engineer in Cleveland when she made a startling discovery. During a survey of a vacant building, she stumbled across an abandoned bank vault full of hundreds of locked safe deposit boxes. The experience inspired her to write The Dead Key, a novel that won her the 2014 Grand Prize Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which led to a publishing contract with Amazon imprint Thomas & Mercer.
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UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
The ending of a mystery story typically comes in one of two flavors. The mystery is either resolved at the conclusion of the story, or it's left unresolved and the story concludes without the reader having answers to at least some of the questions raised.
Solving the mystery you propose is usually the default for a mystery story, but sometimes leaving the audience wondering can play effectively info the type of story you're trying to tell. [The following examples are from older movies, but even so, this is your first and only SPOILER ALERT  ].
In Inception, a spinning top is used throughout the film to prove whether someone is in the real world (where the top eventually falls), or the dream world (where the top spins indefinitely). At the end, when Cobb sees his family, spins the top, then walks away from it just as the film cuts to black, the audiences is left wondering if the spinning top would keep spinning (meaning he's choosing to live in a dream) or if it would eventually fall (meaning he made it back to the real world). Ultimately, it's that lack of certainty and resolution that makes the moment and the film.
Lost in Translation is a simpler story but with no less ambiguous an ending. After Bob and Charlotte spend the entire moving developing a friendship, when they're parting ways at the end, we don't hear what Bob says to her. The result is the audience never knows for sure what words were exchanged; we're only left to fill in the blanks based on the characters' reactions to one another.
Contrast that with Se7en, where we spend the entire movie wondering what John Doe's end game is... until the very end when he delivers Mills' wife's head to him in a box, admits he's always been jealous of Mills' normal life, and waits for Mills to kill him, thereby fulfilling the last two sins - Envy and Wrath - and completing his meticulously plotted seven sins murders. That's as straight-forward and clear a resolution as you can get to a story; the audience understands everything about the story by the end.
Ambiguous endings should be used with caution. Especially in a procedural or other crime mystery, the general assumption is that a reader will start a story, become embroiled in the mystery, and then have that mystery resolved by the time they're done reading the piece. If that mystery isn't resolved, there should be a very good reason why it isn't. It'd be like reading a romance story without a happily ever after, or a comedy without many jokes. Subverting the audience's expectations is a dangerous thing that's best handled with care.
All that said, there is a difference between resolving the plot and resolving a larger narrative or character arc that spans multiple stories. In television, for example, it's not at all uncommon for an episode's narrative to conclude while leaving other questions unresolved. The shows Burn Notice and White Collar, for example, each had a "mystery/job of the week" that they had to resolve during the episode, but then also hinted at larger mystery threads that spanned the entire season (who burned Michael Western, in the case of Burn Notice and what happened to Neal's girlfriend Kate in White Collar). In the show Alias, they had a short-term, immediate mission to resolve, but were also exploring the larger issue of Rambaldi's artifacts and designs that spanned the entire series.
If you're writing a serialized piece that follows a character for an extended period of time, it makes sense that some narratives will take more than the span of a single short story or novel to fully realize. It also makes sense that your character will evolve and change over that period of time. Audiences can usually get behind those kinds of unsolved mysteries in the short term, as long as immediate questions are being answered and the build-up to the big finale is worth it.
Just like most readers of romance are in it for the sensuality and the happy ending, most mystery readers are in it for the questions and answers. If you're going to deprive them of the answers, make sure there's a really good reason why their expectations aren't being met... or at least make sure you let them know that their expectations will be met a little further down the road. 
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things" |
This month's official Writing.com writing contest is:
I also encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: People are weird. As a PI that is the first thing you learn. The second is that you always need money and the third is that the police are rarely there when you need them. 15 years as a PI and those are the first three things I learned. I was sitting in my 2nd story walk-up office trying to will the phone to ring. It was pretty stubborn that day as it had been the previous 3 days. I was really focusing on it when they walked in.
EXCERPT: Robert was, of course, the leader. Being all of eleven years old (less only twenty days), he was the oldest of the lot. Ken was nine and Gabriella was just seven. So they all looked up to Robert.
And Robert was confident that he could solve the case. He had read all the A-to-Z Mysteries, after all, and a few Five-Find-Outers, too, to boot. If those folks could do it, he knew he could, with a little help from Ken and Gabriella.
EXCERPT: Ahead you must look to see the brighter light. It glows on the path you must take. Trees are greener, Roses have become a brighter red. Almost the color of blood. As you glance towards the sky you realize it has become a vibrant blue. The clouds are a purest white. Over to the sea you now see the color aquamarine. The sand you walk upon is now a comfort to your feet, so soft and also fun to play with as it squishes between your toes.
EXCERPT: All in town were scared of him.
His family was so well known.
There were rumors some went missing
when on his crimes a light was shone.
EXCERPT: We are all
gladiators
In our
own
Arenas
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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Feedback from my last newsletter about the relative position of the reader ("Mystery Newsletter (September 20, 2017)" ):
Christopher Roy Denton  writes: ""Hey, thank you for plugging my contest entry in your newsletter. It's much appreciated! 
You're very welcome!
Quick-Quill  writes: "This is an excellent NL!!! What you describe is what any writer needs to have handy. When you are behind the MC, making sure all the clues are laid out and Chekov's gun is smoking is key. When starting to write, the last one; Writing at the same time, is the easiest way to start. Easier to keep all the balls in the air without dropping too many."
Thanks for writing in, as always.
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