This week: Hidden in Plain Sight 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 the journey to discovering the how and why of it. The Mystery is something unknown to the reader, "clued-in" by the writer in bits and pieces, engaging the reader in the puzzle.
If there were no mystery left to explore
life would get rather dull, wouldn't it?
Sidney Buchman |
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Product Type: Toys & Games
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Greetings, we know a mystery is a puzzle. Your sleuth (professional, amateur, or anywhere in between), along with your readers, embarks on a journey you devise to solve the puzzle by finding and deciphering the clues you plant.
In a mystery, we plant clues for the sleuth and reader to uncover and solve. Instead of the straight question and answer of a crossword, however, you engage all their senses, challenge them both to find both the obvious and subtle clues.
Clues, in plain sight can be obvious or subtle, there for your sleuth and reader to uncover and analyze so he may uncover miscues, lies and truth along the way to solving the puzzle. We don’t want to give them a trail of breadcrumbs to merely pick up and follow, but for the sleuth and reader to first uncover, then resolve based on their assessment. We set them on the trail, and give them sufficient information to cast doubt upon the clues they find, making them question and, incidentally, thus uncover further clues. We create uncertainty by inciting doubt, challenging the sleuth and reader to uncover which clues are true (once they find them) and which are false, misdirection.
False clues misdirect the sleuth or reader, casting doubt and causing them to consider options which may be logical, but are uncovered as false or leading nowhere.
 Consider the following, by Scott Mortenson,
You’re a bus driver. You leave the depot at 6:05 AM, and at your first stop you pick up three passengers. On your next stop you pick up five passengers. On your third stop four get off and nine get on. On your fourth stop, three get on and five passengers get off. On your fifth stop, eight get off and seven get on.
Got all that? Okay. What color are the bus driver’s eyes?
In the example above, you have all the facts, all the clues. Did you answer the question correctly? Only you know, as I don’t know the color of your eyes. As you were adding and subtracting the numbers, you were following clues used to distract you, or red herrings. (I ride a bus home from the day job, so I kind of like the image of some bus passengers as ‘herrings.’)
The clues were in the open, but how many of the sleuths among us (and our characters) even saw them, much less noticed them. Are they pieces of the puzzle, or distractions to be discarded? You, the puzzle-maker, will decide and lead the sleuth and your readers to find the solution to the puzzle.
Write On!!
Kate - Writing & Reading |
Check out these picks & pans - did you find the clues, or were they too obvious Let the writers know how you solved the puzzle then grab your pencil and plot/plant some clues of your own. 
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#2084358 by Not Available. |
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#1952219 by Not Available. |
| | The riddle (E)
Mystery concerning a will, a beneficiary and a riddle
#2177935 by Sumojo  |
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Thank you for this brief time in your virtual home - by the way, how many passengers are on the bus I ride home?
Until the next time,
Happy Sleuthing 
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Mystery: January 23, 2019 Issue [#9345]
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