How to Write a Mystery: It's All a Game

In this article, we discuss how to write a mystery novel, one of the most popular forms of crime fiction on the market. How do the mechanics of these books work to engage readers? How do we create a compelling puzzle that holds the reader’s attention?

You can also watch my YouTube video on writing mysteries.

Let’s go back to school.

Do you remember learning about analogies in school? When I was in fifth grade, there was this competition called Wordly Wise, in which every student had to participate. They’d give us a long sheet of paper with a list of analogies. One of the words would be left blank, and we’d have to pick the right answer from a list of four choices.

Each analogy would be written in this classic formatting…

a : b :: x : y

The single colon means “is to”. The double colon means “as”.

breeze : gale :: trickle : ______.

a) lull b) plunder c) cascade d) sunshine

The correct answer is C. Analogies create associations between pairings of words. A breeze is a smaller amount of wind compared to a gale, just as a trickle is a smaller amount of liquid compared to a cascade.

So, what does that have to do with writing mystery stories?

The game is afoot.

Everything. A mystery novel is really a game between the reader and the writer, and the mechanics of the gameplay are built from an analogy.

In a mystery, the protagonist is typically the investigator character, while the main antagonist is usually the person at the center of the case…the perpetrator who planned the crime, committed it, and now toils to keep the facts hidden.

The investigator pursues the truth one clue at a time, in an effort to sift through the red herrings and catch the criminal. Pretty straightforward, right? You can probably recall several books that use the framework I just described.

Here’s the trick: just as the fictional story is a game between the investigator and the perpetrator, the reading experience is a game between the reader and the writer. In other words…

reader : investigator :: writer : perpetrator

Mystery novels are proxy warfare.

What is the reader’s role in the reading experience? They enter the novel knowing none of the information they need to solve the puzzle. They’re typically shown a crime scene in an early chapter, perhaps at the very beginning. There they find the first clues that set them on the path to discovering the truth. But it’s not until the end that they have enough information to solve the case.

Additionally, because mystery novels are most often set in the point of view of the investigator character, the reader typically receives that information at the same pace and from the same perspective as their fictional counterpart.

That is, the investigator is the reader’s proxy in the story. Their experiences mirror each other, and the reader “lives” through that character as they both work through the puzzle. The investigator and the reader both want the same answers.

The investigator is the reader’s game piece.

But how about the writer’s role? The mystery author plans the puzzle, executes the crime (typically before the beginning of the narrative or right at the beginning), and then keeps the answers hidden until close to the end, when it’s time for the reader to make a guess…and time for the showdown between the investigator and perpetrator.

Sound familiar? It should remind you of how we described the perpetrator’s role in the fictional story.

The perpetrator is the writer’s proxy. It is through the villain that the writer spins the web of information, manages the reader’s experience acquiring that information, and pays off the entire case with the revelation of the answers at the story’s conclusion.

The perpetrator and the writer have the solution that the investigator and the reader want, so the perpetrator is the writer’s game piece.

The rules of play.

The experience of a mystery novel relies on this game between reader and writer. As with any fun game, however, there are rules.

The reader has until the end of the book to solve the puzzle. Solving the mystery is the experience that they’re buying, but there is a time limit on that experience. What makes this genre so addicting and so ripe for successful series is that when the reader solves one book’s puzzle, they’ll want more.
The writer must exercise “fair play”, one of the most important terms in mystery writing. That is, the reader must have all the information they require to solve the puzzle before the big reveal at the end. An author can’t present a random, convenient clue that changes the mystery at the last second, for the sake of adding another twist. I’ve read a few books by authors who commit that sin, and there is nothing more frustrating than to reach a conclusion based on the evidence, only to have the rug pulled out from under you.
The puzzle must be challenging. This is especially true because avid mystery novel fans are VERY good at this game. The writer must play fair, but fair doesn’t mean easy. The author should use misdirection, red herrings, and vibrant casts of potentially guilty characters to send their readers (and their investigators) chasing after multiple leads at any given time.

Summary.

A mystery is a game between the reader and the writer, in which the reader has to solve the puzzle by collecting and analyzing information created, managed, and revealed by the writer.
The investigator is the reader’s proxy in the story, and the perpetrator is the writer’s proxy. The reader experiences the game through the investigator’s eyes, and the writer experiences the game through the perpetrator’s eyes.
The writer must play fair by ensuring that the reader has all the information they need to solve the puzzle before the answer is revealed.

I recommend going back and reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s no coincidence that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his hero say, “The game is afoot!” He used these mechanics to perfection, and it’s the reason his fiction remains the model for popular mysteries today, from books to TV crime dramas.

Another recommendation I have is Hour Game, by David Baldacci. This is my favorite serial killer mystery, because Baldacci manages the reader’s experience with the puzzle so well.

To see a book that I feel doesn’t play fair, read Michael Connelly’s The Poet. Don’t get me wrong, Connelly is perhaps the greatest mystery author of his generation, and The Poet is a brilliant novel in every other way. But when I reached the end, I felt that the last twist broke the fair play rule. See if you agree!

Understanding this relationship (reader : investigator :: writer : villain) is the key to writing a killer mystery.

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