Author: | Nola | Published: | over 6 years ago |
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Tags: | twists, misdirection, mysteries, clues | Category: | Writing tips |
I love a good mystery. A quick flick through my DVD collection and you’ll find box sets of Murdoch Mysteries, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Murder She Wrote, Columbo and Sherlock. The stories created in those programs take us around the globe and span more than a century, but they have one thing in common—a brilliant sleuth who finds carefully hidden clues and then pieces them together for the big reveal.
There’s an art to hiding clues. If you give away too much too easily, you could pop the reader’s balloon before it’s had a chance to fly. If you’re too obtuse or withhold information, the reader may feel tricked or cheated when the murderer turns out to be the flamboyant florist who was only mentioned fleetingly on page five. Whether you’re writing a police procedural, whodunnit, thriller, or another genre that incorporates the odd secret or mystery element, you need to know how to bury the bodies … er … clues. Here are some tips to make sure those clues stay in the ground until it’s time to dig them up.
1. Embed clues in the action or emotion of another scene. While your reader is focusing on the main action, they might miss what’s going on at the peripheries. Please see last week’s post on plot twists for a good example of this.
2. Include a clue that could be interpreted in different ways. Suspense writer Jeffery Deaver uses this to great effect in his short story Chapter and Verse. (Spoiler alert) A detective gets a note from an informant that says, ‘He’s on his way. Look out. Luke, twelve, fifteen.’ Thinking ‘Luke, twelve, fifteen’ is a Bible verse, the detective consults a church minister, but the message turns out to mean something different altogether. If you’d like to see how it turns out, you can find the story in Deaver’s collection More Twisted.
3. Use in-jokes, puns or word play that contain some truth. The advantage of this technique is that readers may think it’s just a joke and not consider the deeper meaning. (Spoiler alert) In the Father Brown episode Theatre of the Invisible, a man says that he’s sure another character and his date will get on like a house on fire. We learn later that the first man knew the other had sabotaged a fireplace so a room would fill with smoke. The cantankerous landlady subsequently dies of smoke inhalation and now there’s a pesky witness to eliminate.
4. Mess with the timeline. Time is often a clue in itself (e.g. the time of the murder, alibi timelines, the length of time it takes to travel from A to B, the dog that barked just as the 9.00 o’clock news was starting). Try creating a problem with time that isn’t unearthed until a critical moment. (Spoiler alert) In the Jonathan Creek episode Miracle in Crooked Lane, former missionary Kathleen is recuperating at her friend Vincent’s house following a heart operation. She chats to a glamorous neighbour one evening and sees that it’s about 7.30 by the clock on the church tower. She also notices that the bottoms of her neighbour’s trouser legs are damp. The only problem is that the neighbour was supposedly seriously injured in an explosion hours before and couldn’t have appeared to Kathleen that evening without a scratch. It turns out that Vincent was using an elaborate series of tricks to make Kathleen think it was evening when it was actually morning. That way, she would be able to provide him with an alibi for the murder of his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. The church clock indicated 7.30 am not pm and the dampness on the neighbour’s trouser legs was caused by morning dew. Thus, Kathleen saw her several hours before the explosion, not after. Confusing? Not for Jonathan Creek. Find out more here.
It takes practice and skill to pull off a hidden clue that leaves the reader in awe rather than cranky with the author. Why not try writing a scene using one or more of these suggestions? Do you have a favourite clue from a novel, movie or TV show? I’d love to hear your examples, but be sure to give a spoiler alert if necessary.
For Further Reading
Curteman, Nancy. (2011). Clues: The building blocks of a mystery novel.
Ephron, Hallie. (2016). Writing and selling your mystery novel (rev. ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books.
Snyckers, Fiona. (2017). Hiding clues in a murder mystery novel.
(N.B. Some of the ideas in this post came from these articles, but the examples are original.)
Comments read 8 comments
Some great tips here, Nola. I do love ‘who done its’ where the clues turn out to be quite obvious, but they’ve been so carefully placed it leaves you wondering how you missed them – not to mention those perfect red herrings, that make you convinced it HAD to be the gardener, when all along it was the chef. In my experience as a reader, it’s a true art to be able to do this successfully, and I’d say only a handful of authors have met or exceeded my expectations on the mystery solving front. How great when they do.
Yes, it's a tough gig to nail. One of the reasons I did the twisty post last week and the cluey one this week is that I want to learn to do it better. The more you read in those genres, it's easier to pick up twists, but I still find myself bamboozled with the clues that are obvious in hindsight, but not so obvious at the time. Thanks for cracking the code to comment :)
Great tips, Nola. I've weaved in a mystery (aka crime solving kind) in a couple of my novels - and it's been fun to do. Easier than pulling off a 'aha' twist, I think, but still hard to get that balance between 'foreshadowing' and 'telegraphing'. Read herrings are great too.
Hi Jenny - Thanks for that. I've got a couple of mystery elements in my novel too, so have been brushing up on these kinds of skills so that I will hopefully do it well. But it is hard to get the balance right. It will be interesting to see what the beta readers think. And yes, red herrings are another story. Might have to do a post on that too :) Thanks for your comment.
I haven't written a crime mystery but my novel The Golden Hour has mystery as one of its several genre elements. I find it fascinating that readers vary so much in how they respond to the clues - some treat it like a treasure hunt, very aware of them and hunting for more; others don't really catch them until the end and then think/read back to find them and get their 'aha' then; some pick up where it's all leading halfway through and others don't work it out until the very end when it's (mostly) explained. I'm not sure if I worked the clues quite right (especially when a friend tells me that even at the end he can't see how it all fits together!) but most readers seem satisfied so I have to assume I stumbled onto a reasonable approach! Not sure I'm up to something that relies totally on that mix of mystery and clue though :)
Hi Claire - Thanks for that. It is interesting to think about the different approaches readers have. I like to look for clues, but I'm not very good at piecing it all together. In one way, it's good to 'solve the case' just before the reveal, but in another way, that can spoil the story. Kate Morton is brilliant at the unexpected twists. Once all is revealed, I feel like I want to go back and read it again to see how she layered everything.
The novel I'm writing sounds a bit like yours in that there are some mystery elements. I've already embedded some clues, but need to work some more in. Hard to know if they work until it goes out to beta readers. Thanks for your comments :)
Great article, thanks Nola. Yes, isn't Kate terrific at layering clues and hiding things! I have to go back and read some of the book(s) again often to see how it really works. I think I mentioned Dorothy Sayers - okay, her style may be a bit dated but she's a good writer and her characters are very well developed if you read the books in sequence. This is important for the four or so books re Peter and Harriet. All are mysteries and could stand alone though.
Hi Jeanette - Thanks for the tip about Dorothy Sayers. I haven't read any of hers, so will have to give them a try. Kate sucked me in good and proper with her first four books, though I did pick the twist in Book 5 about a chapter before the reveal. She is so good at layering in those clues. I agree that it makes you want to go back and read them again in light of what you now know. I especially loved the way she did that in 'The Distant Hours' and 'The Secret Keeper'. Things were not as they seemed, but it was done so well, I never guessed. Thanks for stopping by.
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