User blog:Zathronas/Author's Advice: The Art of the Mystery

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Hello and welcome to a very late Author's advice.

Sorry for the wait but I've been occupied with my own book these past few days.

We've all read them, speculated on the answer and even be fooled by them. The mystery books may be the most read type of books out there. But what makes a good mystery? This is my attempt to explain.

Let's start with the obvious question, what is a mystery? For our purpose, the best definition I have is the known result of an unknown action or actions. In other words is we know the answer it the path to that answer that's missing. It's important to know that because as a writer who either wants to write a mystery story or add a myterious plot into his story. It means we have to know the whole story from the start. Here's an example of a mystery in RWBY.

KNOWN RESULT: Cinder and her "crimes"

UNKNOWN ACTION OR ACTIONS: How did she became the person behind the crimes and why? Unknown at this moment.

You can bet that the RWBY writers have an extensive and detailed background of Cinder. You can't make a good mystery if you don't have the answers to the mystery.

Now that you, the writer have all the answers beforehand you can start to build your mystery. There are usually 3 types of mysteries. The main plot, a secondary plot or a character. All work basically the same it the information that you need that's different.

In a main plot, you see the result of the mystery at the start. Be it a murder, a theft or any other setting. Everything in you story will surround the result.

In a secondary plot, the result will somwhere in the complication. It will not be the main story and your hero may not activaly search for answers but will stumbles on clues that will intrigue them. It ght even not be a mystery to the character but to the readers. Then the character continues unaware of the mystery and you give hints to the readers directly. Since the characters already knows the answers to the mystery.

In a character, the result is the being we see now. The mystery can be twofold, his past or his future. The character itself usually knows his past ( not always, the old amnesia plot!) So he is usually the one who gives the hints. The future is a bit more complicated. The character know something of the future as a fact ( time travel, prophecies, portents etc..." the mystery becomes how he gets there or how he can avoid it.

Now that you know what type of mystery you want to do and created the whole story behind it in advance. You need to create hints. You have to give your reader the chance to figure it out beforehand. You can bet some will get it way before the reveal. That's inevitable and even necessary, because if no one gets it then your hints were too subtle or there wasn't enough of them. If too many people get's it before you reveal the answer, then your hints are too obvious and you need to add an element to your story, misdirection.

Sometimes, you may feel the answer is too obvious but you don't see how to make your hints more subtle to the readers. Then you need to add a misdirection. You basically add another answer to the mystery, a wrong one. You'll have to give other hints that could explain why it is the wrong answer. Because when you explain the truth you have to show why the misdirection was wrong. Or your readers will claim both answers are valid.

Sometimes that's exactly what you want, more than one answer. It's still a sort of misdirection because it makes your readers choose an answer instead of saying they are both right.

Basically, if you write a mystery, there are three things you need to know beforehand. The result, the path and the signs to indicate the right path. It will be up to you to intergrate them in a cohesive story.

Next time on Author's advice, How to begin and end a story.