I don't think I'll ever get callous to murder. Now where's the stiff?

[shadydave]

Last night, we went to see my cousin in the MTS production of The Thirteenth Chair. It's not a bad story -- a locked room mystery where the man holding a seance to find out who murdered his friend gets murdered himself while the lights are out, and the medium has to figure out whodunnit to clear her daughter -- but the execution was TERRIBLE. (Err, writing-wise, not acting-wise. Err, well, my COUSIN was good, anyway.)

Some tips for mystery writing:

-- Suspects: you should have more than one. And you can't just TELL us someone is a suspect without any evidence to that end. It's no good having a red herring if they couldn't possibly have done it!

-- Motives: suspects should have them. Also, you should inform the audience that the suspects have them, oh, before they actually confess.

-- Plotting: it's generally nice to let the audience know what's going on -- for example, revealing how a character knew what happened in a scene he wasn't present for, or how the murderer killed someone when they were allegedly unable to move. In fact, revealing information in general at a steady rate, as opposed to having the last two acts devoted to "Youdunnit!" "Nuh uh!" and infodumping at the very end to explain everything IN RETROSPECT.

-- Mystery Science Theater 3000: technically not the playwrite's fault, but The Dead Talk Back is totally ripped off from this play, which didn't really help with the quality control.

-- The butler: he should have done it, dammit. He had access to the locked room, freedom to move at the time of the murder, a motive, AND an ominous scene with a protagonist! This is four times as much evidence as we were provided for the actual murderer.

EXTRA CREDIT: Read The Thirteenth Chair on Project Gutenberg. In how many ways does this play go wrong? What would you do to fix it?

Comments

[failing-light.livejournal.com]

I already told you - you need to either ditch the detective or make him actually good at his job. If you had no detective, you could have lots of Important Clues come out as the guests argue with each other; if he was actually good at his job, he could unearth lots of Important Clues instead of just standing around being confrontational with everyone. Second act therefore becomes actually relevant instead of a monstrous waste of space, you have actual motives and means for multiple suspects, and it doesn't feel like a bit cheat at the end when the murderer is basically a random who has to explain what he did and why.

Clearly, I should be in charge.

[dracis.livejournal.com]

Regardless of genre or plot leading up to the end, if the villain (or murderer, as the case may be) has to explain what they did and why, possibly in a Just Between You and Me, then you did something wrong. Evidence should be presented to the viewer as to what's going on, even if it's important that the protagonist/detective never figures something important out.

I greatly dislike getting all of the necessary information to understand the plot in a villain monologue in the last 5% of the narrative. It's highly irritating.

That said, the only mystery I've ever written (...am writing...) is highly unorthodox to begin with (fake detective [who dies three chapters in], time loops, watching people who are otherwise good guys kill everyone, etc.), so I don't think I've ever been in a position to write something in the way of a closed-circle mystery and dodge such... mistakes.

[shadydave.livejournal.com]

I greatly dislike getting all of the necessary information to understand the plot in a villain monologue in the last 5% of the narrative. It's highly irritating.

Ugh, it was SO ANNOYING. Especially because my sister and cousin (a different one) had only guessed the real murderer because 1) they did something sketchy that ended up having no relevance whatsoever, and 2) they were just generally sketchy. There was literally no other reason to suspect them until they told us why!

One of these days, I'd like those kinds of villains to confuse their monologues, so the murderer tells everyone his plans for world domination, and the mad scientist explains that he was in the library with the lead pipe.

That said, the only mystery I've ever written (...am writing...) is highly unorthodox to begin with (fake detective [who dies three chapters in], time loops, watching people who are otherwise good guys kill everyone, etc.), so I don't think I've ever been in a position to write something in the way of a closed-circle mystery and dodge such... mistakes.

Ohh, are you working on your NaNo?

Really, I feel like the bare bones of a decent mystery aren't that hard to construct: whodunnits need motives and means, howdunnits need suspects and motives, etc; The Thirteenth Chair was such a notable failure because it didn't even manage THAT much. In most mysteries, the basic premise is sound, and the quality comes from the presentation. (And speaking of which, mystery + time travel sounds totally awesome :D)

[dracis.livejournal.com]

I wasn't talking about my Nano; I have a fanfic that functions as a mystery with time loops. And I'd like to introduce you to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni at some point, which inspired me to the fic in the first place.

My Nano is about Skyships and floating Islands.

[shadydave.livejournal.com]

...Both of those sound EPIC :D

[shadydave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. Having the fake medium and the bitchy socialite investigating the mystery would be way more interesting than the overbearing detective anyway.