Bruce Beckham's Blog - Posts Tagged "whodunit"
Does it spoil a whodunit if you solve the crime before the sleuth?
I am normally hopeless at deducing the person ‘whodunit’.
So much so, that I don’t even try any more.
I am content to wait – indeed, to relax – until Poirot, or his equivalent, is ready to gather the family around the fireside and deliver his pronouncement.
But in the past couple of weeks I made a concerted effort to change this state of affairs. I chose ‘After the Funeral’, by Agatha Christie.
I kept assiduous notes, marking down against each suspect anything that might relate to motive, opportunity, lack of alibi and suspicious behaviour. I collected 102 pieces of evidence!
And – eureka! Three-quarters of the way through the book, it came to me.
(Curiously, the apparent culprit was not on my list of suspects!)
This put me on tenterhooks for the remainder of the novel.
Having invested a ton of effort – and more than a pinch of professional pride – I did not want to be wrong.
And what does Ms. Christie do? She throws in a couple of curved balls right at the death. She had me doubting my judgement.
So it was quite a relief when Monsieur Poirot put me out of my misery. (I did get it right – though for the life of me I could not work out the motive!)
The upside? Satisfaction.
The downside? Anxiety.
On balance? I’m undecided! It created a challenge – but I’m not sure I could muster the discipline to do it every time.
Finally, it left me with even greater admiration for Agatha. Though her writing in this novel is as endearingly clunky as ever, the mystery she contrives is as endearingly masterful as ever.
So much so, that I don’t even try any more.
I am content to wait – indeed, to relax – until Poirot, or his equivalent, is ready to gather the family around the fireside and deliver his pronouncement.
But in the past couple of weeks I made a concerted effort to change this state of affairs. I chose ‘After the Funeral’, by Agatha Christie.
I kept assiduous notes, marking down against each suspect anything that might relate to motive, opportunity, lack of alibi and suspicious behaviour. I collected 102 pieces of evidence!
And – eureka! Three-quarters of the way through the book, it came to me.
(Curiously, the apparent culprit was not on my list of suspects!)
This put me on tenterhooks for the remainder of the novel.
Having invested a ton of effort – and more than a pinch of professional pride – I did not want to be wrong.
And what does Ms. Christie do? She throws in a couple of curved balls right at the death. She had me doubting my judgement.
So it was quite a relief when Monsieur Poirot put me out of my misery. (I did get it right – though for the life of me I could not work out the motive!)
The upside? Satisfaction.
The downside? Anxiety.
On balance? I’m undecided! It created a challenge – but I’m not sure I could muster the discipline to do it every time.
Finally, it left me with even greater admiration for Agatha. Though her writing in this novel is as endearingly clunky as ever, the mystery she contrives is as endearingly masterful as ever.
No tense like the present
“I am only 16% into the book, and I am very, very irritated by the use of the present tense.”
Yes – it’s a review of my novel, Murder in School, taken from Amazon’s British website. (One star, naturally.)
I’m afraid I do write in the present tense, and ‘deservedly’ lose a percentage of readers!
But there is some method in this apparent madness.
It all began when I read John Updike’s Rabbit is Rich.
I became totally hooked by the long opening description in which car dealer Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom watches contentedly from his showroom window as Middle America drives by, guzzling gas, soon to be queuing for his miserly Toyotas.
My reading experience could best be described as ‘filmic’ – I felt like I was in a movie, standing right beside Harry, watching, wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t know, he didn’t know – but more intriguingly, neither it seemed did Updike.
Then the penny dropped. I thought, “Hey – this is the present tense!”
Like a blinding flash of light it struck me that here is the way to narrate a mystery. (Because, frankly, how can you honestly narrate a mystery in the past tense, when you know the outcome?)
I tried it – and made a second remarkable discovery. Not only as narrator can you convincingly pretend not to know the outcome – you don’t actually need to know it at all! You can wait until your characters provide the solution.
So, if you ever guess one of my whodunits in the first 25,000 words – congratulations! You beat me to it!
Yes – it’s a review of my novel, Murder in School, taken from Amazon’s British website. (One star, naturally.)
I’m afraid I do write in the present tense, and ‘deservedly’ lose a percentage of readers!
But there is some method in this apparent madness.
It all began when I read John Updike’s Rabbit is Rich.
I became totally hooked by the long opening description in which car dealer Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom watches contentedly from his showroom window as Middle America drives by, guzzling gas, soon to be queuing for his miserly Toyotas.
My reading experience could best be described as ‘filmic’ – I felt like I was in a movie, standing right beside Harry, watching, wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t know, he didn’t know – but more intriguingly, neither it seemed did Updike.
Then the penny dropped. I thought, “Hey – this is the present tense!”
Like a blinding flash of light it struck me that here is the way to narrate a mystery. (Because, frankly, how can you honestly narrate a mystery in the past tense, when you know the outcome?)
I tried it – and made a second remarkable discovery. Not only as narrator can you convincingly pretend not to know the outcome – you don’t actually need to know it at all! You can wait until your characters provide the solution.
So, if you ever guess one of my whodunits in the first 25,000 words – congratulations! You beat me to it!
