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 :)
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 :)