Can you write a mystery and NOT solve the mystery? Will readers mind?

[Frank Zubek]

 

I have a question

 

I have been invited to write a story for an anthology

 

The story will feature my favorite character, Nick Crowell, who is a cop that got shot in the gut and nearly died. (by the way there is a new novel coming Halloween on amazon if you are interested)

 

Now, since then he encounters several people who have weird problems. It falls under the paranormal/mystery genre

 

My choice for this new story is based on spontaneous human combustion.

And since in the real world there has never been a realistic and logical explanation tagged to the phenomenon, I see no reason fro Crowell to try to handle it all on his own either. I will have him take an educated guess of course. But.... the ending will conclude that there is no answer to SHC. (Even though at this point in my rough outline phase I currently have 3 deaths planned (within the fictional story) attributed to SHC)

 

If you as a reader would happen to read this story, would you be satisfied with it an ending with no firm conclusion?

What does a reader do when they read something that has no satisfactory (to them) conclusion?

What responsibility do we have as writers TO the readers beyond what we feel is the very best story we can do?

Especially if we went out of our way to throw a twist in there that pushes the envelope of the norm? (Both as a way to keep ourselves from getting bored of the same old same old and yet figure that there are readers out there who are ALSO tired of the norm and are looking for a twist on the genre?

Let me know

[I. J. Parker]

Hmm. Dickens did it.  Your story addresses a specific audience.  They would expect it.

[Brian Hoffman]

I don't think most readers would be satisfied with the story.  Maybe your protagonist could know but unable to prove who did it.  Or the opposite, we the reader knows but your hero doesn't.

 

[David Eugene Knop]

Failing to solve the crime can be frustrating to the reader. It can also be delicious. I see the principal reason not to solve the crime is to open the door to a sequel.

 

If an author choses not to solve a crime, it is because "justice has been done." I think this is essential in popular American novels.

[Dana King]

I think a lot of readers will feel cheated if there is no resolution. Like Brian, I think it's okay if the readers know what happened, or if the hero figures it out but can't prove it to a court's satisfaction. You might also get away with it if the unsolved crime is not the key to the story, or is in a more generic crime fiction kind of story. If you put the story forward as a mystery, you have to give them something. Ambiguous, unrewarding conclusions in life are what drive many people to read. (And movies and television.)

 

People invest their time and money to see how things come out. They're going to want them to come out, one way or another.

 

 

[Eric Christopherson]

Say the internet existed when Agatha Christie was writing The Murder of Roger Akroyd. I wonder whether she'd ask fellow authors whether a--SPOILER ALERT--murderer could narrate the story.

 

I'd say it's all in the execution. I'd also say it'd have to be great execution to work. How's about an ambiguous ending? (Slightly easier.)

[Mark Young]

I would have to concur with the majority of these comments. Authors need to provide some kind of satisfying conclusion for the reader, who has stayed with the author until the last page. No firm conclusion at the end might leave you with some very  unsatisfied readers.

[I. J. Parker]

Umm, spontaneous human combustion (yes, Dickens used it) is not a scientific fact. You are dealing with something here that borders on the supernatural.  Readers who like books about vampires will not have any problems with spontaneous human combustion.  :)  Readers of the common garden variety of detective story will not accept this as an explanation for a death.

[Dana King]

Yep.

[Eric Christopherson]

It is indeed a paranormal though.

[Caroline Trippe]

would you be satisfied with it an ending with no firm conclusion?

I'm inclined to say "no,"  but then I'd have to add, "maybe not at first."  If the situation is a "paranormal" one, then it's not like a traditional mystery, where the reader really does want to know who did it and why.  Sometimes a murder can't be "solved" because circumstances don't allow the detective to make an arrest, but the reader is satisfied because the detective "knows" the who and the why. What is needed is a "denouement,"  so that even if a "firm" solution isn't offered, the reader has something to satisfy that urge to know.

There was a film,  by the Australian Peter Weir, "Picnic at Hanging Rock,"  which was a kind of mystery---on an outing from a girl's school, three girls and one of their teachers simply vanish without trace. One other girl who was with them also disappears, but is  found---only she has total amnesia, and never recovers her memory. The story is very suspenseful---as the disappearances have dramatic consequences for other characters (which is really what the movie is about)---and as I watched it the first time, I desperately wanted to KNOW what happened to those girls and the teacher, and WHY they vanished.  I felt cheated when there wasn't a pat answer.  The filmmaker stated, in an interview, that his notion was that the girls "went into another time zone."  So that's a kind of X-Files Paranormal solution. It doesn't really answer the question---and isn't really something you'd necessarily figure out right away. But the film was so well done, so beautiful, so suspenseful, so character-driven,  that now, when I think of it, I'm glad that the mystery was never solved.

Explanations for paranormal events are always on a metaphorical, psychological plane.So, if you do it right---you can pull off this kind of thing, and the reader will ultimately be satisfied. Maybe not all readers---but those who like a bit of a challenge. :)

"The X-Files" was immensely popular and suspenseful, but when were any of those paranormal events "really" explained?  And David Lynch kept audiences hanging on  for episode after episode in "Twin Peaks," and never presented any  conclusions in the series---only in a movie made after the fact, once the series was cancelled. He built spine-tingling  suspense entirely on audience expectation.

 

 

[Stacy]

I agree with everyone else. If I am reading a mystery and my mouth's watering to find out what happened, I'd better find out at the end or I would never read another book by that author again. I would be very mad. LOL! Readers don't wanna feel cheated.

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

 

[Mary McFarland]

Frank, I--as reader--would get pissed, throw away your book, remember your name forever, and never buy another by you . . . IF you do not solve the mystery.  Come on.

 

Having been as frank as possible about endings, I think you might be pushing the norm with Nick's SHC and so forth, and that's perfectly okay: I really love novels that do that.  But as your reader, I want a satisfactory ending--closure--written ot the very best of your ability.