When the Plot Fizzles

[Peg Herring]

I recently read two books, both well-written for the most part. However, one provided a surprise at the end that satisfied me as a reader while the other sort of backed out of the story with little attention paid to the killer's motives, in fact, with some doubt as to who actually did what. I want more than that.

I most admire writers who are able to focus everything in the story toward the climax. Characters who at the end do what they do because we know them and expect just that. Foreshadowing that hinted at what would happen so lightly that we can only look back and say, "I should have seen that coming." And everything else: the mood, the voice, even the setting, created to support that moment where we understand all.

Many books are just a pleasant diversion, providing some of the above but not enough. Some are an irritation, never achieving the intended result. I think the reason we all keep reading mysteries is to find the ones that bring it all together, so we're both pleased and a little sorry when we reach the end.

[minervaK]

You know what's really surprising? When you think you're one, and turn out to be the other.

[Peg Herring]

Good stuff.

[Dana King]

It's extremely rare for anyone to be able to do it all. Since I like to quote Chandler so much, here we go again:

I suppose the principal dilemma of the traditional or classic or straight-deductive or logic—and—deduction novel of detection is that for any approach to perfection it demands a combination of qualities not found in the same mind. The cool-headed constructionist does not also come across with lively characters, sharp dialogue, a sense of pace and an acute use of observed detail. The grim logician has as much atmosphere as a drawing-board. The scientific sleuth has a nice new shiny laboratory, but I’m sorry I can’t remember the face. The fellow who can write you a vivid and colorful prose simply won’t be bothered with the coolie labor of breaking down unbreakable alibis. The master of rare knowledge is living psychologically in the age of the hoop skirt. If you know all you should know about ceramics and Egyptian needlework, you don’t know anything at all about the police. If you know that platinum won’t melt under about 2800 degrees F. by itself, but will melt at the glance of a pair of deep blue eyes when put close to a bar of lead, then you don’t know how men make love in the twentieth century. And if you know enough about the elegant flânerie of the pre-war French Riviera to lay your story in that locale, you don’t know that a couple of capsules of barbital small enough to be swallowed will not only not kill a man—they will not even put him to sleep, if he fights against them.

Research and rewrites will move any good writer toward the perfect blend, but who ever really gets there?

[B.R.Stateham]

I think most of us like a great 'whodunit.' Disguise it in any form your want, police-procedural, hard-boiled noir, etc., still, we want a great mystery with just enough hints to make some reasonable guesses--only to be startled when the real culprit comes along.

Plotting something like this takes time and talent. I think there are a lot of writers who are beautiful wordsmiths--that can throw words together that have a cadence and a hum to them--but they can't hammer out a plot too well.

And vice-versa, of course.