6 Extra Tips for Creating Page-Turning Mysteries

NOTE: This follows on from “Tips for Creating Page-Turning Mysteries”

Try to throw in as many red herrings and confusions and lack of information so that your reader cannot guess the mystery. If you read the previous article about “The dream that changed everything” you will remember I mentioned the ambulance example and the study that showed we would rather make up something than admit we don’t know. That guess, which we convince ourselves is the answer, can be so satisfying that we stop wondering. It is as if we have the answer even when we don’t. If you give the reader too much, they will make guesses and they will be satisfied. On the flip-side, don’t let the answer feel like a stretch. If you haven’t given them enough to make the real answer satisfying, the reader will feel that it is all a little implausible. The answer must be a satisfying payoff and it will make your book unforgettable.

If you are not careful, your red herrings, a great tool for throwing a reader off, just might betray you. In my book Sacrifice, the main drive of the book is why had someone gone to great lengths to abduct the main character, Emme, into a strange new world. And why was she now hunted down with a huge price on her head? She was so greatly unconnected to the world she was transported to, or so unlike everyone and everything around her, so random, it doesn’t make any sense.

At one point there is a possible answer. It kind of rises to the surface. But it is a red herring. It is not the answer at all. And I was okay with this red herring to trick the reader in order to shock them with the answer until one day a test reader who got to that point said he had solved the mystery and he knew the answer now. He was utterly certain of his deduction. It didn’t occur to me that a reader might be so convinced it was true, that he or she would put the book down. I had to tell him that he was entirely wrong, and he was immediately keen to pick up the book again and keep guessing. But remember that as a writer I do not have the luxury of telling a reader in person that they are wrong with their guess and to keep trying. My book has to speak for me. So I then had to go back into the book and add in a scene, one that showed how that wasn’t and couldn’t possibly be the answer. It is the only scene I added from my original draft.

So, a red herring is okay as long as it’s not such a big red herring that a reader feels they know the answer now and they are satisfied. For that reason, red herrings should be small things, tiny distracting clues, not big possible answers designed to throw a reader off the scent.

This one is entirely personal choice, of course, but I have discovered that making at least one answer something totally unexpected and outrageous, something really shocking, makes a book really, really memorable. Don’t make every solution to every question or intrigue big, dramatic and shocking. That will exhaust a reader and the plot will feel implausible. And, of course, your climax will not stand out as the biggest thing by comparison. But if you can plan one ‘out-of-the-blue’ ‘didn’t-possibly-see-that-coming’ answer or even event, your book will be unforgettable. All it takes is one shocking moment and a reader will remember you forever, even if that is the one scene they recall.

If your hero doesn’t know something, or other characters don’t know something about the main character, or if anything is kept from anybody including the reader, make sure it is believable as to why and not annoying to the reader. You need to be invisible as the author and having something that feels contrived or manipulated will annoy the reader and make you, the author, suddenly show up in their book as surely as if you stepped into the room and announced yourself.

I once read a romance novel where the heroine, a mere servant, was mistaken for a lady of some importance who was supposed to marry Main Guy. The mistake was somewhat plausible, though perhaps stretched, and of course, they started to fall in love but Main Guy was falling in love with a lie. Every time Main Girl, the servant, went to tell Main Guy the truth, there was some obviously contrived reason why the two were interrupted and the words didn’t come out. This happened so many times it became heavy handed and the author suddenly appeared in full in my novel. The magic was lost. If you’re going to have a story device like this, you’ll need to be very clever about it and use it sparingly. Don’t have too many times when Main Guy questions Main Girl, or Main Girl feels guilt about not sharing, and then you don’t have to come up with too many plot devices. Or if Main Girl or Main Guy keep something to themselves that many times, the stakes need to be very high. Main Girl or Main Guy, or even Secondary Girl and Secondary Guy need to have a great deal to lose if they keep that secret for that long. That makes it more plausible and more likely the reader will back you up in agreeing the character should probably stay silent.

Beware of cliches. A cliche is not to be avoided, but a potentially annoying one is. I think I’ve probably read too many books where the hero is super special or specially chosen for some reason but doesn’t know it until they are teenagers because their parents who were supposed to teach them and train them in their apparent ability kept it a secret. Unless you can come up with an exceptionally good reason why, it will seem implausible that this supposed saviour of mankind was completely in the dark and totally untrained until circumstances forced the hero to find out the hard way. And even if it is plausible, it could be potentially annoying if overdone.

Have you seen the recent movie Wonder Woman? The secret of her true identity (and I won’t spoil it here in case you haven’t seen it) is kept from her all her life and even right up until she confronts her nemesis. Why? A simple line from her mother before Diana Prince leaves her Amazon family explains it to the watcher and takes away the potential confusion and implausibility: “The sooner she finds out, the sooner he’ll find her.” It’s a mother’s love talking and we feel it when it’s spoken. We don’t know who “he” is, or why “he” is trying to find Diana or why that’s bad. And that adds to the mystery. When it is explained at the end, it isn’t annoying or implausible; it makes sense and adds to the climactic moment. These are things to think through and plot as you work on why there is a mystery in the first place.

If you have a series, the mysteries have to keep the reader moving through to the next books without leaving the reader feeling like there is just too much unresolved. It’s a fine line.

You are still working with a diamond shape of intrigues and reveals and each book is it’s own diamond. <> (I spoke of the diamond shape in the previous post.) By the end of the first book, you should be at the final tip of your diamond. All that remains is just a small diamond tip of remaining intrigues that takes you to the small joining point in the next book. Most of the book should be resolved to the reader’s satisfaction but something very important, some overriding thing, remains. That becomes the tip that begins the diamond of the next book and the next.

<Book One><Book Two><Book Three> …

You have three options with series and sequels. 1. You do a cliff-hanger ending. It’s the worry and wonder that pushes a reader on. 2. You wrap up the book neatly but for one overriding thread that remains – something isn’t as it should be and the reader knows it. 3. Or you wrap up the book neatly and let the deep love for the characters propel the reader to the next story, and once they are there, they are rewarded by a barrage of questions they didn’t realise weren’t answered in the first one. (Or perhaps it is its own complete story.)

Bloodline: Alliance is that kind of cliff-hanger ending of sorts. Some big event might have finally taken place that resolves something, but it is quite clear that something is very wrong about that ending. In the last few chapters, a twist is presented that throws into chaos everything the reader knows. Everything the characters think they are fighting for is now totally wrong. But just what this twist means eludes everyone, especially the reader. This propels the reader into the next book.

Sacrifice does the opposite. It wraps up neatly. But I have invested a great deal of time in making characters so appealing, so loved, that this pulls the reader into the next book. Once there, they discover that the first book didn’t wrap up neatly at all and everything they think they know is about to be challenged. They are rewarded for their faith in the next book with so many twists, turns and shocks on that original story, it will leave them breathless.

I am currently editing a six-book series that does something I thought I’d never do. It doesn’t do cliff hanger endings, or wrap up neatly. It is, actually, one giant story that is split into six parts. The whole series is actually the book. There is no neat wrap-up of anything until the end. The first chapter of the next book is just the next chapter of the whole thing. In this case, the widest part of the diamond <> is actually around the 4th book. The whole series is the diamond shape.

If you decide to try your own version of this, just be aware that it comes with a lot of challenges. You need so many mysteries, hooks, interesting characters, unanswered questions and drama that the reader has to keep reading. Not only that, but you are managing a huge diamond and by the time you get to the widest part, it is very, very wide. You still have to tie off all loose threads, reward your reader with smaller answers along the way, and keep the momentum of burning questions going, reminding your reader of all that they don’t know, only this time it is on a huge scale. It is an enormous undertaking, especially if it’s at least six books like mine, and if you feel up to the task, I look forward to reading your series, and do tell me when it’s out. I will look you up.