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Writing a mystery is more complicated than other types of fiction, in my opinion, because you have to know when to lie to your reader and when to tell them the truth.
Hint: Almost always lie.
As House, MD used to say, “Everybody lies.”
In your mystery, everyone should lie, everyone … except the main character.
If you have an external unreliable narrator, obviously, they can lie, but your main character should stick to the truth. Readers need to be able to trust someone. That’s not to say the main character doesn’t have secrets. They do, and keeping them hidden for a while may make your reader suspect your main character!
(I will caution you that an unreliable narrator in a story filled with liars may confuse your reader.)
Ways people can lie:
On purpose
By omission
Unintentionally
Carefully
Flippantly
But the best lies have some truth in them.
Let’s say, a character leaves work and goes to the grocery store, the butchers, the alley beside the butchers, the carwash and then home.
The detective asks them where they went after work. They tell them they went to the grocery, the butchers, the carwash and then home. They aren’t directly lying, but they are lying by omission.
They don’t want the police to know they bought something illegal in the alley. This character isn’t necessarily guilty, they just have a motive to lie.
Everyone who lies needs a reason to lie.
Lies drive the detective and your readers in the wrong direction—which is what you want when writing a mystery. Misdirection.
Because of these lies and misdirections, the detective should dismiss the true perpetrator somewhere in the first third of the book.
In turn, you reader may dismiss them, but they also may have picked up on a clue that keeps them questioning if that character really did it.
The longer you stay clear of that character or the closer they are to the case, the more likely your reader will dismiss them as a suspect.
Having the perpetrator as one of the detectives working on the case works well. It can be easy for readers to dismiss someone that is supposed to be solving the crime. And of course, they will be lying to their colleagues.
There is more to writing a mystery than lies, but my oh my, do lies make them interesting and complex reads!
Writing a mystery or other crime novel? Contact me.
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Happy writing and revising!
Kristin Noland – Speculative and Crime Fiction Editor and Ghostwriter
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