Mystery & Detective Fiction: The Puzzle at the Heart of Story

Rosemi Mederos: 00:01

If you have plot bunnies coming out of your plot holes, it’s time for a writing break.

Today we’re setting sail into season 8 and exploring the foundations of storytelling. We’ll be dropping anchor at ports that might be familiar to you and some you’ve yet to visit. We’ll review the characteristics and parameters of different genres so that you know what readers and publishers expect from your manuscript.

Why are we returning to the basics when AI is threatening literature as we know it?

Well, because AI is an echo chamber of what has been written before; therefore, it’s up to writers to push former boundaries and write something masterful that AI could never even fathom. Is that too idealistic? Perhaps. Will some of you accomplish this? Without a doubt.

So, this season is all about the foundation of fiction, and once you know the rules, you’ll know how to bend them. That will take us to season 9, which will be about expansions and experiments. And then in season 10 we’ll do the same for nonfiction in all its forms. I encourage you to listen to each episode. Pay close attention to the genre you usually write but also consider other genres. Perhaps you might try your hand at writing another genre, experimenting with bringing in certain elements from another genre into your current genre.

I’m excited about the next three seasons. I’ve planned out at least 20 episodes per season, creating a 3-season, 60-episode Writing Break Genre Trilogy. Give yourself the chance to improve and expand by listening to all of the episodes. Plus, I enjoy your company.

What I consider to be my favorite genre changes over time, but we’re starting with a genre I read consistently for both business and pleasure, which is mystery and detective fiction. I can’t get enough. From Holmes to hardboiled detectives, we’ll explore how to craft compelling puzzles and fair-play clues that keep readers guessing until the end.

We’re starting with the news today, a great source for mystery and detective story inspiration.

The Writing Break Cafe is closed today. Instead, we’ll be having boat drinks aboard the Writing Break Schooner. How about we go below deck and you can make the first round while I fill you in on the latest publishing news?

The Association of American Publishers has thrown its support behind a $1.5 billion settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic case. This is the largest reported copyright recovery in history. AI companies are being forced to reckon with pirated books used for training their models, and authors may see direct payouts of around $3,000 per work. This case is important as it sets a precedent for how creative rights will be valued in the age of AI.

ElevenLabs just launched a new AI text-to-speech app that lets authors sell audiobooks directly to readers, keeping 60% of each sale. I will always be on the side of human-read books, but if AI text-to-speech is all you can afford, don’t let my opinion stop you.

The US Library of Congress has been at the center of major political and institutional turmoil this year, and it will have a negative impact on authors. Let’s get into it.

In May: 2025

The White House defended Carla Hayden’s firing by claiming she had“put inappropriate books in the library for children.” Let’s set the record straight.

The Library of Congress is not a public lending library. It doesn’t run a children’s section, and it doesn’t lend books to the general public. Its mandate is to collect and preserve every copyrighted work published in the United States, including yours, for legislative and research purposes.

Library professionals and commentators quickly called the statement“patent nonsense.” In reality, the Library is not stocking bedtime stories; it’s preserving the nation’s intellectual and cultural record. The fact that the White House didn’t know this is concerning. Or maybe they did know this and they think we’re the stupid ones?

Soon after firing Carla Hayden, Trump appointed Todd Blanche, a Justice Department official, as acting Librarian. This move ignited a constitutional dispute: is the Library of Congress accountable to the legislative branch, where it has traditionally belonged, or can the president exert direct control?

Meanwhile, the Register of Copyrights, was dismissed after publishing a critical AI copyright report. Y’all. She has since filed a lawsuit challenging her removal.

,: 2025

At the same time, lawmakers are debating proposed budget cuts of up to 10%, including reductions to the U.S. Copyright Office. For authors, this raises real concerns about how well the Library can continue protecting intellectual property rights. I’m hoping for the best for all of you.

Links to all of these news stories can be found in the show notes of this episode. Now, I’ll serve up round two of boat drinks and meet you above deck on the Overthinking Bow.

People enjoy a good puzzle. So much so that Agatha Christie remains the best-selling novelist of all time, outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible.

But why do we love a good whodunit? Is it the thrill of outsmarting the detective? The fabulous frustration of being wrong? If you read book reviews by mystery and detective fiction lovers, the true fans of the genre, you’ll see that they enjoy solving the mystery when the book is well-written, the plot twists are unexpected but believable, the characters are interesting, and the clues are fair. But they do not want to be able to solve the mystery too early in the book. It’s much more enjoyable to them if they are sure the killer is the victim’s husband by chapter 5, positive the killer is the warehouse manager by chapter 15, and absolutely positive the killer is the warehouse manager’s landlord in chapter 23. When the reader finds out in the last chapter that the killer is the real estate agent, they declare, “Aha, I knew it!”

Whenever someone recommends a mystery or detective novel and says something like, “the solution to the mystery is kind of obvious, but I still enjoyed it,” I suspect they’re misremembering their experience. It’s more likely that they enjoyed it because the solution wasn’t obvious to them until it was all revealed.

When I’m reading a mystery or detective novel for pleasure, I just enjoy the ride. Which, incidentally, is how I watch magic shows. Don’t ask me to figure anything out, just fascinate me. If I can figure out a magic trick or a novel’s mystery with my brain on neutral, that’s not good.

But when I’m editing mystery or detective fiction, I’m not only editing the usual things, like pacing, story arc, and character development but also things like red herrings and fair-play clues. It takes a lot out of me, and I love doing it. I edit with the assumption that your reader wants to figure it out before the detective does, and that’s how you should write. The puzzle is at the heart of the story. Baby, this is what they came for, so how easy are you going to make it for them?

First, the ground rules. Mystery and detective fiction is centered on solving a puzzle, such as a disappearance, a murder, a theft, or some other crime.

The protagonist is a detective figure, whether professional or amateur. It can be a homicide detective 20 years on the force or a store owner trying to clear her name after a dead body was found in her bookstore. A good detective character has flaws. They might be impatient or impetuous or they might have a personal bias that hinders their thinking. However, and this is important, they’re still smart enough to solve the mystery. Readers don’t like when the puzzle is solved by happenstance or when the detective is a bumbling fool for two-thirds of the book but still solves the crime. They want the protagonist to be able to figure it out, so you can’t make the protagonist so flawed that it becomes unbelievable that they would ever solve anything. If you’re working on a series with the same protagonist, you’ll have the opportunity for extended character growth, but choose your characters’ flaws carefully and make sure they’re something you’re going to want to write about often but that doesn’t conflict with other character traits in a way that is unworkable or unbelievable.

There are well-known detective archetypes in mystery fiction. For example, your sleuth can be a brilliant eccentric, a by-the-book professional, or an amateur in over their head. Professional detectives are just doing their job, and it’s expected that they’re doing it as well as they can, but perhaps they’re overworked and overlook something at first, or maybe they’re hesitant to act because of a previous case gone wrong. Amateur detectives are not just curious, they’re straight up nosey. That’s the expectation. If they’re trying to clear their names or that of their friend or family member, it’s expected that they’ll go to great lengths to find clues, including breaking and entering and lying to law enforcement. But if you’re establishing a series with an amateur detective, they need to be insufferably nosey off the bat. Well, I say “insufferably” because I attended Mind Your Own Damn Business School.

Mystery fiction is full of archetypes, each shaping the tone of the story. There’s the loner, the everyman or everywoman, the by-the-book professional, the reluctant detective, the gentleman or lady detective, and the team player.

The loner archetype has flaws that make them both fascinating and isolated. This category encompasses anyone from brilliant eccentrics to hardboiled noir detectives.

The everyman sleuth is an ordinary person stumbling into extraordinary circumstances; their curiosity and their ties to their community helps them garner evidence and clues that the professionals on the job overlook or can’t access.

The by-the-book professional is not just law enforcement. This can also be a healthcare professional, a private investigator, a lawyer, or a journalist. For books with these protagonists, procedural grit and institutional tension are prevalent. Their profession is intertwined in their personality. The journalist is good at asking the right questions. The lawyer knows how to use the law to their advantage.

The reluctant detective is often an amateur needing to solve the crime for personal reasons, such as getting a friend off the hook for a crime they didn’t commit. But it could also be a retired professional pulled into a case against their will.

Then there’s the gentleman or lady detective. When this archetype is well-written, it can be a lot of fun. These characters tend to be witty and refined and use social savvy instead of brute force to get to the bottom of things. Phryne Fisher is one character that comes to mind. The Australian series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is based on these books and does a stellar job turning these books into TV episodes.

Some stories thrive on partnerships or ensembles. For example, Mulder’s faith and Scully’s skepticism bring an important dynamic to The X-Files. Other stories do better when they lean into the rogue, such as vigilantes and anti-heroes who pursue justice outside the system. Think Jack Reacher and The A-Team.

The sleuth archetype you select will create reader expectations. Readers accept that a brilliant eccentric would know about poisonous plants for no particular reason, but they would roll their eyes at an amateur sleuth knowing the same facts because they just happened to see a program about it on TV the night before. A cozy bookstore murder feels very different from a hardboiled noir, and it all starts with who is doing the investigating. Choose your detective intentionally, and the story will build itself around them.

So now that you have your detective figure, it’s time to plant some clues because readers expect the mystery to be solvable and have a satisfying reveal.

When it comes to clues, the challenge is planting clues that are fair, invisible, and satisfying. They should be clues that the readers could spot, although they might not until they read the book a second time. Readers want to play detective alongside the protagonist, so you must leave enough breadcrumbs to follow the trail without making the solution obvious too early in the book.

A clue will be obvious, hidden, or a red herring. Obvious clues reassure readers that they’re on the right path. Hidden clues are hidden in plain sight, often disguised as a background detail. And red herrings are misdirections that keep readers guessing.

Fair play is the name of the game when it comes to clue planting. Your readers should always have a chance to solve the mystery before the detective announces the solution. That doesn’t mean all of your readers will solve it. What it does mean is that the evidence was there all along. When readers flip back through the book, they should see that the answer was hiding in plain sight.

One way to do this is to disguise clues as ordinary details. It could be anything from a certain aroma, a letter, a pair of shoes. These details should be scattered through multiple scenes instead of dropped in all at once. There should be enough distractions that the details blend naturally into the story. This can be done through relationship subplots, humor, action, and more.

A trick mystery writers sometimes employ is writing three similar details, only one of which is important. That avoids your clue being too obvious and keeps your reader engaged.

Now, let’s move on to red herrings. As I said before, red herrings are false leads. A red herring can be a character, a piece of evidence, or even a casual remark that seems important but ultimately misdirects the reader. When this is done well, it works great because it mirrors real life. In real investigations, not every fingerprint leads to the killer, not every witness tells the truth, and not every motive leads to the guilty party. Red herrings create doubt, which keeps readers turning the page.

The thing is, red herrings have to play fair. If the false clue is completely unrelated or feels like a trick, readers will feel cheated. The best red herrings point toward a plausible alternative solution, one that makes sense until more facts are revealed.

Clever red herrings can be a suspicious glance, a half-heard conversation, or a character hiding a secret that turns out to be unrelated to the crime. Red herrings reveal something about the world or the characters, even if it’s not the truth about the crime. For example, a character is making a lot of secretive phone calls that seem amorous, but they’re calling a child that nobody knows about, not a secret lover.

When you’re writing your mystery, ask yourself, what would a smart, observant reader reasonably suspect? Then plant a false trail that satisfies that suspicion but leads to the wrong door. When the detective explains the real solution, the reader should be able to look back and say, “Ah, I see why I thought that, but now it all fits.”

For an example, check out the: 2019

If you’re stuck on how and when to work in clues, try outlining the crime backward and then tell the story forward. Mysteries are puzzles, and you can’t scatter the pieces (aka the clues) until you know what the whole picture looks like.

Start at the end: Who committed the crime? How did they do it? Why did they do it? Once you know the culprit, the method, and the motive, you can reverse-engineer the trail of evidence that would expose them. That gives you a roadmap.

Then, moving forward, you decide how the reader and the detective will encounter these pieces. Maybe the bloody shoe shows up in chapter three, but disguised as a throwaway detail. Maybe a witness lies in chapter eight, creating a red herring. Each clue gets placed deliberately, in a way that makes sense within the story’s timeline.

It’s like building a maze. First, you design the exit, which is your solution. Then, working backward, you build the paths, the dead ends, and the false turns that will keep the readers guessing. By the time they walk through the maze in the right direction, the journey feels natural, even though you designed every twist from the opposite direction.

This approach saves you from one of the most common mystery pitfalls, which is writing aimlessly until you have to tack on a solution at the end. When you outline the crime backward, the clues forward feel inevitable, not improvised.

So you’ve got your detective archetype, clues, and red herrings, and now it’s time for the reveal.

This is what it’s all been building toward. This is when the truth comes out and your readers get the payoff they’ve been waiting for. There’s no slacking here. No matter how hard you’ve worked until now, if you mess up the reveal, the entire story can fall apart.

It’s your duty to deliver a reveal that feels earned, dramatic, and deeply satisfying. Remember, the detective should not pull evidence out of thin air at the last second. Readers need to look back and realize the truth was there all along, hidden among the noise. This is when your fair-play clues pay off.

The reveal should be paced like a stage performance. Think of it in three beats: the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution. In the setup, the detective gathers the key players and creates anticipation. This can be done by calling a meeting or setting a trap. In the confrontation, the false suspects are dismissed, often with some tension or conflict. While the classic staging involves having the false suspects present, it isn’t necessary, and sometimes isn’t possible, like when the innocent party is still falsely imprisoned and only the big reveal will set them free. Finally, there’s the resolution. The true culprit is exposed, usually in a way that ties back to both the plot and theme.

Agatha Christie loved the parlor-room reveal, but your reveal doesn’t have to be literal or formal. It can happen during a chase, in court, or even as a quiet, private confession. What matters is that it matches the tone of your story.

The reveal should have some emotional weight to it. Readers want to know who did it, and they want to feel the impact of that truth. Maybe the culprit’s motive is heartbreaking. Maybe the detective risks their own safety to expose them. The reveal is as much about character as it is about plot.

The common pitfalls in mystery and detective fiction are much the same as in other genres: over-explaining, telling rather than showing, random resolutions, and confusing plots.

Do not over-explain. Trust your readers to connect the dots. The best reveals feel inevitable, not spoon-fed. Info-dumping facts or backstory results in inelegant telling rather than action. While mystery plots tend to be complex, they should not be convoluted because that will lead to confusion rather than intrigue. If the clues are subpar or nonexistent and the foreshadowing falls flat, the reveal will be unsatisfying. And mystery writers will not forgive an unsatisfying reveal.

If you want to try your hand at writing a mystery, try writing a 200-word scene where a detective archetype of your choosing stumbles on a clue. Is it an obvious clue, a hidden clue, or a red herring?

In episode 15 of this season we will be revealing the subgenres for mystery and detective fiction, which run from lighthearted cozies to bleak noir. I’m looking forward to that. But next week we’re moving on to the foundations for thriller and suspense. I hope you’ll join me then. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, you deserved this break.

Thank you for making space in your mind for The Muse today.

Writing Break is hosted by America’s Editor and produced by Allon Media with technical direction by Gus Aviles. Visit us at writingbreak.com or contact us at podcast@writingbreak.com.