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#Post#: 1527--------------------------------------------------
Rules of Mystery useful or useless?
By: GoldenSorcererBattler Date: July 28, 2011, 2:56 pm
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I'm working on a book that's a mystery but I don't know if by
using the Knox's and the Van Dine's rules will weaken my book or
make it better, what do you guys think?
#Post#: 1537--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rules of Mystery useful or useless?
By: Kirei Ryuusei Date: July 28, 2011, 4:01 pm
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Well it could strengthen it if you know the rules well enough.
However, some of the rules are somewhat null and void in modern
day settings. Like the 'no chinaman' rule, is not exactly valid
since various ethnicities are now common in society. Also the
servants is sorta void since unless you're ultra rich, no one
has someone working for them.
Although some have very valid points. If the detective is the
culprit, most people are gonna feel played. Or if it's magic,
then it isn't much of a mystery when all you have to say 'magic
was the cause'.
Bottom Line: Take the rules that are ancient and throw them out.
The others? Apply them as you interpret them.
#Post#: 1577--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rules of Mystery useful or useless?
By: Yopee Date: July 30, 2011, 2:25 pm
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I'm assuming that when you say you are writing a mystery, that
mystery is a fair play murder mystery.
The cleverest murder mysteries that I have read either aim to
break most of the rules or to abide by all of the rules.
Usually the bad, cop out, unfair murder mysteries are the ones
in between. They break a few key rules that makes it unfair or
unreasonable.
The one thing in common though is that all of the best murder
mysteries abide by Knox's 8th,Van Dine's 1st+2nd and Carr's 4th,
Chandler's 3rd sort of. That's the single rule that guarantees
the murder mystery is fair play and can be solved.
I think it would be a good idea also to definitely abide by
Knox's 4th and Chandler's 2nd+3rd sort of. Use any poison or
device that anybody reading your murder mystery would know
without needing to do any research. Using anything else is
treading into science fiction land rather than murder mystery.
Try not to take the rules literally, especially Van Dine's. My
understanding of the intention, the whydunit behind Van Dine's
rules is that he wrote them so that people would stop copying
each other. Servants were being overused as the culprit and were
automatically suspected by the readers of his time so it was no
longer clever to use servants as the culprit in his time hence
Van Dine's 11th. Same thing with all of the mentioned cliches in
Van Dine's 20th.
In other words, Van Dine is telling authors to be original with
the whodunit and the howdunit. He wasn't really forbidding the
use of servants or those cliches as the whodunit and the
howdunit. If the author does use those, then make it so that
it's not too easy and obvious to the reader.
Same thing applies to Knox's 5th. No chinamen doesn't mean
Chinese people are forbidden from committing crimes. My
understanding of it is that racial stereotypes are not needed
nor allowed to be used for logically reasoning out the whodunit.
Just because a person is black doesn't mean the detective can
say 'The culprit is the black man because blacks are more prone
to commit crimes!'. Depending on where the murder mystery takes
place, you could argue that black people are more prone to
commit crimes statistically but that's no longer reasoning
through logic. It's jumping to a conclusion through racial
stereotyping/discrimination.
I sort of don't agree with parts of Chandler's rules because he
tries to make the murder mystery seem too much like reality. He
doesn't like it when there are too many mysteries piled on top
of each other because the chances of that happening in reality
is very slim but that's part of what makes a murder mystery so
challenging and different from reality. Accidental/coincidental
events can't help the detective solve the murder but that
doesn't mean accidental/coincidental events can't hinder the
detective. Red herrings are fair game in my opinion. But I sort
of understand what he means though. Try not to overuse red
herrings or it does become a mess.
I think that it's fine to treat the rules as actual rules for
new murder mystery authors but for the more advanced murder
mystery authors with some experience under their belt, they act
more as rough guidelines just to keep the game fair.
To sum it up,
Knox says keep the murder mystery solvable.
Van Dine says keep the murder mystery original/clever.
Carr says keep the murder mystery challenging.
Chandler says keep the murder mystery realistic/feasible.
Oh, btw, do keep in mind that most murder mystery authors,
including the creators of these rules, have broken these rules
before with their murder mysteries :P
#Post#: 1923--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rules of Mystery useful or useless?
By: GoldenSorcererBattler Date: August 17, 2011, 1:25 pm
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Thank you guys I remember everything you've told me so I can
write a bad ass murder mystery.
#Post#: 1968--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rules of Mystery useful or useless?
By: Kirei Ryuusei Date: August 17, 2011, 10:41 pm
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No problem
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