This game ain’t for guys in short pants

There’s a lot more to this writing stuff than meets the eye. I say this because I’m reading a book that I think is good on many levels, and has kept my interest – and then some – up until now.

The writer’s inexperience is showing, and he’s made a big mistake. It’s a mistake that should have been caught by his editor, and I’m surprised it wasn’t.

Mystery readers are savvy. They read lots of mysteries and because of that, they figure out things fast. The game is to beat them at it, and give them the surprise they crave.

Ideally, I want the reader to figure out who the real killer is (or the big surprise) about two pages before I tell them. That way, the reader feels vindicated. They think I’m smart, and more important, they think they’re smart. You want to orchestrate it so they come to the finish line just a tad bit before you do.

This author has come acropper in two ways:

Using multiple viewpoint, he sets up what the bad guy is doing. That would be fine, if he had control over the material.

But on the protagonist’s side—the character is an amateur sleuth—it completely falls down. By two-thirds of the way through the book, the reader starts to lose interest. Why? Because the protagonist should be smarter than that.

The protagonist has both pieces to the puzzle—big, eyecatching, fire-engine-red pieces. When they’re put together, the mystery is solved. Only problem is, the main character has these two pieces at his fingertips midway through the book, and then spends eons wondering about them. When it’s obvious. And not just because we know what the bad guy is doing.

The novel was flawed from the beginning. There isn’t enough plot for the book. Once the reader sees that the sleuth has both pieces, but keeps wondering, “What’s the connection? Why would this person do such a thing?” and doesn’t put two and two together, it’s all over. Especially when the other piece is sitting there blinking on and off like a neon sign, screaming “Me! Me! Me!” That’s the end of the tension.

When the reader loses respect for the protagonist—Game Over.

Writers - have you ever been in the middle of a book, story, or essay, and suddenly realized: “This isn’t going to work!”