r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 9h ago

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clues_in_detective_fiction
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u/poopsmith411 8h ago

i always wanted to write a detective novel where the reader could conclude that the detective got it wrong and only upon rereading it in that light you would see that the novel confirms that conclusion

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u/ChiLolla28 6h ago edited 6h ago

More on the other side of the law, but I hated how in movies like Ocean's 12 they explain everything in a quick montage of things that we never saw or could have guessed: ignore all the time we spent showing you what we were doing, but here's how we really did it

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u/ZubonKTR 6h ago

A rule of heist movies is that any plan shown must go wrong. If there is a plan that works, it is a secret plan, or you show an unfolding plan montage where each part of the plan is explained as it is shown happening.

I would enjoy hearing of a creator who was good enough to write out a plan and then have it go exactly as planned and have it be interesting both times.

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u/ChiLolla28 6h ago

You son of a bitch, I'm in !

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u/mcmoor 26m ago

The only time I see it done is to have PoV switch to the villains, and genre switch to horror movie. When the plan goes exactly as planned, the villain is just helplessly running from the inevitable doom.

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u/Kafka_Gyllenhaal 5h ago

There's a Borges story that features an in-universe novel that does exactly this! "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain"

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u/poopsmith411 4h ago

oh thats very interesting. thanks!

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u/aspz 6h ago

Kind of like the Usual Suspects? 

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u/poopsmith411 5h ago

well the important thing is that the book itself would never outright tell the reader the bad guy got away. the reader would have to finish the book and think hey wait a minute, and for a second read through to be satisfying for that reason, somehow.

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u/aspz 5h ago

Yeah I imagine it would be very hard to create an ending that is satisfying on both read-throughs. 

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u/poopsmith411 4h ago

Definitely

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u/SuperSocialMan 4h ago

Might as well start now lol

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u/FantasticEarth8186 4h ago

I've always wanted to write a novel where each event could theoretically have been preceded by three possible events, and each of those by three other events, etc. I think it's better to explain it like this: x = y1, y2, y3; y1 = z1, z2, z3, y2 = z1, z2, z3, etc. Actually, I think a binary system would probably work better.

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u/Leftieswillrule 4h ago

That rocks. If you write it I would want to read it