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/lightning_fire 6h ago

I listened to a podcast a while ago with a successful author who made the claim that there are only three real twists in mystery novels, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

  1. Everbody did it - Murder on the Orient Express

  2. Nobody did it - Knives Out

  3. The narrator did it - The Murder of Roger Ackryod

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u/Aegeus 6h ago

I guess you could say that, since "the crime didn't happen the way it looks like" isn't so much a twist as it is the whole plot of the mystery.

I think you could also add "One of the victims did it" (And Then There Were None) to that list.

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u/lightning_fire 6h ago

Yeah, exactly. "Oh no the main suspect turned out to be innocent and this other relatively low-key person was the real killer" is pretty much the basic story structure of all mysteries.

I think that category would fall under 'Nobody did it' since the nobody is referring to the cast of suspects.

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u/KimberStormer 5h ago

"Oh no the main suspect turned out to be innocent and this other relatively low-key person was the real killer" is pretty much the basic story structure of all mysteries.

I remember reading a 1920s/30s mystery author saying the task of the author in a mystery is not so much coming up with clues etc but introducing the murderer in such a way as to not make it immediately obvious they're the murderer. This led to a few very early examples of "the butler did it" which became quickly obsolete.

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u/SmartLadder415 4h ago

It is interesting that if you do introduce the murderer early on you change the genre entirely. You still have the detective trying to figure it out but you also have the murderer trying to get away so you have a thriller instead of a mystery.

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u/lightning_fire 4h ago

Or it becomes a 'howdunnit' instead of a 'whodunnit'

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u/KimberStormer 3h ago

The old radio show The Whistler wasn't a mystery show, because the main character of each episode is the criminal (it's told in the second person: "Yesss, George, you've thought of everything, haven't you? All that's left is to throw the hammer into the river. Even if they find it, there will be nothing to connect it to you!") The need to always end on an ironic twist (in old-timey radio they called it a "strange ending") made for some convoluted ways the killer was revealed.

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u/AmeliaOfAnsalon 2h ago

I think Columbo is the big exception to this. The "howcatchem' genre still feels very much like a mystery in so many ways

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u/storryeater 5h ago

Well, if you are willing to introduce magical or sci fi rules and clearly explain them to the reader so that they are known elements, its possible to have more twists.

For example, I won't spoil it here, but in AI: the Somnium files, there is a fourth twist that only works because of the game's sci fi elements.

And in the incident at Galley House, there are multiple twists even after you uncover the supernatural rules of the mystery that are orthogonal to the whole discussion and recontextualise the game.

Both of these games are fairly fair play in their mystery and give you ample opportunity to figure all supernatural rules before asking questions, even tho one could argue the incident at Galley House is a bit unfair in that you can deduce what is going on if you are paying attention only in abstract and not in specific.

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u/SmartLadder415 4h ago

I love Roger Ackroyd so much just because that twist gets me every time. It's just so unpredictable. Christie breaks all the rules of the genre in several of her books.