Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm not sure I'd agree that the inverted detective story is an exception. Isn't the denouement of such a story generally the unmasking of the perpetrator of the crime - which normally occurs at the end of the book?
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You may not have watched a lot of
Columbo; but the show (and others in the "NBC Mystery Movie" set) often presented the crime,
and the killer, at the beginning. Everybody knows whodunit. Then we watch the detective trying to put the pieces together right under the nose of the killer. (The joke about
Columbo was that the killer would get so tired of the detective's hounding him that they would generally turn themselves in, just out of frustration! "Oh, Jeezus! Yes, I did it! I did it! Make him stop!!")
To answer the OP, I guess I've gotten comfortable with the traditional climax towards the end, followed by a brief moment of closure to "catch our breath"... nothing long and involved, in literary terms, a short chapter.
OTOH, I also like the "you thought this was the climax" story, where the climax is literally at the end (think M. Night's movies), and you're done... if the climax is satisfying enough as it is.