Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla
From the writer's point of view, they are easy to write.
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Are you sure of that? First you need to find a way to kill someone in a locked room. Of course, you will need to do it in a way that hasn't been done before, or at least have a plot that you are confident that your readers does not recognize.
Second, you must provide enough red herrings so that the reader doesn't find the solution. Remember that the reader
must get all the clues, all the facts that is needed to find the solution of his/her own, the only thing you [the writer] can do to prevent the reader from guessing the truth is to try and make the reader misinterpret the clues that are given him/her.
When the truth is revealed at the end, you want the reader to react with the words "Oh, why didn't I think of that myself
" and not the words "the author cheated
". Keeping information back and using a too improbable plot is two of the deadliest sins in the puzzle genre