  Mystery
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Alan Poe
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show,
that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of
the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Edgar Allan Poe
A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.
Raymond Chandler
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Greetings, we know a mystery is a puzzle. Your sleuth (professional, amateur, or anywhere in between), along with your readers, embarks on a journey you devise to solve the puzzle by finding and deciphering the clues you plant.
Yes, plant, like seeds in a garden. Consider your garden, be it on a patio, a terrace or in your backyard. You plant seeds, tend them, watch them grow with your care to yield the fruit or flowers you envisioned. Now you may calculate sun position, soil conditions, pollination potentials, and plant your seeds in measured rows with the intended vision diagrammed in your mind or a journal. Or, you may begin with the image of your finished garden, plant seeds, then transplant overgrowth, fill in fallow spaces, and water and prune as needed along the way until your vision bears fruit (or flowers) to please your eye.
Both of these images of planting clues work. You may choose to outline your plot, planting clues along the way, leading your sleuth and reader towards the logical outcome of your mystery. Or, you may envision a crime or puzzle, begin writing until you reach a satisfying ending, then go back and edit the details to plant clues and show your reader how to arrive at the same solution.
Along the writing of your mystery, whichever your method, you plant clues, facts that lead to the ultimate satisfying and believable truth, solving the puzzle. Consider a crossword puzzle. You answer questions and fill in the blanks, revealing letters to help guide you to answering other questions and ultimately solving the whole puzzle.
In a mystery poetic or prosaic, you plant clues for your sleuth and reader to uncover and solve. Instead of the straight question and answer of a crossword, however, you engage all their senses, challenge them both to find both the obvious and subtle clues.
 Plant tangible clues, evidence, for the sleuth and reader to uncover, i.e., weapons, alibis, hair, fingerprints, shoe prints, an items of clothing, a scent of cologne.
Dialogue between characters, responding to the sleuth’s inquiry, overheard conversation between suspects or bystanders, whether or not accurate perceptions or intended misdirection
Behavior observed by the sleuth and reader, such as relationships (bickering siblings, where one disappears or is found no longer alive, for example).
You see, clues can be obvious or subtle, there for your sleuth and reader to uncover and analyze to uncover lies and truth along the way to solving your puzzle. You don’t want to give them a trail of breadcrumbs to merely pick up and follow, but for your sleuth and reader to first uncover, then resolve based on their assessment. You set them on the trail, and give them sufficient information to cast doubt upon the clues they find, making them question and, incidentally, thus uncover further clues. You create uncertainty by inciting doubt, challenging your sleuth and reader to uncover which clues are true (once they find them) and which are false, misdirection.
False clues you plant misdirect the sleuth or reader, casting doubt and causing them to consider options which may be logical, but are uncovered as false or leading nowhere.
Red Herrings is the name given these misdirecting clues. Some are obvious on the surface, others must be ‘dug up,’ but both offer a bit of spice to the writer’s prose or verse. You also might choose to devise a bit of misdirection by planting clues that draw attention, but lead nowhere. Yes, those pesky red herrings.
Red herrings are diversions proffered to move the sleuth (and reader) off the trail, sometimes by using facts to hide the truth. If clues are seeds, then red herrings are bait.
Red herrings were at one time the dried fish (stinky) that would be used to lead dogs off the trail of a hunt. The term subsequently came to refer to anything that is used to misdirect in speech – written, spoken, alluded to (body language). Consider politicians, for example, leading people en masse to accept their programs by covering up their ‘scent.’ Now the perceptive sleuth takes the time to either solve or disprove the illusion and move on to uncover and solve additional clues en route to solving the puzzle
Consider the following, by Scott Mortenson,
You’re a bus driver. You leave the depot at 6:05 AM, and at your first stop you pick up three passengers. On your next stop you pick up five passengers. On your third stop four get off and nine get on. On your fourth stop, three get on and five passengers get off. On your fifth stop, eight get off and seven get on.
Got all that? Okay. What color are the bus driver’s eyes?
In the example above, you have all the facts, all the clues. Did you answer the question correctly? Only you know, as I don’t know the color of your eyes. As you were adding and subtracting the numbers, you were following clues used to distract you, or red herrings. (I kind of like the image of some bus passengers as ‘herrings.’)
I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey and as you plant the clues of your mystery, either in orderly rows (plotting) or in the editing process after writing the story from beginning to end or, somewhere in between the two, remember to slide in one or two appear to lead to the solution, but do nothing to solve the puzzle.
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
with thanks to ~ http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html
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Submitted for your reading - and reviewing pleasure - a PI returns to solve his last unresolved case ~ check it out
I invite you now to enjoy the following mysteries, find the clues, follow them, and see if any of them turn out 'fishy' - then let the authors know what you found = a review perhance
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How about joining in the plotting of a mystery with fellow authors?
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Some summer fun perhaps with a game ~ follow the clues
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And, a couple of challenges ~ one if you like to have a few seeds planted to direct (or misdirect); and another perchance if you prefer a a brief weed and seed to mislead 'till the satisfying resolution
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Thank you for this welcome virtual home. I'd like to share some comments from our members with the hope that you check out the creative stories and verse also in their portfolios
From: wildbill 
This was one of the best essays on the Mystery newsletter I've read lately.
Just a couple of additions:
PIs almost always have a counterpart in the police with whom they have a complicated relationship: Arms length friends like Pat Chambers for Spillane's Mike Hammer
PIs usually have a permanent love interest who may be their secretary (Velda/Hammer) but they are not adverse to taking up with the other woman who usually shows up--the femme fatale.
Enjoyed the read. Wildbill
Thank you for writing and for calling our attention to the 'sidekick' and 'love interest' of the PI, either or both of whom can help find clues or misdirect the PI (and reader), while providing insights into the character and motives of the PI
From: PartyBee 
I love the list about the PI. It was very informative. When you're developing a mystery I think you could have a lot of fun exploring the type of pr you want. I agree - if you use third person, keep it tight. It works better that way if you do.
Thanks for your encouragement ~ and for focusing on the exploration of the PI as a dynamic character
From: Angelica Weatherby-Happy 2025 
There was some really good points in this newsletter. Thanks for shearing.
Thank you for writing, I'm glad you found something helpful for your creative sleuthing
Until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
Keep Writing!
Kate |
| ASIN: 0996254145 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 12.95
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Mystery: July 01, 2009 Issue [#3142]
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