  Mystery
This week: Top down or bottom up? Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein
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While a mystery may only have one solution, there is more than one way to solve a mystery. The process your characters use to examine evidence and work out the solution may be more interesting than the solution itself.
If you ask real detectives how they go about solving a case, you will not get identical answers form any two. Although the actual thinking process involved in solving a crime may be slightly different for each investigator, detectives usually use one of two thought processes known as deductive and inductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning is also known as "top down" thinking, because a person who uses it tends to organize his thoughts in broad, general categories before moving to specifics. At the beginning of an investigation, he may form a general opinion on what happened, based on his experience and first impressions of the case. As he investigates, he modifies his theory based on the evidence. For example, he may know from experience that many murder victims are killed by someone they know, and may always investigate the victim's family or friends first. An experienced deductive thinker may almost seem to have a sixth sense and may solve crimes very quickly. He can get in trouble, however, if he is too rigid in his thinking and refuses to admit his first impression might be wrong.
Inductive reasoning is also called "bottom up" thinking, because someone who thinks this way moves from specifics to generalities. He must evaluate each piece of evidence individually before he can see relationships between them . He may not even speculate on a suspect or motive until he has interviewed every single family member and acquaintance and studied each lab report. This is a very thorough way of investigating, but colleagues may get frustrated with the inductive thinker's slow deliberate pace, especially if there is public pressure to make an arrest.
Most people tend to favor either deductive or inductive reasoning and may have some difficulty communicating with people who use the opposite pattern. I am a "top down" organizer, and as a student, I hated taking classes from teachers who organized their lectures in a "bottom up" fashion. It might be easiest for you to write about characters who think the same way you do, but it could be an interesting challenge to develop a character who uses the other method.
It might be quite interesting to put an inductive and deductive thinker together as partners. Their complementary methods could make them a very effective team, but they might get on each other's nerves as well.
Something to try: Write a mystery story with two detectives, one who uses inductive reasoning, and one who uses deductive reasoning. |
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1989259 by Not Available. |
| |  | Itch (18+)
I wrote this story when I was suffering from a constant itch.
#1777779 by Kotaro  |
| | The Finder (13+)
Roger has a gift he must use, but hates to. When a girl goes missing, he is called.
#2000962 by Sailor661  |
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Answer to last month's question: How do you edit your stories?
Quick-Quill  EDIT EDIT??? That is why I worked to find a good editor as well as a publisher. My 99,850 word MS is now at 96+ words. I have no regret for any of my editor's cuts. They were mostly redundancies. When I had a reason for writing something and gave her my reason for keeping it. we agreed. I'm not an editor, I'm a writer. If I were the editor, it might take me years to write a novel as I'd be correcting all the time. Nope write it first and hand it off to those who know.
~I guess I'm one of the few writers who enjoys editing more than writing. Writing is almost torture sometimes, but editing and rewriting are fun!. |
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Mystery: December 03, 2014 Issue [#6693]
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