hey guys I'm new to writing mysteries and psychological thrillers and want to know what would readers expect out of a mystery or psychological thriller? If anyone could answer this I'd greatly appreciate it thanks and have a great day!
Can you answer the question? When you read a mystery/thriller, what do you want to happen during the story? What about mystery/thrillers draws you to them such that you want to write such a story? I don't read thrillers, and when it comes to mystery, I don't read much but the ones I do enjoy are closed-room mysteries. I like that they are like puzzles, you have all the tools you need to solve it sprinkled around, and it's up to you to piece together what is happening. Then when the reveal comes you can see how close you were to getting it correct. They are great because they tend to have a small, well developed cast of characters and a strong setting (Both being things I value in a story). P.S. After a quick search to make sure I was using the correct term, I couldn't find any term that describes what I meant. Which is a subgenre of whodunits that take place in an isolated/secure setting such that only those characters that are introduced early on as being trapped in the setting could possibly be the criminal.
My personal preferences: (might not be your target audience) * A hook to show that things will happen in the story. Then just avoid U-turns regarding target audience once you hooked the right readers with a free sample chapter. * Begin the second act before the book ends. If all those character introductions don't serve a purpose to a meaningful plot, then it's all just filler to the reader. Most random books in a library feel like the author was just improvising without any plan until time was up. A solution to that is to write short stories first and learn how to make a good ending. * Write about people and emotions first, not a scientific report about how people live. * Only use poetry to describe things as if reflected upon long after it happened. Otherwise it sounds like the characters are rehearsing an opera, which kills immersion. * A unique perspective on the world that challenges social norms. What is a family? Who is truly the bad guy when the offender was also a victim? Does the cause justify the actions? * Being close to the narrator in first person to build tension. Can't stand the dull third-person detective stories listing facts and names without any thoughts from the main character. * Good scenery in dynamic dark settings with long casted shadows. Even if not drawn, it should be easy to imagine the scene. * Lots of doubt about everything that's said. Nobody can be trusted. * Close and personal encounters. Let the reader feel the dagger going in. Feel the shame. Taste the tears. * Multiple subtle acts speak louder than one event blown out of proportion, because the reader becomes more detached from the characters. Tension is about the balance between hope and despair. * Imagination is important to stand out from all the other stories. It doesn't have to be sensational, just a different perspective that's not mediocre. * Characters that a reader can actually remember if putting the book away for a week and continuing next weekend. Make it simple to follow and memorable, so that the drama can have more depth. * Chronological order, because that's how we remember in which order things happened.
To answer your question, mysteries with a closed, static cast of characters are called "closed-circle" or "closed-circuit" mysteries. Closed-room, or locked-room mysteries are mysteries where the crime occurs in a room which is locked from the inside. The victim is murdered inside of a room with one door and no windows, the door is locked from the inside, the only key is inside of the victim's pocket, and the door must be closed to be locked. Logically, the killer would have to be inside of the room; and yet, they manage to escape the crime scene under these apparently impossible circumstances. The puzzle in a locked-room mystery is in figuring out how an apparently impossible murder in a sealed environment was committed, whether through complex physical machinations (death traps, gimmicking the locks from the outside), or more abstract cerebral trickery (convincing you the door was locked at the time of death when it wasn't, convincing you key was inside of the room when it wasn't, etc.). To note, neither are by necessity puzzles, either. You can have a locked-room mystery that is not fairplay, and the same for a closed-circle mystery, where the focus is simply on witnessing the detective unravel the problem. The "puzzle mystery" is predominantly the territory of the Golden Age of Detection, where it was the standard to "play fair" with the audience, giving them all the clues they need to figure out the solution ahead of the feature sleuth. Locked-room and closed-circle mysteries written after that may appear in a variety of sub-genres that aren't concerned with literary "game-playing". However, around the 1940s-1950s, "puzzle mysteries" as a craft started to wane in popularity, replaced by the crime noir first and then the police procedural after that. Nowadays, there are novels that replicate the style but not the actual standard of plotting or puzzles from Golden Age mysteries -- there are what you'd call "cozies". Modern mysteries that actually focus on the plot as a puzzle for the reader are few and far between, and are mostly the territory of Japanese shin-honkaku mystery writers like Soji Shimada, or some authors in the Francosphere like Paul Halter. And this all actually goes to show that the mystery genre is not nebulous, or monolithic. Some people, like myself and TheOtherPromise, value the intellectual element. The solving of a puzzle for the sake of solving a puzzle -- the knocking wit against wit with a fictional killer acting as the avatar of their writer, the piecing together of clues, the resolution of misdirection, the kicking yourself for being so thoroughly fooled, or the patting yourself on the back when you manage to step ahead of the writer. This is the territory of the "Golden Age-styled whodunit", but it isn't the only kind of mystery. Other people may like to be thrilled by the adventure and shocked by the gruesome developments of crime thrillers, or they may like to see a gritty, realistic, critical look at the world of crime through crime noirs. Perhaps your audience wants to see a raw look at the emotional and psychological state of a murderer through more psychologically-inclined thrillers. Perhaps they want to see the science of detection at work in police procedurals. The mystery genre is as broad and as varied as any other -- in fact, I'd go so far as to say it's one of the most versatile literary genres around. Instead of asking what mystery readers want and trying to appeal to them, ask yourself why you want to write mystery novels. What is it about them that appeals to you? Build from there, and you'll do fine.
I dont really read these genres, but i like psychological thriller movies. I want to be confused. I want to question the reality of the world or the sanity of the character(s). I want to be able to come up with multiple explanations. I dont want the answer or ending to be so obvious that i lose the ability to think about it on my own. I want to continue to think about it even after i've read/watched it. Psychological thrillers that i've enjoyed off the top of my head: Books Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe In The Lake of the Woods by Patrick O'brian Movies The Hole Donnie Darko
An alternative plan might be to follow the general plot of the long running tv show Columbo. Not a “whodunnit” but “how-to-prove-it”
