To Mystery Authors...

[MakBow]

How hard is it to write a mystery novel without it feeling cheap?

I have no intention of writing a mystery novel as I couldn't for the life of me, but I do want to know what it's like for those on the other end, especially since I read LOTM (Stuff frying my brain with all the buildup, especially with a terrible memory such as myself.)

 

[Racosharko]

How hard is it to write a mystery novel without it feeling cheap?

It's alright.

 

[CinnaSloth]

I think you can do it.

Read a few mystery novels for the vibe, and almost grey-tone feel.
Plot out the puzzles and mysteries in bullet point --> X key goes to X Door, X door leads to Z location type stuff
Figure out what clues you want to convey, and learn to Hide them within the story narrative. --> a room with antiquities, etc etc etc a jaded dagger etc etc etc an unopenable treasure chest in the corner. and give some reason why such n such random general in some random war would hide such n such treasures but no one ever knew where he hid his key.. thats because the jaded dagger WAS the key, etc etc genius character grabs the dagger and unlocks the chest. gasps all around! ..Nonsense like that. Watch uncharted on netflix.. it's full of dumb ideas like that, but people still liked the movie. If junk like that can be a beloved film, I'm sure you can write an epic mystery. You just have to give it a shot.
Worst case scenario? You drop the book.
Best case scenario? you find out you have a knack for it.
So, why not?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Depends on how long the story is and how you plan to present the mystery.
The author has denied that either one is really a mystery, but Sharyn McCrumb won a well-deserved Edgar for Bimbos of the Death Sun - which takes about ten chapters to get to the mystery, and spends more time exploring oddball characters (basic plot is a death at a science fiction/fantasy fan con) than the solving the mystery (but does so with a clear path of clues that are all obvious on reflection but most of which are not as they come up), and is a brilliant model for any mystery author to follow IMO.
In contrast, the sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool, spends more time lampooning WorldCon culture than ANYTHING else (so was a strike against it for me, who couldn't afford to read the schedule of the con, let alone attend it, the one time it came to Boston since I've lived here). despite introducing the mystery in the second or third chapter - and the clue (though it is not revealed to the READER until the final chapter, and the MC doesn't realize it was a clue until about four chapters before he uses it to solve everything - again, without telling the reader what it was). Which is a good way to do a social commentary novel, but very, very frustrating as a mystery, making it a terrible model to follow.