20 Master Plots Page 13
Easier said than done. You want to create clues that don't have obvious, absolute solutions. You want to create clues that could mean one thing as well as another, and only a person who's been attentive and understands the interconnection among clues will piece them together to make sense of them. Readers tend to get angry with writers who throw in red herrings; that is, clues that aren't real clues at all, but are added for the sole purpose of throwing the reader off the track. Let the reader throw herself off track by misinterpreting ambiguous clues. Don't toss in clues that don't add up. Don't give clues that are throw-aways. Concentrate on clues that must be understood correctly, clues that can be misunderstood. This is the heart of the author's cleverness. Readers don't mind making wrong turns if they feel they read the road sign incorrectly. They do mind if you set up a false road sign. Remember, this is a game, and you must play fairly. Give the reader a chance.
That doesn't mean you should make it easy. Try to find a nice tension between figuring out the solution too easily and making it impossible to figure out. If you're too coy, you'll lose your readers. Give them something. But put the burden on the reader to interpret that something correctly.
Herman Melville wrote a mystery called Benito Cereno. The story seems simple, but that's the trick of the mystery writer: Things are rarely what they seem. The captain of one slave ship visits the captain of another slave ship. The visiting captain guides us through the story. We see everything through his eyes. Only he's not terribly bright. He sees clues all around him, but he fails to make sense of them. But we do. As the captain of the ship gives him the tour, he sees slaves sharpening axes. Strange, the visiting captain thinks to himself, slaves shouldn't be allowed to have weapons. Exactly. The appearance is that Benito Cereno is running a lax slave ship. The reality is that the slaves have taken over the ship and are just pretending that they're still slaves because they don't want the visiting captain to know. The visiting captain is too dim-witted to interpret the clues. Melville challenges the reader: Can you figure it out? Mysteries rely heavily on the rule about making the causal look casual. The best place to hide a clue is in plain view.
Edgar Allan Poe is credited with being the first American short story writer, and one of his most famous stories is "The Purloined Letter." Many consider this to be the first "mystery" story as we know it, with a detective seeking a solution to a riddle/problem.
The detective is C. Auguste Dupin, who spawned a whole generation of detectives, from Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie to Inspector Maigret by Georges Simenon. Unlike the man of action, Dupin is thoughtful, acting as the surrogate thinker for the reader, exploring, uncovering, explaining. The challenge for the reader is to solve the riddle before the protagonist does, which makes the riddle a contest. If the protagonist figures out the riddle before you do, you lose; if you figure it before the protagonist, you win.
"The Purloined Letter" presents the riddle from the start. The prefect of the Parisian police bursts into Dupin's apartment to tell him that a certain minister of the court has stolen a compromising letter from the Queen. We never learn what's in the letter, but whatever it is, it's political dynamite, and the prefect has been charged with getting back the letter. He's searched the minister's apartment from top to bottom but can't find the letter. He wants Dupin's advice.
Dupin asks some questions about the physical appearance of the letter and the prefect's method of searching the minister's apartments. He suggests the prefect search the apartment again.
A month later, the letter is still missing. When Dupin learns that the Queen is willing to pay 50,000 francs for the return of the letter, he produces it instantly, to everyone's amazement.
Based on the evidence given, how did Dupin know where to look?
Dupin explains. The trick was understanding the mind of the minister. A clever man himself, the minister would expect the police to conduct a careful search of his apartment for the letter, so it would be stupid for him to hide the letter under a chair or some out-of-the-way place where it would certainly be found. From this Dupin surmises that the best place to hide the letter would be in plain sight; that is, not to hide the letter.
On a visit to the minister's apartment, he sees a letter hanging from a ribbon over the mantle. Sure enough, it turns out to be the missing letter.
"The Purloined Letter" is a riddle, and it presents the same challenges to the reader as the one-liners above. The game is more sophisticated, more challenging, but it's still the same game.
WHODUNIT?
Frank R. Stockton is not exactly a household name, but he did write one story in 1882 that everyone called "The Lady or the Tiger?"
This story is an example of the unresolved paradox. In a past era, a barbaric king had developed his own system of justice. He put men who offended him into an arena with two doors and told them to choose a door (something like an ancient Monty Hall). Behind one door was a ferocious tiger that would instantly devour the hapless man, and behind the other door was a ravishing princess who instantly became his wife.
A young man of lowly station fell in love with the king's daughter (and she with him), and when the king found out about it, he made the young man face the test in the arena. What would it be, the princess or the tiger?
Except the princess wasn't the king's daughter; it was some other young woman. The king's daughter, who loved the young man, did some snooping on her own and found out what was behind the doors. When the young man looked up at her, she signaled for him to choose the right door.
Therein lies the dilemma. If she saves her lover, he'll belong to another woman. And since these people are barbarians, they lack civilities such as selflessness, so it wouldn't be beyond the princess to prefer death for her lover than to let him have another woman. The young man is faced with a dilemma: What is behind the right door, the princess or the tiger?
When asked for the solution, Stockton wisely said, "If you decide which it was—the lady or the tiger—you find out what kind of person you are yourself." The decision, if there is one, belongs to the reader and how he views the world and human nature.
But a story like this can't go far. It presents the paradox and let us savor it momentarily. The characters are purely stock (king, princess, commoner), and the situation and the action play over everything else. In short, it's a gimmick.
In the last hundred years we've developed the riddle/mystery into its own form, with stories that are much more sophisticated than Poe's or Stockton's. Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, P.D. James, Georges Simenon, Mickey Spil-lane, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Dorothy Sayers, Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant... the list is impossibly long, containing a number of the world's brightest writers (and many not so bright). For some it's an art form; for others, it's a business. The latter churn out books one after another, working with formulas that have proven successful in the past. (Mickey Spillane once said, "I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers.")
The form developed its own conventions. One such hallmark is the intrusion of the dark, cruel criminal underworld into everyday life. These two extremes create an imbalance between good and bad, dark and light, right and wrong, safety and danger. This instability creates what critic Daniel Einstein calls "painful insecurity, rampant cynicism, and violent, unforeseen death."
Most of us at one point or another have read a mystery novel or watched 1940s film noire adaptations, such as Raymond Chandler's The Blue Dahlia, Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon or Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. A 1931 German film, titled Der Mann, Der Seiner Morder Sucht (A Man Searches for His Murderer), was remade in the United States as D.O.A. in 1949 starring Edmond O'Brien (and remade again in the late 1980s starring Dennis Quaid). Structurally, it follows the same format as the riddle, opening with the general and moving to the specific.
THE FIRST DRAMATIC PHASE
D.O.A. begins with the protagonist, Frank Bigelow, entering a police station to report a homicide. When the police as
k him who was murdered, he answers, "I was."
Flashback to the setup: Bigelow is a small-town accountant. He's about to leave for San Francisco. His secretary, who's also his fiancee, characterizes him for us: "You're just like any other man only a little more so. You have a feeling of being trapped, hemmed in, and you don't know whether or not you like it."
He leaves for the bright lights of the big city.
On the first night of his stay he goes to a jazz bar. Enter hot blonde. The place is undulating with sexual tension and a life that's much different from the staid life Bigelow's been living back home. He makes a pass at the blonde; she accepts. While they're having a drink together, a sinister man switches drinks on Bigelow while he's distracted by the blonde. The drink is bitter and he orders another.
Bigelow pays the price for "straying" the same way Michael Douglas' character does in Fatal Attraction, even though Bigelow only talks to her. He returns to his hotel room, has second thoughts about the blonde, and tears up her telephone number.
He wakes up sick. At first he thinks he's hung over, but he keeps getting sicker. He goes to the hospital. The doctors examine him and tell him that he's been poisoned and has three days to live.
The twist here is that the detective is also the victim. He must solve his own murder. His time frame is specific, since he'll be dead in three days. Like the riddle of little Nancy Etticoat, the first part of the riddle introduces the general. We meet the victim; we witness the crime; we meet the detective who will try to solve the crime (in this case the same person as the victim). The riddle is presented in its widest sense. Who did it? And why? The characters are presented in general terms; this is a physical plot, and action is more important than character depth. We find out what we need to know about Bigelow, and that he's a lot like the rest of us: slightly bored with life and looking for a taste of excitement. We easily identify with him. His focus for the rest of the story will be on one thing: finding out who killed him.
THE SECOND DRAMATIC PHASE
The hospital makes arrangements for a room for Bigelow to make his last days comfortable, but he flees in a panic. He cannot die without knowing why someone would want to kill him. His search at first is frantic and disorderly. When he realizes his panic is keeping him from getting anywhere, he settles into a more methodical search with the help of his fiancee. He finds out a man is desperately trying to get hold of him. Bigelow had notarized a bill of sale for a shipment of iridium for the man, and since iridium is radioactive and Bigelow is dying of radioactive poisoning, he knows this is the connection he seeks.
But when he flies to Los Angeles to find the man, Bigelow learns the man has supposedly killed himself. One clue points to another, and Bigelow gradually unravels the plot against him.
Like the structure of the riddle, the second dramatic phase includes the specifics. Having learned what we need to know about the basic cast of characters, the nature of the crime, and the detective's dedication to solve the puzzle, we now begin the pursuit of clues.
It has often been said that the rule of the best mysteries is that they have all their clues in place for the careful reader to find and deduce the culprit, as Sherlock Holmes would. Raymond Chandler claimed that half his books violated this so-called rule. It is certainly more satisfying for the reader to play the game along with the detective, because the whole point of a riddle is to solve it before the protagonist does. We have our suspicions, we infer motives, we make accusations. We enjoy being armchair detectives and outwitting everyone. To do this, we must have all the proper clues so that we can reach the proper conclusions. But the clues shouldn't be so obvious (as with riddles) that we immediately solve the mystery.
Mary Roberts Rinehart's point about a mystery story having two stories in one is good: There's the story of what appeared to have happened, and the story of what actually happened. The same holds true for the riddle itself: There's what the language seems to mean, and there's what it actually means. The plot derives its conflict from the tension between the two. Appearance vs. reality.
Go back to the concept of casual and causal discussed in chapter two. The casual disguises the causal. As you write, don't give away your hand by telegraphing clues. If a clue sticks out, you've lost the advantage. But if the clue is cleverly disguised in the background so that it seems a natural part of the scene, you've done your job. The problem with many mysteries is that the clues stick out, and the reader reacts by saying, "Ah-hah! A clue! What does it mean?" By making clues obvious, you cheat the reader who wants to discover them for himself. All stones should look alike; only one should contain the diamond.
As you write, figure out the best way to camouflage important information so that it seems a natural part of the action. Otherwise you'll tip your hand. The rule of thumb about "couching" important information is the basic rule of camouflage itself. Make sure whatever you want to hide has the same coloration as the background. Information becomes obvious only when it "sticks out." Information is camouflaged easily when it is a natural part of the environment. A gun hides easily in a gun rack. Hide a chicken in a henhouse, not in a bedroom. Create an environment (background) that is natural to the object/person/information you want to present. You want the reader to notice the information in a passive way. If the information "pops out," you're being too obvious and won't fool anyone.
THE THIRD DRAMATIC PHASE
The riddle has been presented both in its generals in the first dramatic phase and in its particulars in the second dramatic phase. Now it's time to solve the riddle. In D.O.A. there's confrontation and chase, as Bigelow uncovers the plot against him. Bigelow avenges his murder and then turns himself in to the police. "All I did was notarize one little paper, one little paper out of hundreds." The antagonists thought he was wise to their scheme when in fact he knew and suspected nothing.
Bigelow dies in front of the police. He is avenged, the riddle is solved. (You might wonder why this isn't a revenge plot. The focus in this story is not getting even but finding out what happened to Bigelow. Revenge is secondary, rather like cleaning house.)
The answer to the riddle must fit both the generals and the particulars. Like pieces of a jigsaw, each piece contributes directly to the picture. Individually, a piece may look harmless and unimportant, but in fact it may be key to understanding the big picture.
PSEUDO-NEO-CRYPTO SYMBOLISM
A story like D.O.A. has its story line and its clues, and in the end it isn't that hard to figure out. You're given all the major clues, and they aren't all that subtle. Sometimes the story is more devious, such as the film Chinatown, in which there are two riddles, one within another, each relating to the other.
But there is another class of riddle that is impossible to solve. Perhaps they're not meant to be solved, only pondered. Anyone who reads Kafka knows not to ask the question "Why?" because the reader won't get a satisfactory answer. That's Kafka's point: Real life doesn't give whys. Things happen, period. No explanation. One day Gregor Samsa wakes up and he's a bug. Why? Kafka predated the beer commercial, but the slogan could just have easily been his: "Why ask Why?" We're spoiled as readers—we expect answers. Good answers. Answers that make sense. And if we don't get them, we feel cheated. We get angry. We want an orderly world that answers our questions. Kafka didn't think that was necessary. In his world, you can wake up a bug and it wouldn't occur to you to ask why.
So it is with Kafka's The Trial. Joseph K (he doesn't even get a real name) is accused of a crime he doesn't understand by a court he can't communicate with. There are no clues because there are no particulars, only generalities. There's a riddle, but it doesn't seem to have a solution. Lots of events seem to mean something, and we must struggle to make sense out of them. In a sense it's like the princess or the tiger, except at a more abstract level. Kafka seems to say, "Life's that way, there are no clear answers ... just what you can come up with." Only in fiction is there a godlike figure that can come forward to give the "correct" answer. A philosopher m
ight reply that there are no correct answers, only fabricated ones.
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So that's what we must do with riddles like The Trial: Construct a meaning. No one will tell us how all this fits together; it's up to us to make it work.
When Stanley Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey (based on Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Sentinel of Eternity"), audiences were bewildered. The film was filled with objects and events that seemed to have meaning, and we struggled to put it all together. Many dismissed it as psychedelic babble, a sign of an unhinged mind. Critics were unimpressed. And yet the film was clearly a riddle begging solution. What is the rectangular monolith that keeps appearing from the prehistoric past to the future? What happens to David Bowman at the end of the film, when he's suddenly drawn into a Louis XIV drawing room somewhere near the moons of Jupiter? Why does Bowman transform from a decrepit old man in a Howard Hughes bedroom to a celestial embryo? What does it all mean? Figuring it out was like trying on new clothes at a department store. If you didn't like how it fit, you tried on something else. Who knew what it meant? Maybe it didn't really matter. The fun was in coming up with possibilities. Of course, for some, that's terribly frustrating and unfulfilling, rather like someone telling you a joke without a punchline.
To present a problem supposes an answer, but that's not always how it is. Writers who are serious about dealing with and reflecting the true nature of existence often find it presumptuous to present life as finite and clear. Your decision as a writer is whether you want to deal with a closed system that offers absolute answers or an open system that is uncertain and may not offer answers.