by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com
I had a small moment of panic when drafting my latest mystery. It occurred to me that sharp readers might figure out who the killer had really meant to kill long before my sleuth did. In the story, the first victim may not have been the intended one. Say Marjorie dies wearing her friend Paula’s very distinctive coat. My readers are clever, and a lot of them would notice that coat right away. I started to wonder if I’d given the whole thing away in the first few chapters.
Guessing the victim isn’t guessing the killer
What I realized is that knowing who the real target was doesn’t solve anything. It just changes the question. Instead of asking who wanted Marjorie dead, readers start asking who wanted Paula dead. If Paula had several people with good reasons to resent her, the reader is still guessing. The killer can sit quietly in the group of people who seemed to be on Paula’s side.
The real problem was my sleuth
The thing that actually bothered me was that my sleuth never mentioned the coat again. Readers would be thinking about it for days, and she’d be busy with other things. Nothing makes a reader more impatient than a sleuth who is a step behind them. That was the part I needed to fix.
Letting the sleuth set the clue aside
Here’s what helped. I had my sleuth bring up the coat herself, out loud, in a conversation with the police chief. Then they set it aside for a reason that made sense at the time, because another motive seemed to explain everything. Later in the book, that other motive falls apart, and the coat is the only explanation left standing.
What it does for the reader
I know I’ve got it right when the reader who spotted the clue early feels rewarded instead of annoyed. They were right, and so was my sleuth. She just had a sensible reason to look elsewhere for a while. The reader who didn’t notice gets a nice click when it all comes back around.
Have you ever worried that readers would get ahead of your sleuth, and how did you handle it?
What happens when readers guess the real target of a murder before your sleuth does? Some thoughts on keeping the sleuth level with the reader: Share on X