Writing popular fiction

the mystery reader wants to be kept guessing until the end.
    14. Is
the revelation of the killer's identity delivered in an action scene, as opposed to a dry, verbalized accounting made by the hero to other people in the story
? Long summations, after the detective has called all the suspects into one room, are trite and tend to slow the plot nearly to a standstill. It
is
true that your reader, having come that far in the story, will read to the end no matter how you present the last few scenes. But it is better to leave a reader perfectly content with the final chapter, for it is this last sequence of events that he will most clearly remember. If he was displeased with your handling of the conclusion, he will not rush out to buy your next mystery novel. Instead of a tell-'em-about-it climax, incorporate the detective's summation into an action scene.
    For example: The hero goes to the suspect's apartment, breaks in, and searches for that one last piece of evidence that will clinch the case. He finds it, but he is surprised by the villain before he can steal safely away. At the antagonist's mercy, perhaps at gunpoint, he bargains for time by trying to unsettle the killer. He laughs at him and tells him how inept he was at trying to hide his identity; in the course of delivering this ridicule, the detective explains how he came upon the clues, how he put them together, and why he decided the killer must be Mr. X. Like this:
I rested my hand on top of the paperweight, on the desk, getting an idea of its weight. It would make a good missile; even if I could not hit him with it, I could distract him long enough to close the short distance between us.
    "But how did you know Rita was my old girlfriend?" he asked.
    "You provided that clue yourself," I said. I gripped the paperweight, ready to throw it. "Do you remember when we were talking about—"
    "Let go of the paperweight," he said, smiling. "I'd have a bullet in your chest before you could pitch it."
    Reluctantly, I did as he said.
    "Now, go on," he said.
    As you see, there is a dramatic element intertwined with the explanation. As the detective tells how he put two and two together, he also searches for a way to turn the tables on the antagonist. This is much more readable than a dry summation.
    15.
In the course of your story, does your hero gain some piece of data from every interview and avenue of investigation that he conducts
? Some new mystery writers construct paper suspects who can easily be proven innocent in the detective's first confrontation with them. Then they propel their protagonist through a series of interviews and surveillances that lead absolutely nowhere—except that the hero can say, at the conclusion of each dead end, something like: "Well, Walters, we don't know anything more about Lady Randolph's death now than when we started. But at least we can be certain that Lord Biggie is not the man we want!" It is acceptable to have your protagonist follow up a
few
bum leads, for this gives the story a realistic touch; but the majority of tacks he takes must provide some information, no matter how minimal, that has a bearing on the solution of the case.
    Again, I must stress, these rules and requirements of the form will not be all you need to know to write a salable mystery novel. As important as knowing what pitfalls to avoid is your familiarity with the writers who have been successful in the genre. Toward that end, you should have read something by each of these writers: Ross MacDonald
(The Goodbye Look, The Underground Man, The Moving Target, The Zebra-Striped Hearse, The Ivory Grin)
, Agatha Christie
(And Then There Were None, The
A.B.C.
Murders, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Passenger to Frankfurt)
, Georges Simenon (any of his Maigret stories), Evan Hunter
(Shotgun, Jigsaw, Killer's Choice
, all under the pseudonym Ed McBain), John Dickson Carr
(The Problem of the Green Capsule, The Dead Man's Knock, The Man Who Could Not Shudder)
, Raymond Chandler
(The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye)
, Nicholas Freeling
(Death in Amsterdam, The Dresden Green, Strike Out Where Not Applicable)
, Harry Kemelman
(Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home)
, Cornell Woolrich
(The Bride Wore Black, The Black Angel, The Black Curtain, Deadline at Dawn)
, Colin Watson (
Charity Ends at Home, Coffin Scarcely Used, Lonelyheart 4122)
and Dashiell Hammett (all five of his brilliant