TuesdayTips154

Whittling It Down.

Today's #TuesdayTip looks at the way in which a whodunnit narrows down the field of suspects until only one or two remain, before the big reveal identifies the culprit. In many ways, this goes hand-in-hand with the setting of Red Herrings #TuesdayTips153.
There are lots of different ways to do this, and a full-length novel will often (but not always) have more than a short story. But here is a commonly-used structure for many novels.
Opening: The crime occurs.
First section: One or more viable suspects are introduced.
Second section: More suspects are introduced. Some of the earlier suspects are ruled out. Perhaps try and keep one of the early suspects in the game here (it could be the culprit or a Red Herring). This can help fixate readers and characters on one person, who with a few twists and turns either makes it to the end and is revealed as the killer, or is eventually dismissed.
Third section: More of the suspects are eliminated, but there is still more than one possibility.
The second and third sections can be repeated more than once, if you want a longer, more twisty tale.
Fourth section: Now you really need to start working on the remaining suspects. Do you eliminate them gradually, narrowing the field, or keep them all in the game until the very end?
Denouement: Finally, all the evidence is pointing to the culprit(s) and there is the big reveal.

But this isn't the only way to structure a novel, and there are plenty of alternate structures.
Here are a few more popular formats:
Lots of initial suspects introduced simultaneously, before being whittled down to one.
Popular with 'stuck on an island with the killer' thrillers or similar. There are countless examples of this, especially in Golden Age fiction. A typical scenario might be a deserted mansion with an eclectic bunch of guests (each with their own secrets and agendas). Someone is murdered. We know that the killer has to be one of these guests. Over the course of the book, each of the guests is eliminated (either through evidence or by becoming the next victim). Eventually, there are just a couple left, and finally the culprit is revealed. A variant might be that there is more than one killer.
Two suspects - each remains viable until the final reveal (although the reader might alternate between who they think it is). This structure lends itself really well to psychological thrillers or unreliable narrators. Someone is telling the truth (or at least a partial truth), whilst the other is lying (again with some partial truths mixed in). Ideally, the reader (and other characters) will find themselves switching between who they believe. Given that the odds of guessing the culprit from the outset is 50/50, the goal is to have the reader change their mind repeatedly (see TuesdayTip151 for why readers guessing who did it halfway through isn't a disaster).
Everyone is guilty - for obvious reasons I won't be naming any particular stories here, but suffice to say there are some extremely good examples where it turns out that multiple characters played their part in the crime. The trick here is to falsely eliminate some of those characters early on, so that the reader doesn't guess where you are leading.
The late entrant - this is a very dangerous approach that risks alienating readers and leaving them feeling short-changed. As mentioned before in Tip151, it is largely accepted that all the suspects should be present in the story early on, so that readers have a sporting chance of working out who did it. Suddenly revealing at the end that the culprit was someone that hasn't featured at all is a bad idea. My advice would be to either steer clear of this entirely, or if you must, perhaps introduce them in a very minor role early on (eg a faceless delivery driver scoping out the scene before they commit the crime, or an unknown face at the victim's funeral); easily forgotten by the reader, but still there. But treat this with caution (and I recommend testing this with honest and open beta readers to see if they think you've played fair).


Are there any other story structures that I haven't included here? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until we meet again, Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.