Nash's Three Laws of Mystery Writing.

So I've really gotten back into the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series thanks to a really mediocre but oddly endearing musical. And it got me thinking about what does and doesn't make a good mystery story. And I came up with a pretty good axiom for good mystery writing. But then my publishers told me that if I wanted to get anywhere in this world I must have THREE laws. So I came up with two more. So here it is

NASH'S THREE LAWS OF GOOD MYSTERY WRITING

Law 0: Characters in a mystery story are the most important part.

I cannot stress this enough, in any mystery story no one is going to care if your mystery is good or not unless your characters are enjoyable and we want to see them succeed or fail. This is just good writing in general.

Law 1: The protagonist and the audience must have the same information.

This is a point that I first heard the idea for in this video but it bears repeating here. In any good mystery story the mental feats of the protagonist is what we are here to watch. In order for this to feel satisfying the audience they must have all the clues in front of them and then see how the clues line up thanks to the protagonist. The joy for all mystery stories is trying to solve it before the protagonist does and when you fail you really are the guy in the room who is pissed off Sherlock because he's always right. Or when you do beat them you feel amazing. And this is why the BBC Sherlock series fail at being a mystery show and why it never fully sat well with me. Again I'm stealing the point from the video but Sherlock just pulls solutions and clues out of his @$$! And so when he solves the mystery you feel cheated because you didn't have a fair chance.

Law 2: Other characters must know things that the protagonist and the audience doesn't know.

In the Phoenix Wright games every time you go to court the Prosecution always has some new piece of evidence that they just magically pull out of their @$$ and completely ruin your current argument for your client. So why is it great when these guys do it but it sucks when the protagonist does it. Simple, it creates conflict. When someone present something that debunks a theory it's exciting to see them try and figure out why that evidence doesn't necessarily throw out their theory or completely turn everything on it's head. In a good mystery the conflict always arises when new evidence shows up and a battle of wits plays out. It's exciting and tense.

Law 3: Your gimmick is the most important part of your mystery.

At the end of the day all mysteries follow very similar structures. Either there's an event happens in a (metaphorically) locked room and we need to figure out who and how they did it or a person has a secret and we need to figure out what it is and how to get out of them. Both are often combine and mixed together in certain ways but they all follow a similar structure. That's why every mystery has a gimmick, some sort of special catch or rule that's the basis of the solution. The gimmick usually establishes a set of rules or parameters and the antagonist has found a loophole (usually to commit murder.) Examples of good gimmicks (and I'm gonna use Ace Attorney gimmicks), a criminal tries to use double jeopardy to commit murder and get away with it, a mock trial becomes real and only two people knew what that case was when the crime was committed, and my personal favorite an assassin was hired and now were not trying to figure out who committed the crime but who hired the assassin. These are idea that have easy ways of framing the wrong person or subverting basic logic and create thrilling stories with plenty of twists and turn.