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The Mystery Of Mystery Writing
by Michael Connelly
Published in the Walden Book Report, September, 1998
Write what you know. That is the adage every writer hears often and then contemplates while staring at the blank screen.
It is probably good and valuable advice. But when it comes to the mystery novel the writer must be inclined to write what he or she does not know and never wants to. For the art of the mystery is the art of turning chaos into calm. And it is that chaos that that you must write about and still not ever want to truly know.
I write about the deeds of the fallen. The killers. The chaos. The disorder. With one good man — the investigator — I then restore order. I take the box of jumbled puzzle pieces
and make the picture whole. That is what the mystery is all about. Not the solution to the puzzle but the act of putting the pieces together. There is a difference. It may be subtle but it is
there.
And in that difference is the reason we love mystery novels. They reassure us. They tell us that indeed the puzzle can be carefully constructed and put back together, that order can always be restored, that chaos does not win the day.
This act of reassurance cannot take place without a noble man or woman at the center of the story. A person unafraid to wade into that which we don't want to know about and find the
solution that will vanquish evil and restore order. The investigator.
The author Raymond Chandler once wrote, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid…" I don't think a better description or prescription for the investigator has been written since.
The mystery has evolved in recent decades to be as much an investigation of the investigator as an inquiry of the crime at hand. Investigators now look inward for the solutions and
means of restoring order. In the content of their own character they find the clues. I think this only bodes well for the mystery novel. It is what keeps me interested in writing them.
When
I sit down and stare at the blank screen, I contemplate character. I think about what I want to do with my investigator this time.
What do I want to say about him? How do I want to show that he has changed and become more aware of his own life and his surroundings? It is through these questions that I am stimulated and interested. My job is to tell a story. A story full of intrigue and escalating danger for my investigator. But it must be a story that I would like to read myself first. It must be a story with a heart and human emotion at its center. It is the only way to sustain an investigation into something I don't want to know about.
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