foundationmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foundationmods) wrote2019-01-30 08:09 pm
foundationmods) wrote2019-01-30 08:09 pm
Case Advice (constructing and solving)
In this game, we want people who are murder mystery fans to strive for the best possible cases to make - and to have fun solving those cases put forth as well. While we mods will be definitely happy to help vet cases with our Culprits and Victims, it might be best to become familiar with the 'tricks of the trade', so to speak.
SETTING UP CLOSED ROOM MURDERS
The Locked Room Lecture by John Dickson Carr in The Hollow Man
"1. It is not murder, but a series of coincidences ending in an accident which looks like murder. At an earlier time, before the room was locked, there has been a robbery, an attack, a wound, or a breaking of furniture which suggests a murder struggle. Later the victim is either accidentally killed or stunned in a locked room, and all these incidents are assumed to have taken place at the same time. In this case the means of death is usually a crack on the head–presumably by a bludgeon, but really from some piece of furniture. It may be from the corner of a table or the sharp edge of a chair, but the most popular object is an iron fender The murderous fender, by the way, has been killing people in a way that looks like murder ever since Sherlock Holmes' adventure with the Crooked Man. The most thoroughly satisfying solution of this type of plot, which includes a murderer, is in Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room–the best detective tale ever written.
2. It is murder, but the victim is impelled to kill himself or crash into an accidental death. This may be the effect of a haunted room, by suggestion, or more usually by a gas introduced from outside the room. This gas or poison makes the victim go berserk, smash up the room as though there had been a struggle and die of a knife-slash inflicted on himself. In other variations he drives the spike of the chandelier through his head, is hanged on a loop of wire, or even strangles himself with his own hands.
3. It is murder, by a mechanical device already planted in the room, and hidden undetectably in some innocent-looking piece of furniture. It may be a trap set by somebody long dead, and work either automatically or be set anew by the modern killer. It may be some fresh quirk of devilry from present-day science. We have, for instance, the gun-mechanism concealed in the telephone receiver, which fires a bullet into the victim's head as he lifts the receiver. We have the pistol with a string to the trigger, which is pulled by the expansion of water as it freezes. We have the clock that fires a bullet when you wind it; and (clocks being popular) we have the ingenious grandfather clock which sets ringing a hideously clanging bell on its top, so that when you reach up to shut off the din your own touch releases a blade that slashes open your stomach. We have the weight that swings down from the ceiling, and the weight that crashes out on your skull from the high back of a chair. There is the bed that exhales a deadly gas when your body warms it, the poisoned needle that leaves no trace, the–
"You see," said Dr. Fell, stabbing out with his cigar at each point, "when we become involved with these mechanical devices we are rather in the sphere of the general 'impossible situation' than the narrower one of the locked room. It would be possible to go on forever, even on mechanical devices for electrocuting people. A cord in front of a row of pictures is electrified A chalkboard is electrified. Even a glove is electrified. There is death in every article of furniture, including a tea-urn. But these things seem to have no present application, so we go on to:
4. It is suicide, which is intended to look like murder. A man stabs himself with an icicle; the icicle melts; and, no weapon being found in the locked room, murder is presumed. A man shoots himself with a gun fastened on the end of an elastic–the gun, as he releases it, being carried up out of sight into the chimney. Variations of this trick (not locked-room affairs) have been the pistol with a string attached to a weight, which is whisked over a parapet of a bridge into the water after the shot; and, in the same style, the pistol jerked out of a window into a snowdrift.
5. It is a murder which derives its problem from illusion and impersonation. Thus: the victim, still thought to be alive, is already lying murdered inside a room, of which the door is under observation. The murderer, either dressed as his victim or mistaken from behind for the victim, hurries in at the door. He whirls round, gets rid of his disguise, and instantly comes out of the room as himself. The illusion is that he has merely passed the other man in coming out. In any event, he has an alibi; since, when the body is discovered later, the murder is presumed to have taken place some time after the impersonated 'victim' entered the room.
6. It is a murder which, although committed by somebody outside the room at the time, nevertheless seems to have been committed by somebody who must have been inside.
In explaining this," said Dr. Fell, breaking off, "I will classify this type of murder under the general name of the Long-Distance or Icicle Crime, since it is usually a variation of that principle. I've spoken of icicles; you understand what I mean. The door is locked, the window too small to admit a murderer; yet the victim has apparently been stabbed from inside the room and the weapon is missing. Well, the icicle has been fired as a bullet from outside–we will not discuss whether this is practical, any more than we have discussed the mysterious gases previously mentioned–and it melts without a trace. I believe Anna Katharine Green was the first to use this trick in detective fiction, in a novel called Initials Only."
"I'll round off this classification with the final heading:
7. This is a murder depending on an effect exactly the reverse of number 5. That is, the victim is presumed to be dead long before he actually is. The victim lies asleep (drugged but unharmed) in a locked room. Knockings on the door fail to rouse him. The murderer starts a foul-play scare; forces the door; gets in ahead and kills by stabbing or throat-cutting, while suggesting to other watchers that they have seen something they have not seen. The honour of inventing this device belongs to Israel Zangwill, and it has since been used in many forms. It has been done (usually by stabbing) on a ship, in a ruined house, in a conservatory, in an attic, and even in the open air–where the victim has first stumbled and stunned himself before the assassin bends over him."
Fell goes on to describe a number of ways that the room can appear to have been locked, primarily by the assailant tampering with the lock:
"1. Tampering with the key which is still in the lock. This was the favourite old-fashioned method, but its variations are too well known nowadays for anybody to use it seriously. The stem of the key can be gripped and turned with pliers from outside; we did this ourselves to open the door of Grimaud's study. One practical little mechanism consists of a thin metal bar about two inches long, to which is attached a length of stout string. Before leaving the room, this bar is thrust into the hole at the head of the key, one end under and one end over, so that it acts as a lever; the string is dropped down and run under the door to the outside. The door is closed from outside. You have only to pull on the string, and the lever turns the lock; you then shake or pull out the loose bar by means of the string, and, when it drops, draw it under the door to you. There are various applications of this same principle, all entailing the use of string.
2. Simply removing the hinges of the door without disturbing lock or bolt. This is a neat trick, known to most schoolboys when they want to burgle a locked cupboard; but of course the hinges must be on the outside of the door.
3. Tampering with the bolt. String again: this time with a mechanism of pins and darning-needles, by which the bolt is shot from the outside by leverage of a pin stuck on the inside of the door, and the string is worked through the keyhole. Philo Vance, to whom my hat is lifted, has shown us this best application of the stunt. There are simpler, but not so effective, variations using one piece of string. A 'tomfool' knot, which a sharp jerk will straighten out, is looped in one end of a long piece of cord. This loop is passed round the knob of the bolt, down, and under the door. The door is then closed, and, by drawing the string along to the left or right, the bolt is shot. A jerk releases the knot from the knob, and the string drawn out. Ellery Queen has shown us still another method, entailing the use of the dead man himself–but a bald statement of this, taken out of its context, would sound so wild; as to be unfair to that brilliant gentleman.
4. Tampering with a falling bar or latch. this usually consists in propping something under the latch, which can be pulled away after the door is closed from the outside, and let the bar drop The best method by far is by the use of the ever-helpful ice, a cube of which is propped under the latch; and, when it melts the latch falls. There is one case In which the mere slam of the door suffices to drop the bar inside.
5. An illusion, simple but effective. The murderer, after committing his crime, has locked the door from the outside and kept the key. It is assumed, however, that the key is still in the lock on the inside. The murderer, who is first to raise a scare and find the body, smashes the upper glass panel of the door, puts his hand through with the key concealed in it, and 'finds' the key in the lock inside, by which he opens the door. This device has also been used with the breaking of a panel out of an ordinary wooden door."
Tips for Writing Locked-Room Mysteries by Mark Charan Newton
Very loosely speaking, for a normal narrative, I knew what the start was going to be, and I knew my various narrative check-in points along the way. I progressed my planning in a forward motion. However, for a locked-room mystery, it was easier for me to start from the end. I already knew how that crime was committed, of course, but a locked-room mystery tends to thrive on explanation, the clues that are revealed along the way. This explanation is how the detective reveals the puzzle to the reader too. So by starting at the end, and working backwards, figuring out the major clues that gave away the crime, I felt I stood a better chance of keeping the reader guessing throughout... More to the point, though, I had to have everything planned in detail. Because that’s part of the fun with this format – it’s a puzzle, not just a novel.
...
This is not essential, but it seems important to me that right from the start, right before you’re even introducing the crime, you’re already starting to deceive the reader. Plant seeds. Generate prejudices. Encourage the reader make assumptions on certain characters.
...
[Deception] might well be a key part of any crime novel, but it’s especially important for a locked-room mystery that there are deceptions everywhere. There needs to be a bit list of suspects who can be responsible, and for the reader to question. There needs to be endless amounts of concepts for the reader to explore as potential methods for the crime, too. They hung themselves by standing on a block of ice that melted! No, the murderer came in disguised as the dog! That’s part of the fun for readers and permits you plenty of red-herrings to manipulate – because that’s really what the locked-room mystery is about.
...
If you can say, with a clear conscience, that all the clues are there for them to use – and you can see them yourself – then you’ve done a decent job in making this a fair game.
...
As with any type of fiction, be familiar with the format and genre, else you’ll look a bit of a fool. Read other locked-room mysteries. Watched lots of film or TV that features a locked-room mystery. Work out how others do it, what the mechanisms are, what the distractions are. Enjoy figuring out these deceptions – then re-read or re-watch. It’s a really difficult format, but once you’re familiar with it, the whole creative process is a lot simpler.
SHORT LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY STORIES
The Leopold Locked Room by Edward D. Hoch, 17 pages
Holiday Puzzle: A Locked Room Mystery by Mosomoso, 17 pages
The Curzon Street Conundrum by David Stuart Davies, 21 pages
We would also recommend reading through or watching mystery stories and shows on your own free time.
However, the murder is not the only thing you'll have to overcome. As you are the representatives of the Human side, you must disprove the fantasies the Witch puts forth. These fantasies can be hints towards solving the mystery, however - but they are locked inside of a 'magical' interpretation.
If you feel you need help in seeing past the illusion, then feel free to look at the link below.
Steamed Hams but it's a playable episode of Umineko by Chamango, 18 minutes long.
....Good luck, Pieces.
SETTING UP CLOSED ROOM MURDERS
The Locked Room Lecture by John Dickson Carr in The Hollow Man
"1. It is not murder, but a series of coincidences ending in an accident which looks like murder. At an earlier time, before the room was locked, there has been a robbery, an attack, a wound, or a breaking of furniture which suggests a murder struggle. Later the victim is either accidentally killed or stunned in a locked room, and all these incidents are assumed to have taken place at the same time. In this case the means of death is usually a crack on the head–presumably by a bludgeon, but really from some piece of furniture. It may be from the corner of a table or the sharp edge of a chair, but the most popular object is an iron fender The murderous fender, by the way, has been killing people in a way that looks like murder ever since Sherlock Holmes' adventure with the Crooked Man. The most thoroughly satisfying solution of this type of plot, which includes a murderer, is in Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room–the best detective tale ever written.
2. It is murder, but the victim is impelled to kill himself or crash into an accidental death. This may be the effect of a haunted room, by suggestion, or more usually by a gas introduced from outside the room. This gas or poison makes the victim go berserk, smash up the room as though there had been a struggle and die of a knife-slash inflicted on himself. In other variations he drives the spike of the chandelier through his head, is hanged on a loop of wire, or even strangles himself with his own hands.
3. It is murder, by a mechanical device already planted in the room, and hidden undetectably in some innocent-looking piece of furniture. It may be a trap set by somebody long dead, and work either automatically or be set anew by the modern killer. It may be some fresh quirk of devilry from present-day science. We have, for instance, the gun-mechanism concealed in the telephone receiver, which fires a bullet into the victim's head as he lifts the receiver. We have the pistol with a string to the trigger, which is pulled by the expansion of water as it freezes. We have the clock that fires a bullet when you wind it; and (clocks being popular) we have the ingenious grandfather clock which sets ringing a hideously clanging bell on its top, so that when you reach up to shut off the din your own touch releases a blade that slashes open your stomach. We have the weight that swings down from the ceiling, and the weight that crashes out on your skull from the high back of a chair. There is the bed that exhales a deadly gas when your body warms it, the poisoned needle that leaves no trace, the–
"You see," said Dr. Fell, stabbing out with his cigar at each point, "when we become involved with these mechanical devices we are rather in the sphere of the general 'impossible situation' than the narrower one of the locked room. It would be possible to go on forever, even on mechanical devices for electrocuting people. A cord in front of a row of pictures is electrified A chalkboard is electrified. Even a glove is electrified. There is death in every article of furniture, including a tea-urn. But these things seem to have no present application, so we go on to:
4. It is suicide, which is intended to look like murder. A man stabs himself with an icicle; the icicle melts; and, no weapon being found in the locked room, murder is presumed. A man shoots himself with a gun fastened on the end of an elastic–the gun, as he releases it, being carried up out of sight into the chimney. Variations of this trick (not locked-room affairs) have been the pistol with a string attached to a weight, which is whisked over a parapet of a bridge into the water after the shot; and, in the same style, the pistol jerked out of a window into a snowdrift.
5. It is a murder which derives its problem from illusion and impersonation. Thus: the victim, still thought to be alive, is already lying murdered inside a room, of which the door is under observation. The murderer, either dressed as his victim or mistaken from behind for the victim, hurries in at the door. He whirls round, gets rid of his disguise, and instantly comes out of the room as himself. The illusion is that he has merely passed the other man in coming out. In any event, he has an alibi; since, when the body is discovered later, the murder is presumed to have taken place some time after the impersonated 'victim' entered the room.
6. It is a murder which, although committed by somebody outside the room at the time, nevertheless seems to have been committed by somebody who must have been inside.
In explaining this," said Dr. Fell, breaking off, "I will classify this type of murder under the general name of the Long-Distance or Icicle Crime, since it is usually a variation of that principle. I've spoken of icicles; you understand what I mean. The door is locked, the window too small to admit a murderer; yet the victim has apparently been stabbed from inside the room and the weapon is missing. Well, the icicle has been fired as a bullet from outside–we will not discuss whether this is practical, any more than we have discussed the mysterious gases previously mentioned–and it melts without a trace. I believe Anna Katharine Green was the first to use this trick in detective fiction, in a novel called Initials Only."
"I'll round off this classification with the final heading:
7. This is a murder depending on an effect exactly the reverse of number 5. That is, the victim is presumed to be dead long before he actually is. The victim lies asleep (drugged but unharmed) in a locked room. Knockings on the door fail to rouse him. The murderer starts a foul-play scare; forces the door; gets in ahead and kills by stabbing or throat-cutting, while suggesting to other watchers that they have seen something they have not seen. The honour of inventing this device belongs to Israel Zangwill, and it has since been used in many forms. It has been done (usually by stabbing) on a ship, in a ruined house, in a conservatory, in an attic, and even in the open air–where the victim has first stumbled and stunned himself before the assassin bends over him."
Fell goes on to describe a number of ways that the room can appear to have been locked, primarily by the assailant tampering with the lock:
"1. Tampering with the key which is still in the lock. This was the favourite old-fashioned method, but its variations are too well known nowadays for anybody to use it seriously. The stem of the key can be gripped and turned with pliers from outside; we did this ourselves to open the door of Grimaud's study. One practical little mechanism consists of a thin metal bar about two inches long, to which is attached a length of stout string. Before leaving the room, this bar is thrust into the hole at the head of the key, one end under and one end over, so that it acts as a lever; the string is dropped down and run under the door to the outside. The door is closed from outside. You have only to pull on the string, and the lever turns the lock; you then shake or pull out the loose bar by means of the string, and, when it drops, draw it under the door to you. There are various applications of this same principle, all entailing the use of string.
2. Simply removing the hinges of the door without disturbing lock or bolt. This is a neat trick, known to most schoolboys when they want to burgle a locked cupboard; but of course the hinges must be on the outside of the door.
3. Tampering with the bolt. String again: this time with a mechanism of pins and darning-needles, by which the bolt is shot from the outside by leverage of a pin stuck on the inside of the door, and the string is worked through the keyhole. Philo Vance, to whom my hat is lifted, has shown us this best application of the stunt. There are simpler, but not so effective, variations using one piece of string. A 'tomfool' knot, which a sharp jerk will straighten out, is looped in one end of a long piece of cord. This loop is passed round the knob of the bolt, down, and under the door. The door is then closed, and, by drawing the string along to the left or right, the bolt is shot. A jerk releases the knot from the knob, and the string drawn out. Ellery Queen has shown us still another method, entailing the use of the dead man himself–but a bald statement of this, taken out of its context, would sound so wild; as to be unfair to that brilliant gentleman.
4. Tampering with a falling bar or latch. this usually consists in propping something under the latch, which can be pulled away after the door is closed from the outside, and let the bar drop The best method by far is by the use of the ever-helpful ice, a cube of which is propped under the latch; and, when it melts the latch falls. There is one case In which the mere slam of the door suffices to drop the bar inside.
5. An illusion, simple but effective. The murderer, after committing his crime, has locked the door from the outside and kept the key. It is assumed, however, that the key is still in the lock on the inside. The murderer, who is first to raise a scare and find the body, smashes the upper glass panel of the door, puts his hand through with the key concealed in it, and 'finds' the key in the lock inside, by which he opens the door. This device has also been used with the breaking of a panel out of an ordinary wooden door."
Tips for Writing Locked-Room Mysteries by Mark Charan Newton
Very loosely speaking, for a normal narrative, I knew what the start was going to be, and I knew my various narrative check-in points along the way. I progressed my planning in a forward motion. However, for a locked-room mystery, it was easier for me to start from the end. I already knew how that crime was committed, of course, but a locked-room mystery tends to thrive on explanation, the clues that are revealed along the way. This explanation is how the detective reveals the puzzle to the reader too. So by starting at the end, and working backwards, figuring out the major clues that gave away the crime, I felt I stood a better chance of keeping the reader guessing throughout... More to the point, though, I had to have everything planned in detail. Because that’s part of the fun with this format – it’s a puzzle, not just a novel.
...
This is not essential, but it seems important to me that right from the start, right before you’re even introducing the crime, you’re already starting to deceive the reader. Plant seeds. Generate prejudices. Encourage the reader make assumptions on certain characters.
...
[Deception] might well be a key part of any crime novel, but it’s especially important for a locked-room mystery that there are deceptions everywhere. There needs to be a bit list of suspects who can be responsible, and for the reader to question. There needs to be endless amounts of concepts for the reader to explore as potential methods for the crime, too. They hung themselves by standing on a block of ice that melted! No, the murderer came in disguised as the dog! That’s part of the fun for readers and permits you plenty of red-herrings to manipulate – because that’s really what the locked-room mystery is about.
...
If you can say, with a clear conscience, that all the clues are there for them to use – and you can see them yourself – then you’ve done a decent job in making this a fair game.
...
As with any type of fiction, be familiar with the format and genre, else you’ll look a bit of a fool. Read other locked-room mysteries. Watched lots of film or TV that features a locked-room mystery. Work out how others do it, what the mechanisms are, what the distractions are. Enjoy figuring out these deceptions – then re-read or re-watch. It’s a really difficult format, but once you’re familiar with it, the whole creative process is a lot simpler.
SHORT LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY STORIES
The Leopold Locked Room by Edward D. Hoch, 17 pages
Holiday Puzzle: A Locked Room Mystery by Mosomoso, 17 pages
The Curzon Street Conundrum by David Stuart Davies, 21 pages
We would also recommend reading through or watching mystery stories and shows on your own free time.
However, the murder is not the only thing you'll have to overcome. As you are the representatives of the Human side, you must disprove the fantasies the Witch puts forth. These fantasies can be hints towards solving the mystery, however - but they are locked inside of a 'magical' interpretation.
If you feel you need help in seeing past the illusion, then feel free to look at the link below.
Steamed Hams but it's a playable episode of Umineko by Chamango, 18 minutes long.
....Good luck, Pieces.