On the nature of mysteries in storytelling

[Adam Reynolds]

I was thinking of this in the context of a recent comment about Lovecraft in fiction, which left me thinking about the Trail of Cthulhu RPG and mysteries in general. This is also loosely related to my previous post on decaying audience interest in most American TV series. Procedural series seem less troubled by this for a reason that will become apparent.

Author China Miéville used the analogy of quantum superposition to describe this concept. While that gets into the fallacy of using quantum theory at a macro scale, it is a reasonable analogy for this idea. The fundamental appeal of a mystery in fiction is the fact that there are multiple possibilities. At least until the mystery itself is revealed and this property is ruined. A simplistic analogy(loosely taken from the article on Pozni storytelling from Richard Castle's fictional website) comes from the idea of finding a lost key only to realize that it goes to a low rent apartment five blocks away. Before that realization it could be a key to anything from a mansion to a safety deposit box holding some dark secret.

The problem with any mystery in fiction, especially one that drives a work of fiction like Lost or The Sixth Sense, is that once it is resolved the work becomes somewhat pointless or at best less enjoyable. It comes down to the fact that once the driving mystery is known, it makes the work less interesting over time. This is, in a nutshell, why TV series based around a mystery are always problematic. The first option is to draw out the mystery, and have the audience lose interest because there appears to be no solution in sight. The second is to come up with a solution relatively early, in which case the audience loses interest because the thing that kept them interested is now resolved.

More generally, this in a sense related to the idea that many anti-science arguments use, the idea that science ruins the mystery of things. Many creationists seem to largely believe this, that understanding the universe ruins the mystery of God. There was also a story related to this idea told by Richard Feynman in which he recounted a debate with an artist friend in which his friend argued that science detracted from the beauty of a flower by being able to explain the various processes that created it. Feynman of course argued that he could see both the natural sense of beauty that the artist saw as well as the deeper one allowed by his knowledge of science, not understanding how it could subtract. The thing Feynman misses with his argument is that the beauty that the artist refereed to was in fact the mystery that was allowed by ignorance. Discovering those underlying processes ruins that sense of beauty irreversibly. This is not to say that it isn't worth it, scientists in general have a stronger sense of wonder about the universe than average. It is one of the largest motivating factors for them. This is in addition to the different beauty of a solution.

The solution to this problem is found in a mix of the element that drives scientists as well as that which allows procedural TV series to generally outlast those with driving mysteries. It is also why nearly all mystery authors write series. If you cannot enjoy the beauty of the solution in and of itself, after one mystery is resolved, move on to a different one. Though to avoid the problem of Ponzi storytelling it is preferable to not have a direct connection between mysteries.

For a work of fiction, the other key is of course to have interesting elements in your story other than the mystery itself. Good characters are the fundamental key here, if we like the people enough we will continue to consume the stories regardless of which direction they go. How many times do people rewatch The Empire Strikes Back despite the fact that they know the mystery in advance?

[Lord Revan]

The reason I feel that most "mystery" TV series fall flat with their mystery over time is not something inherent in mystery stories that makes them impossible to in TV series but rather series like "Twin Peaks" or "X-Files" treat their mystery as a macguffing rather then the story itself.

a good mystery story in my honest opinion gives you the clues to solve the mystery before the reveal but in a way that don't realize that you had the solution until after the fact, hell you might not even be aware the was a mystery to solve to begin with.

As for why Empire Strikes Back is still popular even after the reveal is known is that the story doesn't rely on the mystery of the reveal.

[Adam Reynolds]

The reason I feel that most "mystery" TV series fall flat with their mystery over time is not something inherent in mystery stories that makes them impossible to in TV series but rather series like "Twin Peaks" or "X-Files" treat their mystery as a macguffing rather then the story itself.

a good mystery story in my honest opinion gives you the clues to solve the mystery before the reveal but in a way that don't realize that you had the solution until after the fact, hell you might not even be aware the was a mystery to solve to begin with.

That is true, but even The Usual Suspects isn't very entertaining after a view or two. Despite the fact that it gives plenty of hints throughout the film. I suspect that if someone went into that movie knowing that there was a twist in general, that they would have a fairly easy time figuring it out. It's because you didn't initially expect it that it worked.

As for why Empire Strikes Back is still popular even after the reveal is known is that the story doesn't rely on the mystery of the reveal.

That is sort of what I meant. Having other story elements make it superior even after you know how it ends.

[Lord Revan]

the thing is that while it's sujective the key here is "Is the journey to the reveal intresting or not", basically if we know the reveal before hand is it intresting to follow the characters discover the same thing. It's not the number of hints or their quality but rather what you do with the story that counts.

There's this a bit older detective drama called "Columbo" I like, where who commited the crime is revealed to us the audience right away, but we're suppose to follow the main character's road to discovery instead.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I don't think there's anything appreciably different with the mystery genre compare to ANY form of story-telling. Even if a story is not explicitly built around a mystery, by the very nature of story-telling the plot in and of itself is always a mystery to the audience. So, I don't think a mystery TV or movie series is any more difficult or categorically different than any given TV/movie series.

For example, "Breaking Bad" is not built around any mystery. And, in fact, the series removes a lot of the mystery by telling us in the very first episode how it is going to end, inevitably. The reason it was brilliant as a TV series was the WAY the story was told and developed, which contributes to its rewatchability (related, "Breaking Bad" is a master's class in Chekhov's gun and clever foreshadowing). But writing a story like "Breaking Bad" isn't less difficult than writing, say, "CSI: Miami" or any random mystery-based plot.