Matt Ferraz's Blog - Posts Tagged "detective"
Restritcted View
From time to time you get to see a piece of art in a way that wasn't what the artist intended. I don't think that film makers of the past would think of people watching their flicks on the screen of a computer, or that a writer would consider how it would affect his story if the reader skipped a page for accident. And I'm pretty sure that playwrights, actors and directors give much thought to the people sitting in the restricted view seats.
From those of you who never been to a restricted view seat, just try to imagine watching a play where you don't know which of her suitors the heroin kissed, simply because there's a piece of curtain or a column in front of you that doesn't allow you to see that part of the stage. Whenever I have a chance to watch a play, it's usually with restrict view, mostly because it's cheaper and because the goods seats get sold out in a second. That means there's parts of the play that won't be visible, and that I have to figure out important scenes by myself.
Killing Dr. Watson starts at a TV series convention where Jerry Bellamy goes to see his hero, Sir Bartholomew Neville. Soon he'll be investigating a series of murders, not knowing that almost everything he needs to solve the mystery is right there, at that beginning – but on restricted view! Isn't that what crime fiction is all about? Knowing what was there, on the stage for everyone to see, except we couldn't figure it out because that damn piece of curtain didn't allow us to see the whole stage at all times?
Once I was watching a film on TV and the power went off for five minutes. I never knew what happen in that gap, before the power came back. In the climax, when the identity of the killer was revealed, I had no idea of who that chap was. Was he the final girl's boyfriend? Her brother? Someone who just lived in the same building? All I had was a “it was you all the time!” shouted by the heroin as she took off his mask. In a way, I had seen a different film than the people who never lost those five minutes.
What I try to do when writing the finale of a crime story is giving the reader that chance to see something in the killer's motivation that I myself might have missed. That's a good chunk of the fun. My job is to answer the questions: who? why? and how? As my reader unveils the mystery, he might answer these questions before the detective. Are his answers the same as mine? Maybe, maybe not. We are all in a way looking from our own restricted views. What happens in that hidden part of the stage is what makes it all so damn fascinating.
From those of you who never been to a restricted view seat, just try to imagine watching a play where you don't know which of her suitors the heroin kissed, simply because there's a piece of curtain or a column in front of you that doesn't allow you to see that part of the stage. Whenever I have a chance to watch a play, it's usually with restrict view, mostly because it's cheaper and because the goods seats get sold out in a second. That means there's parts of the play that won't be visible, and that I have to figure out important scenes by myself.
Killing Dr. Watson starts at a TV series convention where Jerry Bellamy goes to see his hero, Sir Bartholomew Neville. Soon he'll be investigating a series of murders, not knowing that almost everything he needs to solve the mystery is right there, at that beginning – but on restricted view! Isn't that what crime fiction is all about? Knowing what was there, on the stage for everyone to see, except we couldn't figure it out because that damn piece of curtain didn't allow us to see the whole stage at all times?
Once I was watching a film on TV and the power went off for five minutes. I never knew what happen in that gap, before the power came back. In the climax, when the identity of the killer was revealed, I had no idea of who that chap was. Was he the final girl's boyfriend? Her brother? Someone who just lived in the same building? All I had was a “it was you all the time!” shouted by the heroin as she took off his mask. In a way, I had seen a different film than the people who never lost those five minutes.
What I try to do when writing the finale of a crime story is giving the reader that chance to see something in the killer's motivation that I myself might have missed. That's a good chunk of the fun. My job is to answer the questions: who? why? and how? As my reader unveils the mystery, he might answer these questions before the detective. Are his answers the same as mine? Maybe, maybe not. We are all in a way looking from our own restricted views. What happens in that hidden part of the stage is what makes it all so damn fascinating.
