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Dec. 15th, 2003 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
We all know how it works on TV crime shows. The rich guy is guilty, the street gangster with three thousand prior convictions is innocent. The guy with the airtight alabi is guilty, the guy found standing over the corpse with a blood-dripping knife in his hand is innocent. And so on; I'm sure you could list a hundred rules like these.
Lately, though, I've been paying attention to the writing itself. It has led me to the Fifth Wheel Thoerum.
The Fifth Wheel is just there, for no apparent reason, and yet the scriptwriter spends ten minutes of his precious sixty (less commercials) giving you his/her background. To give two recent examples, the Fifth Wheel might be the young, eager assistant who the playwright-hero talks with for fifteen minutes, talking about the kid's family. Or it might be the main character's former partner he spends ten minutes reminiscing about.
It doesn't matter how far out in left field the person may be; if the writer spends that much time giving you the background on a character who seems to have no purpose, that character is the main criminal. You can count on it.
I suppose seeing this has helped me learn something to apply to my own writing, but it has removed most of the fun of these mysteries for me. Except for those rare occasions when I get to see one in the presence of my mathematican sister, and irritate her no end by knowing who the murderer is twenty minutes before she does. She's still trying to figure them out by following the clues and using logic, poor thing.
Lately, though, I've been paying attention to the writing itself. It has led me to the Fifth Wheel Thoerum.
The Fifth Wheel is just there, for no apparent reason, and yet the scriptwriter spends ten minutes of his precious sixty (less commercials) giving you his/her background. To give two recent examples, the Fifth Wheel might be the young, eager assistant who the playwright-hero talks with for fifteen minutes, talking about the kid's family. Or it might be the main character's former partner he spends ten minutes reminiscing about.
It doesn't matter how far out in left field the person may be; if the writer spends that much time giving you the background on a character who seems to have no purpose, that character is the main criminal. You can count on it.
I suppose seeing this has helped me learn something to apply to my own writing, but it has removed most of the fun of these mysteries for me. Except for those rare occasions when I get to see one in the presence of my mathematican sister, and irritate her no end by knowing who the murderer is twenty minutes before she does. She's still trying to figure them out by following the clues and using logic, poor thing.
