The idea seems to be that the problem can be solved by getting rid of certain people, and not only is that not true in real life, it's not true in the moral landscape we tell stories in, either. Yes, what an excellent way to put it. (I've been reminding myself not to fall into this trap with regard to my one straight-up antagonist...)
But either way, you have to make the reader care whether the detective finds out who did it, and you have to give them a little insulation from the horror of a person's violent death. The trope requires balance! Oh yeah, you're so right to bring in murder mysteries and their delicate balance! I think the ones I enjoy most are those which make the process of solving the mystery in itself as interesting (in both puzzle-solving and character-driven ways) as the solution, so that there's a kind of compensation in both directions (a good dose of ambiguity even if the murderer is straight-up bad, a decent amount of comfort even if good people are killed or forced to kill).
When I started working on my 'verse I wanted a story where everyone in the main cast is essential to the resolution of the situation -- even the enemies, antagonists, and anti-heroes. And since then I think it's gotten even more imperative to have stories like this Oh dear, you're so right and this is so hard to do, although I think you did a brilliant job with it in Ryswyck (among other results, I'm very eager to see du Rau and Ingrid again...). I think I'm trying to do something similar, but right now I have a spaghetti-ish mass of tangles which may or not resolve by the end of book 3...
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Yes, what an excellent way to put it. (I've been reminding myself not to fall into this trap with regard to my one straight-up antagonist...)
But either way, you have to make the reader care whether the detective finds out who did it, and you have to give them a little insulation from the horror of a person's violent death. The trope requires balance!
Oh yeah, you're so right to bring in murder mysteries and their delicate balance! I think the ones I enjoy most are those which make the process of solving the mystery in itself as interesting (in both puzzle-solving and character-driven ways) as the solution, so that there's a kind of compensation in both directions (a good dose of ambiguity even if the murderer is straight-up bad, a decent amount of comfort even if good people are killed or forced to kill).
When I started working on my 'verse I wanted a story where everyone in the main cast is essential to the resolution of the situation -- even the enemies, antagonists, and anti-heroes. And since then I think it's gotten even more imperative to have stories like this
Oh dear, you're so right and this is so hard to do, although I think you did a brilliant job with it in Ryswyck (among other results, I'm very eager to see du Rau and Ingrid again...). I think I'm trying to do something similar, but right now I have a spaghetti-ish mass of tangles which may or not resolve by the end of book 3...