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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32735
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A friend of mine once said, "Some stories don't end. They just stop."

It is, of course, true that in real life not all crimes are solved, not all hidden treasures are found, not all romances lead to the couple living happily ever after, etc. But a story is not real life. The reader expects the story to have a conclusion. It doesn't always have to be a happy ending, but it has to have an "end", a conclusion of some kind.

You say that the basic idea of your story was that the riddle is unsolved. That's fine. But you still need to have a conclusion. The story has to end by pointing out that the riddle is unsolved in some way that presents a satisfying conclusion. If, for example, the point of your story is to say, "hey, not all mysteries are solved in the end", then you need to end with, for example, a dialog where the characters discuss how some mysteries are never solved and talk about their frustration. Or some such.

You don't necessarily have to solve every crime that happens in the story. But you have to resolve something.

I've read stories that end with some open mystery. Usually it's a "big mystery", like is there life on other planets, or is there a God, etc.

I think that having a story that centers around a murder or some other crime, and then ends without that crime being "solved" in some sense -- maybe the brilliant detective catches the criminal, maybe it ends with the criminal exulting that he has escaped, etc -- I think you will have a hard time making a satisfying ending. Not impossible, but hard.

Original score: 3