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A popular variant of the whodunit structure is the howdunit or the howcatchem, in which the question isn't who committed the crime - it's how he managed to pull it off, and/or how the detective suc...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T20:05:56Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2737 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T01:34:59Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2737 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
A popular variant of the whodunit structure is the **howdunit** or the **howcatchem** , in which the question isn't _who_ committed the crime - it's _how_ he managed to pull it off, and/or how the detective succeeded in conclusively proving the culprit's guilt. I find that this neatly sidesteps the problem, because the reader is no longer guessing which of a list of people is the murderer. So the howdunit discourages "gaming the system" with guesswork, similar to how an open-form question discourages guesswork far more than a multiple choice question. A lot of mystery stories, both classic and popular, use the "howdunit" structure - including some Sherlock Holmes stories, and TV shows like _Monk_. Another TV show, _Veronica Mars_, does something similar - it frequently shifts focus away from finding the culprit and towards clearing somebody who's been unjustly accused. On the other hand, I personally find the howdunit variant to be less inherently compelling than the whodunit. Watching the detective fill in the blanks - clever as they may be - when the overall lines are abundantly clear simply isn't as suspenseful as the promise of the killer's identity being dramatically exposed.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2011-05-06T10:26:02Z (almost 13 years ago)
Original score: 3