At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
Interpretation
Mystery novels often fail to provide solutions that feel logical or unavoidable to readers.
Raymond Chandler emphasizes that a good mystery novel should adhere to a central rule where the solution must appear inevitable once it is revealed. This implies that authors should construct their plots carefully, leading readers to a conclusion that feels both surprising and plausible, rather than arbitrary or forced.
In practice
A discussion on the importance of plot structure in creative writing classes.
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.
When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books.
Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.
For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.
That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.
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