I am a pretty big Sherlock Holmes fan. Sherlock is one of my favorite TV shows, and both of the Robert Downey Jr. movies, in my opinion, are awesome (Game of Shadows ties in to this story). To me, Sherlock Holmes and audience manipulation go hand in hand.

I think that the whole idea of a mystery story, whether it is in movie, book, TV or some other form, is to make the reader try to outsmart whoever is solving it. I know this is something that I do, and the constant attempts at not just following along, but getting ahead, makes the story that much more gripping to me.

There is a delicate balance here though because if a story is too easy to follow, it ceases to be riveting. And I also know I feel cheated if the answer to the mystery appears out of thin air; when I go back, knowing what to look for, and it still isn’t there. This is, I think, the heart of good mystery stories and the real challenge in writing one: burying the clues needed to solve it deep enough that I notice them but think nothing of them, and then throwing them all in my face at the conclusion. Manipulating me to pay close attention to every detail and still be surprised at which ones are important. There is an innate genius that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle certainly possessed, one that cannot be replicated just by taking his characters and trying to write new stories for them (although I definitely think Sherlock the TV show does).