There are very few things you shouldn’t do in detective fiction, if only because one of the best things about it is that it offers a great chance to explore just what you can do – the topics you can write about, how your characters behave, how well you can actually write. However, there are a couple of things it’s generally best to avoid doing when you’re writing a detective novel. Let’s take a look at what they are…

Don’t hide the clues so well they can’t be found

You want your novel to be interesting and, hopefully, for the outcome to be something of a surprise. However, your ending shouldn’t rely entirely on something that the reader has never heard about until those final pages. The clues should all be there along the way, however hidden, obscure or seemingly irrelevant they might be at the time, ready to be pulled together so that the crime can be solved. If they’re not, what was the rest of the story doing in the first place?

Don’t make it implausible

In a way, this relates to the above point. Your novel can be surprising and unexpected and tricky, but it needs to be plausible. At the beginning of the novel, the crime might seem impossible, but this is something that should be worked out by the end. The motives and actions of your character should also be believable, or else the reader will find it hard to buy into them.

Don’t make it obvious

It doesn’t really need to be said, does it? One of the great things about detective fiction is that it is often so unexpected and so clever, it keeps the reader guessing until the end. With this in mind, you should never make the plot too obvious. It can be good to create the odd situation where the reader is ahead of the detective, or to present the information in such a way that the reader thinks they’ve got it all figured out – but you shouldn’t leave it at that (or if you do, the book needs to have enough remaining meat to justify continuing once the big reveal has occurred). As readers, we like to be surprised, so it’s always wise to have at least one more trick up your sleeve to provide a final punch.

What do you think? Is there anything you think should be avoided in detective fiction or do you think anything goes, depending on the novel?