A Quote by Martha Grimes
Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story.
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Esoteric or inner knowledge is no different from other kinds of human knowledge and ability. It is a mystery for the average person only to the extent that writing is a mystery for those who have not yet learned to write.
Computers in general, and software in particular, are much more difficult than other kinds of technology for most people to grok, and they overwhelm us with a sense of mystery.
The artist's job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery. To intuit it, and recognize that the story-germ has some inherent mystery in it, and sort of midwife that mystery into the story in such a way that it isn't damaged in the process, and may even get heightened or refined.
One of the things that did intrigue me about when I read the pilot - because I had not read the books before doing the show - was the mystery aspect of it. I didn't feel that it was just a crime-based story. It really does have that mystery element, and it felt like a throwback to other shows in the past that had a bit more of that. There was something iconic about it. The fact that it's set in Boston gave it a feeling that was different to me. So, I am definitely more of a fan of mysteries than I am of a circular crime-based genre.
We don't tend to ask where a lake comes from. It lies before us, contained and complete, tantalizing in its depth but not its origin. A river is a different kind of mystery, a mystery of distance and becoming, a mystery of source. Touch its fluent body and you touch far places. You touch a story that must end somewhere but cannot stop telling itself, a story that is always just beginning.
The religious man, the mystic, tries to explore the mystery of death. In exploring the mystery of death, he inevitably comes to know what life is, what love is. Those are not his goals. His goal is to penetrate death, because there seems to be nothing more mysterious than death. Love has some mystery because of death, and life also has some mystery because of death.
Human beings are like detectives. They love a mystery. They love going where the mystery pulls them. What we don't like is a mystery that's solved completely. It's a letdown. It always seems less than what we imagined when the mystery was present. The last scene in `Blow Up' is so perfect because you leave the theater still dreaming. Or the end of `Chinatown,' where the guy says `Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.' It explains so much but it only gives you a dream of a bigger mystery. Like life. For me, I want to solve certain things but leave some room to dream.
There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love.
The fundamental difference between the mystery story and the ghost story is the fact that a mystery demands a solution for its effectiveness; a ghost story is necessarily unsolvable; the reader must be willing to accept the fact that nothing is proved.
Mystery is in the morning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery is everywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse must be filled.
But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can be applied to light. ... Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.
I have been using the word 'other' as though it were self-explanatory, yet who the 'other' is must always be something of a mystery. It is a mystery at an immediate level in the sense that no person is entirely knowable.
I think that some books are more successful than others to certain readers. People who read my books for the humor, they're going to love one book. People who read my books for the mystery, they might not like that book quite as much.
In this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation. The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery.
A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it.
That's what everyone said attracted them to Lantana - I call it an adult mystery, because it's not a thriller in the sense of that other way, but it is a mystery.
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