You can find mystery in almost every story, but what we'll be including in this collection are stories where the main elemental genre is mystery. We want to see a question, some hints at the answer, followed by the answer (aka mystery solved). This doesn't mean that all the lose ends need to be tied up. You can leave the readers wanting to know more, for example, how the villain will be caught.
Also since this is speculative mystery the speculative element should be present throughout the story - not just the answer to the mystery. For example, you can't pin the whole mystery on a house elf if we don't know house elves exist in the world of your story.
A mystery in 4000 words is hard; there's a lot of setup that has to be done cleverly. We understand this; so some thoughts:
- Have your characters solve one or two questions that matter to the character
- set up the question quickly and early with enough emotional heft.
- make sure you give your reader a payoff - we want to know the answer BUT
- the implications of that answer can mean another can of worms or another mystery. That's okay, but that doesn't have to be solved in this story.
- For some deeper help, check out this episode from Writing Excuses
And just let us know if you have any questions about this or other parts of the submission process.
Some examples of good speculative fiction mystery:
Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles & Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older (Novellas)
The Spare Man - Mary Robinette Kowal
The City and the City - China Mieville
The Tea Master and the Detective - Aliette de Bodard
The Expanse - TV show and novels - James S.A. Corey
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett
Wool - Hugh Howey (Novella and book series, now TV adaptation called Silo)
Ready to submit your speculative mystery?