Day 215: How to Write a Good Mystery - Roadshow Cut of "Hateful Eight"

I started off my new year with this picture right here. Pizza, amazing bookage, and a nice comfy chair next to a freezing window separating me from the snow.

It ended with a cinematic experience like I've never had.

We do have a Drafthouse here in town that was one of eleven theaters in the country showing the Roadshow cut of this film. It was 35 mm, which is amazing and nostalgic, and holy God it was three hours long. I told Alex it was a fun experience like reading Thomas Hardy is a fun experience: educational, beautiful, and not fun.

But I will say this. That intermission was well-timed. Alex and I sat around for fifteen minutes discussing who the whodunnit was. And I said to him, "A good mystery has a conclusion that was obvious and inevitable, but you never ever would have guessed it."

It was exactly that.

This movie is a 101 on how to write a good mystery. It all makes sense, it all is how it had to end, but you will absolutely not see it coming from a million miles away.

With that little lesson under my belt, we dig into the new year of writing.