Any tips on how to make a detective story interesting?

[xkdeSskf]

Hello, I'm new here and I just want to ask whether there is REALLY any way to make detective stories interesting because I'm currently planning out one but I don't know where to start.
As a beginner I just read japanese mystery novels like tales of mystery and imagination by Edogawa Ranpo and the fact that I am enticed by japanese style mystery makes me want to use it in my story, but I am not Japanese.

Should I use it and how do I use it? If not , as a beginner, should I be using the simplest template of mystery? Thanks!

[Aeneas1]

Include plenty of red herrings. They will be useful in creating suspense because they will fool the audience into thinking that the mystery has already been solved.

[Lensing]

What makes you read the detective stories?

[darthmongoose]

I think the golden rule of a good mystery is the clues should always all be there by the time the detective works out the solution, so that the reader could hypothetically work it out too, though they probably won't, they'll probably go "OH! Of course!" and it'll feel really satisfying.
In bad mystery fiction, the solution comes out of nowhere because key information wasn't revealed to the audience.

So as an example, in a murder mystery, the killer should always be a character the audience has met or heard mentioned in the story, it can't be some random character who suddenly turns up out of nowhere, and the murder weapon must be something that's been mentioned or shown.
As @Aeneas1 said, use plenty of red herrings, so bury the clues amongst a bunch of misleading leads that seem plausible but aren't the right ones so that they are there in plain sight, but kind of hidden until everything clicks into place. The most obvious solution should never be the correct one in a mystery.

I'd definitely recommend reading some classic mystery novels like Sherlock Holmes or some Agatha Christie novels, and definitely watch the movie "Knives Out" which is an absolutely excellent love letter to the genre.

[korivernon]

My tip would be to always have an idea of how the entire crime (or what have you) took place and have the detective try and figure out what is happening piece by piece. Also have your detective to simply go on the information given where they are trying to form their own conclusions, to me having ideas that end up being wrong later makes stuff more interesting. It makes the characters feel more human, too.

[NickRowler]

My tip is to work backwards. Know was the twit or conclusion is and while writing ad hits while you go. Sprinkle in hits while you go along and make some less obvious but something people would notice if they reread the story after knowing the twist. Things like doublespeak, lying, and unreliable narrators can also make things more interesting.

[system]

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