Murder Mystery

We are workshopping my story.  The others want to know more about the murder.  They want to know why I ended the story without explaining how it happened.  They say the motive for the murder is very weak, if there is even a motive that is evident.

The problem is: there is no murder.

Even when I explain that I wrote everything that happened and did not keep anything from the reader, even when I remind them that the other character left the premises while the woman who dies is still walking and talking to herself, they are not persuaded.  Even the instructor says the story has the potential to be expanded so that the murder can be explored further.

She wasn't murdered!  I should know - I'm the one who wrote the story.

They remain unconvinced.

He didn't do it!  In fact, no one did.  She wasn't killed!  The only mystery is how you people could think she was!

This powerfully illustrates a wonderful phenomenon in fiction (even while it may frustrate the writer in some cases): people bring to their reading of a story all kinds of things, things the writer - and even the reader - cannot control, things that influence what one sees and how one experiences a story.  And this accounts for people's wildly different reactions to the same story.

My writer friend Mary tells an anecdote reminiscent of the three blind men describing an elephant but which sounds more like a three-guys-in-a-bar joke.  Her writing group was discussing a story she had written.  The feminist tells her, "Your story is really about the disenfranchisement of women in a male-dominated world."  The Russian guy says, "This is a story of alienation, of immigration, and assimilation into an unfamiliar society!"  The transgender woman says, "You've really written a story about gender identity.  It's a transgender story!" 

I had a very strong reaction to another story in the same workshop where we talked about my non-murder.  David had written a story about a man on a quest the day of his father's funeral.  I felt absolutely positive that the story was really about the main character's love for his father, despite the fact that he never mentioned it or alluded to it and in fact, said things that indicated feelings to the contrary.  I praised David's amazing skill in writing a story that was so clearly about something completely unsaid.  I was so sure and so moved by this that I completely embarrassed myself by nearly breaking down while talking about it in class.

It strikes me now that maybe the story wasn't about that at all, that maybe that was not David's intention when he wrote it.  Maybe all of that was unsaid in the story because that wasn't how David wrote it.  Maybe I was deeply moved because of what I brought to the story.  And maybe that's why no one else in the workshop reacted the way I did. 

It's fascinating how all of our personal issues - our fears, regrets, dreams, unfinished business, and tangled relational histories - feed into how we experience a story.  It's wonderful how they can add dimension and depth to our reading.  

The writer may never know how or why a particular work will take one reader's breath away, cause another to cry, and another still to move on, unaffected.  All one can do is write from the heart and trust the reader with it.  Even when they must be left to deal with the murder of someone who wasn't killed.