Once upon a time, a cowboy from Texas took a bunch of pot shots at the broad side of a barn. When his gun was emptied, the cowboy moseyed to the barn and found the spot where the most bullets had hit. He took a can of black paint, marked a bullseye around the cluster of bullet holes, and announced, “Hey, look! I’m a great shot!”
True story? Tall tale? You decide.
The Texas Sharpshooter bit is a joke, but it also illustrates a fallacy. A fallacy is an argument based on unsound reasoning. A fallacy can be intentional and employed as trickery, or a fallacy can be unintentional and based on a mistake.
The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy has been used by epidemiologists—medical professionals who study disease clusters—to show the danger of reaching a conclusion based on chance instead of cause. In lay terms, that means a disease may cluster in an area because of a cause: a local industrial plant is spewing toxins that seep into well water and make townspeople ill.
Or, a cluster results by chance: a person carrying a contagious disease eats at the local diner and shakes hands with a few people. Clusters are studied to determine if they reveal a genuine pattern or if they are random.
The Texas Sharpshooter joke is amusing because we all know cowboys are right honest fellas who never lie about their marksmanship. And what kind of psycho shoots up a perfectly good barn?
The real question of this post is, what does this have to do with plotting a mystery novel?
If you are writing a murder mystery, you need a murderer. Some writers know the identity of the Bad Guy from the start. If your candidate for murderer is Brad, you’ll create a plot that surrounds Brad with figurative bullet holes labeled motive-means-opportunity. When Brad is revealed as the Bad Guy, it is based on cause—concrete evidence—and you hit the target because you aimed at Brad all along.
If you write this way, consider yourself a Marksman. Your target was chosen. Every scene was a shot aimed toward the bullseye that is your murderer.
But what if you are one of the many authors who don’t know whodunit from the start? Is it possible to plot a murder mystery if you—the author—don’t know the identity of the murderer?
If you’re writing backwards, as it were, does that mean your reveal is a fallacy? If you don’t decide on the Bad Guy until you yourself reach the climax, does that mean you’re a Texas Sharpshooter writer? And if you are a Texas Sharpshooter kind of writer, is that a bad thing?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Texas Sharpshooting is based on randomness. If you have no clue about the murderer, but as you write you find most of the bullets start to land around Brad–bingo! You can still write a reveal based on cause. Done correctly, the plot will give Brad the required motive-means-opportunity to prove him guilty. Maybe your subconscious knew Brad was the Bad Guy and it guided you as you wrote. Good job, subconscious!
But what if you have no particular Bad Guy in mind, and when the time comes to reveal one, you don’t have enough bullet holes around any particular suspect? Does this mean your Bad Guy is relegated to plot convenience, coincidence, or the dreaded deus ex machina? Will your solution to the mystery be a fallacy?
If you close your eyes and choose a Bad Guy because someone must have done it and you have a deadline pending, your choice is random. You are plotting using unsound reasoning–creating the bullseye after shooting the gun.
But don’t burn down the barn just yet.
Can the Texas Sharpshooter method of plotting work? Of course it can–if you go a few steps back and plant the bullets in the right spots.
To remove fallacies in your plotting, go back into the manuscript and revise or double check the logical case against your Bad Guy. Does your plot reveal motive-means-opportunity? Is that shown in the action of the story? If not, make that happen, and your pot shots hit the correct target after all. The unsound reasoning in your plot disappears, and you have cause to call out the Bad Guy. If you don’t go back into the manuscript to correct your aim, you may have an ending that feels random–because it was.
Have you ever read a murder mystery where, when you reach the reveal, you think, “Really? This guy? Who knew!” Maybe the author didn’t know, either. Maybe he or she is a Texas Sharpshooter.
What kind of plotter are you?
Do you take the Marksman approach, knowing from the start who had the means-motive-opportunity, and you write to prove that out? Or are you more of a Texas Sharpshooter? Do you write until all the evidence is revealed and then you have to back up, reload, and revise to show the murderer must be, and can only be, this one Bad Guy?
In mystery writing, there’s no one way to plot. After all, when the reader gets the finished product, she has no idea if you painted the bullseye on the barn before or after you began firing. As long as the target is hit, only you know if you’re a Marksman or a Texas Sharpshooter.
But feel free to ‘fess up here about your particular brand of plotting!
For more info on writing mysteries, check out these posts:
Why Your Mystery is like a Lost Puppy
17 Ways to Mess Up Your Murder Mystery
Ramona DeFelice Long 
In my contracted book that I’m revising now, I was definitely a marksman. There was no other person who could have done it. No one else had all three MMO.
In every book I wrote previously though, I was a combination of the two. When I began writing the books, I had the stories planned out and a killer in mind. But as I wrote, the person who was supposed to be the killer said, “Nuh uh. It’s not me!” I just kept writing and it wasn’t long until the real killer was revealed. Doing it that way does require a lot more in the way of revision, but you can make it work. It can be an interesting plot twist when the protagonist thinks she knows who did it, then realizes she’s wrong.
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Thanks for sharing your experience, Joyce. Can’t wait to see the book when it goes live and in print!
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I’ve done it both ways. Each worked. Currently back to being a Sharpshooter! Love the post!
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It’s good to have options! Thanks for the comment, Noelle.
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I’m definitely a sharpshooter and I like it that way. Sure, I have to backfill clues to make sure it works and that I’m fair to my reader, but that’s fun, too.
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Fun is good! As you note, as long as you play fair with the reader, stick with what works for you.
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No, I’m definitely more of a Texas Sharpshooter. The project I’m working on now, well, I’ve reached the 1/3 mark of the first draft and I still don’t know absolutely who did it. I think I know, but I’ve got further to go. In the last project, I *thought* I knew who it was, when my protagonist said, “Uh, no, sorry. You’re wrong. Go back and try again.” Yes, lots of revisions. But it’s a fun discovery process (and I had a beta reader tell me I had her totally flummoxed, yet when she went back all the information was there, so I must have done something right).
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As you describe, a surprise that has been well planted is a fun discovery. Mystery readers do like to figure things out, but they don’t want it too easy or obvious. You are one of several commentors who point out a character who refuses to be the Bad Guy. Funny!
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Okay, here’s something for you. ALL of my suspects in the current WIP were resisting the “Bad Guy” casting call. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I hear a chuckle. “They’ve never suspected me – and I’m perfectly placed, too.” It’s a character I haven’t even thought of yet. Bingo! Now to go write him into the mss.
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Love this post! On my second book, I was definitely a Texas sharpshooter. Even after three drafts I didn’t know who did it. So I asked my three suspects to tell me what happened that day. They each wrote a half page, and one of them said, “And then I killed her.” (One reviewer said she absolutely couldn’t figure it out – no surprise to me – but she loved it. So, evidently my killer left enough clues to satisfy her – and me.) True story! But I’ve done it the other way too.
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Norma, I love that you had your three suspects make their case for you! What a great exercise.
Warning: I may steal this for a future post. Or maybe you could be my guest and write it yourself?
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Reblogged this on Crime Ladies and commented:
From Ramona DeFelice Long’s blog
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Whew! What a relief, Ramona. I thought I was bonkers, writing along not knowing who did it. The truth is, I have always loved mysteries but I don’t really care who did it. It’s the characters and their struggles that keep me reading.
In my other world, visual art making, it’s placing value of process over product (or, that’s what I call it!) The piece has to work as a whole, allowing process to be seen here, hiding it there. (A stray pencil mark is okay, a blop of glue not okay) Lucky for me, my protagonist is deprived of his usual tools as he is on medical leave from the force. He’s also making it up as he goes along.
Thanks again for a cosmically timed post. You always seem to say exactly what I need to hear, when I need to hear it.
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Thank you for the comment! I love your comparison to visual arts. Process over product. Hmm. Something I will think about.
You are certainly not alone in this process. I avoided the word “pantser” but that’s what a sharpshooter may be. Whatever works, works!
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I’m a sharpshooter. On a recent manuscript, I had to turn in a synopsis. Since I’m a plotter, I had to write about a hundred pages of the manuscript before I could write the summary! I thought I knew the bad guy, but as I kept writing the manuscript, my original thought wasn’t right. My next person wasn’t right either. It took the observation of a beta reader (“XXX never says they did it.”) to realize that I still had the wrong guy and the real killer was getting away with murder.
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Diane, you are the 3rd (or 4th?) person who says a bad guy resisted being guilty. That is so interesting. I think that may be an entirely different post–what if the bad guy you choose didn’t do it?
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Great one, Ramona. I’d say I’m definitely a Marksman — I like to think I follow Mark Halliday’s [Robert Cummings’] advice in “Dial M for Murder”: “Start with the crime — the crime’s the thing.” So with my first mystery, I started with the crime and followed as the killer tried to cover their movements. Unfortunately, I didn’t have them cover well enough — more than one person said airily, “Oh, I knew who it was halfway through!” Grr. So now I’m thinking maybe I should start taking a few potshots and see if I come up with a different killer! Whaddya think?
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Of course, I mean I “followed” as I plotted the darn thing. But apparently everyone else “followed” as they read it! Gotta work on that. I guess if I’m not surprised, neither is anyone else!
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