Detective Pikachu and the Hardest Part of Writing Mysteries

(Minimal spoilers — I’ll be describing the basic plot premise, the characters, and a scene that occurs about a third of the way through the movie without giving the particulars.)

Every genre of writing is tough in its own special ways, and mystery writing is no exception. I’ve discussed some of my reactions as a consumer of mystery fiction, and I’d like to add to the collection with some thoughts on the Detective Pikachu movie.

(Naturally, what follows is my perception of what works and doesn’t within a particular genre and set of cultural traditions. Not every story has to be like this, but this is what I see as an integral part of effective writing in this specific style and context.)

Despite an early mishap with our theatre’s 3D that made the opening few minutes literally unwatchable, I thought the first third of Detective Pikachu was great. Our protagonist, Tim, comes to Ryme City when he learns his private-eye father has gone missing, runs into his father’s Pikachu — which can, of course, talk only to him and also has amnesia about everything — and reluctantly sets about tracking down what really happened.

Watching Pikachu and Tim retrace Tim’s father’s last steps and start piecing together what happened is a joy. But, for me, the fantastic plot came to an abrupt halt about thirty or forty minutes in and never recovered. It was still “good” — just no longer “great.” What happened?

Well, for ~reasons~, Pikachu and Tim temporarily give up their investigation. That’s OK — a bajillion screenwriting books will tell you about the “refusal of the call to adventure,” and there are great ways of showing your characters get overdramatic about a momentary setback. But then, a mysterious character who spotted them during their earlier investigation invites them to see another major character, who then tells Pikachu and Tim exactly what’s going on.

I mean, this is a mystery, so of course there’s more to discover about why this character is saying what they’re saying and which parts of their story might be more accurate than others. Nevertheless, this scene is what killed the momentum for me.

Not because our protagonists got answers to some of their questions — like I said, each new answer leads to another question.

Instead, for me, the moment this happened, Pikachu and Tim stopped investigating and started reacting.

They didn’t piece together this story themselves, they got spoon-fed. They didn’t earn these conclusions. They didn’t show up and demand answers, they had someone else take their hand and guide them along. They didn’t even drive the conversation with Other Major Character — they let that person decide what to talk about and when.

This was needless. To avoid tripping up the momentum, many, many movies/books use the slight variation on this scene: protagonists notice someone mysterious is following them, confront the stalker, and get taken to see the stalker’s employer. Once they get there, they drive the conversation by peppering the employer with questions. They still get exactly the same information, and Stalker/Employer can have exactly the same motivation, but the protagonist stays dynamic.

(This beat also still works when the protagonist has given up/reached a seeming dead end, because no matter how despondent you feel, a mysterious person following you is an immediate stimulus that requires action.)

Keeping the protagonists more active helps the writer(s): it keeps the audience engaged, it maintains the stakes (there’s always something the character clearly cares about on the line), and the audience is more likely to buy whatever information the protagonists uncover this way, because it feels more credible.

(Probably because, when the protagonists feel like they’ve actively uncovered information, the story structure works whether that information is true or false. When the protagonists are given information without effort, the story structure is telling you that information has less emotional value, and it won’t be a huge disappointment if it turns out to be false.)

This whole process — deciding how protagonists uncover information and when, and keeping them feeling active rather than reactive — is probably the most difficult part of plotting a mystery, and I can’t blame Detective Pikachu for slipping from “great” to “good.”*

It sure took me forever to even get close to competent at this kind of plotting, which maybe is why Detective Pikachu’s shift in agency stood out for me: I’ve spent so much time reviewing my own work for that same problem that it’s second nature to me. “Sudden lack of agency” is the number-one reason my first (and second… and third…) drafts drag (but SuReLy it only feels that way because I already know the story, right??? It’d probably be really exciting to someone else who’s new to it all <- big red flag)

I even do this on a micro scale. On a previous manuscript, one of my critique partners (thanks, Melinda!) kindly but frequently pointed out each of the hundred kazillion places where I’d made my characters think things (react) instead of saying those things aloud to other people (act). Funny how the scenes work out so much more engaging the second way!

And I know, I know: a lot of us are in love with characters who want to be reactive instead of active. I sure was/am. Because I am the sort of person who thinks things instead of saying them aloud, because in my real life, I’m not interested in raising the stakes and/or enhancing the conflict. In fact, I’m much more into resolving conflict!

Plus, the types of stories that interest me often led me to swerve toward reaction. I like subverting genres — taking them apart to see what makes them tick, especially if I love-hate the genre as it is: I adore elements of it but can’t stand some of its implicit politics or philosophy.

So, in my writing, I often try to set up a character who’d be the antagonist in a conventional story to be an anti-hero-type protagonist. This used to lead me to working the plot to show that actually, my protagonist was being forced into things that seemed like villainy by the conventional hero of the story. Note the passive voice: “was forced.” Nope, this didn’t work so great to build a dynamic story. I’m still building my skills in plotting these stories more effectively.

Other times, especially when I was younger, I’d try to create the kind of snarky, distanced protagonist that I saw as being more like my teenaged friends and me. Not only was this tiresome, but it turns out that having a main character who strenuously resists action as a key part of their personality is super not conducive to building a dynamic plot. (Luckily, my friends and I didn’t suffer this stagnation in real life; we’ve grown and become delightful adults, thank you very much.)

There are lots of reasons a mystery might end up with characters who hang around resisting action until clues fall into their laps. But (as I think every inexperienced writer discovers) even if you’re doing it that way on purpose, your big artistic message isn’t going to connect to anyone unless they actually want to keep reading your story.

So when my manuscript is full of exciting events — magic battles! Cat-and-mouse escape sequences! Uh… more magic battles! — but still somehow feels draggy, active vs. reactive protagonists are the first thing I check. Because, sure, you can write your way into a good genre story with a main character who reacts instead of acting some or all of the time. I mean, I’d watch Detective Pikachu again. But overall, action instead of reaction makes the whole mess run more smoothly — and if Detective Pikachu had nailed it through the entire film, I’d be rushing back to the cinema instead of shrugging and wondering lazily if it’ll ever come to Netflix.

* In fact, I suspect this might be an artifact of the source material being a video game. Agency vs. reactiveness works differently in video games because the protagonist is the player and therefore (unless the gameplay is terrible) usually feels active, since everything they do is a direct result of the player’s own goals and actions.