The Mirror Trap "Ghosts"

"Ghosts" is in essence, everything one could look for in a mystery detective story. It has a plot rife with confusion. It keeps the names simple. It keeps the characters simple. It keeps the background simple as well. Plus it throws the reader straight into the thick of things. But then in the end, the whole scheme winds up being a farce. The story one the reader thought they had been getting into at the beginning is just a mask for the real plot. It turns out that it really is not a detective story, but a story about obsession. So by the time the reader realizes this, it is too late. The book's plot has trapped not just the main character, but the reader as well. In a way, the reader is easily comparable to the protagonist.

The bait of the trap is the simplicity of the opening which makes the reader feel like the book is completely upfront with it, just like Blue thought with White. It introduces you to all the important characters right off the bat with "First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown." The writer has basically told you that 'These are all the characters you are going to need to know. I have even given them simple names so that you will not get them confused.' He had thus set the reader up in the simplest way possible and the reader has completely bought into it from the beginning. Blue is also given a simple task which he assumes is a going to be a normal job, but he has no idea that he has been trapped by Black's scheme. Everybody knows that a simple trap is more reliable than a complex one because there are fewer things that can go wrong. Nothing seemed to go wrong with this part of the trap because the reader has no way of seeing the plot twist and turn completely upside down and neither did Blue.

Once the writer has the reader's attention, he has to disguise the trap. The simple bait keeps the reader's attention, but he does not want the reader to catch on to it before he is a good ways into it. To do this, he used a lot of random information. For example, there was the girl that Black talked to. In reality, she is unimportant to the story, but the reader does not know that and starts to wonder about her. The future Mrs. Blue is also thrown in as a minor bit of information. She is there to keep the reader interested in Blue, but it does not develop into anything really, just as the girl Black talks to does not either for Blue. The bridge information is there to distract you as well. It does not matter that much for the story, but once again, it draws the readers mind away from figuring out the trap too soon. All of these things are here to give the illusion that there is substance to this false story. In truth, the book could have been written on a handful of pages, but then it would be impossible to trick the reader into the trap because they would figure the real story out too quickly. Just like