When a mystery becomes annoying?

If you come here as a screenwriter, there's one thing I'd like to tell you. When you create a mystery in one of your screenplays, make sure that the reader/viewer WANTS TO KNOW the answer to the mystery. I'm not joking in the least bit. It sounds so damned simple, but it isn't at all.

There is a line that you can cross in creating a mystery. And I'm not talking about a mystery genre, but a mystery that can lie within any genre. That line is when you cross into having the reader/viewer NEED TO KNOW. That's right, I don't want to need to know a damned thing. Nothing. If I need to know instead of wanting to know, you've lost me and my genuine interest in a whole lot of what happens.

The inevitable tends to happen when I need to know something in a screenplay or a movie. I really don't give a shit if I know, but you're going to tell me. That's right, tell me. There won't be enough set-up to really care about the mystery or it's way too obvious. Then out comes the stunningly obvious or amazingly boring revelation.

Listing examples of each isn't why I'm writing this. I'm writing this so you don't write something with a revelation to a mystery that will ruin even the remote chance your screenplay has of success. And don't make the excuse that you're writing some direct to DVD thing that doesn't need to be written well. The secret to any successful mystery is making me want to know something rather than needing to know.

If you're a fan of bad movies that routinely have storylines with mysteries that no one cares or wants the answer to, then your chances of success are greatly diminished. Seriously, don't watch shitty movies for inspiration. If your favorite mystery is crushed by the critics, there is a reason. That reason is more than likely that the story didn't actually contain a mystery. It had fallen into needing to know, and that ain't a mystery.

This all brings me to Memento, and the reason that I kind of liked it and have no desire to see it again. Part way through the movie, I lost the desire to want the answers to the mystery. I realized that the bassackwards nature of the movie created the only want to know that there was. If it was told chronologically, I wouldn't give a shit, want to know or have enough desire to know much. Yes, it achieved what it set out to do. ONCE and only once.

Don't write a backasswards steaming turd like Memento. I don't want to see it or read your bassackwards screenplay. And don't rewrite anything else that you admire. The writers of Memento figured out how to make the viewer want to know something because of the bassackwards nature of the film/screenplay. You have to figure out how to make me the reader/viewer want to know in your own way.

Please, do that. Make me want to know the answer to a mystery. Set it up, do it well. I'll thank you and admire you for doing so.