Jumping To Conclusions

I was having a good laugh today by talking about the '60s Batman movie. In it, Batman ends up with the weakest reasons imaginable in determining which villains are at work. He determines the Riddler because by piecing together all the other clues, he says that it seems like a puzzle to solve, so the Riddler must be involved.

Truly, this scene is so ridiculous that the only response is laughter. There is no evidence. There is no motive. There is nothing that remotely comes close to a good reason to suspect the Riddler. Even though Batman is right, he has no right to make the claim. He jumped to the conclusion.

Jumping to conclusions is exactly what it sounds like. People have a puzzle/problem to solve and they skip the evidence part and just jump to a conclusion. They have nothing but a hunch to go on at best. They might as well be using a random number generator.

The shocking thing is how common it is to storytelling. The surest sign that you have a horrendous mystery writer is that characters jump to conclusions and are right (or, at least, usually right). It means the author painted themselves into a corner and didn't know how to get out. It means that, rather than solving a mystery, they just gave a premise and then broke through it.

Don't let characters jump to conclusions. Smart characters are observant and keen. They put clues together, but the clues have to be there to see. Give us some clues to play with and let the character be smart enough to solve it. Otherwise it's a cheap thrill at best and terrible writing at worst.