Here’s a conundrum told by an eight year old boy, the son of a colleague. Time yourself, use a stop watch or clock to see how long it takes you to figure out the correct answer. perhaps write down (as I did) where your thoughts go. As a fellow writer I expect it will go to the lengths that my thoughts went – way beyond the obvious and into varied directions.

Here goes

There is a round castle

Inside the castle there are 4 people

I person, the guard is dead

There is the cook, the baker and the maid

The cook says she was in the kitchen cooking, the baker says he was in the baking room baking bread and the maid says she was cleaning the corners

Who out of these 3 people killed the guard?

My mind went straight to where was the guard found, how was he killed, what was he wearing etc etc then the thought process went to why the guard was killed – who was having an affair with who, was there money involved etc etc.

I started to create stories within stories for each character and for why there were no other characters and so on.

I didn’t think of the obvious!

Did you?