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How to Write a
Detective Story From Reprinted in Let it be understood
that I
write this article as one wholly conscious that he has failed to
write a
detective story. But I have failed a good many times. My authority is
therefore practical and scientific, like that of some great statesman
or
social thinker dealing with Unemployment or the Housing Problem. I do
not
pretend that I have achieved the ideal that I set up here for the
young
student; I am, if you will, rather the awful example for him to
avoid. None
the less I believe that there are ideals of detective writings, as of
everything else worth doing; and I wonder they are not more often set
out in
all that popular didactic literature which teaches us how to do so
many
things so much less worth doing; as, for instance, how to succeed.
Indeed, I
wonder very much that the title at the top of this article does not
stare at
us from every bookstall. Pamphlets are published teaching people all
sorts of
things that cannot possibly be learnt, such as personality,
popularity,
poetry, and charm. Even those parts of literature and journalism that
most
obviously cannot be learnt are assiduously taught. But here is a
piece of
plain straightforward literary craftsmanship, constructive rather than
creative, which could to some limited extent be taught and even, in
very
lucky instances, learnt. Sooner or later I suppose the want will be
supplied,
in that commercial system in which supply immediately answers to
demand, and
in which everybody seems to be thoroughly dissatisfied and unable to
get
anything he wants. Sooner or later, I suppose, there will not only be
text-books teaching criminal investigators, but text-books teaching
criminals. It will be but a slight change from the present tone of
financial
ethics, and when the shrewd and vigorous business mind has broken
away from
the last lingering influence of dogmas invented by priests,
journalism and
advertisement will show the same indifference to the taboos of today
as does
today to the taboos of the Middle Ages. Burglary will be explained
like
usury, and there will be no more disguise about cutting throats than
there is
about cornering markets. The bookstalls will be brightened with
titles like
'Forgery in Fifteen Lessons,' and 'Why Endure Married Misery?' with a
popularization of poisoning fully as scientific as the popularization
of
Divorce and Birth-Control. But, as we are so often
reminded, we must not be in a hurry for the arrival of a happy
humanity; and
meanwhile, we seem to be quite as likely to get good advice about
committing
crimes as good advice about detecting them, or about describing how
they
could be detected. I imagine the explanation is that the crime, the
detection, the description, and the description of the description,
do all
demand a certain slight element of thought, while succeeding and
writing a
book on success in no way necessitate this tiresome experience.
Anyhow, I
find in my own case that when I begin to think of the theory of
detective
stories, I do become what some would call theoretical. That is, I
begin at
the beginning, without any pep, snap, zip or other essential of the
art of
arresting the attention, without in any way disturbing or awakening
the mind. The first and
fundamental
principle is that the aim of a mystery story, as of every other story
and
every other mystery, is not darkness but light. The story is written
for the
moment when the reader does understand, not merely for the many
preliminary
moments when he does not understand. The misunderstanding is only
meant as a
dark outline of cloud to bring out the brightness of that instant of
intelligibility; and most bad detective stories are bad because they
fail
upon this point. The writers have a strange notion that it is their
business
to baffle the reader; and that so long as they baffle him it does not
matter
if they disappoint him. But it is not only necessary to hide a
secret, it is
also necessary to have a secret; and to have a secret worth hiding.
The
climax must not be an anti-climax; it must not merely consist of
leading the
reader a dance and leaving him in a ditch. The climax must not be
only the
bursting of a bubble but rather the breaking of a dawn; only that the
daybreak is accentuated by the dark. Any form of art, however
trivial, refers
back to some serious truths; and though we are dealing with nothing
more
momentous thana mob of Watsons, all watching with round eyes like
owls, it is
still permissible to insist that it Is the people who sat in darkness
who
have seen a great light; and that the darkness is only valuable in
making
vivid a great light in the mind. It always struck me as an amusing
coincidence that the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories bore, with a
totally
different application and significance, a title that might have been
invented
to express this primal illumination; the title of "Silver
Blaze". The second great
principle is
that the soul of detective fiction is not complexity but simplicity.
The
secret may appear complex, but it must be simple; and in this also it
is a
symbol of higher mysteries. The writer is there to explain the
mystery; but
he ought not to be needed to explain the explanation. The explanation
should
explain itself; it should be something that can be hissed (by the
villain, of
course) in a few whispered words or shrieked preferably by the
heroine before
she swoons under the shock of the belated realization that two and
two make
four. Now some literary detectives make the solution more complicated
than
the mystery, and the crime more complicated than the
solution. Thirdly, it follows
that so far
as possible the fact or figure explaining everything should be a
familiar
fact or figure. The criminal should be in the foreground, not in the
capacity
of criminal, but in some other capacity which nevertheless gives him a
natural right to be in the foreground. I will take as a convenient
case the
one I have already quoted; the story of Silver Blaze. Sherlock Holmes
is as
familiar as Shakespeare; so there is no injustice by this time in
letting out
the secret of one of the first of these famous tales. News is brought
to
Sherlock Holmes that a valuable race-horse has been stolen, and the
trainer
guarding him murdered by the thief. Various people, of course, are
plausibly
suspected of the theft and murder; and everybody concentrates on the
serious
police problem of who can have killed the trainer. The simple truth
is that
the horse killed him. Now I take that as a model because the truth is
so very
simple. The truth really is so very obvious. At any rate, the point
is that
the horse is very obvious. The story is named after the horse; it is
all
about the horse; the horse is in the foreground all the time, but
always in
another capacity. As a thing of great value he remains for the reader
the
Favourite; it is only as a criminal that he is a dark horse. It is a
story of
theft in which the horse plays the part of the jewel until we forget
that the
jewel can also play the part of the weapon. That is one of the first
rules I
would suggest, if I had to make rules for this form of composition.
Generally
speaking, the agent should be a familiar figure in an unfamiliar
function.
The thing that we realize must be a thing that we recognize; that is
it must
be something previously known, and it ought to be something
prominently
displayed. Otherwise there is no surprise in mere novelty. It is
useless for
a thing to be unexpected if it was not worth expecting. But it should
be
prominent for one reason and responsible for another. A great part of
the
craft or trick of writing mystery stories consists in finding a
convincing
but misleading reason for the prominence of the criminal, over and
above his
legitimate business of committing the crime. Many mysteries fail
merely by
leaving him at loose ends in the story, with apparently nothing to do
except
to commit the crime. He is generally well off, or our just and equal
law
would probably have him arrested as a vagrant long before he was
arrested as
a murderer. We reach the stage of suspecting such a character by a
very rapid
if unconscious process of elimination. Generally we suspect him merely
because he has not been suspected. The art of narrative consists in
convincing the reader for a time, not only that the character might
have come
on the premises with no intention to commit a felony, but that the
author has
put him there with some intention that is not felonious. For the
detective
story is only a game; and in that game the reader is not really
wrestling
with the criminal but with the author. What the writer has to
remember, in this sort of game, is that the reader will not say, as he
sometimes might of a serious or realistic study: "Why This I should call the
fourth
principle to be remembered, as in the other cases, people probably
will not
realize that it is practical, because the principles on which it
rests sound
theoretical. It rests on the fact that in the classification of the
arts,
mysterious murders belong to the grand and joyful company of the
things
called jokes. The story is a fancy; an avowedly fictitious fiction.
We may
say if we like that it is a very artificial form of art. I should
prefer to
say that it is professedly a toy, a thing that children 'pretend'
wish. From
this it follows that the reader, who is a simple child and therefore
very
wide awake, is conscious not only of the toy but of the invisible
playmate
who is the maker of the toy, and the author of the trick. The
innocent child
is very sharp and not a little suspicious. And one of the first rules
I
repeat, for the maker of a tale that shall be a trick, is to remember
that
the masked murderer must have an artistic right to be on the scene
and not
merely a realistic right to be in the world. He must not only come to
the
house on business, but on the business of the story; it is not only a
question of the motive of the visitor but of the motive of the
author. The
ideal mystery story is one in which he is such a character as the
author
would have created for his own sake, or for the sake of making the
story move
in other necessary matters, and then be found to be present there,
not for
the obvious and sufficient reason, but for a second and a secret one.
I will
add that for this reason, despite the sneers at 'love-interest' there
is a
good deal to be said for the tradition of sentiment and slower or more
Victorian narration. Some may call it a bore, but it may succeed as a
blind. Lastly the principle
that the
detective story like every literary form starts with an idea, and
does not
merely start out to find one, applies also to its more material
mechanical
detail. Where the story turns upon detection, it is still necessary
that the
writer should begin from the inside, though the detective approaches
from the
outside. Every good problem of this type originates in a positive
notion,
which is in itself a simple notion; some fact of daily life that the
writer
can remember and the reader can forget. But anyhow, a tale has to be
founded
on a truth; and though opium may be added to it, it must not merely
be an
opium dream. |
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The G.
K. Chesterton’s statue placed in Ponchatoula, EE.UU. It was promoted by
The
American Chesterton
Society.
http://chesterton.org/gkc/murderer/howto.htm