Any pointers for Detective stories?

[Ryan002]

I teach creative writing as a part time job, and recently I was asked to help teach the detective genre. Being thoroughly focused on Latin American magic realism and American post-modernism, I did the only logical thing:

I panicked.

Mystery novels and their fans are, it is well established, in a highly exclusive and elite world of their own. The uninitiated can only cower in their presence when discussing detective stories. It's terribly intimidating to find out, in the first reference book, that the number of fictional murders in 1949 apparently exceeded the number of actual deaths in WWI.

I implore any of you in the know to help me with some of the elements missing in this list:

- The murder is done by poison or some exotic means in the "country house" style, and by raw violence in the "hard boiled" style

- Money is never an issue in the former style, the detective is always bankrupt in the latter

- The detective is never part of the police force, which always consists of bumbling amateurs

- The detective (if hard boiled) must be a PI. A "country house" style detective must have a highly unusual hobby or occupation that involves Pygmy blowguns or knowledge of Alkaloids

- The locked room mystery is sacred. If I am lucky, someone will explain some common ways of using it. Please?

- Murders must take place in country manors or universities (country house style) and said university is preferably Oxford (why?)

- Lacking country manors or universities, murders must take place on trains or boats, and end concurrently with the journey

- Arsenic, Orangutans and evil twins are absolutely unacceptable

- The victim must always be deserving of the crime

I appreciate the help. Now excuse me while I explain to the policeman at the door why I called the undertaker asking: "How long I can keep a body in the basement before it smells?"

[PeterL]

I teach creative writing as a part time job, and recently I was asked to help teach the detective genre. Being thoroughly focused on Latin American magic realism and American post-modernism, I did the only logical thing:

I panicked.

Mystery novels and their fans are, it is well established, in a highly exclusive and elite world of their own. The uninitiated can only cower in their presence when discussing detective stories. It's terribly intimidating to find out, in the first reference book, that the number of fictional murders in 1949 apparently exceeded the number of actual deaths in WWI.

I implore any of you in the know to help me with some of the elements missing in this list:

- The murder is done by poison or some exotic means in the "country house" style, and by raw violence in the "hard boiled" style

- Money is never an issue in the former style, the detective is always bankrupt in the latter

- The detective is never part of the police force, which always consists of bumbling amateurs

- The detective (if hard boiled) must be a PI. A "country house" style detective must have a highly unusual hobby or occupation that involves Pygmy blowguns or knowledge of Alkaloids

Sherlock Holmes was not the only detective (hobby or occupation that involves Pygmy blowguns or knowledge of Alkaloids). The Continental Op was about as plain vanilla as a person could be.


- The locked room mystery is sacred. If I am lucky, someone will explain some common ways of using it. Please?

Read some.


- Murders must take place in country manors or universities (country house style) and said university is preferably Oxford (why?)

[QUOTE]- Lacking country manors or universities, murders must take place on trains or boats, and end concurrently with the journey

Murders take place in any site that it convenient.


- Arsenic, Orangutans and evil twins are absolutely unacceptable

All methods can and have been used, even a miniature black hole.


- The victim must always be deserving of the crime

Victims come in all types, and sometimes the victim deserved it.


I appreciate the help. Now excuse me while I explain to the policeman at the door why I called the undertaker asking: "How long I can keep a body in the basement before it smells?"

I would suggest that you start by forgetting that list. You might try reading some actual detective stories and novels. The detectives come in a wide variety of sizes, types, accents, etc. Murders have been done more every method that you can think of and many that would never come to mind, unless you were trying to write a new murder mystery. Used book stores are excellent sources for detective novels.

I won't bother with the other pieces of ignorance in that list. Read Dashiell Hammett, Gardner, Stout, etc. etc. There probably is an anthology of the best detective stories that you might read, then go to a used book store and buy a sampling of detective novels. The styles, etc. vary tremendously, and you may find that you can't stand some, while others are pleasant and interesting. You might also read "The Sign of the Three" a piece about logic in stories by three noted authors, one of who was Umberto Eco.

Not many people take detective stories seriously, but there were some that were very good pieces of literature.

[kasie]

You don't seem to have had much take-up of your query, Ryan002! As PeterL said, not many readers take detective stories seriously - yet they are 'best sellers' among non-'Literary' readers, ie the people who like a book for entertainment rather than High Literature - so I can understand why it has a place on your Creative Writing course.

First, a big Tut Tut from an ex-teacher - you have forgotten the Golden Rule of teaching: always stay at least one lesson ahead of your pupils.... :D Now, go away and do your homework: do as PeterL says and read some 'tec stories. As well as the authors he recommends, I'd suggest PD James, Henning Mankell, Ian Rankin, Colin Dexter, Peter Robinson, Andrew Taylor, Ruth Rendell, Linsey Davies, CJ Sansom....that will do for a start. (I know they are all British, except Mankell - I don't know much about American authors tho' I like Robert Crais and Michael Connelly.) You'll notice I haven't mentioned Agatha Christie - I think the books are dated, it's where you get the 'country mansion' idea. If your pupils are interested, looking at past successful authors might be instructive for them, but if they are learning to write for success/money, looking at current best sellers might be more useful for them.

Some of your criteria show your but cursory acquaintance with the genre! But some of the cliches have something to them, the 'country mansion/train/boat' settings, for example. These are devices to contain the action within a limited area, almost, dare I say it, the old notion of Unities of Place and Time: the detective (and the reader) knows the perpetrator of the crime must come from within a limited circle of people and performed the crime within a set period.

The 'bumbling amateur' is a development of the Sherlock Holmes type of detective and belongs to a pre-forensic science era: modern police detectives have a wide range of experts on whom to call so the days of the amateur 'specialist' are over. Likewise the 'area of special expertise' belong to a long-gone time, unless you are using an expert on the fringes of policework, such as the pathologist.

Money? Well, modern police forces are budget conscious: many stories show the detective working on a hunch in conflict with his superiors who cannot finance his extended investigations, another example of time constraints. The dilettante amateur detective living on private means is another anacronism.

Your pupils might like to consider the statistic that most murders are committed by family/friends of the victim - the esoteric causes of death that crop up in older types of detective fiction are there to show how clever the detective (and author) is, rather than reflect the likely methods to hand.

The victim 'deserves' to die? Who says so? This opens up the rather tricky question of the perpetrator acting as Judge and Jury as well as Executioner. I think it was the older authors' justification for writing about violent death as an 'entertainment'. These are perhaps points your pupils might like to consider?

Hard-boiled? I think this may be a reflection of policing styles in earlier times, when Private Eyes were often ex-policemen. Modern detectives are much more sensitive! Many have unusual hobbies, writing poetry, listening to classical music, doing fiendishly difficult crossword puzzles, bird-watching: these activities not only show their humanity but are activities that utilise another part of the brain, so that insights into the case come at moments when the detective's mind is actively engaged in another area.

Oxford - the murder capital of England? The author of Morse lives there, that's why! But one of the attributes of the modern detective is that he knows his 'turf' in minute detail: Morse's Oxford is the real Oxford (except he can always find somewhere to park...) It's no good getting hold of a street map and allowing your detective to walk/drive round the area by following the route on the map - there will always be one-way streets, no through roads that you don't know about but the reader will, so advise your pupils to write about an area they know really well to avoid such howlers. This also brings up the question of likelihood - if your detective story goes on to become a series, will it become likely that so many similar crimes will be committed in a limited geographical area? A setting in a large city such as London or Edinburgh can support an extended series but even a city the size of Oxford can't, let alone a village.

The true interest in a detective story is in the working out of a puzzle. These days, much of the evidence is based on forensics: if your pupils want to go back to a pre-forensics era, there is always the possibilty of creating a proto-detective in an historical era who can work only by deduction and logic (though most of the obvious historical periods have been used already).

I hope you and your pupils have fun. (And yes, I like a good detective story - how did you work that out, Inspector? :))