"Shall the devil do his own investigating?"

In writing a mystery, I am biting off a piece of work with which I am none too familiar. That being admitted, I am in need of as much advice on the matter as I can possibly get. When reading P.D. James on Detective Fiction, I copied out several pages of quotes which are standing me in good stead when I get a bit muddled. My courage is particularly bolstered by such passages as:

"Miss Sayers did nothing in her life by halves. Having decided to earn some much-needed money by writing detective fiction, she applied her mind to the history, technique and possibilities of the genre. Being highly intelligent, opinionated, and combative, she had no hesitation in giving other people the advantage of her views."

I also find her commentary on the "golden era of detective fiction" quite interesting:

"These novels are, of course, paradoxical. They deal with violent death and violent emotions, but they are novels of escape. We are required to feel no real pity for the victim, no empathy for the murderer, no sympathy for the falsely accused. For whomever the bell tolls, it doesn't toll for us. Whatever our secret terrors, we are not the body on the library floor. And in the end, by the grace of Poirot's little grey cells, all will be well--except of course with the murderer, but he deserves all that's coming to him. All the mysteries will be explained, all the problems solved, and peace and order will return to that mythical village which, despite its above-average homicide rate, never really loses its tranquility."

In writing Anon, Sir, Anon, I am combining a bit of this golden-era flavor with reality. By that, I mean that while it is a "cozy" mystery, I feel that you will get to understand a bit of the gravity of the situation that more modern mysteries provide. All is not well and at the end of the book all cannot be well because something has changed and someone has died. Another quote from P.D. James gives you a bit of what I mean:

"I find it interesting that the detective hero, originated by Conan Doyle, has survived and is still at the heart of the story, like a secular priest, expert in the extraction of confession, whose final revelation of truth confers a vicarious absolution on all but the guilty."

Being that Farnham is a Christian, there is a deeper aspect of the plot. Christianity holds life more precious than anyone else and cutting it short is more vile a thing even than the world admits...an interesting angle to play and I'm enjoying the challenge.Well now. Off I go back to my writing; I'll leave you to ponder the above quotes and see what you think of them.

"I'm quite the hound, you know. I like a bit of the hue-and-cry."

Essential Fairness, Deceptive Cunning

Welcome to Day Two of The Utterly Baffled blog party! the giveaway is still open so if you're wanting to enter, please do! You can find the Rafflecopter with all its ways to win below.
Every mystery-writer's blog party needs a post with general How-To's, right? Or at the very least, guidelines from the best on what comprises an excellent mystery. Sorry to break it to you (and me) but usually our entirely wonderful idea for a mystery is not near as complicated, baffling, and intricate as it needs to be. We're looking for more Poirot, less Nancy Drew.

Earlier this fall I was in the library and stumbled across P.D. James Talking About Detective Fiction. Yes, that's a title of a book - I didn't actually stumble across her inside my podunk library literally talking about detective fiction. If I had, that would have come into a blog post far earlier than this! Anyway, it was through reading that little book that my love for mysteries was rekindled, and I got the bug to write one of my own. It's less a How-To and more of a sweeping view of the history of detective fiction, and what makes a mystery good. I copied 7 1/2 pages of quotes into my writing journal just because they were so wonderful and if the copy had been mine, you can be sure it'd be criss-crossed with underlinings and notes. (Much to the horror of some of my comrades who NEVER write in books, I am an avid underliner. Neatly, though.) I sat down to write a post about the essential components of a mystery novel and then I realized that P.D. James is a much better authority on the subject, so I am pilfering quotes from her book and presenting them to you with comment by yours truly.

"One function of the setting is to add credibility to the story...if we believe in the place we can believe in the characters. In addition, the setting can from the first chapter establish the mood of the novel, whether of suspense, terror, apprehension, menace, or mystery. We have only to think of Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, of that dark and sinister mansion set in the middle of the fog-shrouded moor, to appreciate how important setting can be to the establishment of atmosphere. The Hound of Wimbledon Common would hardly provide such a frisson of terror." -P.D. James Talking About Detective Fiction

"The detective, whether professional or amateur, needs a domestic setting if the reader is to fully enter fully into his life, and most writers provide for their detective a known and familiar place in which he can be at home." -Ibid.

I have to admit that I love to know about the characters' home-life. Which reader, having read Sherlock Holmes would be content to visit London without trying to find 221B Baker Street? Or, having read Miss Marple would fail to look up St. Mary Mead, only to discover Agatha Christie had invented the place? And yet, she wrote the village so realistically that many have been fooled, I'm sure. In creating Whistlecreig Manor and its "feudal" village, I hope to create a vivid, familiar society for Vivi and Farnham that my readers will grow to love. In keeping with the theme of atmosphere, I love James's advice as to writing the scene of finding the body:

"When an author describe a room in the victim's house, perhaps the one in which the body is found, the description can tel the perceptive reader a great deal about the victim's character and interest...for this reason the place in which the body is found is particularly revealing, and I regard the description of the finding of the body as one of the most important chapters of a detective novel."

-Ibid.

In another bit of P.D. James's book, I cracked up at her recital of Ronald Knox's mantra for detective fiction:

"...the criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the narrative but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. All supernatural agencies are ruled out. There must not be more than one secret room or passage. No hitherto undiscovered poisons should be used or, indeed, any appliance which needs a long scientific explanation. No Chinamen must figure in the Story. No accident must help the detective, no is he allowed an unaccountable intuition. The detective himself must not commit the crime or alight on any clues which are not instantly produced for the reader. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, should be slightly, but no more than slightly, less intelligent than the average reader, and his thoughts should not be concealed. And, finally, twin brothers and doubles generally must not appear unless the reader has been duly prepared for them."

-Ibid

This passage is generally a good example of avoiding cliches. I think the reference to Chinamen referred to hard feelings toward Asians in the 20's-30's (during the golden era of detective fiction) rather than any reason why including an Asian antagonist would be poor mystery-writing nowadays. She continues with general guidelines for writing a plausible mystery that I have already found most helpful:

"The suspects should, I feel, be sufficient in number to provide the puzzle, and more than five is difficult if each is to be a credible living and breathing human being with motives that the reader will find convincing."

-and-

"What we can expect is a central mysterious crime, usually a murder; a closed circle of suspects, each with motives, means, and opportunity for the crime; a detective, either amateur or professional, who comes in like an avenging deity to solve it; and, by the end of the book, a solution which the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness."

"...deceptive cunning but essential fairness." I love that line because on it hangs the whole of detective fiction. Writers of mysteries have the responsibility of presenting all the clues (I feel like Conan Doyle broke this rule frequently) and yet disguising them in such a way that their readers seldom guess the solution. My brother was always the one to figure out the mystery; I preferred watching the clues arise and then come into one big, baffling, beautiful solution at the very end.
I have no idea why I thought I ought to be the one to create a big, baffling, beautiful solution. And yet, I'm extremely anxious to see what comes of Vivi & Farnham and I love the power behind deciding a Who What When Where Why and then complicating it on purpose to baffle your dear little brains. I'm going to have such fun with this and I'm not going to tell my brother (Daniel) or my sister (Sarah) the answer to the mystery...if I can keep them guessing, I'll have met my goal.

Deceptive cunning, essential fairness. 

Thanks, P.D. James. You're an inspiration and I do wish I could literally stumble into you in my library and ask your opinion on Vivi & Farnham. To the rest of you, you really ought to read this book. And to the REST of you, if you feel generous and want to buy me Bloody Murder by Julian Symons, I won't complain.

Anon, Sir, Anon

   "The fireplace, the butler, and a wing chair stood at the opposite end of the room: a tribunal of domestic comfort that had assembled to judge this intruder of their peace. In the wing chair sat a man she could take to be none other than Mr. Orville Farnham. He looked at her and fingered his chin, eyes slitted consideringly."                                                          -Anon, Sir, Anon

I am here to inform you that The Baby is taking a nap until the new year. There are some exciting things ahead for me, my writing, and this blog, and I decided that writing The Baby requires all or nothing -- it doesn't thrive under pie-crust promises and a kisses. Just like a real kid takes all a parent's concentration, The Baby wants an iron fist.I cannot spare an iron fist until the new year so though I'm not sacking The Baby for eternity, it is removed to the side for a good long nap so I can stop worrying about it and focus on the things on which I need to work.
Having cleared that aside, it is time to introduce you to the new brain-child I mentioned very briefly last post. Anon, Sir, Anon, is my new project at 3500 words in the main document, plus a few here-and-theres in my writing notebook. The first in a potential series of concerning niece-uncle detective pair Vivi & Farnham, Anon, Sir, Anon is a 1930's murder mystery set in Northamptonshire, England:

Shakespearean actor and private detective Orville Farnham has been confined to his home, Whistlecreig, by doctor's orders. The extended family sends a niece, Genevieve Langley, to play nursemaid in order to get her off their hands, as Vivi was voted Most Unlikely To Make A Brilliant Marriage. Farnham is none too pleased with the prospect of a female intruding on his life at Whistlecreig.When a murder occurs within a constrained space of time and leaves a small pool of suspects--each with excellent alibis--Farnham is called and Vivi finds herself entangled as one of the last witnesses to see the beautiful actress, Lillian Bertois, alive. It is soon evident that not only does Vivi have a penchant for being present at crucial moments, she has a liberal dose of brains that are put to use in assisting her uncle with solving the mysterious death of the woman in the blue cloche.

To set the things off, I've made a few graphics of some of the cast! Just remember that they are arranged in no order of importance. I won't give you any sort of hint that might set you off on your own conclusions. Not yet. This is a mystery and I'm going to start it off properly by saying that I will play fair--all the necessary bits will be in place--but you won't figure it out till you read the book.

 

As time goes on I'll be making more of these graphic things because they're just so much fun. And I can't really think of anything that goes with Farnham better than a big fat armchair and his intense energy exemplified in one of his favorite phrases. He's a man of impeccable character, ever polite but always having the last word. For the next week I'll be doing a series of posts on detective fiction (and a giveaway!) to celebrate the start of the new regime of Vivi & Farnham. Over the next while as I write this book, you'll grow to love them, I'm sure. I am looking forward to introducing you to life at Whistlecreig, writing detective fiction, and so many more wonderful things. Stick around and if you want to start a conversation on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media, use the hashtag: ViviandFarnham. See you around!

"Stands the church clock at ten to three?
And is there arsenic still for tea?"

Are we to have a Watson?

Some people are intolerable, drubbing boors. And then you have A.A. Milne who has so much sensible back-chat to say about everything that my opinion for him grows by leaps and bounds:

"Are we to have a Watson? We are. Death to the author who keeps his unraveling for the last chapter, making all the others chapters but a prologue to a five-minute drama. This is no way to write a story. :Let us know from chapter to chapter what the detective is thinking. For this he must watsonize, or soliloquize; the one is merely a dialogue form of the other; and, by that, more readable. A Watson, then, but not of necessity a fool of a Watson. A little slow, let him be, as so many of us are but friendly, human, likeable."

-A.A. Milne speaking on the subject of detective fiction

Oh for more people like the creator Winnie-the-Pooh. I want to marry someone who makes up words like "watsonize"; such a man would be a wonderful companion. Or perhaps what I need--being the one who already makes up words--is a man who will laugh at me and put the word into circulation.