A brief history of the development of the detective genre. Detective as a genre of fiction

The earliest works of the detective genre are generally considered to be stories written in the 1840s, but detective elements have been used by many authors before.

For example, in the novel “The Adventures of Caleb Williams” (1794) by William Godwin (1756 – 1836), one of the central characters is an amateur detective. The “Notes” of E. Vidocq, published in 1828, also had a great influence on the development of detective literature. However, it was Edgar Poe who created the first Great Detective - the amateur detective Dupin from the story "Murder in the Rue Morgue." Then Sherlock Holmes (K. Doyle) and Father Brown (Chesterton), Lecoq (Gaborio) and Mr. Cuff (Wilkie Collins) appeared. It was Edgar Poe who introduced into the detective story the idea of ​​rivalry in solving a crime between a private detective and the official police, in which the private detective, as a rule, gains the upper hand.

The detective genre became popular in England after the release of W. Collins's novels The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868). In the novels “The Hand of Wilder” (1869) and “Checkmate” (1871) by the Irish writer C. Le Fanu, a detective story is combined with a Gothic novel.

The founder of the French detective story is E. Gaboriau, the author of a series of novels about the detective Lecoq. Stevenson imitated Gaboriau in his detective stories (especially in "The Rajah's Diamond").

Usually, the incident in a detective story is a crime, the author describes its investigation and identification of those responsible, and the conflict is built on the clash of justice with lawlessness, ending in the victory of justice.

The main feature of a detective story as a genre is the presence in the work of a certain mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are unknown and must be clarified. The most frequently described incident is a crime, although there are detective stories in which non-criminal events are investigated (for example, in The Sherlock Holmes Papers, which belongs to the detective genre, five of the eighteen stories do not contain crimes).

An essential feature of the detective story is that the actual circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader in full until the investigation is completed. The reader is led by the author through the investigative process, gaining the opportunity at each stage to build his own versions and evaluate known facts.

The detective story contains three main plot-forming elements: crime, investigation and solution.

Features of the classic detective genre:

– completeness of facts (by the time the investigation is completed, the reader should have enough information to independently find a solution based on it)

– the ordinariness of the situation (the conditions in which events occur are generally ordinary and well known to the reader)

– stereotypical behavior of the characters (the actions are predictable, and if the characters have any distinctive features, then these become known to the reader)

– the existence of a priori rules for constructing a plot (the narrator and detective cannot turn out to be criminals)

A distinctive feature of the classic detective story is the inherent moral idea, or morality, which marks to varying degrees all works of this genre. The detective story ends with the punishment of the criminal and the triumph of justice.

detective fiction translation

Before proceeding to a direct examination of the features of the detective genre, it is necessary to clearly define the subject of analysis - the detective story.

Detective (English detective, from Latin detego - I reveal, expose) is a literary genre whose works describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the riddle. Typically, such an incident is a crime, and the detective describes its investigation and determination of the perpetrators; in this case, the conflict is built on the clash of justice with lawlessness, ending in the victory of justice.

N.N. Volsky in his book “Mysterious Logic. Detective as a model of dialectical thinking" gives its definition of the detective genre: "A detective story is a literary work in which, using everyday material accessible to a wide range of readers, the act of dialectically removing a logical contradiction (solving a detective riddle) is demonstrated. The need for a logical contradiction in a detective story, the thesis and antithesis of which are equally true, determines some characteristic features of the detective genre - its hyperdeterminism, hyperlogicality, the absence of random coincidences and errors."

S.S. Van Dyne, in his work Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories, describes the detective story as follows: “The detective story is a kind of intellectual game. “It is more - it is a sporting event.” “Detective is a type of intellectual game. Moreover, this is a sporting competition."

The main advantage of a detective novel lies in the presence in it of a new, quite complex and fascinating mystery, the disclosure of which is the main driving force in the development of the detective plot. As the Polish literary critic, professionally engaged in the study of detective literature, Jerzy Siwerski writes: “The value of a detective story as a fascinating read most often comes down to the mystery it contains. If we give away to the future reader the main intrigue of the books we are talking about, we will take away 90% of his pleasure from reading.”

Nevertheless, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings and clarify the boundaries of the genre under study, it is apparently worth emphasizing two points. Firstly, one cannot consider the main feature of a detective story to be the presence of a crime. Indeed, a detective plot is usually built on solving a crime, and in most detective stories it plays a very important role. But elevating its presence to a feature that is obligatory for a detective story and distinguishes it from other literary genres does not withstand a collision with facts. Having adopted such a definition, a third of all works of world classical literature, including Greek tragedies and romantic ballads, would have to be included in the category of detective stories, which is clearly meaningless. On the other hand, not all detective stories contain a crime in the plot. For example, in the collection “Notes about Sherlock Holmes,” of eighteen stories that belong to the detective genre, five stories (that is, more than a quarter) have no crimes. Therefore, we have to conclude that the presence of a crime cannot be considered as mandatory and, especially, as a distinctive feature of a detective.

Secondly, it should be noted that the detective story is often confused with genres built on completely different principles, but somewhat similar to the detective story. Such similarity may lie in the material on which the narrative is based, and in plot features (such as the surprise and dynamism of plot twists, the presence of a crime, the participation of detectives and police, an atmosphere of mystery, fear, the presence of scenes of chase, struggle, etc.), often found in detective stories, but also characteristic of other genres: police novel, adventure (adventure) novel, thriller. The only way to distinguish a detective story from this mass of works is to ask: “Is there a mystery here? What will remain of the plot if you remove the riddle or give the solution on the first page?” If there is no mystery, or it does not play a decisive role in the plot, the work in question is not a detective story. What can be considered a mystery in a detective story? A simple lack of information about something cannot be considered a mystery. For example, we don’t know who lives in the next house, but there is no mystery in it. In the same way, if the corpse of a murdered person is found on the street, and it is not known who killed him or what the motives for the crime were, this ignorance in itself is not a mystery. But if this corpse is found with a knife in its back in a room locked from the inside, the mystery, and quite a complex one, is obvious. Also, do not forget that only something that has a solution can be considered a riddle. At the end of the detective story, all the mysteries must be solved, and the clues must match the riddles.

Thirdly, the solution must require some work of thought, logical thinking. When reading an ideal detective story, the reader should be more or less clearly aware of what the mystery is and have all the information necessary to solve it. But the answer to the riddle must be contained in this information in a hidden, encrypted form, otherwise we have nothing to “guess” about and the answer to the question cannot be considered a solution. But if there is no solution, then there was no riddle. This condition is strictly fulfilled in the classic detective story. In Conan Doyle's stories, Sherlock Holmes, Watson and the reader have all the information necessary to solve the mystery, but this requires a certain effort of thought, which only one of these three individuals can do.

In addition to the main feature that defines the genre - the presence of a mystery - the construction of a detective story has three more characteristic features:

a) Immersion in familiar life

It is difficult to build a detective story on material that is exotic for the reader. The reader must have a good understanding of the “norm” (the setting, the motives of the characters’ behavior, the set of habits and conventions that are associated with the social roles of the heroes of the detective story, the rules of decency, etc.), and, consequently, deviations from it - strangeness, incongruity.

b) Stereotypical behavior of characters

The psychology and emotions of the characters are standard, their individuality is not emphasized, it is erased. The characters are largely devoid of originality - they are not so much individuals as they are social roles. The same applies to the motives of the characters’ actions (in particular the motives of the crime); the more impersonal the motive, the more suitable it is for a detective. Therefore, the predominant motive for the crime is money, since any individuality in this motive is erased: everyone needs money, it is the equivalent of any human need.

c) The presence of special rules for constructing a plot - the unwritten “laws of the detective genre”

Although they are not declared in the works, but after reading several “good” ones, i.e. properly constructed detective stories, the reader intuitively knows them and considers any violation of them to be fraud on the part of the author, a failure to comply with the rules of the game. An example of such a law is the ban on certain characters being a criminal. The murderer cannot be the narrator, the investigator, close relatives of the victim, priests, or high-ranking government officials. For the narrator and detective, this prohibition is unconditional; for other characters, the author can remove it, but then he must openly state this during the narrative, directing the reader’s suspicions to this character.

These three characteristics characteristic of the detective genre can be combined into one; they all serve as a manifestation of the hyper-determinism of the world described in the detective story in comparison with the world in which we live. In the real world, we may encounter exotic personalities and situations whose meaning we do not understand, the motives of real crimes are often irrational, a priest may turn out to be the leader of a gang, but in a detective story such plot decisions would be perceived as a violation of the laws of the genre. The world of a detective is much more orderly than the life around us. To construct a detective mystery, a rigid network of undoubted, unshakable patterns is required, on which the reader can rely with complete confidence in their truth. Since in the real world there are fewer solid patterns than is usually required for constructing a detective plot, they are introduced from the outside by mutual agreement between the authors and the readers, as well-known rules of the game.

Another feature of the detective genre is that the true circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader, at least in its entirety, until the investigation is completed. The reader is led by the author through the process of unraveling, having the opportunity at each stage to build his own versions based on known facts.

Typical elements of the genre structure that most fully express the features of a detective story:

1. Three questions

In the detective genre, a certain standard for plotting has developed. At the very beginning, a crime is committed. The first victim appears. (In a few deviations from this option, the compositional functions of the victim are performed by the loss of something important and valuable, sabotage, forgery, disappearance of someone, etc.) Next, three questions arise: who? How? Why? These questions form the composition. In a standard detective story, the question “who?” - the main and most dynamic, because the search for an answer to it takes up the greatest space and time of action, determines the action itself with its deceptive moves, the process of investigation, the system of suspicions and evidence, the play of hints, details, the logical construction of the course of thought of the Great Detective (WD).

Thus, "who killed?" - the mainspring of the detective. The other two questions are “how did the murder happen?” "Why?" - in fact, are derivatives of the first. It’s like the underground waters of a detective story, coming to the surface only at the very end, in the denouement. In a book this happens on the last pages, in a film - in the final monologues of the Great Detective or in dialogues with the assistant, friend or enemy of the main character, personifying the slow-witted reader. As a rule, in the process of VD guesses hidden from the reader, the questions “how” and “why” have an instrumental meaning, because with their help he identifies the criminal. It is curious that the predominance of “how” over “why” (and vice versa) determines to some extent the nature of the narrative. For the famous Englishwoman, “the queen of detective stories” Agatha Christie, the most interesting thing is the mechanics of crime and detective work (“how?”), and her favorite hero Hercule Poirot works tirelessly to study the circumstances of the murder, collect evidence that recreates the picture of the crime, etc. The hero of Georges Simenon, Commissioner Maigret, getting used to the psychology of his characters, “entering the character” of each of them, tries, first of all, to understand “why” the murder happened, what motives led to it. The search for a motive is the most important thing for him.

In one of the first detective stories of world literature - the short story “Murder in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe, amateur detective Auguste Dupin, faced with a mysterious crime, the victims of which were the mother and daughter of L'Espana, begins by studying the circumstances. How the murder could have happened in locked room from the inside? How to explain the lack of motivation for a monstrous murder? How did the criminal disappear? Having found the answer to the last question (a mechanically slamming window), Dupin finds the answer to all the others.

2. Composition structures

The famous English detective author Richard Austin Freeman, who tried not only to formulate the laws of the genre, but also to give it some literary weight, in his work “The Craft of the Detective Story” names four main compositional stages: 1) statement of the problem (crime); 2) investigation (solo detective); 3) decision (answer to the question “who?”; 4) proof, analysis of facts (answers to “how?” and “why?”).

The main theme of the detective stories is formulated as a “situation S - D” (from the English words Security - safety and Danger - danger), in which the homeliness of civilized life is contrasted with the terrible world outside this security. “Situation S - D” appeals to the psychology of the average reader, since it makes him feel a kind of pleasant nostalgia in relation to his home and meets his desires to escape from dangers, observe them from cover, as if through a window, and entrust the care of his fate to a strong personality . The development of the plot leads to an increase in danger, the impact of which is enhanced by instilling fear, emphasizing the strength and composure of the criminal and the helpless loneliness of the client. However, Yu. Shcheglov in his work “Towards a description of the structure of a detective story” argues that such a situation is a description of only one semantic plan.

Detective stories almost always have a happy ending. In a detective story, this is a complete return to safety, through victory over danger. The detective administers justice, evil is punished, everything has returned to normal.

3. Intrigue, plot, plot

Detective intrigue comes down to the simplest scheme: crime, investigation, solution to the mystery. This diagram constructs a chain of events that form a dramatic action. The variability here is minimal. The plot looks different. The choice of life material, the specific character of the detective, the location of the action, the method of investigation, and the determination of the motives for the crime create a multiplicity of plot constructions within the boundaries of one genre. If intrigue itself is non-ideological, then plot is not only a formal concept, but is necessarily associated with the author’s position, with the system that determines this position.

The detective story is characterized by the closest blending of all three of these concepts - intrigue, plot, plot. Hence the narrowing of its plot possibilities, and, consequently, the limited life content. In many detective stories, the plot coincides with the plot and is reduced to the logical-formal construction of a dramatized criminal charade. But even in this case, which is extremely important to understand, the form is not independent of the ideological content, it is subordinate to it, for it arose as a protective idea of ​​the bourgeois world order, morality, and social relations.

4. Suspense (suspense). Voltage

The structural and compositional features of a detective story are a special mechanism of influence. Closely related to all these questions is the problem of suspense, without which the genre under consideration is unthinkable. One of the main tasks of a detective story is to create tension in the perceiver, which should be followed by release, “liberation.” Tension can be of the nature of emotional arousal, but it can also have a purely intellectual nature, similar to what a person experiences when solving a mathematical problem, a complex puzzle, or playing chess. It depends on the choice of elements of influence, on the nature and method of the story. Often both functions are combined - mental stress is fueled by a system of emotional stimuli that cause fear, curiosity, compassion, and nervous shock. However, this does not mean that the two systems cannot appear in an almost purified form. It is enough, again, to look at the comparison of the structures of the stories of Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon. In the first case, we are dealing with a rebus detective, with its almost mathematical coldness of plot construction, precise schemes, and bareness of plot action. Simenon's stories, on the contrary, are characterized by the emotional involvement of the reader, caused by the psychological and social authenticity of the limited living space in which the human dramas described by Simenon are played out.

It would be a grave mistake to consider suspense as only a negative category. It all depends on the content of the technique, on the purposes of its use. Suspense is one of the elements of entertainment; through emotional tension, the intensity of the impression and the spontaneity of reactions are also achieved.

6. Mystery, mystery, so characteristic of detectives, are composed not only of “interrogativeness” (who? how? why?), but also of a special system of operation of these questions-riddles. Hints, riddles, evidence, understatement in the behavior of the characters, the mysterious hiddenness of VD’s thoughts from us, the total possibility of suspecting all participants - all this excites our imagination.

Mystery is designed to cause a special kind of irritation in a person. Its nature is dual - it is a natural reaction to the fact of violent human death, but it is also an artificial irritation achieved by mechanical stimuli. One of them is the technique of inhibition, when the reader’s attention is directed along the wrong trail. In Conan Doyle's novels, this function belongs to Watson, who always misunderstands the meaning of evidence, puts forward false motivations and plays "the role of the boy who serves the ball for the game." His reasoning is not devoid of logic, they are always plausible, but the reader, following him, finds himself in a dead end. This is the process of inhibition, without which a detective cannot do.

7. The Great Detective.

The French scientist Roger Caillois, who wrote one of the most interesting works on this topic - the essay “Detective Tale”, argues that this genre “emerged thanks to new life circumstances that began to dominate at the beginning of the 19th century. Fouche, by creating the political police, thereby replaced force and speed with cunning and secrecy. Until this time, a representative of the authorities was identified by his uniform. The policeman rushed in pursuit of the criminal and tried to grab him. The secret agent replaced pursuit with investigation, speed with intelligence, violence with secrecy.”

8. Catalog of techniques and characters.

Not a single literary genre has such a precisely and detailed set of laws that defines the “rules of the game,” establishes the boundaries of what is permissible, etc. The more the detective story turned into a puzzle game, the more often and more persistently rules-constraints, rules-guidelines, etc. were proposed. The iconic nature of the mystery novella fit into a stable system in which not only situations and methods of deduction, but also characters became signs. For example, the victim of a crime has undergone a serious revolution. It turned into a neutral prop, the corpse simply became the primary condition for starting the game. This is especially pronounced in the English version of the detective story. Some authors tried to “compromise” the murdered man, as if removing the moral problem: justifying the author’s indifference to the “corpse”.

In a more detailed form, the “rules of the game” were proposed by Austin Freeman in the article “The Craft of the Detective Story.” He establishes four compositional stages - problem statement, consequence, solution, evidence - and characterizes each of them.

Even more significant were “20 rules for writing detective stories” by S. Van Dyne. The most interesting of these rules: 1) the reader must have equal chances with the detective in solving the riddle; 2) love should play the most insignificant role. The goal is to put a criminal behind bars, not to bring a pair of lovers to the altar; 3) a detective or other representative of an official investigation cannot be a criminal; 4) the criminal can only be detected by logical-deductive means, but not by chance; 5) there must be a corpse in a detective story. A crime less than murder has no right to occupy the reader's attention. Three hundred pages is too much for this; 6) investigative methods must have a real basis; the detective has no right to resort to the help of spirits, spiritualism, or reading thoughts at a distance; 7) there must be one detective - the Great Detective; 8) the criminal must be a person who under normal conditions cannot be suspected. Therefore, it is not recommended to discover the villain among the servants; 9) all literary beauties and digressions not related to the investigation should be omitted; 10) international diplomacy, as well as political struggle, belong to other prose genres, etc.

9. Ambivalence.

One more feature of the detective story should be isolated in order to understand its special place in the literary series. We are talking about ambivalence, compositional and semantic duality, the purpose of which is the double specificity of perception. The plot of the crime is built according to the laws of a dramatic narrative, in the center of which the event is murder. It has its own actors, its action is determined by the usual cause-and-effect relationship. This is a crime novel. The plot of the investigation is constructed as a rebus, a task, a puzzle, a mathematical equation and is clearly of a playful nature. Everything related to crime has a bright emotional coloring; this material appeals to our psyche and senses. The waves of mystery emitted by the narrative influence a person through a system of emotional signals, which are the message about the murder, the mysterious and exotic decorum, the atmosphere of the involvement of all the characters in the murder, understatement, the mystical incomprehensibility of what is happening, fear of danger, etc.

The ambivalence of the detective story explains the popularity of the genre, the traditional attitude towards it as self-indulgence, and the eternal debate about what it should be, what functions it should perform (didactic or entertaining) and whether it contains more harm or benefit. Hence the traditional confusion of views, points of view, and requirements.

To summarize, it should be noted that the detective genre, despite its general entertainment orientation, is quite serious and self-sufficient. It forces a person not only to think logically, but also to understand the psychology of people. A distinctive feature of the classic detective story is the moral idea embedded in it, or morality, which marks, to varying degrees, all works of this genre.

Every good detective story is built in two lines: one line is formed by the mystery and what is connected with it, the other by special “non-mysterious” elements of the plot. If you remove the riddle, the work ceases to be a detective story, but if you remove the second line, the detective story turns from a full-fledged work of art into a bare plot, a rebus. Both of these lines are in a certain ratio and balance in the detective story. When translating works of this genre, it is important to first familiarize yourself with the entire text, do a pre-translation analysis, isolate sections of the text that contain key information that helps reveal the secrets, and pay the greatest attention to these sections.

Instructions

Collect impressions. Personal experience is the main source of inspiration. Even if yours comes from another galaxy, the logic of events and actions should be clear to your future readers.

Write down all your ideas and thoughts in a special notebook. Try to write each thought on a new sheet of paper, preferably approximately in the order in which you arrange the events and... Don't aim for a large form right away. Start with stories that can unfold in a maximum of ten printed pages.

Write one typed page every day (about 4,000 characters without spaces). If you want more, don't limit yourself. If you want to write less, overcome yourself and write. The next day, re-read everything you wrote and mercilessly cut out what seems unnecessary. Add what you need, change phrases, etc.

For the lucky ones who have a literary gift, the preparatory stage can take up to six months, and the actual recording of the work is about . The first experience may differ significantly in terms of timing. Be prepared to work for a long time.

While working on a detective story, read newly written chapters to friends you trust. Listen to their opinion, correct the shortcomings that they notice. In general, try to look at your work through the eyes of the reader more often.

Sources:

• write a detective

Classical detective- this is Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe and Hercule Poirot, slowly unraveling the intrigue. Weapons do not appear often on the pages of the novel, and blood appears even less often. Well, what about modern Russian detective- this is the child of the American “black” detective A. A cool hero, rivers of blood, million-dollar deals and fatal beauties are a must-have. Chase, Spillane and Chandler are his parents. Since the Great American Depression, all such works have followed the same principle. And you can do it too.

Instructions

Come up with a hero. Books are written for people and about people, so you can’t do without a main character. As a rule, the author always puts a part of himself into his characters. Perhaps the ideal self that the author would like to become, but will never become. Create a past for the hero and let it be reflected in his character. Failed marriage, military service, unhappy love - take your pick. Incorporate memories of a harsh past into the narrative, it's fashionable.

The profession of the main character should be close and understandable to you. If you don’t know a balance from a bulldozer, and EBITDA sounds like a terrible curse to you, don’t write economic statements and don’t make the main character an accountant who accidentally discovered multimillion-dollar fraud. The best option is a journalist. By the nature of his activity, he is obliged to poke his nose everywhere and not understand anything.

Find the crime. Use the press and the Internet for this. The media is filled with information about horrific corruption, uncovered scams and scams in the upper echelons of power. Choose the most interesting scam from your point of view, adapt it to book reality and think about how your hero can get into it.

Based on the nature of the crime, think about the remaining characters. Since your hero has little understanding of the issue and got into the story by accident, you need a consultant: a thief in law, a police colonel, an underground financial officer who has retired. Then kill the consultant. Be sure to introduce a villain who turns out to be good and a best friend who turns out to be a traitor. Don't forget about humor. A funny character who regularly gets into trouble will brighten the pages of your novel and bring them to life.

Since the majority of the reading audience in our country is, a love line is needed. Mix together the story of Cinderella, Bluebeard, Romeo and Juliet and the Snow Maiden, and you have a great story. Add two or three sex scenes and a happy ending.

Create a structure for the entire activity. All modern detective They are built according to a very simple principle:
- the main character accidentally gets into trouble,
- then he starts to deal with troubles and gets into even more troubles,
- loses his wife (friend, partner, parents, etc.),
- hiding in the woods (in Paris, in Georgia, among the homeless),
- accidentally finds an ally,
- receives a weapon (killer incriminating evidence, a hostage),
- falls in love and suffers,
- delivers the decisive blow
- loses love (friend, parents, dog) or thinks he is losing it,
- finds out who is behind his torment (best friend, colleague, ex-wife, evil boss),
- finally understands everything,
- finds love,
- Happy End.

The plot is the skeleton of the future detective ah, now we need “meat”. Add conflicts, quarrels, more details and descriptions. Come up with several events that can turn the course of action upside down. Local color and original speech of the characters are required.

Make sure that everything you do is logically connected, that the characters' actions flow from their characters, and that events flow smoothly into one another. Complete all storylines, every word spoken in the novel must have closure. Of course, unless you plan to write a sequel. In this case, leave a plot tail, clinging to which, you can develop a new novel.

Think about which characters are not needed for a happy ending and kill them. If you can’t kill him, send him to the forests (to Paris, to Georgia, to the trash heap of the homeless). Never kill. It's not funny, it's not engaging, and it doesn't make for easy reading. Most readers project the events of the novel onto themselves, and the child may be put off from further reading.

Don't get caught up in long fights. Even if you are an expert in martial arts, control yourself. A detective story is a fast-paced action, and dialogues add dynamism to the novel. Put your thoughts into the characters’ mouths, but don’t let them philosophize for two or three pages.

Make the characters' speech clear and simple; dialect words and a little swearing are welcome. Do not overuse scientific terms and complex words. Please note that most readers do not know these words. For the main character, come up with some kind of verbal trick that he will use appropriately and inappropriately.

Don't delay the action. Everything must happen quickly. An action that lasts for years is not detective. The most you can do is describe events that take place several years later and make a finale out of them. No more than two pages.

Your reader should “swallow” the book, and only then think about why he actually did this.

Video on the topic

Sources:

• writing a detective story in 2018

Detective works give readers the thrill and novelty of an unexpected solution. Modernity has given rise to many authors of detective stories, but the classics remain the most popular.

Arthur Conan Doyle - creator of the method of deduction

Several films and TV series are dedicated to Sherlock Holmes, and a museum named after him has been opened in London.

Edgar Allan Poe - creator of the modern detective story

Agatha Christie - a female perspective on a detective story

Agatha Christie had problems with literacy all her life and, even being widely famous, was forced to use the services of a proofreader.

The characters were real individuals for her, and, as Christie admitted, they often lived their own lives. Agatha Christie wrote not only about abstract crimes. She also touched on social issues, often criticizing the British justice system.

Instructions

First of all, to write your own you need an idea. The work should have a thought, and not a chaotic plot and characters. Determine the main idea you want to convey. Maybe it will be a love affair, or an exciting adventure, an action-packed detective story, or a magical world. As you already understand, the idea closely resembles the genre, but is not it. For example, in the detective genre, you write about the life and adventures of a famous detective. This will be the idea.

After this, we begin to build a storyline. In a simplified form, the plot can be divided into the following parts: exposition, plot, climax, plot. This is a classic plot structure, but you can use your own. In any case, a beginning and end are necessary so that the reader sees a meaningful beginning and end. Think through the plot in general terms in advance. So-called plot twists may come as the book is being written.

Identify the main characters. We need to come up with them, habits. Descriptions of appearance often need to be detailed. In different situations it is necessary to describe the clothes of the characters at one time or another in the book. When describing appearance, try not to use general words. For example, the phrase beautiful has little to say to the reader. But if there is a complete description of her facial features and figure, then the reader himself will determine her beauty.

Climaxes need to be set in such a way that the reader immediately understands what the event is. Use epithets and dialogues that can determine the emotionality and state of the characters at this moment. If you are telling a story in the first person, then you need to remember that you don’t need to go further than the hero’s thoughts. The character cannot know how this or that person feels. He can only guess. Even if you are planning a continuation of the book, be sure to bring it to the end. The reader should find out the questions that interest him that will arise during reading. Therefore, having read to the end and not finding answers to them, the reader will be disappointed. By following the instructions and using your imagination, you can write a good book.

Video on the topic

Sources:

• Read online book How to Write a Story

Each of us would definitely like to become a famous writer. But these days, it is not necessary to have writing talent. It's certainly important, but you'll need other skills to write a bestseller.

You will need

• First of all, you need a laptop, preferably with a high-quality backlit keyboard. Why a laptop? Yes, because you don’t have to sit at home in the same environment - you can write a book in nature, in a cafe or in any other place. Lighting is necessary for working at night, because inspiration can come at any moment!

Instructions

First of all, for your productivity, I advise you to master touch typing skills. This way you can work faster without having to search for the right letter, and you can capture every flight of thought.

Choose your writing genre. You may find it much easier to write novels than, for example, science fiction, or vice versa. Try to evaluate your abilities in each genre, and perhaps combine several in your work. For example: a fantasy novel with detective elements.

After choosing a genre, think about the plot of your book. Take a notebook and accurately describe: each of your characters (facial features, character), the places where the actions take place, and the surrounding world of the characters (society, nature, past).

After all this, you can start writing. In the work, follow the storyline so that there are no various misunderstandings. For example: in one scene a character loves , and in another - fruit. A small detail, but at the same time a very important detail.

Video on the topic

note

However, to write something truly worthwhile, you also need the talent of a writer. If you are not confident in your abilities, you can always read various educational articles, go to seminars on your chosen topic, and much more.

A person always has an irresistible desire to speak out. But it’s not always possible to do this in front of people, especially if your statement is a fantasy. That's why many people turn to paper. Not everyone can express their thoughts on a piece of paper, much less write a book. But even if there is no talent, but there is a persistent desire to create, then we will begin the process of creating a work.

Instructions

First of all, to write your book you need an idea. The work should have thought, and not a chaotic plot and the lives of the characters. Determine the main idea you want to convey. Maybe it will be an exciting adventure, an action-packed story, or a magical world. As you already understand, the idea closely resembles the genre, but is not it. For example, in the genre

Detective (English detective, from Latin detego - I reveal, expose) is a literary genre whose works describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the riddle. Usually such an incident is a crime, and the detective describes its investigation and determination guilty, in this case the conflict is built on the clash of justice with lawlessness, ending in the victory of justice.

The main feature of a detective story as a genre is the presence in the work of a certain mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are unknown and must be clarified. The most commonly described incident is a crime, although there are detective stories that investigate events that are not criminal.

An essential feature of the detective story is that the actual circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader, at least in its entirety, until the investigation is completed. Instead, the reader is led by the author through the investigative process, given the opportunity at each stage to construct their own versions and evaluate known facts. If the work initially describes all the details of the incident, or the incident does not contain anything unusual or mysterious, then it should no longer be classified as a pure detective story, but rather among related genres (action film, police novel, etc.).

An important property of a classic detective story is the completeness of facts. The solution to the mystery cannot be based on information that was not provided to the reader during the description of the investigation. By the time the investigation is completed, the reader should have enough information to use it to find a solution on their own. Only certain minor details may be hidden that do not affect the possibility of revealing the secret. At the end of the investigation, all mysteries must be solved, all questions must be answered.

“The world of a detective story is much more orderly than the life around us,” was N. N. Vasiliev’s opinion about the “detective” genre.

What is often found in the detective genre:

Ordinary surroundings. The conditions in which the events of the detective story take place are generally common and well known to the reader (in any case, the reader himself believes that he is confident in them). Thanks to this, it is initially obvious to the reader which of what is described is ordinary and which is strange, beyond the scope.

Stereotypical behavior of characters. The characters are largely devoid of originality, their psychology and behavioral patterns are quite transparent, predictable, and if they have any distinctive features, they become known to the reader. The motives for the actions (including the motives for the crime) of the characters are also stereotypical.

The existence of rules for constructing a plot that do not always correspond to real life. So, for example, in a classic detective story, the narrator and detective, in principle, cannot turn out to be criminals.

Another limitation is noted, which is almost always followed by a classic detective story - the inadmissibility of random errors and undetectable coincidences. For example, in real life, a witness can tell the truth, he can lie, he can be mistaken or misled, but he can simply make an unmotivated mistake (accidentally, mix up dates, amounts, names). In a detective story, the last possibility is excluded - the witness is either accurate, or lying, or his mistake has a logical justification.

Evolution of the genre

The first developers of the genre were such famous writers as E. A. Poe, G. K. Chesterton, A. Conan Doyle, G. Leroux, E. Wallace, S. S. Van Dyne, D. Hammett, E. Quinn and etc.

Perhaps the first theorist of the detective story as a special genre was G. K. Chesterton, who published the article “In Defense of Detective Literature” in 1902. In his essay, Chesterton emphasizes that "the detective novel or short story is a perfectly legitimate literary genre." “The most important advantage of the detective story is that it is the earliest and so far the only form of popular literature in which a certain sense of the poetry of modern life was expressed.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were made to develop standards in accordance with which works of the detective genre would be created. So, in 1928, the English writer Willard Hattington published his set of literary rules, calling it “20 rules for writing detective stories.”

Among modern detective researchers one should name A. Adamov, G. Andzhaparidze, N. Berkovsky, V. Rudnev, A. Vulis. Their works trace the history of the genre, analyze its poetics, and explore artistic parallels in the works of different authors.

According to V. Rudnev, a detective story is “a genre specific to mass literature and cinema of the twentieth century.” Rudnev explains the peculiarity of the detective genre by the fact that “the main element as a genre is the presence of a main character in it - a detective detective (usually a private one) who detects a crime. The main content of the detective story is, therefore, the search for truth.

Let's look again at the definition of genre:

DETECTIVE (lat. detectio - disclosure of English detective - detective) is a work of fiction, the plot of which is based on the conflict between good and evil, realized in solving a crime.

It turns out that the educational and psychological aspects come to the fore in a detective story: a detective story must show the triumph of good, the inevitability of punishment for evil, and it also makes it possible to reveal the nature of the crime. How does a person become inclined to commit a crime? How does this happen: is the environment to blame for everything or does he tend to do it himself?

The detective story shows a person in a rare situation - during a personal or social drama. Detective is an intense struggle, be it an intellectual battle, interrogation, chase, shooting or hand-to-hand combat.

The Weiner brothers noted that a prerequisite for a detective is sociality. And since the subject of the detective story is crime, he “takes a slice of life in which explosive forces have accumulated, in which the “negative aspects” have broken through the social foundations of morality and legality. It is detective writers who resolutely and mercilessly expose the ulcers and festerings of society.”

Charles P. Snow wrote that detective literature is a sign of civilization and the investigation of crime is a symbol of everything positive that exists in the modern world, romance in the full sense of the word. This property of a detective is especially valuable now, at a time of acute shortage of true romance, a dangerous fight against evil, its exposure and punishment.

Speaking about the detective story, one cannot ignore the writer who revolutionized the genre, immortalizing the classic detective story. This is, of course, Agatha Christie! She introduced the world to a new concept of prose, which proclaimed the rule of law and the triumph of reason, protecting society as a whole and individuals in particular against the threat of someone encroaching on the rights and freedoms of others. The genius Edgar Allan Poe, who founded the detective story as such, gravitated towards mysticism, and therefore did not form the “idea of ​​Nemesis”, justice over criminals, which was later discovered in Christie; Arthur Conan Doyle made a significant contribution to the development of this genre, proposing a universal image of the hero - the legendary Sherlock Holmes, famous for his logic and determination; Issues of morality were repeatedly considered by the respected Keith Gilbert Chesterton, through his main character - Father Brown - addressing the attentive reader. But it was a woman who was destined to lead the victorious march of the detective, who in the 1920s and 1930s became a confident representative of the middle class of Westerners. Making close to ideal justice and the inevitability of punishment for the criminal the leitmotif in her works, Christie did not forget about literature directly, with her piercing simplicity winning the trust of readers, heating up the intrigue to the limit and describing the everyday conflicts of good old Britain.

Analysis of Agatha Christie's work

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd"

For analysis, the novel “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” was taken, recognized at one time as one of Agatha Christie’s best creations and a masterpiece of the genre.

The novel takes place in the fictional English village of Kings Abbot. The story begins with the death of Mrs. Ferrar, a wealthy widow rumored to have murdered her husband. The villagers believe that the widow committed suicide until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who was planning to marry Mrs. Ferrar, dies.

Hercule Poirot, who arrived at the scene, begins an investigation, having many suspects around - Ackroyd's relatives and acquaintances, each of whom was interested in his death. One of them, the last person to see Ackroyd alive, Dr. James Shepard, is the narrator of the story and traces Poirot's actions step by step, acting as a kind of "Dr. Watson" - the professional detective's assistant and biographer. Here and there in the text of the novel, “keys” to the mystery are scattered - hints, reservations, details - which, with careful reading, can open your eyes to what is happening long before the denouement of the story.

The key word, which, in our opinion, forms the basis of the novel is the word “weak-willed”. It is first spoken in Chapter 17 by Dr. Shepard, and then by his sister Caroline in relation to himself.

“We started talking about Ralph Paton.

“He’s a weak-willed man,” I insisted, “but not vicious.”

A! But weakness, where does it end?

That’s right,” said Caroline, “take James, for example, as soft as water.” If I weren't there to look after him

My dear Caroline,” I said irritably, “could you please not get personal?”

“You’re weak, James,” she continued, completely unmoved by my remark, “I’m eight years older than you Oh! I don’t mind if Monsieur Poirot knows about it.”

It is weakness of will that leads to dramatic consequences: blackmail, incitement to suicide, murder of a person and betrayal of a friend for the sake of personal interests. Here's how Hercule Poirot puts it:

“Let’s take a person - a very ordinary person who doesn’t even have thoughts of murder. But somewhere in the depths of the soul lurks a certain tendency towards weakness. Nothing affects her, and she does not express herself. Perhaps it will never manifest itself, and the person will go to his grave honest and respected by everyone. But let's say something happened. He finds himself in a difficult situation. Or not even that. He accidentally learns some secret, a secret on which someone’s life or death depends. His first instinct is to talk about it, to honestly fulfill his duty as a citizen. And then his tendency to weak will manifests itself. He sees that he can get money - big money. But he needs money, he craves it. And it's so easy. He doesn't have to do anything to get them. He just needs to be silent. This is the beginning. But the passion for money is growing. He needs more and more! He is intoxicated by the discovery of a gold mine at his feet. He becomes greedy, and in his greed he outsmarts himself.”

Who knows how many more murders could have followed if the criminal had not been stopped? The people closest to you could also come under attack.

“But what scared me most was Caroline. I thought she might guess. She spoke strangely that day about my tendency to be weak-willed.”

The most notable technique, the use of which has led to much discussion, is the use of an unreliable narrator who ends up being the murderer. In his final confession, Dr. Sheppard tries to justify himself from possible accusations of lying:

“I'm quite pleased with myself as a writer. What could be more accurate, for example, the following words: “The letter was brought at twenty minutes to nine. It remained unread when I left at ten minutes to nine. Having already grabbed the doorknob, I hesitantly stopped and looked around, wondering if I had done everything. Without thinking of anything, I went out and closed the door behind me.”

Agatha Christie's idea was that Dr. Sheppard does not hide the truth and does not lie - he simply does not say anything. In particular, he "forgets" to mention what happened between 20.40 and 20.50, when Roger Ackroyd was actually killed.

Events take on new meaning in the reader's eyes when the killer becomes known. Dr. Sheppard himself is amazed at his duplicity, the complexity of the investigation and the fact that so many people were under suspicion. On the one hand, he is overcome by the fear of exposure, on the other hand, he admires and is proud of his cunning, the fact that he can fool such a famous detective as Poirot!

Even after exposure, the killer does not regret what he did, the lives lost, believing that they received a well-deserved punishment and retribution. He doesn't even feel sorry for himself. He is dejected by one thing: that Hercule Poirot appeared there.

“And then what happens next? Veronal? It would be like retribution from above, something like poetic justice. I do not consider myself responsible for the death of Mrs. Ferrars. It was a direct result of her own actions. I don't feel sorry for her. I don't even have pity for myself. So let it be veronal. But it would be better if Hercule Poirot never retired and came here to grow pumpkins."

So, based on the above, we can draw the following conclusions

1. Having worked out the definition of the “detective” genre and examined the evolution of this genre, we found out that the distinctive property of the classic detective story is the moral idea or morality inherent in it. Thus, in the novels of A. Christie, the matter always turns out to be the punishment of the criminal and the triumph of justice.

2. In detective stories you can catch a lot of educational and even warning; situations related to universal human vices are given. Usually, the heroes are placed in very extreme situations, which helps the author to identify hidden personality traits in apparently prosperous people.

What do we see in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd?

Betrayal of a loved one for the sake of self-interest

Betrayal of a friend for personal interests

What is the result?

Easy money that doesn't bring happiness

Drive to suicide

Killing a man

Constant fear of exposure

But why, one might ask, does a person need any additional problems, because life is already full of various troubles. Being driven into a dead end, financial disadvantage and other problems gradually break a person, and soon he succumbs to vices, stooping, for example, to theft or blackmail. Then a moment of insurmountable fear comes, and as a result you have to commit another, more serious crime in order to avoid punishment for the first.

Does the person at this moment think that he is making his situation twice as difficult? Evil eats away at a person, one vice leads to another, and easy money only goes to waste, as easily as it is obtained, so easily does it go away.

In this work, the main character begins to write a novel about everything that happens. Why did you need to write about your own crime? It's all about the incredible confidence of a man who competently built an alibi for himself and hoped to send this book to Hercule Poirot as the first unsolved crime in his practice. And what didn't work out in the end?

People should not forget that any crime does not go unpunished, and if the verdict is not passed by the court, then it will be handed down by life, which is more severe and merciless.

Exploring the world, people become wiser and purer. A detective novel is also a kind of knowledge - through observation to “insight”, to the discovery of the truth. Human dramas in Agatha Christie's novels are not put in the foreground, they always remain in the depths, which is why they make such a strong impression. It’s as if in pursuit of an entertaining plot you pass by human destinies.

The materials of this study can be used during extracurricular classes on literature, in lessons when studying foreign literature of the 20th century as additional material.

Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thank you for that
that you are discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us on Facebook And In contact with

Of course, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes will forever remain in our hearts, but in modern films there are many worthy detectives who bravely deal with criminal plans. If you like to puzzle over riddles and unexpected plot twists, then this collection is for you.

website has collected modern detective films that will appeal to everyone who loves solving mysteries and watching the solution of seemingly perfectly thought-out crimes.

Seven

A powerful cast, a deep plot and a wildly twisted game of cat and mouse. The movie is about how frightening the world around us has become and how accustomed we are to what is happening. This is the film after which you sit for some time, looking at the now black screen, and reflect on what you saw, unable to utter a word.

A game

David Fincher, like no one else, knows how to create an intriguing atmosphere in a film, playing with the viewer, confusing and teasing him in every possible way. And at the very end, when the tension has already reached its limit, he finishes it off with fantastic endings.

Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson's signature style: otherworldly characters, superb settings and meticulous attention to detail. This film is not at all as frivolous as it might seem at first glance. And the more thoughtfully you look, the more interesting things open up.

Oldboy

This film has been called the Asian reaction to Kill Bill. Finding himself in captivity, the main character gradually turns himself into a fighting machine in order to take revenge on those who encroached on his freedom. This film has everything that an excellent detective film should: a crime, an exciting investigation and an unpredictable outcome that turns out to be much less canonical than you might expect.

Time to kill

When you watch this film, you want to pick up a notepad and write down every dialogue - they are so gorgeous. The movie will leave behind many questions. You will think about whether a crime should always be followed by punishment and whether the crime committed should even be considered a crime if we are talking about fair retribution.

Sleepy Hollow

A young constable is sent to a place called Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of mysterious murders. An excellent combination of fantasy and detective. The dark and mysterious color scheme of the film fits perfectly with the story and location and fills the film with a special atmosphere and spirit.

Silence of the Lambs

This movie is an alarming and frightening journey through a tangled labyrinth of hidden phobias, human weaknesses and darkness of the soul. If you want to get rid of nightmares, go not to a highly paid psychotherapist, but to the most remote prison room, where the best psychologist in the area, the cannibal intellectual Hannibal Lecter, sees you.

Obsession

A young man unexpectedly meets his former lover, who disappeared several years ago under mysterious circumstances. And now the hero is doing everything to track her down. Constant plot twists lead to delight, and sometimes even to bewilderment, gradually forming into a single picture and clarifying the meaning only at the very end.

Substitution

The chic atmosphere of Los Angeles of the 1920s will add an indescribable mood to the viewing experience. And the more you watch the development of the plot, the more clearly you will feel as if dozens of small hammers are pounding on your nerves, not allowing you to relax, forcing you to doubt and make new and new assumptions.

Sherlock Holmes

Surprisingly, Guy Ritchie's Holmes is not so far from the literary original. An adventurer and mischief-maker with an absolutely inexhaustible curiosity about the world - this character, oddly enough, is closer than many others to the real Sherlock. Of course, we no longer see the traditional felt cap and do not hear our favorite phrase about Watson - but attractive muscles and a great sense of humor have appeared.

Primal fear

Charming Richard Gere as a lawyer and the still little-known Norton, who is already making an impression with his performance. The plot unfolds in court and the dynamics and sharpness of the dialogues make even “A Time to Kill” stand aside. Until the very last frames, you will remain in doubt as to who is really guilty here. Perhaps one of the best films in its genre.

Red rivers

Kassovitz managed to create the proper level of suspense and an ominous atmosphere. In this he was helped by the performances of Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel, as well as the alpine landscapes, which maintain a gloomy mood throughout the film. The movie is shot quite cheerfully - you won't get bored. One of the most successfully constructed detective stories.

Prestige

The feeling of rivalry between two magicians is conveyed here so completely that it seems as if you yourself are starting to come up with something to beat your opponents. This film is an amazing combination of fascination and tragedy, realism and entertainment, masterful staging and beauty. And the trick was as successful as ever - intense curiosity will not leave until the very end.