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Carolyn Wells - Mystery Story Technique for Writers

Here you can read online Carolyn Wells - Mystery Story Technique for Writers full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2017, publisher: Midwest Journal Press, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

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Carolyn Wells Mystery Story Technique for Writers

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Do you love mystery stories, such as the Sherlock Holmes stories and those of Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie?

Do you ever yearn to be a good writer of mysteries?

Carolyn Wells was a prolific author of mystery novels. In this detailed book, she teaches the history, types, principles, devices, plots, and structures of mystery writings. This is virtually a miniature course in creative writing of the mystery story.

Originally published in 1913, this was the first full-length book in English about mystery and detective fiction. Still valuable as an instruction manual after over a century, Wells wisdom and critical acumen brought to this volume has enabled millions of mystery writers world-wide to discover and dissect what makes a successful mystery story.

She gives advice to would-be authors of this genre, including ghost and riddle stories as well as detective and crime mysteries.

This authoritative work begins with a justification of mystery as a legitimate literary art form, with numerous quotations from authorities. Then proceeding systematically through her topics, she explains and illustrates the mystery-writing craft with excerpts from mystery works and quotations of literary critics and notable authors.

Carolyn Wells wrote a total of more than 170 books. Among the most famous of her mystery novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories

The lover of mystery will find many authors and stories cited and excerpted in this book, which would be a good resource for finding more material to satisfy the readers thirst for the genre.

Aspiring authors will find insights through the critical eyes of this successful mystery author and of the many authors whom she quotes.

This edition was created by popular request to enable any beginning or established author to improve their skills by studying quality editions of classic bestselling fiction.

Get Your Copy Now.

- - - -

In this book the author of those successful mystery stories, The Clue, A Chain of Evidence, Curved Blades and others, takes the student into the laboratory where such novels are made and elucidates the processes clearly. But plot is by no means reduced to a formula. Instead, the resource and invention of the writer is stimulated to the utmost.

It is a book that will be read many times by the ambitious would-be writer. -The Springfield Union

I cannot imagine any one leaving it unfinished, once having begun to read it. Yet, when you see it announced as a complete practical study of the form, with examples from the best mystery writers, you not only smile, but feel sure that the author smiled, too. The table of contents is delicious. Chapter IV, for instance, is about ghost stories, and it is divided into four parts: a working classification, the ghost story, famous ghost stories, the humorous ghost story. Against attempting the last, by the way, the novice is warned....Miss Wells makes some surprising statements. A true lover of detective fiction, she writes, never reads detailed newspaper accounts of crime....Immensely interesting. -The Nation

Carolyn Wells was a prolific author of mystery novels. In this detailed book, she teaches the history, types, principles, devices, plots, and structures of mystery writings.

### About the Author

Carolyn Wells was an American author of mysteries, verse, humor, and childrens books. In 1910 she decided to devote herself to mysteries and became an early master of the genre, creating two memorable sleuths: Pennington Wise and Fleming Stone. Earlier in her career, she penned two humorous stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and a plethora of...

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Carolyn Wells'

Mystery Story Technique for Writers

Originally Published: 1913

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Chapter 1 THE ETERNAL CURIOUS

Why is the detective story? To entertain, to interest, to amuse. It has no deeper intent, no more subtle raison d'tre than to give pleasure to its readers.

It has been argued that its "awful examples" (sometimes very awful!), are meant as cautionary pictures to restrain a possible bent toward the commission of crime. It is held by some that the habit of analytical and synthetical reasoning, requisite to appreciate the solving of these fictional mysteries, is of value in training the mind to logical and correct modes of thinking; the practical application of which, in the everyday affairs of life, proves a valuable asset in the worldly struggle for success.

According to Mr. H. E. Dudeney, in the "The Canterbury Puzzles":

"There is really a practical utility in puzzle-solving. Regular exercise is supposed to be as necessary for the brain as for the body, and in both cases it is not so much what we do as the doing of it, from which we derive benefit. Albert Smith, in one of his amusing novels, describes a woman who was convinced that she suffered from 'cobwigs on the brain.' This may be a very rare complaint, but in a more metaphorical sense, many of us are very apt to suffer from mental cobwebs, and there is nothing equal to the solving of puzzles and problems for sweeping them away. They keep the brain alert, stimulate the imagination and develop the reasoning faculties. And not only are they useful in this indirect way, but they often directly help us by teaching us some little tricks and 'wrinkles' that can be applied in the affairs of life at the most unexpected times, and in the most unexpected ways."

There is an interesting passage in praise of puzzles, in the quaint letters of Fitzosborne. Here is an extract:

"The ingenious study of making and solving puzzles is a science undoubtedly of most necessary acquirement, and deserves to make a part in the meditation of both sexes. It is an art, indeed, that I would recommend to the encouragement of both the Universities, as it affords the easiest and shortest method of conveying some of the most useful principles of logic. It was the maxim of a very wise prince that 'he who knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reign;' and I desire you to receive it as mine, that 'he who knows not how to riddle knows not how to live.'"

But though all this may be true as a vague result, it is not the author's real purpose. He writes solely for entertainment; presumably the entertainment of his audience, but often equally for the entertainment of himself.

1. Inquisition into the Curious is Universal

The detective story, and now we include the whole range of mystery or riddle stories, is founded on a fundamental human trait, inquisitiveness. Man is an incarnate interrogation point. The infant's eyes ask questions before his tongue can do so, and soon the inquiring eyes are supplemented by a little outstretched hand, trying to satisfy a curiosity by the sense of touch. But, once having achieved a vocabulary, however small, he uses it almost entirely to make inquiries, until so prominent becomes this trait, that his conversation is cut off altogether, and he is condemned to be visible but not audible.

Attaining further intelligence, his inquiries become more definite and thoughtful, though no less numerous and eager. He seeks books, whether in or out of running brooks; he inquires of authorities, or he reasons out answers for himself, as he grows in body and brain. He meets a friend in the street, he pours out questions. In his business he progresses by one question after another. Is he an inventor? He questions of Nature till he probes her various secrets. Is he a philosopher? He questions his soul.

To quote Mr. Dudeney again:

"The curious propensity for propounding puzzles is not peculiar to any race or to any period of history. It is simply innate in every intelligent man, woman, and child who has ever lived, though it is always showing itself in different forms; whether the individual be a Sphinx of Egypt, a Samson of Hebrew lore, an Indian fakir, a Chinese philosopher, a mahatma of Tibet, or a European mathematician makes little difference.

"Theologian, scientist, and artisan are perpetually engaged in attempting to solve puzzles, while every game, sport, and pastime is built up of problems of greater or less difficulty. The spontaneous question asked by the child of his parent, by one cyclist of another while taking a brief rest on a stile, by a cricketer during the luncheon hour, or by a yachtsman lazily scanning the horizon, is frequently a problem of considerable difficulty. In short, we are all propounding puzzles to one another every day of our liveswithout always knowing it."

An orator makes his best effects by questions. The Book of Job is impressive largely because it is written in interrogative form.

Many trite quotations are questions. "What is truth?" or "Is life worth living?" arrest our attention because they are debatable queries. Who is not more interested in the Questions of the Day than in the known facts?

According to Mr. George Manville Fenn, the man who invented a wondrous and mysterious plot for a story deserves a palm.

"He must have been a deep thinker, one well versed in the philosophy of goose quill, knowing that his story would thrill the reader, and that he had achieved the great point of seizing upon that reader's imagination, and holding it, so that he would follow the mystery of the fiction to the very end. It may have been the result of some haphazard lucky thought, but still he must have been a careful student of every-day life, and must have duly noted how largely curiosity or the desire to fathom the unknown is developed in the human brain."

As with other human traits, inquiry is inherent to a greater extent and also more largely developed in some minds than in others. Some people say "How do you do?" and wait interestedly for your answer. Others say "How are you?" and without pausing for reply, go on to remark about the weather. But it is the people who are interested in answers who care for detective stories. It is the people who care for the solution of a problem who write and read mystery tales.

One who has studied these questions from many points of view, and, above all, noted how a story will "catch on," and almost electrically seize the imagination of the reading world, will constantly see that in the majority of cases the most popular fiction of the day is that in which mystery plays a prominent parta mystery which is well concealed. This is no secret. It is the natural desire for the weird and wonderfulthat hunger for the knowledge of the unknown which began with the forbidden apple; and the practiser of the art in question merely grows for those who hunger, a fruit that is goodly to the eye, agreeable to the taste, and one that should, if heor shebe worthy of the honored name of author, contain in its seeds only a sufficiency of hydrocyanic poison to make it piquant in savor. It is no forbidden fruit that he should offer, merely an apple that is hard to picka fruit whose first bite excites fresh desire, whose taste brings forth an intense longing for more, and of which the choicest and most enticing morsel is cleverly held back to the very end.

As Mr. Dudeney observes:

"It is extraordinary what fascination a good puzzle has for a great many people. We know the thing to be of trivial importance, yet we are impelled to master it, and when we have succeeded there is a pleasure and a sense of satisfaction that are a quite sufficient reward for our trouble, even when there is no prize to be won. What is this mysterious charm that many find irresistible? Why do we like to be puzzled? The curious thing is that directly the enigma is solved the interest generally vanishes. We have done it, and that is enough. But why did we ever attempt to do it? The answer is simply that it gave us pleasure to seek the solutionthat the pleasure was all in the seeking and finding for their own sakes. A good puzzle, like virtue, is its own reward. Man loves to be confronted by a mysteryand he is not entirely happy until he has solved it. We never like to feel our mental inferiority to those around us. The spirit of rivalry is innate in man; it stimulates the smallest child, in play or education, to keep level with his fellows, and in later life it turns men into great discoverers, inventors, orators, heroes, artists and (if they have more material aims) perhaps millionaires."

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