I’d like to suggest a different division that encompasses a lot of these varieties, namely closed vs open plotting. By closed, I mean something like the traditional mystery which, despite its relative modernity, has classical antecedents. Back in the day, Aristotle talked up the unities of time, place, and action, basing his analysis on the Greek tragedies that favored a tightly focused action with a few protagonists in one locale. Contemporary short mystery stories, anyone?The Greeks also liked to begin in media res, in the heart of the action, another favorite device of most modern mysteries, not to mention thrillers.
Beyond this, we see an interesting split. If the closed mystery may no longer be set in the country house or the isolated motel, it has a small universe of suspects and usually a fairly compact geographic area. This is particularly clear in the various UK mysteries that adorn PBS each season. Vera may be set out on the windswept moors and empty sands, but there are rarely more than five real suspects and, in this show at least, they are as apt to be related as in any Greek tragedy.
Midsomer Murders is also fond of a half dozen suspects, mostly unpleasant people who will never be missed. Ditto for Doctor Blake who, with all of Australia, sticks close to Ballarat and, yes, the handy five or so possibilities. Clearly, the attractions of this sort of story for the TV producers are the same attributes that pleased the Athenian town fathers: compact locations, smallish casts, one clear action. The emphasis is on the puzzle factors of mysteries, and at their best such works are admirably neat and logical.
The open mystery takes another tack, flirts with thriller territory, and likes to break out of confined spaces both geographic and psychological. If it has ancestors, they’re not the classically structured tragedies, but tall stories, quest narratives and, if we need a big name, Shakespeare, who loved shipwrecks and runaways and nights in the woods, as well as mixing comedy and tragedy and all things in between.
I’ve thinking about this divide for two reasons. First, I just finished what will be the last novel in the second Francis Bacon trilogy, Mornings in London. I really wanted a little bow to the great British tradition of the country house mystery, and I managed a country mansion – just the sort of place Francis hates – and a nice half dozen suspects. I had a victim nobody much liked and rather a nice crime scene, and I must confess that neither Francis nor I was really happy until I could get us both back to London and off to other places less claustrophobic.Turns out what I had long suspected was true: I’m not cut out for tidy and classical and ingenious puzzles. And I don’t write that way, either. I like to meander from one idea to the next, a method of composition much more conducive to glorified chases and quests than to Murder at the Manor. Too bad.
The other reason I got thinking about closed vs open plots was a quick dip into a Carl Hiaasen novel, one of his orgies of invention that spins off in every possible direction without somehow losing a coherent plot. If Agatha Christie is still the godmother of every good puzzle mystery, Hiassen’s satiric crime romps have certainly taken chases, quests, bizarre personalities, and imaginative disasters about as far as they can go.
I wonder now if writing style is inevitably connected with a certain type of mystery. Perhaps those who compose traditional, classically inspired mysteries are the same clever folk who can plan the whole business from the start. And maybe those of us with less foresight are inevitably drawn to a chase structure with a looser time frame, wider real estate, and more characters.
Love reading British cozies and armchair detective stories and have written a couple short stories in that vein. When it came to novels, I wrote about what I know.
ReplyDeleteMy first crime fiction novles were police procedurals. Familiar territory for me. As I branched out into private eye fiction, I still stayed with the private eye to show the action but got to drop in a few red herrings. Only I keep the books as realistic as I can and the PI is often in the dark. All the books were outlined before I started writing until I got tired of outlining. I had an ephiany, saw a few interviews with my friend James Sallis (author of the Lew Griffin New Orleans mystery series and many others, including DRIVE - made into an excellent movie with Ryan Gosling). Jim explained how he plotted DRIVE and others by starting with a character in a situation and letting the character lead him along. More surprises here. I liked that and have followed that lead in my latest books.
i can only agree. If I know the whole story when I start I am too bored to continue.
ReplyDeleteJanice and O'Neil, I ride with the characters and see what happens. Sometimes I know how it ends, but not how I get there; a lot of times not. I often think this is why I write so slowly, but at least I stay interested while I do. (I did a complete outline once or twice and was bored STIFF by the time I got to actually writing the story.)
ReplyDeleteI write both. The Goddaughter series is pure mayhem, of the madcap comedy sort. But I also write Christie style 5 suspect mysteries. I find them much harder to write, actually. Loopy comedy seems to seep into them no matter what I do. And I agree with you, Eve: if I outline completely, then I'm bored when actually writing. So I do a light outline - meaning I know my main crisis points and ending - and then embark on that journey with the characters.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is one of the many different things about the process of writing mostly novels vs. writing mostly shorts. For my short mystery stories, I do have an outline (or at least sort of a roadmap in my head) before I start--but that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the writing. In fact, I find myself anticipating what I know will be the next plot reversal or revelation and trying to prepare the reader for it, and that's fun, for me. Maybe the short length is the reason that kind of foreknowledge doesn't bore me. And by the way, my "outline" sometimes changes later, when I get into the actual writing--but I still have to have a good idea of where the story's going before I start.
ReplyDeleteI envy those of you who are more free-wheeling in their approach--I wish I could do it that way!
I outline my novels, but that outline changes many times before I reach the end of the first full draft. I usually have a general idea of how it ends but don't know how I'll get there...and sometimes that ending changes radically. I'm constantly adding, moving, or deleting scenes until that first full draft exists.
ReplyDeleteShort stories, I do almost no planning but jump right in and write. When I start the next day, I read what's already there and tweak it because I've probably thought of better (?) ideas overnight. That also keeps changing until I reach the end, then I go back and tighten everything.
I need at least the illusion that I know the ending or I could wander in the font forest for years and never be seen again. I learned that when I started writing my first (unpublished, unsold, unforgotten) novel 40 years ago. I had no outline and took a break after about 50 pages to go back and start listing characters. I had over 100 and most of them were expendable. So were most of the incidents because they were more a barrage of tangents than a coherent plot. A teaching moment.
I simply like good stories, well-plotted with superb characters. Okay, okay, I want it all!
ReplyDeleteI suspect there are as many different approaches as writers!
ReplyDelete