d. Crime Fiction

 

This week we will be studying a classic example of detective fiction: the Sherlock Holmes short story A Case of Identity by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This story was first published in 1891, and is now out of copywrite and can be accessed freely along with many other Sherlock Holmes stories: you can read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes online here.

 

The following presentation will take you through some of the conventions of the crime genre, before exploring the context surrounding Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, and then finally looking at some key passages:

 Prezi is also available at this URL: http://prezi.com/sjpx4rphqy4u/year-8-literature-crime-fiction/

 

Task One: Whodunit?

Come up with a crime of some sort – big or small, amusing or serious. You will need to identify:

(1)   The victim

(2)   The suspects

(3)   The crime scene (setting)

(4)   The crime itself

(5)   Provide some supporting details, clues, hints, etc to the identify the offender

Write out an outline of the crime, making sure you describe what people saw or heard, the crime scene, identify the suspects, and list any other relevant details. However, you should NOT identify the culprit – this is what your readers will have to guess! Don’t make it too easy to guess the offender’s identity, but don’t make it impossible either.

You will then be swapping your crime story with someone else and play the detective to see if you can decipher their mystery. Can you solve this whodunit?

 

Task Two: The perfect crime…

Can you come up with the ‘perfect crime’: a crime so intricate and well planned that no one could possible catch the culprit? A crime so perfect that no one could figure out who committed the dastardly act? Play the role on the criminal mastermind, and explain what the crime would be, and describe how you would go about committing it in such a way as to avoid capture. How ambitious can you be?

 

 

The ’10 Commandments’ of Crime Writing

Ronald Knox, a rather famous crime writer from the early Twentieth Century, came up with the following 10 commandments of crime fiction:

 

 

 

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

 

Do you agree with these ‘commandments’? Can you follow the reasoning behind them? Remember that with creative writing, it is just as (if not more) important to know when to break the rules as when to follow them.

 

Extra Resources

For some more “Top 10 Tips” (there are pleanty out there) and other resources that may help you develop your crime writing skills, have a look at the following websites: