Contents introduction chapter detective creating features

Aim of the work: Dislosure of crime is mandatory and the same solution for any detective.
Task of the work: The following research methods were used to solve the tasks in the course work:

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  Analyses the original text.
  
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  Disclosure of stylistic devices
  
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  Give an analysis of the identified stylistic devices
  
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  Differences in detective stories
  

Theoretical and methodological basic of the work:

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  Methodological analysis of translation
  
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  Theoretical analysis of scientic sources on the research problem.
  

CHAPTER 1 DETECTIVE CREATING FEATURES
Before proceeding to a direct analysis of the features and rules of the detective, we must clearly define our subject of analysis - the detective.
A detective story is mainly a literary and cinematic genre, the works of which describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the riddle. Usually, a crime acts as a quality of such an incident, and the detective describes his investigation and the identification of the perpetrators, and in such a case the conflict is based on a clash of justice with lawlessness, ending with a victory of justice.
The skill of the narrator should give the reader the illusion that the criminal does not even think of a criminal offense, and the author who portrayed the criminal does not think of literary forgery. A detective novel is a kind of intellectual game where the reader fights not so much with the criminal as with the author himself, creating more and more puzzles. And detective novels are created according to strictly defined laws - albeit unwritten, but nevertheless mandatory. Next, we gave a list of those laws, the so-called "canons" of the classic detective, which all successful writers are trying to comply with.¹
The reader must have equal opportunities with the detective to unravel the secrets of the crime. All clues must be clearly marked and described.
The reader must not be deliberately deceived or misled, except in those cases when, together with the detective, he is deceived by the offender according to all the rules of fair play.
The novel should not have a love line. After all, the detective’s goal is to put the criminal in the hands of justice, and not to unite lovers. Otherwise, it will be more of a novel than a detective.
A corpse cannot be dispensed with in a detective novel, and the more natural this corpse is, the better. Only murder makes the novel interesting enough. Who would read three hundred pages with excitement if it was a less serious crime! 1.1.The canons of the Classic detective and ways to create images of characters in fiction
The secret of crime must be revealed in a purely materialistic way. Such methods of establishing truth as witchcraft, spiritualistic sessions, reading someone else’s thoughts, fortune telling with the help of a “magic crystal”, etc. is completely unacceptable. The reader has some chance not to give in to quick-wittedness to a detective reasoning rationally, but if he is forced to compete with the spirits of the other world and chase the criminal in the fourth dimension, he is doomed to defeat.
It is not allowed to use more than one secret room or secret passage. We would add to this that the author should not introduce a secret door at all, unless the action takes place in a house in which one can assume the existence of such things. As the writer Knox Ronald says, "When I happened to resort to the secret passage in one book, I made sure to inform the reader in advance that the house belonged to the Catholics in the era of persecution of them."
. In the detective, random errors and undetected coincidences are impossible. For example, in real life, a witness can tell the truth, can lie, can be mistaken or be misled, but can just make mistakes unmotivated (accidentally mix up dates, amounts, last names). In the detective story, the last possibility is excluded - the witness is either accurate or lies, or his mistake has a logical justification (as happened in the book "Five Piglets" by Agatha Christie).
It is unacceptable to use hitherto unknown poisons, as well as devices that require a long scientific explanation at the end of the book. Maybe there are unknown poisons that have a completely unexpected effect on the human body, but until they are discovered, you can not use them in the works of detective literature, this is not by the rules! The method of murder and the means of solving the crime must meet the criteria of rationality and scientific. In other words, it is unacceptable to introduce pseudoscientific, hypothetical and purely fantastic devices into the detective. Because in this case, in order to appreciate how ingenious the riddle was, the reader has to listen to the curtain of a long scientific lecture.
Neither the detective, nor any of the official investigators should be a criminal himself. This rule applies only if the author personally attests that his detective is really a detective; a criminal can legally pretend to be a detective, as happened, for example, in “Three Blind Mice” by Agatha Christie, and mislead other characters by slipping false information to them.²
The stupid friend of the detective, Watson, in one form or another, should not hide any of the considerations that come to his mind; in terms of its mental abilities, it should be slightly inferior - but only very slightly - to the average reader. In principle, in a detective novel, it is quite possible to do without Watson. But if he is already there, then he exists in order to give the reader the opportunity to measure their intellectual powers with a sparring partner. Otherwise, closing the book, the reader may say something like this: "Maybe I didn’t think very smart, but at least I wasn’t such a dumbass stupid as poor old Watson."
Indistinguishable twin brothers and doubles in general cannot appear in a novel if the reader is not properly prepared for this. This is too simple a technique, and it is based on an unlikely assumption. We add in conclusion that no criminal should be credited with exceptional abilities in terms of changing his appearance, unless the author honestly warns us that this person, whether male or female, is used to making up for the stage.
There should be only one detective story, that is, only one main character of deduction. Mobilizing the minds of three, four, and even a whole detachment of detectives to solve the mystery of crime means not only scattering the readers' attention and breaking a direct logical thread, but also unfairly putting the reader at a disadvantage. If there is more than one detective, the reader does not know which of them he competes with in terms of deductive inferences. It’s the same as forcing the reader to race against the relay team.
The criminal should be a character who played a more or less noticeable role in the novel, that is, a character who is familiar and interesting to the reader. The offender must be in the foreground and at the same time not be evident at all, otherwise there will be absolutely nothing unexpected in revealing a secret - what is the point in the sudden appearance of a person whom no one is waiting for? So, the offender must be in sight, but beyond suspicion.³
No matter how many murders are committed in the novel, there must be only one criminal. Of course, the offender may have an assistant or accomplice providing him some services, but the entire burden of guilt should lie on the shoulders of one person. According to most writers, it is necessary to provide the reader with the opportunity to focus all the fervor of their indignation on a single black nature.
In a detective novel, secret gangster societies, such as camorra and mafia, are inappropriate. According to writer Van Dyne S., “... an exciting and truly beautiful murder will be irreparably corrupted if it turns out that the fault lies with a whole criminal company. Of course, the killer in a detective novel should be given hope for salvation, but letting him resort to the help of a secret society is already too much. No first-class, self-respecting assassin needs such an advantage. ” Yes, and such a detective can not be called a detective, rather, it will be a gangster action movie.
At any point in the book, the answer must be obvious - provided that the reader has the insight to solve it.
In the detective novel, long descriptions, literary digressions on side topics, a sophisticatedly subtle analysis of characters and the recreation of the “atmosphere” are inappropriate. All these things are irrelevant for the narrative of the crime and its logical disclosure. They only delay the action and introduce elements that have nothing to do with the main goal, which is to state the problem, analyze it and bring it to a successful solution. Of course, enough descriptions and well-defined characters should be introduced into the novel to give it credibility.
The guilt for committing a crime should never be blamed on a professional criminal in a detective novel. Crimes committed by burglars or bandits are investigated by police departments, not brilliant amateur detectives. “A truly exciting crime is a crime committed by a pillar of a church or an old maid known as a philanthropist,” says writer Van Dyne S.⁴
A crime in a detective novel should not prove to be an accident or suicide. To complete the tracking odyssey with such a decrease in tension means to fool the reader and ugly finish the detective story. In addition, the detective does not investigate accidents or suicides, because in the detective must be present all the components - a crime, a killer, an investigator.
All crimes in detective novels must be committed for personal reasons. International conspiracies and military politics are the property of a completely different literary genre - say, novels about secret intelligence services. A detective novel about the murder should reflect the reader’s daily experiences and, in a sense, give way to his own suppressed desires and emotions.
Nevertheless, to write a good detective, it is necessary not only to observe the norms of the genre, but also to create vivid characters that can hold the reader's attention. They will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.
This chapter will cover the basic ways of creating characters and characters and conflicts in fiction.
The famous novelist and philologist James N. Frey, in his scientific book How to Write a Brilliant Novel, says that characters for a writer are like bricks for a bricklayer or boards for a carpenter. Characters are the material from which the entire book is built. Therefore, in order to write an interesting book, it is necessary to create bright characters who will live in the reader’s mind for a long time.
To begin with, none of the characters are like real people. A character is always more beautiful or uglier, meaner or nobler, meaner or more magnanimous than a real person living in the real world. The character surpasses the real person in everything. A fictional person can be complex, changeable, even mysterious, but it must always be understood by the reader. If he suddenly becomes incomprehensible to the reader, the reader will simply close the book, and this will end. ⁵
In addition, the character, unlike a real person, is limited by the spatial scope of the plot. When a writer tells us about the life of a character in his work, he should mention only those thoughts, feelings, impressions, desires, etc. his hero, who are related to the development of his personality, affect his actions. They should be correlated with those traits of character that will play a decisive role when the hero encounters life conflicts prepared for him by the plot.
James N. Frey divides all characters into two types. The first type can be called "flat", "cardboard" or "one-dimensional". These are passing characters, extras characters. They appear on the pages of the novel to utter a couple of phrases, after which they disappear forever. These are waiters, bartenders, receptionists, newspaper traders, messengers. They may be described vividly, may not be described at all. The most important thing is that these characters are always on the periphery, they are far from the thick of events and the reader’s interest in them is small. There is no depth in such characters, the writer does not reveal the motives of their actions and their anxieties, doubts, fears, hopes.
The second type can be called “complete”, “multidimensional” or “trihedral”. The second type includes all the main characters of the work. Multidimensional characters have complex, complex motivation for doing things. Their souls are full of passions and ambitions, forcing to rush between their desires; they are tormented by resentment, love, anxiety. Creating such a character is worth the long and hard work, you can not shrug it off, because otherwise the reader will again cease to understand the character and will probably close the book. Therefore, in order to interest the reader, the writer needs, first of all, to get to know his characters as close as possible.⁶
We further examined how the creator of the work can “get to know the heroes better”.
Lajos Egri in his outstanding work “The Art of Creating Dramatic Works” (1946) calls multidimensional characters “trihedral” and highlights physiological, sociological and psychological facets. The physiological facet includes the physical data of the character: his weight, height, age, gender, race, state of health, etc. All this is very important, since external data, as in the real world, play a significant role in the fate of the character, the formation of his character, in his life. For example, if Marilyn Monroe weren’t beautiful, if Celine Dion didn’t have a good voice, and if Alina Kabaeva had been born disabled, they would never have achieved fame and popularity.
Aigri defines the second facet of the character as sociological. What social layer does the character belong to? What are his political beliefs and preferences? What religion does he have and does he believe in anything at all? How does he feel about money, career growth, patriotism? How many friends does the character have? Many or few, and who are they? In order to fully understand the character, the writer needs to trace his character traits from the very sources, from the moment of their formation. Let not everything be included in the book - at least an idea of ​​the above should be. If a writer cannot grasp the dynamics of character development, he will never fully understand the motives of his actions. After all, it is the character’s motivation that gives rise to a conflict in the work, a tension that holds the reader’s attention.
The third, psychological side, is the result of the interaction of physiological and social faces. The psychological side is the sphere of phobias and mania, complexes, fears, passions, fantasies, feelings of guilt, etc. The psychological side includes intelligence, habits, emotions, talents, various inclinations, self-confidence, the ability to make conclusions. The writer needs to clearly imagine the character traits and moments of the biography that will play a role in the development and behavior of the character in the book.⁷
In the work “Literature for the People” (1983), Robert Peck gives the following advice: “... before you print at the top of a virgin blank sheet“ Chapter 1 ”(and then sit a week later on this sheet, thinking about what to do next), you need to prepare each character". The phrase "prepare a character" means creating a background, background for each character. In other words, all heroes need a biography. For most writers, creating character biographies is the first mandatory preliminary step.
In our work, we consider detective stories, so it seems rational in this case to talk more about the detective story. Let's say the writer conceived a novel about a mysterious murder. There is no well-thought-out plot, there is only an idea. First of all, since this is a detective story, a writer needs a killer. It is he who will become the main villain, the main negative character of the work. The villains' machinations give impetus to the narrative, because it is with the killing that everything begins, therefore, in a sense, the villain is the "author" of the work. Which characters will still appear in the book depends entirely on the villain's plans. In view of this, in all detective stories (absolutely in everyone!), The murderer is a very complex and very smart person, since if he is stupid, the writer will not succeed in this detective story, an interesting book and an interesting investigation. After all, the speed of the murder investigation depends on the mind and wits of the villain.⁸
Then the writer needs the main character, the hero, who will reveal the crime.
There are different types of detective heroes in the books of the detective genre. There are four types of such heroes:
- sophisticated professionals (Inspector Battle),
- intellectuals (Hercule Poirot),
- gifted amateurs (Miss Marple, Miss Silver)
- random witnesses drawn into the thick of things (Anne Beddingfeld from The Man in the Brown Suit, Mark Eastbrook in The Pale Horse).
The writer has the right to decide which type of heroes to choose for him. One author prefers to follow the thoughts of intellectuals, such as Sherlock Holmes, another is interested in purely philistine comparisons of amateurs, and the third likes to be horrified with an innocent victim, the will of a case involved in the investigation of a crime. And there are also writers who are delighted with a strong courageous investigator walking through mud and slush along dark dangerous lanes, breaking their heads while dodging bullets and dodging them. And in connection with what type of protagonist the writer chooses, the style of narration is also changing. True, there is one unshakable rule for writing a detective: the protagonist of a detective must necessarily be decisive, stubborn, have a serious incentive to action. Or there must be some external factors compelling him to act decisively. (For example, the killer seriously threatens the main character or members of his family.) Otherwise, the main character will lose to the killer, the crime will not unravel and an interesting book will not work. A positive hero must be (physically or mentally) tantamount to a villain - only then will their struggle be exciting, long and exciting.
In modern literature, the genre of the detective story is widely developed and includes many works. How, then, do detective writers (and just writers) avoid creating stereotypical characters? Here, stereotypical characters are understood as characters that are too well recognizable and meet all the expectations of the reader, there are no contradictions in them and they do not bring any surprises: a libertine with a golden heart, a sheriff-sadist who draws words, a private detective, harsh outside, but kind and gentle inside, and so on.
In this case, the writer introduces a character into the character of the hero that would distinguish him from the stereotype or contradict some other features of his character, in other words, “break” the stereotype. But it should be noted that breaking a stereotype is permissible only if this breaking is justified. It should fit well with the character of the character, logically follow from the features of his physical or psychological development, social status. It is unacceptable to break the stereotype only in order to surprise or shock the reader. Otherwise, it will look silly, or greatly change the opinion of readers about the character, and not always for the better.
The secret to creating an original new character lies in the ability to weave into his character unexpected, at first glance, poorly combined features. Hard canons do not exist here, but in order not to create a character that causes the reader to be perplexed or grin, all professional writers from time to time ask the question: "Are my characters believable?"
In fact, this question is very important for character development. Asking this question, the author, as it were, defines the framework of his hero, the field of his actions and his strength. It is advisable to talk about the principle of "full power." What is it?
The principle of "full power" requires that the character act not at the absolute maximum of human capabilities, but at the absolute maximum of his potential. To reveal this “absolute maximum” of the hero’s potential, the clever author puts obstacles for his heroes that the hero has to overcome. Characters acting in full force use all means available to them. They will work hard, trying to achieve their goal. But you should not forget that everyone has a different potential. So, for example, someone sets himself the goal of winning the Olympics, someone just wants to communicate freely with friends. And if the hero goes beyond his potential, then this will look implausible. Imagine that the hero of the book is an extremely shy and fearful person. One day some guys pester him on the street and insult him. And then our hero takes out a knife (or stick) and beat them half to death. If the hero is sane, and it’s not about a “black” comedy, then this story is simply unrealistic. A hero can do this only if he has good reason for this action. Without a doubt, the character's shyness limits his freedom of action. But if the writer wants his character to be interesting, then he will come up with such options and situations that would allow the character to express himself. The reader should see that the character is acting to the limit of his abilities.
A huge role in the work is played by the ways of describing heroes. There are several positions of the narrator, in other words, forms of narration.
All forms of narrative are divided into two categories: subjective and impartial. When using subjective forms of narration, the narrator knows about the thoughts and feelings of at least one character. When using impartial forms of narration, the narrator does not reveal a single character's inner world.
If the narrator is constantly outside the characters, away from their inner world, if he tells us about events as if he is watching a play, we are dealing with an impartial approach. This form of storytelling is called an impartial approach, because the narrator is outside the character, considers his actions “objectively”. The reader does not know what the hero feels, what he thinks, what he is going to do. The narrator plays the role of an observer, carefully recording everything that he sees and hears.
An impartial approach is extremely rare. It is needed when you want to create a halo of mystery around the character. It is used in detective stories and espionage novels, bringing the main villain to the scene. Dealing with this form of narration, we know about the actions of the heroes, but we do not get the slightest idea about their inner world. As a rule, an impartial narrative quickly bores readers. They want to get to know the characters better, and an impartial narrative does not. And the writer has a lot of difficulties in the process of working on the book. To reveal the inner world of heroes, you need to pay a lot of attention to the description of their gestures, manners, facial expressions, intonation, and most often this leads to a significant increase in the volume of the book.
One way to familiarize the reader with the character is to resort to a modified, impartial approach. With this approach, the narrator is not aware of the inner world of the heroes, he only builds guesses about him. The narrator, using a modified impartial approach, honestly sets out what is happening. He brings to us what any observant person will notice. The narrator draws the same conclusions that the reader would come to. The narrator does not pretend to understand what is happening in the soul of the hero, and does not tell us reliable information about his condition. Despite the impartiality of the above, when using a modified impartial approach, the character seems closer, because the narrator creates the illusion of a subjective approach.
First-person narration is always subjective. The narrator knows about the thoughts and feelings of one character, since he himself is. The narrator can take the role of any character, he can be the main character, can be his rival. In the first-person narrative, there are many advantages, especially for beginning writers. It’s more familiar to write in the first person, since all people have experience in this, take at least school essays, letters or personal diaries. Moreover, the first-person narrative is perceived as eyewitness testimony, it looks more believable.
However, this type of narration has many advantages and many disadvantages. The writer cannot move to where the narrator cannot be, or tell about those events that the narrator was not witness to.
In addition, if the narration comes from the first person perspective, the author will have to reveal the inner world of the heroes only through their actions, views and words, and this is not easy even for an experienced writer. In the first-person narrative, there is one more danger - the reader will become bored. When it comes to the feelings or actions of the hero, endless selves are perceived either as complaints or as boasting.⁹
When the narrator resorts to accepting an all-seeing gaze, he initiates us into the inner world of all heroes. This form of narration is the most subjective. It gained the greatest distribution in the Victorian era, when the authors were worried about the problems of society. They felt the need to reveal to the reader a more complete picture of what was happening, and for this they had to disclose the thoughts and motives of the vast majority of characters. However, since the author’s gaze constantly jumps from one character to another, the reader is unable to get to know any of the characters closely. In this regard, modern authors rarely resort to this form of narration.
In the case of a modified all-seeing gaze, the narrator describes what is happening in the soul of not all, but of individual heroes: usually the main one and two or three less significant ones. This form of narration has many virtues. When the narrator reveals the character’s inner world, the reader magically merges with the hero. The narrator’s omniscience is limited to only a few characters. The reader does not need to constantly jump from the inner world of one hero to the inner world of another. At the same time, the reader has the opportunity to get to know not just one, but several characters at once.
How do writers choose a narrative form? The “masters” of the pen advise: in order to choose the right form of narration, one must ask the question: “Who will become the best storyteller?” That is, on whose behalf the described story will be more exciting and believable. Some writers combine narrative forms, for example, in the detective Agatha Christie's "Death by Alphabet," you will find alternate narratives from the first and third parties. And in some of her works - a combination of an impartial and subjective look. However, too frequent alternation of styles is tiresome, and only honored masters can forgive this alternation. In most cases, it is recommended to resort to a modified all-seeing gaze.