Sherlock Holmes: which facts are incidental, which are vital

Once again it’s time for a Sherlock Holmes quote that turns out to be about writing: “it is of the highest importance to the art of detection to be able to determine, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital.” (from The Reigate Puzzle).Back in the first year of this blog, I discussed Orson Scott Card’s theory that you can build a story around four things: setting, puzzle, character or event. The thing is, while a short story may involve a single one of the four, novels frequently require two or more.

Southern Discomfort for instance, is primarily a character story. Maria Esposito starts out burdened with guilt over a past tragedy, closed off from everyone and unable to do a job she loves, nursing. The book ends with her free of guilt, reconnected with the world and going to work for Doctors Without Borders. However it’s also a book about the setting, Pharisee County, Georgia.

For 300 years Pharisee’s residents have benefited from having Olwen and Aubric, two elves, guiding things from behind the scene. When the book starts, Aubric’s been murdered and everything is unstable: the forces of nature have become unmoored, Olwen’s still a target for the killer and Pharisee’s social structure risks becoming unmoored. By the end of the book stability has been restored, but not the status quo: things are changing, for better or worse. In a sense, Pharisee gets its own character arc.

But I could also make the case it’s an event story. It starts with Pharisee under attack, ends with the threat eliminated. As Holmes says, knowing which of these plot elements is incidental, which is vital is essential to finding my way through the maze of possible story choices.

I’m applying the same analysis to Let No Man Put Asunder as I review the first draft and think about the second Which of Card’s four elements is incidental, which the heart (for all Card’s loathsome politics, I still find his analysis useful).

It’s definitely not “about” the setting in the way Southern Discomfort is. It does have character arcs for protagonists Paul and Mandy. It’s also very much an “event” story: something happens in the first chapter that throws their world out of kilter, then they spend the rest of the book struggling to right the ship. But there’s a puzzle element as Mandy and Paul have to figure out why this weirdness has engulfed them.

With a puzzle story you start by posing a question, then end by answering it. I don’t think that’s where Asunder is going. While “why is this happening?” is a constant refrain throughout the story, the real focus is “how can we stay alive and free long enough to find out?” That’s much more about events; as I said last month, it’s very much in the “menace” genre where a lurking threat constantly imperils everyone (as in some of Lester Dent’s fiction).

Menace stories can be mysteries. The Doc Savage novel The Squeaking Goblin has a menace — the eponymous villain’s constant attacks on the Raymond family — but the focus is as much on why, and who the villain is, as it is on stopping him. In the typical Fu Manchu novel, by contrast, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith and his allies know who the villain is and what he wants; the challenge is stopping him.

While I’ve been thinking about the book primarily as a mystery — Paul and Mandy don’t know who the Community of All are or what the Community wants with them — I suspect it will play better if I treat it as event more than mystery. That would allow me to reveal more of what’s going on sooner, rather than holding for a big reveal at the climax. As Alfred Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut, resolving the mystery before the end keeps the audience focused on whatever you want the climax to be about instead of guessing about the reveal.

It’s also more event than character story. Mandy and Paul do have personal problems they’re dealing with but those problems don’t propel the plot — the threat from the Community’s killers does. That said, the story definitely needs stronger character arcs: Paul has a decent one in the first draft but Mandy doesn’t. The first draft ends with the downfall of the bad guys, then Mandy and Paul wrapping up their personal shit. I think that works and will probably remain but the details need to change.

Once I have the beginning and the end I can work on the arc in between. As I said in that previous post, the plot of the first draft doesn’t progress or arc, it just moves them across the game board. That won’t do.

Hopefully these insights will help as I start replotting.

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