Chapter 9 The Ten Commandments and the Double Ten Commandments

Be careful what I command you today. As time progressed, the classical detective novel reached its pinnacle.Many writers represented by the "Golden Three Giants" have established the supreme majesty of detective novels through classic works.In this process, some concepts and techniques generally recognized by creators have been further established and elevated to "standards".These rules gradually became the precepts that must be followed in the creation of detective novels in that era, constraining the connotation and extension of each work, and ensuring that some characteristics of the "golden age" will not be "trampled at will" by the creators (such as what we wrote in the previous chapters) The fairness mentioned in the book, the supremacy of solving puzzles, etc.).

Throughout the history of detective novels, and even the history of world literature, every era has its own characteristics and rules.But in the "Golden Age", the characteristics are so specific and distinct, the rules are so clear and strict, absolutely never before, and probably never since. When it comes to the creative rules of the "Golden Age", the first thing we have to mention is undoubtedly Ronald Knox's "Ten Commandments"-yes, the "Ten Commandments" not only belong to God, but also belong to detective novels. The British Ronald Knox has a pivotal position in the history of detective novels.First of all, he is an excellent writer, who has created classic detective novels such as "Sherlock Holmes" and "Sherlock Holmes"; secondly, he is the first person who raised "Sherlock Holmes" to an academic level, and then created "Sherlock Holmes"; The most famous thing is that he was the first person who tried to formulate rules for the creation of detective novels, and finally formulated the "Ten Commandments", making an immortal contribution to the development of detective novels.

Those who know Knox should not be surprised—it is really appropriate for him to formulate the "Ten Commandments", because Knox should be the most closely related to religion among all detective writers in ancient and modern China and abroad. On February 17, 1888, Knox was born in an English clergyman's family.Knox's grandfather was the head of the Anglican diocese and his father was the bishop of Manchester. Knox is a very bright boy, eloquent and writing are quite outstanding.His grades at parochial school were excellent, and teachers and parents had no doubts that he would make a good state priest.

During his studies, Knox developed a strong interest in detective novels, especially Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.He quickly got in touch with Jazz, and Jazz appreciated the young man's rigorous attitude towards Holmes. In 1912, Knox became an Anglican priest.However, what is unexpected is that Knox soon "betrayed" the family's proud beliefs passed down from generation to generation.He became extremely suspicious of the state church and entered the Roman Catholic Church instead.The old Knox was startled and angry, and resolutely announced that he would terminate all relations with Ronald and drive this unworthy son out of the house.

The Catholic Church has undoubtedly picked up a big deal.The talented Knox was ordained a priest in 1919.At this time, he was quite famous and had published many literary works. In 1925, Knox published his detective debut.The book is light-hearted, humorous and subversive.Knox thus rose to fame in the field of detective writing.In later published works, Knox portrayed the serial detective Miles Brighton.The insurance company's investigators are lazy and quick-witted, always able to debunk the truth inadvertently.Among them, Brighton's short story "The Walker in the Chamber of Secrets" is recognized as one of the most outstanding short detective stories in the world.

Due to the unprecedented prosperity of detective novels, many creators are trying to sublimate those unwritten writing conventions into rules to be followed in order to better demonstrate the spirit of the "Golden Age". In 1928, in a preface, Ronald Knox imitated the "Ten Commandments" in the "Bible" and formulated ten rules. This is the famous "Ten Commandments for Detectives". The ten rules are: 1. The murderer must appear in the first half of the story, and his thinking cannot be exposed to the readers; 2. There should be no supernatural power in the story;

3. No mysterious rooms or secret passages are allowed; 4. There should be no poisons that do not exist in the story, and crime tools that are too complicated and require long explanations; 5. There must be no Chinese among the colored people; 6. Never rely on accidents and intuition to solve the case; 7. Detectives cannot commit crimes; 8. Detectives should not focus on clues irrelevant to the case, so as not to mislead readers; 9. The detective's loyal but clumsy friend, whose thinking should be presented to the reader.Moreover, its IQ is best below the average person; 10. The murderer cannot be twins unless stated otherwise.

The Ten Commandments were enacted in 1928.Therefore, from today's point of view, some backwardness is inevitable.But it is undeniable that these rules played an important role at the time and have always influenced subsequent creators.Detective novels were created by Allan Poe, but even Poe himself did not think that this genre would have any future; although a group of authors represented by Conan Doyle created many classic detective novels, they were only one It's just a concrete display.It wasn't until Knox's "Ten Commandments" came out that we theoretically recognized what kind of novels were detective novels and how detective novels should be written.Therefore, even if we do not enshrine Knox as "God", at least, the title of "Godfather" is beyond doubt!

In particular, #5 of the Ten Commandments may surprise and displease readers of this book, but it is a complete misunderstanding.For the Chinese, Knox has no contempt or malice.Restricted by cognitive conditions at that time, in the eyes of Westerners, the Chinese were magical (in fact, today, many Westerners still believe that every Chinese is like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Jet Li, with unique skills), And magic is an absolutely forbidden element in the detective novels of the "Golden Age".Therefore, it is understandable that the Godfather Knox excluded the Chinese. But everything is always difficult to be perfect.In the eyes of the detective world, Knox's pioneering work has aroused the dissatisfaction of the Catholic Church—it is no wonder that mortals have casually formulated the "Ten Commandments" that can only be formulated by God, and the Church certainly cannot tolerate it.Under the intervention of many external factors, Knox had to give up the creation and research of mystery novels and concentrate on teaching affairs.In his later years, Knox translated the Latin Bible into English, which is the famous "Knox version" of the Bible.

The "Ten Commandments" is a great creation, but in the field of detectives, there is another set of "rules and precepts" that are ten times more powerful than the "Ten Commandments". The "Golden Age" began in Europe and developed in the United States.At the same time that Knox was formulating the Ten Commandments, an American writer across the ocean was doing the same work.He is the "Godfather of American Detective" S. S．van dyne. Van Dyne, whose real name is Willer Huntington Wright, was born in Virginia, USA in 1888. He graduated from Harvard University. At the age of 25, he served as the editor-in-chief of the extremely popular magazine "Coincidental Placement" at that time. He was a well-known art critic. Home.

During an illness and hospitalization, Van Dyne read a large number of detective novels (he claimed to have read more than 2,000 volumes), thus giving birth to the idea of ​​writing detective novels.After being discharged from the hospital, Van Dyne found a publisher with the writing outline of three detective novels.The publisher was so interested that he immediately paid Van Dyne a $3,000 advance in royalties.But Van Dyne was worried that writing popular novels would affect his reputation, so he decided to use a pen name to create. The pen name "S.S. Van Dyne" was thus born - "SS." is the abbreviation of "SteamShip"; "Van Dyne" is the surname of an ancient nobleman. In 1926, Van Dyne's first novel, The Benson Murder, was published.Enter Philo Vance, an art collector and aristocratic amateur detective.The sales of the novel easily exceeded one million, and the "golden age" of American detective novels began. Since Edgar Allan Poe, the halo of detective novels has been taken by Europe, and the detective creations in the United States have not been bright.Van Dyne is a sage-like figure. His appearance made American detective novels officially enter the long-length era, and directly inspired and influenced the creation of later famous writers such as Ellery Quinn. Van Dyne is a perfectionist.He created a total of 12 mystery novels in his life, all of which were created in accordance with the "six-letter rule" ("The Murder of Grace Allen" can also be regarded as a "six-letter" work).The names of Van Dyne's works are all called "×× Murder Case", and the original English text is written as "The×××××× Murder Case".The "××××××" in the name is a word consisting of six letters (such as Benson, Bishop, Canary, etc.), which is the so-called "six-letter rule". This perverted rule is the first time in history to use a series title to create a detective novel. Later, the immortal works "National Name Series" and "Tragedy Series" created by Quinn were all influenced by Van Dyne.This law is the embodiment of Van Dyne's strong strength and absolute confidence, and is the best commentary of the master. For a person who is "paranoid" to such an extent, it couldn't be easier to make some rules.In 1928, Van Dyne compiled "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Fiction", or "Twenty Rules" for short. "Twenty Articles" stipulates the creation principles of detective novels more rigorously and comprehensively than "Ten Commandments", more clearly emphasizes the spirit of "fairness first", and brings the charm of classical detective novels to the extreme. The twenty articles are: 1.The reader and the detective must have an equal opportunity to solve the mystery, and all clues must be clearly explained. 2.In addition to the necessary criminal techniques that the murderer plays on the detective, there should be no deliberate deceit or shady tricks to fool the reader. 3.Do not add love elements to the story, lest irrational emotions interfere with purely rational deduction.What we want is to send the murderer to the court of justice, not to send a bitter couple to the altar of marriage. 4.Detectives themselves or police investigators cannot turn themselves into murderers.This is equivalent to taking a penny copper plate and saying that it is a five-dollar gold coin. This is a false statement. 5.The accusation of a murderer must be based on logical reasoning and cannot be based on accidents, coincidences, or confessions by suspects without reasonable motives.Solving the case in the latter way is undoubtedly deliberately driving readers to search in a place where it is impossible to find the answer, and only after the readers fail to return, tell them that the answer is in your pocket from beginning to end.Such an author is no better than a comedian. 6.A detective novel must have a detective, and a detective cannot be called a "detective" unless he investigates the case.The task of the detective is to collect all possible clues, and then use these clues to find out who committed the evil deeds at the beginning of the story.If the detective cannot deduce the final conclusion through the analysis of the clues, it will not be considered to have really solved the puzzle, just like the elementary school student who peeked at the arithmetic textbook and solved it. 7.Dead bodies usually appear in detective novels, and the more suspicious things the dead body reveals, the better.A crime without homicide is too thin, too underweight, and three hundred pages for a crime so mundane is too much.After all, readers must be rewarded for their time and effort.Americans are inherently more human, so a vicious murder arouses in them vengeance and fear, and they want the murderer to be brought to justice.Therefore, when a "vicious" murder occurs, no matter how good-natured readers are, they will hunt down the murderer with enthusiasm for justice. 8.The case can only be solved by natural means.As far as detective stories are concerned, magic, divination, mind reading, séances, or crystal balls are taboo.Only as a scientific story, readers have a fair opportunity to participate in the battle of wits, but if they compete with the magical world, or even cross the four-dimensional metaphysical world to catch the murderer, the readers are doomed to lose at the starting point. 9.There can only be one detective, that is to say, the protagonist who is responsible for the real reasoning and arresting the murderer is unique like the god of peace in the ancient Greek war drama.Bringing in three or four detectives to solve a puzzle will only distract the fun of reading, disrupt the flow of logical reasoning, and even deprive readers and detectives of the right to a fair battle of wits.With more than one detective, the reader can't figure out who his real rivals are. It's like asking a reader to single out a relay team. 10.The murderer has to be a somewhat important character in the novel.That is to say, the murderer must be a character whom the reader is interested in and knows somewhat about.If the novel goes on to the last chapter and only adds the crime to a stranger or an insignificant character, it is tantamount to the author admitting that he is incompetent and unworthy to compete with the reader. 11.Those who are servants, such as housekeepers, porters, waiters, stewards, cooks, etc., cannot be chosen as murderers.Because such a murderer is too obvious and easy to find out, this kind of treatment is really unsatisfactory, and readers will think it is a waste of time.The murderer has to be someone worth the time and effort to find—usually the one who is least suspected.If the murderer is really some lowly servant, then there is no need for the writer to write such a story into a book and let the world remember it. 12.Even in serial murders, there can only be one murderer.Of course, the murderer can have accomplices or conspiracies, but only one person must be allowed to instigate all responsibility for the crime, and all the readers' anger must be focused on the only villain. 13.In a detective novel, it is best not to have a secret society, a gang, or a criminal group such as a mafia, otherwise the author is writing an adventure novel or a spy novel.If such a perfect and suspenseful murder case was disturbed by such a large number of people, it would be irretrievably over.Of course, the murderer in a detective novel should still have his legitimate chance of escape, but it is obviously too much to have a whole huge secret organization behind him (such as omnipresent hiding places or the protection of a large number of horses).I believe that a self-respecting first-class murderer will not put himself on the scene in an impenetrable armor when confronting the detective. 14.The method of killing and solving the case must be reasonable and scientific.That is to say, detective fiction does not allow the use of pseudo-scientific, pure fantasy or speculative devices.For example, it is unreasonable for the deceased in a murder case to be killed by a newly discovered element such as super-radium;A detective writer must limit his imagination in regard to poisons to no more than the usual pharmacopoeia.If the author is unconstrained in the imaginary world, flying in the non-existent time and space without taboos, it will escape the boundaries of mystery novels. 15.The truth of the puzzle must be clear and coherent, so that readers with sharp eyes can see through it.I mean, after the case is revealed, if the reader re-reads the novel, he will clearly find that the key to solving the case is always in front of his eyes, and all the clues point to the same murderer.If he's as smart as the detective, he won't have to wait until the last chapter to solve the case himself.Of course, such readers do exist.My basic theory of detective fiction is that if a detective novel is fairly structured, it is impossible for the reader not to discover the answers for himself.It is to be expected that there must be a section of the reader who is as savvy as the author.If the author has enough sportsmanship and the criminal plan and clues are honestly described in the book, these keen readers can identify the suspect through analysis, reasoning and elimination just like the detectives in the book. It is the fun of this game, and it can also explain why some readers who disdain to read popular literature do not feel blushed when they read detective novels. 16.Excessively long narrative text, subtle character analysis, excessive atmosphere creation, or playing with text on some side issues should not appear in detective novels.These are completely unimportant in the process of recording and reasoning about crimes.Our main purpose is to state the problem and to draw satisfactory conclusions from it through analysis.And this kind of text will only hinder the development of the plot and add irrelevant things to the theme.Of course, the necessary narrative and description of characters can make the novel more realistic.When the author describes the story very captivatingly, the reader's emotions can be fully invested in the development of the plot and the portrayal of the characters.In this he has brought the artifice of the pure literature to the same level as the veracity and consistency required of the criminal document.Writing detective novels is a very rigorous thing. Readers don’t read it for gorgeous words and styles, nor for gorgeous narratives and emotional projections, but for mental activities that stimulate the brain—just like they go to Like going to a ball game or playing Scrabble.In a baseball game, if you tell the players how beautiful the natural scenery of the stadium is at the changing time, how can this motivate the players to want to win?If the vocabulary in the charade is mixed with difficult words used in academic papers in linguistics, it will only make the guesser feel restless while playing the game. 17.Professional criminals should not be held accountable for crimes in detective fiction.As for the bad things done by burglars and thugs, that is the responsibility of the police, not of writers and brilliant amateur detectives. Such crimes are the routine work of the Criminal Division.A truly attractive crime should be committed by some respectable figure in the church, or an old lady known for her charity. 18.In detective fiction, crimes must never end in accidents or suicides.This kind of anticlimactic ending is tantamount to making an unforgivable joke on the readers.If anyone had bought this book, found it all deceitful, and demanded his money back, any fair court would have sided with him and punished the author who had deceived his loyal readers. 19.The motives for crimes in detective stories are all personal.As for the political game of international intrigue and strategy, it belongs to another kind of fiction, for example, stories like secret service organizations.The murder plot must maintain a certain degree of approachability, so that it can reflect the readers' daily life experience and let them vent their long-pressed desires and emotions. 20.Here are a few commonly used methods (by the way, round up my rules), and these methods have been used badly.A detective novelist who knows how to respect himself will usually not use it again, because all detective fiction fans are all too familiar with these methods.Anyone who uses it is tantamount to admitting their ignorance and lack of originality. (A) Compare the cigarette butts left at the scene of the crime with the brand of cigarettes the suspect smoked to find the murderer. (B) Fake apparitions of the victim to scare the killer into confessing. (C) Forged fingerprints. (D) Using a dummy to create an alibi. (E) Because the dog does not bark, it means the intruder is an acquaintance. (F) An innocent person identified as the murderer turns out to be the murderer's twin brother (or sister) or a close-looking relative. (G) Injected with a syringe or put in a drink. (H) The murders don't really begin until the police break into a locked room. (I) Use the relevant words to test for guilt. (J) Use of codes or code words, which are eventually detected by detectives. It is not difficult to see that with the introduction of Van Dine's "Twenty Points", the writers and their works in the "Golden Age" have been regulated to an incomparable degree.The positive significance and historical status of the "Ten Commandments" and "Twenty Articles" have been emphasized many times before.However, as a rule, with the advancement of events and changes in the objective environment, its disadvantages will inevitably be exposed.It is not difficult to imagine that if a style is constrained to this level, its development will inevitably be hindered. When this obstacle accumulates to a certain extent, it will inevitably have an impact on detective novels (accurately speaking, classical detective novels in the "golden age"), and eventually lead to major changes and even revolutions.If any major objective event happens to break out at this point in time, this kind of change or revolution will hit with overwhelming force and swallow everything. In the next section, we will start from the disadvantages of "Ten Commandments" and "Twenty Rules", and accept the unprecedented black baptism in the history of detective novels.