On the weekend I stumbled across a post from author Harry Bingham on his blog Toasting Napoleon entitled Murder Most Boring. (Bingham is a successful author and he also now leads The Writers' Workshop which he set up, I believe. It offers advice to budding writers and more.)
But back to that post of his. It ain't all negative. Where Harry suggests that the mainstream or "highways" of crime fiction (from the good and the great in today's world) have become boring, he also adds that there is merit to be found in the "byways". So, in a comment to that post Murder Most Boring, I suggested some byways that he, and others may wish to travel down.
Today, we see another post referring to the comments on the original post. This one is called "Murder Most Boring - the Heated Debate". There are only three comments referred to, but they are inflammatory (including the start of mine, drenched in sweet cotton wool). From my original comment, Harry chose to excerpt only my negatively biased comment, ignoring my suggestions for beauties in the byways right now. Then came a certain Simon Brooke who said,
"...The thing with the crime novel is that it is too formulaic. That the formula was established too long ago, that (with a few honourable exceptions) its boundaries have not really been pushed, means that it's increasingly dead (there's an opportunity for a book here: The Death of Crime Fiction)..."
And then we had John Constable:
"If one accepts in the realms of crime fiction that there is unlikely to be a plot idea that someone hasn’t done before, probably several people several times before, then it seems the work has to offer something else that merits the reading of it. Unfortunately, this appears to be a bridge too far for many writing in this genre..."
Someone recently asked me for comments for an article he's writing for Publishing News in the UK. If Brooke and Constable represent south, my replies came from a respectable and ambitious north. I do believe that today's emerging crime fiction authors are pushing boundaries and that the age-old format is always tested and taken to the next level. Otherwise, it's boring and remains so; that's why these darlings test the boundaries. That's why readers keep reading and crime fiction makes it into the top ten every week.
I have little time for blogging at the moment, so I thought I'd bring this news (and links) to my cohorts-in-kind. You might like to pile in - and Harry is inviting a "heated debate". I'm working on a short reply as I write this, with notice that a full diatribe may appear next week after I've been to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival; but believe me, I really cannot understand some of the comments made and hope to put them in context.
You might get to "Murder Most Boring - the Heated Debate" before me. Good if you do. Let the aficionados rip!
I think this is a good debate in the making. Not least because, to date, Harry has attracted comments that feed to his negativity. Wherefore art thou - the positives? Previously biting eleswhere, I suspect.
Crime Fiction is not dead nor is it ever boring. Always something new turning up, new authors to discover and always the chance to also re-read old favourites. I have loved crime fiction since my first Agatha read when I was 11 (Ten Little Indians thought it had a most politically incorrect title then) and I was hooked. I have just read and reviewed the first in what is to be a series THE Mysteries of the Greek Detective by Anne Zouroudi which I thought was excellent and intriguing and wonder if you have come across it yet.
Posted by: Elaine Simpson-Long | 23 July 2008 at 17:05
I think the nub of it is that crime fiction isn't inherently regarded as being worthy.
I read a lot of such books - in fact I'd argue it constitutes the majority of my reading, yet when someone asks what I'm reading at the moment my instinctive response is to dismiss it as "oh, some trashy crime novel" - instead of gushing about it more fullsomely.
If a crime aficionado such as myself can't instantly gush positively about the inherent value of the genre, then it's no surprise that it gets a bit of a bad press and it's all too easy to fall back on thinking it to be formulaic and pot-boiler like; equally publishers and critics don't help - I'd argue that the very term "police proceedural" resonates with concepts like "dull" and "unimaginative"...
Posted by: Ian | 15 July 2008 at 12:14
Doesn't account for the fact that amongst readers (if not reviewers and authors) crime fiction is probably, apart from romance, the most popular of all the genres.
I for one am rarely bored and there is always something new, and old, to read.
Posted by: Kerrie Smith | 14 July 2008 at 22:34
I'm too tired to focus on this right now, but you seem to have identified a crucial issue, and a common view of crime fiction. So I'm going to come back to it when my mind isn't so worn out, thanks for picking this up. I shall return to it.
Posted by: maxine | 14 July 2008 at 21:18
Enjoy Harrogate I will be off in the next few days to the degree convocation with my camera. Do the candidates with Firsts go up first?
We will find out. I might join the debate to warm things up a bit.
Posted by: Norm | 14 July 2008 at 20:02