Dame Agatha Christie earned her place in The Guinness Book of
World Records as the best-selling novelist in the world with sales of over four
billion books. She is also the third most widely translated author, beaten only
by William Shakespeare and the Bible.
Reassuringly for anyone struggling to follow in her footsteps, after four years working on her first novel, even she was rejected by all the
leading publishers of her day, before The Bodley Head press took a chance with
her.
It seems the writing process was not easy, even for such a
prolific writer. When asked how she went
about her writing, Christie said “There is no agony like it. You sit in a room,
biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself
down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off."
Plotting ideas
Agatha Christie liked to keep an exercise book to hand for
jotting down plot ideas and would carefully organise her notebooks with labels.
She still managed to lose track of where she had jotted things down though, as
she invariably had half a dozen notebooks on the go at the same time.
One of the first authors to understand her commercial genre,
she would start with an idea for a method of murder, then move to the murderer
and come up with an interesting motive. Only then would she start plotting all
the other suspects and what may motivate them. It was fairly easy then for her
to devise the all-important ‘clues’ and plant a few false trails.
She said plots came to her suddenly. She was always on the
lookout for a “neat way of covering up the crime so that nobody would get it
too soon”. Agatha would then go
on long solitary walks across Dartmoor to think over her plot ideas and saying her dialogue out loud. At other
times she said she would be walking along the street “when suddenly a splendid
idea pops into your head.” She would also study the newspapers, looking for
details of what she called “a clever bit if swindling.”
Developing characters
Agatha would observe people in restaurants and social
gatherings as a starting point of creating her characters, jotting down their
mannerisms and phrases. She had a strict rule about not using recognisable real
people and felt strongly that the writer must always "make up something
for yourself about them." She once said that the only time she tried to
put a real person who she knew well into a book, it wasn’t a success.
She often worked on her favourite Remington Victor T portable typewriter on a sturdy table, as she didn't have a study until late in her career. Part of the secret of her astounding productivity was that
she usually worked on at least two books at the same time.
Agatha also tried dictating to her secretary, Carlotta Fisher, but felt much happier writing in longhand and then typing it out, as this helped her keeping to the point.
Agatha also tried dictating to her secretary, Carlotta Fisher, but felt much happier writing in longhand and then typing it out, as this helped her keeping to the point.
In her later years, after she broke her ‘writing wrist’ she also
used a Grundig Memorette dictaphone and said "It is odd how hearing your own
voice makes you self-conscious and unable to express yourself."
Interestingly, her grandson Mathew Prichard, discovered over twenty of the old tapes in a cardboard box, long after her death. The tapes turned out to be the material on which her autobiography was based. Also discovered in 2005 were 73 handwritten notebooks, which have been published by Agatha Christie expert John Curran as Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making, available on Amazon US and Amazon UK
Interestingly, her grandson Mathew Prichard, discovered over twenty of the old tapes in a cardboard box, long after her death. The tapes turned out to be the material on which her autobiography was based. Also discovered in 2005 were 73 handwritten notebooks, which have been published by Agatha Christie expert John Curran as Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making, available on Amazon US and Amazon UK
Other Posts on the Habits of Famous Writers:
That was a very interesting and edifying article. And beautifully written too. Cheers.
ReplyDeletemood
Moody Writing
Thank you I really appreciate your feedback. I am hoping to post on a different writer each month, so watch this space :)
DeleteLovely article, thank you! I'm an Agatha fan since my grandmother, a great lover of mystery, shoved a Miss Marple book into my hand some three decades ago, so I really enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteThanks Guilie glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteChristie was my sole inspiration to become a mystery writer. It looks as if I chose the best! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete~Nancy Jill Thames
Author of The Jillian Bradley Mystery Series
Hi Nancy thanks for visiting my blog. I like your celebrity author interviews - and you give them afternoon tea!
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