Something Old: Carolyn Wells
Something New: Carolyn Wheat

Back in 1913 Carolyn Wells (pictured left) produced a manual on how to write detective stories, called The Technique of the Mystery Story. She later released a revised edition. It has practical advice and in particular very good details on clueing. Since it is now out of copyright, you can read it for free (in the original edition) online at

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/ToMmenu.htm

But of course Wells was better known as a writer of mystery stories, most famously for her detective Fleming Stone, who faced locked room mysteries time after time. She was the first writer to specialize in the locked room mystery, and although most of the stories today seem unrealistic and disappointing due to their reliance on secret passageways, those same passageways were wonderful and mysterious to a more naïve reading public a century ago.

Wells also wrote light verse and children’s books, and between those and the locked-room stories, not many people remember what a good mystery manual she wrote. It’s overshadowed by the popularity of her novels, but at the time, it must have seemed like a gold mine to aspiring writers, since there was much less available in the way of writing instruction than there is today.

One person who appreciates that today is Carolyn Wheat, who is herself an outstanding writing instructor in the field of mystery and suspense. She has run many successful seminars and writing classes, and a few years ago she wrote How To Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse of Mystery and the Roller Coaster of Suspense. Wheat reviewed all the existing manuals first (including Wells’) and then wrote the best book on how to write a mystery ever written. Wheat clearly distinguishes the different techniques for mystery and suspense, and unlike most how-to manuals, which feature generic information about how to write a book with a mystery label stuck on, this one really gives you the inside scoop on the specific ‘tec techniques you need to know.

Wheat also wrote her own mystery series and many award-winning short stories in the ‘90s. Her series was about lawyer Cass Jameson working in the New York City legal system, something Wheat had done for years herself. The series has been over for a while now, and Wheat has said she won’t be continuing it, although she may start a new series. But a new generation of writers has access to a new gold mine of information, written by another Carolyn.

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(Bonus Bookfling: Mike Grost, as usual, has some interesting insights to offer about Wells’ novels at the Classic Mystery and Detection website. And you can read more about Carolyn Wheat here. )

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Something Old, Something New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.