The Chopping Blog

The closed-circle mystery, distinct from a locked-door puzzle, amplifies tension through containment.

When Poe published this story in 1841, the word “detective” did not exist.

A mystery can be embedded into a novel without it being classified as a mystery. It’s a great way to heighten the tension and stakes in another genre—like a family drama.

Memoir contains many of the same structures as fiction. The memoirist has an equivalent need to create emotional draw in readers—that quality of a narrative that keeps us engaged, anticipatory, and thus turning pages.

Postmortem is a police procedural, which means the focus is on the investigative process from the point of view of law enforcement agencies.

The appeal of the detective subgenre lies, in part, in its episodic nature. Unlike other genres, mysteries do not (necessarily) need extensive side quests or relationship arcs.

Arthur Conan Doyle arrived on the scene when detective fiction was still in its infancy.

According to Waugh, a convert to Catholicism, this is a book about grace.

Heart of Darkness is the most frequently analyzed work of literature in universities and colleges, probably because Conrad doesn’t spell things out for his readers.

Vito Corleone is a godfather of crime, but he is also a godfather of plot.

The episodic structure of The Call of the Wild is a feature common in coming-of-age stories. This approach works when the protagonist has significant room for growth.

Eighty-four days without a catch was also the essence of Hemingway’s professional situation. He hadn’t had a successful book in over a decade. Critics thought he was done.