Writing Lessons I’ve Learned from History's Bestselling Novelist

Agatha Christie. This is the name I read in a small book rack with the plastic sign “crime fiction” above it. A collection of her works had just come out, and I was immediately hooked by the blurb on the back of a book. Since then, I have read many of her short stories and novels, finding her intricate characters and suspenseful narratives enthralling each time.

Quick history lesson: née Miller, Agatha was born in 1890 and died in 1976. She learned to read on her own when she was five years old, and she served as a nurse in her hometown during World War I. Her first novel was rejected by every publisher she sent her manuscript to, but she finally achieved publishing The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920. She eventually became the bestselling novelist of all time (more than four billion books sold), and a successful playwright as well (her play The Mousetrap surpassed 28,200 performances until 2020).

I believe that reading is one of writers’ best learning opportunities, and these are some of the tips and tricks I have learned from Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie.
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Drawing Inspiration From Our Surroundings
It is often discussed that people should use their own experiences to write. But when writing crime fiction, Christie had not exactly faced any murderers or thieves (none that we know of, at least). Instead, she drew inspiration from the people she met and the places she visited. A Belgian refugee she met when she was a nurse became the inspiration for detective Hercules Poirot. Years later, she explored Iraq and Syria, which would give stories such as Death on the Nile their vibrant setting.

As writers, we can be hesitant to draw inspiration from our lives. Finding the balance between vulnerability and projection can be difficult. And sure, everyone has different ways of achieving this balance, but this is what Christie did: she looked around her and noticed peculiar things. The people and places she couldn’t help but keep thinking about. And somehow, they found a way into her plots. Her famous detective, Jane Marple, frequently says that people are similar to each other. These similarities are what link characters, people, experiences, and are one of the factors that touch the reader. 

Changing And Experimenting With POVs
One of Christie’s recurring plot settings is positioning half a dozen people somewhere they cannot leave. And then she places the reader in every character’s shoes, to finally form a whole.

In many of her stories, such as 4.50 from Paddington, Christie switches narrator up to three times in a chapter. This is a difficult skill to hone because readers might feel confused and lost, spacially in crime fiction. There are four things I noticed Christie does to make the narrator switch not only easy, but enjoyable to follow. First, she always adds a few empty lines and a number in the middle of them, to separate her chapters and points of view. Second, she includes the name of the person the POV belongs to in the first or second sentence. These two simple tricks will help your reader adapt to the different mindsets better. Third, she also plays with duality: how her characters want to be perceived, versus who they really are; to contrast their inner monologue and the general overview of the plot. Finally, she gives each character a distinct voice.

Now, character voice is what I struggle with the most when writing. But, while reading, I realized that things are (once again as Jane Marple would say) "easier than they seem to be." In the end, character voices are the reflection of a character’s personality. Taking 4.50 from Paddington, Lucy Eyelesbarrow’s perspective has her quick wit and vivacity. Marple’s POV, despite having a similarly keen eye as Lucy, includes fancier adverbs and an almost funny subtext, which reminds me of one of my favorite Christie quotes: “The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”

Another thing I find interesting is that Christie does not hesitate to show the suspects’ points of view. She even goes as far as showing the murderer’s perspective. And this experiment adds to the reader’s challenge of finding the guilty person.  

Writing prompt: rewrite a chapter from your WIP from your antagonist’s POV. What do you find out about their personality?

To Tell Or Not To Tell 
When readers finish a crime novel, they have some sort of realization moment. A “how didn’t I think about that?” moment. Whenever Hercules Poirot goes on a walk alone, or Jane Marple asks more questions than she answers, the reader knows that the mystery is about to be solved. Christie leaves details scattered throughout her pieces, she gives importance to trivial things, and makes trivial things important. Plus, she merges subplots with (not so) false leads, and gives them more and more importance until the mystery is uncovered. All the pieces only make sense when the detectives explain their introspection, their reasoning, and their outgoings.

In other words, I learned that, as a writer, I don’t need to be a detective or an expert psychologist. Instead, I can construct the exact scenarios I need to let my characters be the heroes, the villains, and everything in between. Then, I can decide what information I want to hide from the reader.

Recommendation: To understand this topic more deeply, read Characters and Their Secrets, by Ian Hebeisen.

Buildup and Climax
Ever reached a scene in the middle of your WIP that makes you wonder why did you even choose to write it? I have, too. Buildup scenes, though necessary, can become boring. When I read Christie’s novels and started a chapter that I thought would be dull, I realized that tension began to increase. A detail was discovered, a conversation seemed suspicious, and (in the worst-case scenarios) someone would die. Suddenly, my pencil was back in my hands and I was once again underlining and annotating. Now, when I am writing and get to that scene I’ve been procrastinating, I make sure to infuse it with anything I find intriguing. Once or twice, I have realized that I need to borrow something from further chapters that are too charged.

And so, I reach the climax. This part of a story can be ironic, for we spend thousands of words anticipating it, but get over it with a single chapter. The last trick I have picked up is that this one chapter can be where characters make themselves completely present, their turning point, and their realization. Because with this realization, your readers will rush to place all the pieces together. Their minds make the impossible tangible. When Marple tricks the murderers into giving themselves away, when Poirot hears a distant gunshot and smiles. This is when your readers are at the edge of their seats.

I am hoping that by now you would like to add some of Christie’s work to your TBR. Aside from 4.50 from Paddington, and Murder on the Nile, I recommend trying out Three Blind Mice and The Tragedy of Marsdon Manor: A Hercule Poirot Short Story.

​​​​​​Paula Argudo

is a young planster with too much passion and too little time on a day. She has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, whether they are thoroughly researched flash fiction pieces or improvised bedtime stories.
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MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR:

• ​Worldbuilding Basics - Introduction and Resources
• Writing Theory of Ancient Greece (Part Two)
• Writing Theory of Ancient Greece (Part One)
• Microfiction: Crafting a Tale in Fewer Than Ten Words
• Five Things You Can Do To Avoid Writer’s Burnout
• Pacing