The Write Stuff

An imagined Six Rules of Writing that a famous author might have written

The six rules for writing are all contained in the acronym, CRIMES.

Confuse your reader by introducing too many characters all at once but always include a spinster or foreign bachelor (preferably Belgian) who knows and sees far more than the reader.

Restrict the location to somewhere accessible only by steam train, bus or boat in the southwest of England, a sleepy village or island off-shore.

Invent some unlikely reason for bringing your characters all together in spite of their tenuous links and disparate temperaments.

Mystify your reader by introducing a murder and giving each possible perpetrator a plausible alibi.

Examine your characters one by one explaining the whereabouts of each at the time of the killing and what might have been their motive for murder.

Solve the suspense by letting the spinster or Belgian reveal the villain, ideally a person the reader would never suspect or, possibly, even remember.

(Agatha Christie)