Eric Xian

Professor Haas
Writing 37
November 6th, 2014
Conventions of the Detective Genre
The detective fiction has already been around for hundreds of years. It even traces back
to the biblical times. However, in the mid 1800's, Sir Conan Doyle started writing novels about
Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is just one of the more famous detective fiction in
the "British Golden Age of Detective Fiction". As time passed, people read and loved Sherlock
Holmes and his sidekick, John Watson. These two detectives make a great duo in not only
solving mysterious cases, but also attracting various readers. By doing so, Sir Conan Doyle's
Sherlock Holmes has actually made the detective genre more popular today. Throughout the
years, different scholars have debated about how detective fictions are formed and what is in it.
The conventions of a detective story is based on the reader's interest and interaction with the
novel and the different qualities of the structure a detective story follows.
A detective story will always keep its readers thinking and wondering about the crime
and who the culprit is. The story will have constant clues popping up, which keeps the reader
interested and involved. In The Different Story, George Dove says that detective stories are more
like games, a guessing game to be precise. A detective story "has a unique structure in which, as
we will see shortly, the reader is directly involved, and which cannot be adequately described
without taking the reader into consideration" (Dove 1). The reader must be in this (novel) game

and take details of the novel in consideration. The reader has to be constantly guessing how
object 'a' or 'b' relates to the case. However, if the reader is not tentative, he or she will missing
out on details and therefore, cannot predict future details. For example, after the Red-Headed
League dissolved, every character was in shock and wondering why. " Oh, said he, his name
was William Morris. He was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience
until his new premises were ready. He moved out yesterday" (The Red-Headed League). This
quote makes the reader engaged in the novel, because they should notice that William Morris
moved out a day before The Red-Headed League dissolved. Dove also says that "the role of the
reader is both recreational and intellectual ; the reader voluntarily accepts the limits (agrees to
the rules), in order to permit the game to be played" (Dove 7). Dove is stating that the reader has
to accept the structure and the expected conventions on a detective story. Panek, the author of
Beginnings, agrees that the reader has to be engaged, but also says "detective writers, therefore,
invented the pocket genius" (Panek 10). Producing a book that fits into a pocket means anyone
can read detective novels. This not only increases more readers, but more interest in the novel.
Therefore, one of the conventions in a detective novel is to keep the reader engaged and
interested in the novel.
The next genre convention is a structure that a detective story follows. In George Dove's
The Different Story, he states that the structure in a detective story follow "Four qualities of the
tale of literary detection set it apart, in the opinion of critics past and present, from other popular
fiction: the detective story is transitory, without long-range goals or purposes ; it is
fundamentally an intellectual undertaking; it is recreational, intended primarily to relax; and it is

a disciplined, delimited literary form" (Dove 2). The structure Dove stated in The Different Story
is in every detective story. First, it introduces the detective. Second, a mysterious problem is
discovered. Then, that mysterious problem is solved, which leads to the conclusion. For
example, in The Red-Headed League, Mr. Wilson "held up a piece of white cardboard about the
size of a sheet of note-paper. It read in this fashion: THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS
DISSOLVED. October 9, 1890. Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the
rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other
consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter" (The Red-Headed League). Mr.
Wilson arrives and uncovers the problem to both Sherlock Holmes and the audience. After
Sherlock Holmes is aware of the problem, he will solve it and then catch the culprit, leading o
the solution. All together, that was the structure for a detective genre novel. This is the only
structure writers could follow in the detective genre. This structure can be easily understood by
readers in the Victorian Era, so the detective genre became more popular.
Sir Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes was and still a great success, as it was written during
the "British Golden Age of Detective Fiction". After Doyle' Sherlock Holmes novels were
published, the detective genre has become more popular. However, there are a couple of
conventions that led to the popularity of the detective genre. The first is how the novel interacts
with the reader. Dove and Panek both agreed that the reader has to be directly involved with the
novel. Second, the structure of the detective genre makes the novel less complicated so more
people can read it, leading to the popularity of the genre. Even though Doyle made the detective
genre famous in the 1800's, it is still one of the most popular genres out there today.

Works Cited

Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. Print.

Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. Adventure 2: The Red-Headed League. The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes. Lit2Go Edition.1892.Web.