On the day I’d been determined to begin writing, I found myself mired in research related to the 1888 matchgirls’ strike and phosphorus necrosis of the jaw… all for a couple of pages. The trouble was that I’d spent many hours conjuring a main plot, but I hadn’t accounted for this ‘throwaway’ series of deductions at all. In hindsight, perhaps I ought to have begun the draft with the mystery proper-but I was determined to include an opening scene in which Holmes would demonstrate his deductive powers, unrelated to the central mystery, as these establishing scenes at Baker Street are some of my favorites in the canon. I overcame the superstition eventually, though there would be other hurdles. Even though I was fixated on Sherlock Holmes I feared looking directly at the source-like the wariness of looking directly at the sun. Instead, I turned my attention to other Conan Doyle works, such as the Challenger stories and his Round the Fire tales, in an attempt to synthesize his writing style more generally. I feared copying Doylean plot events and tics openly. However, when it came to beginning a draft of my novel, The Back to Front Murder, I became superstitious. Probably, this resulted in absorption of some common mechanisms of Holmes plots, and it must have informed my understanding of the mannerisms of the principal characters.
So: how ought you to prepare for such a test? While I’d been working on the synopsis I’d returned to my battered Penguin box set of the Holmes canon, rereading favorite stories, and those I’d forgotten entirely, and concentrating on stories taking place in the same year I intended to set my tale. I had a strong sense that producing a novel that would dovetail with the work of Arthur Conan Doyle was a test of knowledge and skill, and that I hadn’t crammed nearly enough. On this occasion, once my synopsis had been approved I found myself paralyzed from the off. But my mind began to turn over, mysteries bloomed out of seeds of ideas, rough synopses became more intricate with every pass.Īll writers experience imposter syndrome, but in my case it’s usually been relegated to after completion of a novel, at the point when I’m required to coerce others into reading it. When I was asked to suggest plots for Holmes novels that would be faithful to the canon, my initial response was one of horror at being woefully unqualified. How much of an expert do you have to be to write a Sherlock Holmes novel? It’s a question that has occupied my mind for the last year or so.
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