Introduction
Welcome fellow journalist. Today you will have the immense honour to interview the most famous ... and successful writer of our times : Arthur Conan Doyle.
You will have to find out all about him and his books. Where does he get his ideas? Maybe he is a criminal in disguise?
If you have a chance try to also quizz him about his fellow writer, a woman, Agatha ... something. I forgot her name. I heard that her books are more and more in demand. Maybe he'll help you find out why.
Enough said. Sharpen your eyes, pencils and mind; pick up your notebook and off you go !
Task
We will finalise the The Sunday edition of our newspaper tomorrow at 10:00.
By then you will have written an article of ca. 100 words about Conan Doyle and his female counterpart.
Don't forget, our readers want to know : who they are, where they get their ideas from, which is their favourite character. AND: what are the ingredients for a perfect crime story?
Process
Later that day ....
Bell rings at the door of a big mansion.
- "Hello Mister.... "
- "..............Doyle is the name, Conan Doyle. How may I assist you? " 
- "Hello, my name is Nigel Loring. I'm a journalist for the evening Standard, and rang earlier for an interview. Is this still convenient?"
CD - "But certainly. What would you like to know?
“Who are you Mr Doyle?”
CD - "Wonderful question? I don't know?! Who am I...?"
- “Thank you for this short intro. Have you already created many characters ?”
-“Of these which do you think will be the most famous?”
CD - "..... All of them! Silly question!"
- “Erm... The detective one, where does he comes from?”
- "Would you say he has peculiarities? Which - would you say - are his 4 most outstanding characteristics?"
.....
- "And temper wise ? " (look in the 1rst paragraph)
(C Doyle speaking) " Enough about me. You must have heard about my fellow writer Dame Agatha Christie?"
- "Sorry, no.....
.....Who was she? "
(Gather 4 clues about her :
- - - - )
- "Can you tell me why she started writing crime novels ? "
CD - "Well, you see, for people of Christie’s time and class, writing was not an uncommon pastime. For instance, her sister, Madge, had a play produced in the West End long before she did."
- "But why detective stories? "
CD - "Again, this was not a remarkable choice. The period between the First and Second World Wars has been called the golden age of the detective story. Practically everyone who wanted to write had a go at it. Such books were adored by ordinary readers—according to Colin Watson, a historian of the genre, housewives brought them home in the shopping basket—but they were just as popular with educated people. W. H. Auden said that when he picked up a detective story he couldn’t put it down until he had finished it. In T. S. Eliot’s “The Family Reunion,” the mystery is solved by a character named Agatha. Because the form was so popular, almost any detective novel stood a good chance of getting a contract. That fact was no doubt in Christie’s mind as she went to her desk—Archie’s salary was small. At the start, she was a clumsy writer. But she was able to offer her readers what they wanted, a whodunnit, also called a “puzzle mystery”—a story that is a contest between the author and the reader as to whether the reader can guess who the culprit is before the end of the book."
(Psst, I'm your editor : remember to quote (pick up) one sentence giving the answer to the question above)
- "Mister Doyle, do you know which were her favourite ways to dispose of a body?"
(You can either follow the link and discover a new document, or read the following paragraph)
CD - "Though Christie’s novels sometimes have colorful settings—a Nile steamer, an archaeological dig in Mesopotamia—most of them are set in England. The corpse may be discovered in its time-honored location, the library, or it may be stuffed into the cupboard under the stairs, with the tennis racquets. As for the weapon, golden-age mystery writers exercised great ingenuity over this. In the words of Christie’s colleague Dorothy Sayers, victims were brought down by “licking poisoned stamps; shaving-brushes inoculated with dread disease . . . poisoned mattresses; knives dropped through the ceiling; stabbing with a sharp icicle; electrocution by telephone.” Christie was less fanciful. Now and then, the victim is shot or stabbed, and poor Agnes, the one stored with the tennis racquets, has a skewer driven through her brain, but Christie favored a clean conking on the head or—her overwhelming preference—poison. That choice was surely a product of her war work in the dispensary, with its many shelves of potentially lethal drugs. But poison probably appealed to her also because it did not involve assault. Christie disliked violence. When, in her novels, someone starts to look dangerous, her detective does not pull a gun. He doesn’t have a gun. Bystanders may wrestle the malefactor to the ground. In one case, where there are no bystanders, the detective squirts soapy water into the murderer’s face. It works!"
(pick the sentence giving the answer :
_____________________________________________________ )
- "Mister Doyle, in your opinion : Who are her most famous characters?"
(look at the clip up to 1’60) CD - " In my not so humble opinion her better characters were :
- ________________________________
- ________________________________
These and the fame of her books explain her nickname. Did you guess it? _________________________ I envy her for it! "
- CD " Mister Loring, now that I have instructed you for a while, can you give me 3 words related to investigations and 3 ways of expressing a hypothesis (only look into the first paragraph).
- "I think so. Are these correct?
- ___________________________ * __________________________
- ___________________________ *__________________________
- ___________________________ *__________________________. "
- "I have a very last question for you - if you don't mind - why were Agatha Christie's so successful? What makes a perfect crime novel according to you ?" (Find two items)
- Thank you so much for your time Mr Doyle. I'll send you a copy of my article for approval before submitting it to my editor.