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Van Dine's Commandments: Difference between revisions
→Van Dine's Twelfth
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The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.
In ''Umineko no Naku Koro ni'': It is forbidden to have a crime without all
=== Van Dine's Second ===
No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.
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A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion.
In ''Umineko no Naku Koro ni'': It is forbidden for a servant to be the culprit! ▼
=== Van Dine's Twelfth ===
There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.
▲In ''Umineko no Naku Koro ni'':
=== Van Dine's Thirteenth ===
Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.
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The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plotting and war politics belong in a different category of fiction — in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemütlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.
=== Van Dine's Twentieth ===
And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality
{{plainlist|
:*(a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect.
:*(b) The bogus spiritualistic séance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away.
:*(c) Forged fingerprints.
:*(d) The dummy-figure alibi.
:*(e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar.
:*(f) The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person.
:*(g) The hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops.
:*(h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in.
:*(i) The word association test for guilt.
:*(j) The cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.
}}
[[Category:Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]
[[Category:Umineko no Naku Koro ni TIPS]]
[[Category:Umineko no Naku Koro ni Rules]]
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