The type of novel Agatha Christie wrote – classic whodunnits with genteel detectives, multiple killings but little on-screen violence, and a denouement that sets everything to right – has fallen in and out of fashion, but Christie’s work itself has remained perennially popular. In a post on CrimeReads, Lori Rader-Day says Christie still has a lot to teach modern day writers of mystery and suspense, particularly about a work ethic.
In her autobiography, Christie advised against getting too attached to the sound of your own voice. “You must learn technical skills, and then, within that trade, you can apply your own creative ideas; but you must submit to the discipline of form,” she wrote. Her work ethic was hard-won, coming after a very public divorce that required Christie to earn a better income. “I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well,” she wrote.
Christie also wasn’t shy about discussing the stress she felt starting a new novel. “There is no agony like it,” she said. “You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.” But in the end, the struggle pays dividends, in the form of “that wonderful moment in writing which does not usually last long but which carries one on with a terrific verve as a large wave carries you to shore.”
