We all know about Chekhov\u2019s gun. The playwright wrote to a young dramatist saying: \u201cOne must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And quite right too. Bang, bang, do svidanya, tovarishch<\/em>, and all that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But? Oh hang it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest difference between the novel and the play is simply that of length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chekhov\u2019s Cherry Orchard runs to about 18,000 words. Macbeth runs to 17,000. King Lear, 26,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I don\u2019t know about you, but my character\u2019s barely pulled on her jeans and pistol-whipped her first victim by that point in a book. She\u2019s barely done brushing her teeth. If your chosen art form is (by our lofty standards) rather short, then damn right you can\u2019t fool around with guns that don\u2019t fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Novels, I think, can be messier. They are built to resemble life, and life is messy, so I don\u2019t really see why novels can\u2019t be messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now there are strict limits here, of course. Your plot needs to be plotty. Your resolution needs to feel like it\u2019s summarising and concluding some important thing that has occupied the reader for the past 350 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ragged edge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But a ragged edge? Some questions answered only with a shrug? For me, that\u2019s fine. Here\u2019s an example from one of my books. The question is how Parry (a kidnapper) ended teaming up with a bunch of monks. Here\u2019s all I say about it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parry\u2019s living in this valley. Maybe starts going to one or two services in the monastery just for the hell of it. Or because he had a guilty conscience. Or to build himself some cover. Who knows? Anyway, he gets serious. He finds God\u2014or his own crazy and violent version of God\u2014and he decides to make some changes in the way he operates \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And Parry\u2019s new buddies, these monks, are more than a bit crazy themselves. They have this big silence and reflection and abstinence thing going. They have a deep sense that people who grew up with God in their lives have become deaf to His word <\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, quite honestly that\u2019s more of a hand-wave than an actual answer. Structurally speaking, what I say here is \u201cMaybe \u2026 or \u2026 or \u2026 who knows? Anyway \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, that\u2019s fine. Even in a crime novel whose purpose is to solve mystery, that kind of thing is fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s another example, at the end of another novel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018All a bit messy and last minute, but anything to get the job done.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Yes, exactly. If we work hard enough, I expect we\u2019ll find a link between Devine and Wormold. At any rate, I\u2019m pretty sure that Devine gave the order.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jackson thinks about that. Gathers more daisies. We\u2019re motoring now. Him gathering, me stitching them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What we have here is a slightly disengaged conversation about how Bad Guy A ended up conspiring with Bad Guy B, but in the end, the business of making a supermassive daisy-chain seems more important and that thread is never picked up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think so long as the text somehow acknowledges that yes, some questions remain unanswered, it doesn\u2019t really matter that they exist. And, me \u2013 I prefer it. It feels more authentic, makes the world more real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The long game<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And at that same time, I also love the ridiculously delayed punchline \u2013 a way of tying things up neatly, but 10s of 1000s of words later than the reader might expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So in one of my books (chapter 29) this bit of dialogue takes place:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Twll d\u00een pob Sais,\u2019 I say.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Pardon?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Doesn\u2019t matter. The address of the cottage, please.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That phrase in Welsh isn\u2019t explained. The matter is just left. In Chekhovian terms, that gun may be unimportant, but it feels very not-fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Except that, a full twenty chapters, later, we get this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n [In deepest Glasgow,] Two kids pass my car. One of them raps on my window. I wind my window down and say, \u2018Yes?\u2019 The kid says something in an accent so thick I don\u2019t understand it. I reply in Welsh, the same thing as I said to Sophie Hinton.Twll d\u00een pob Sais. Every Englishman an arsehole. He goes off muttering. He might as well be speaking Icelandic.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the punchline. We didn\u2019t understand what Fiona said to pretty Sophie Hinton at the time, but now we do, and the delay is entertaining. It\u2019s like the author was remembering that twenty chapters back, the reader felt a little moment of discomfort \u2013 tiny, but nevertheless a little negative prick \u2013 and, ta-daa, the author, smiling says, I hadn\u2019t forgotten you. Surprise! Here\u2019s your little gift<\/em>. In the process, we understand something more about the Fiona \/ Hinton relationship. The whole thing feels more delightful because of the absurdly long pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or here\u2019s another example. Fiona is talking to the abbot of a small monastery in Wales:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You\u2019ll recognise our patron, of course?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It takes me a second, but I realise he\u2019s talking about St David, a Welsh bishop of the sixth century and the patron saint of Wales.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018David,\u2019 I say. \u2018A local boy.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Local enough. He was preaching at the Synod of Brefi to a large crowd. Because those at the back couldn\u2019t hear him, a small hill rose up beneath him. The dove here settled on his shoulder.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018That\u2019s his big miracle?\u2019 I ask. \u2018Making a hill? In Wales?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to think of a more superfluous achievement.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That moment is complete in itself. No little prick of disappointment for the reader. But then, ten chapters on, we get this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I chide him. \u2018You\u2019re thinking modern again, Inspector. You need to think medieval.\u2019 That doesn\u2019t illuminate things for some reason. So I explain, \u2018This is the monastery of St David. He\u2019s their patron saint. Now David\u2019s big thing, his signature miracle if you want to put it like that, was raising a hill at Llandewi Brefi\u2014\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018A hill? In Llandewi? Why would anyone\u2014?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I know, don\u2019t ask. But \u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And what this does is to bring the reader onto the inside of the joke. It\u2019s like we and the reader are old buddies, with a shared set of jokes and references. When Inspector Burnett stumbles into the set-up, the reader has the delight of recognising it \u2013 \u201cOooh, I know this one!\u201d We don\u2019t even have to complete the joke properly to get that pleasure, and Fiona moves rapidly on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One last example. In the Deepest Grave, Fiona proposes to fake an antiquity. Here she is talking with her two co-conspirators:<\/p>\n\n\n\n George stares at Katie. Stares at me. And back again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Do you mean what I think you mean?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Katie nods. \u2018Exactly. Yes. She wants to make\u2014\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I interrupt. Say, \u2018Caledfwlch.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Katie: \u2018What?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Caledfwlch. The damn thing is Welsh, not some fake Latin, medieval French knock-off.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now there\u2019ll be some Welsh-speakers who know their ancient history and for whom that little passage is as plain as day. But the vast majority of readers, will be thinking huh? <\/em>On the one hand, Fiona has just told us exactly what she intends to make. On the other, virtually no one has any idea what she means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s that Chekhovian gun again, very not fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only then \u2026 and again, many chapters later we get an incident at an archaeological dig in the south of England. The researchers have just extracted a remarkably ancient sword from a burial pit, when armed robbers swoop in, and steal it. Here\u2019s what happens afterwards:<\/p>\n\n\n\n [The robbers] drive off. The whole thing takes two minutes, maybe less.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For a moment, just a moment, there is perfect stillness.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A bird, a lapwing maybe, calling aloft. The burr of the motorway.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Tifford, Dr Simon Tifford, Senior Archaeologist and a man now very close to tears, breaks the silence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n