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John Ellington
Lynda Haas
WR 39B
6-2-14
Structure and Familiarity:
A Sherlock Detective Story
Sir Conan Arthur Doyle was not the first to write detective stories; Poe, Gaboriau, and
many others before him wrote stories about mysteries and detectives. However, before Doyle,
detective stories were mostly intellectual, written for a highly educated audience. The general
public could not read the books, and few people could hope to understand them. Doyle changed
this forever when he wrote his Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle was responsible for popularizing the detective story bringing it into the spotlight for
everyone to be able to read. He took ideas and themes from past writers and put them in stories
that anyone could understand and enjoy. When Doyle began writing short stories they became
very popular, the magazine editors that used Doyles stories kept asking for more because
Sherlock caused people to buy their magazines. People could not get enough of the character that
Doyle created. The real reason for the success, however, was not just the characters or even the
plot of the stories, but had everything to do with what Doyle did with all of the stories elements
to familiarize the reader. The reason for the success of Doyles novels was their rigid structure
and the familiarity that readers experienced with the story. Writers Leroy Panek and George
Dove write about this topic in their books. Panek writes about the origins of Doyle and the
detective story, while Dove writes about what makes the detective story different from other
genres.
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Doyle chose to write most of his stories as short stories. He decided to have his characters
solve a different case each time each story with a beginning and an end. Literary scholar Leroy
Panek, in his book-length study of the genre, An Introduction to the Detective Story, writes about
how the detective genre came in to being and dedicates a chapter to Conan Doyle. Panek claims
that part of what made Conan Doyles Holmes popular was the relatively new invention of the
short story: the successful detective story is the short story (10). As evidence, he mentions that
the first two stories that Doyle wrote, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, were
complete novels but they were not highly successful (78). According to Panek there are many
reasons why the short story worked out well in the Victorian Era. One reason he suggests is that
the stories were written for the middle class. The most important of these, however, was the
middle-class male reader who long ago had the ability, but not the time, to read fiction. (9) The
middle class had to work for a living and had very little free time to spend reading. Short stories
allowed the workers to read a full story in their free time without having to spend hours to read a
whole novel. If a middle class reader was to choose to read a novel or a short story they would
almost always chose the short story. Another benefit of short stories, is that there could be more
stories released in a smaller amount of time. The stories were able to be released once a month as
opposed to once every few years. Because stories were released often and on a regular basis it
became much easier for a fan base to grow. (78) The audience was able to see the characters in
many different situations and become familiar with them. It was that feeling of familiarity that
was responsible for the continued popularity of the detective genre. Creating short stories was
not the only thing that Doyle did to make audiences familiar with his characters.
The literary form of each short story further increases to the audiences feeling of comfort
with the stories. Each story follows the same outline. Panek summarizes this convention. 1) the
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surprise ending, 2) the presentation within the body of the story of all or most of the facts which
explain the surpriseor give the illusion of having done so, and 3) the manipulation of narrative
elements plot, point of view, tone, etc.so as to obscure the facts and make the surprise
possible. This structure is in almost every Sherlock novel, as well as being the general structure
for almost every detective novel that has come since. Doyle and other detective writers started
using this form because it allowed for economy, compression, and consistency (Panek 10). They
continued using it because that is what readers came to expect. In The Different Story Dove
compares the set structure of the detective genre to a set of rules, similar to the rules of a sport,
that the author must follow A writer writes (and a reader reads) with an understanding of what
is acceptable within the limits of the literary form, of what inventions and experiments are
permissible, and what traditions must be observed (4). Following expected conventions is a way
that many writers created used audience familiarity to their advantage. When a writer used
popular conventions the audience feels more comfort with the material. Writers that use
familiarity to their advantage will be more popular, but ones that do not will not be successful.
This offers another explanation to why The Sign of Four sold poorly. Doyle popularized the
conventions of structure that all his stories followed, but because The Sign of Four was written
before the genre became popular it was not as well received as his other novels that came out
after Doyle had solidified the structure in peoples minds.
In a story where the main character that is not relatable to anyone Doyle chose to have
the narrator be a character that exemplified the main audience. Watson is a middle class male
with average wealth and intelligence, he is described as a gentleman and is constantly surprised
at Sherlocks knowledge. Doyle sets up Watson so that many readers could relate to him. As
Panek writes Doyle, of course, realized the uses for plot and characterization of the detectives
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assistant as the narrator.(80) The result of having such a relatable narrator is that the readers can
put themselves in Watsons shoes. Dove also speaks of the involvement of the reader in his
work. The reader is directly involved, and which cannot be adequately described without taking
the reader into consideration. (1) Dove writes that the detective story can be seen as a play or a
game where the reader is directly involved. (18) By projecting Watson onto the reader, Doyle
causes the reader to take part in the story. The reader is challenged to, like Watson, analyze
Sherlock, attempt to gain as much knowledge as him, and to even solve cases before Sherlock. A
sense of familiarity naturally stems from this involvement. When the audience associate
themselves and Watson they would tend to want to read the stories more, leading to even more
familiarity with the novels and their characters.
People want what is familiar. In the Youtube video Game Theory: Are Gamers Killing
Video Games? Mathew Patrick uses statistics about videogames to prove just this. In his video
Patrick concludes that it is not innovation that sells, but instead falling into popular conventions.
Consumers are more likely to spend their money on something that they know they will like,
than taking a risk on something new and unfamiliar to them. This was even truer back in the
Victorian Era. In another chapter of his book Doyle Panek writes about the Victorian
conditions that resulted in the popularity of Doyles stories. Many people had very little excess
money to spend and little time to waste. During what free time they had, people wanted to find a
way to occupy their minds. For many members of Doyles audience the middle class did not
have much free time so a short story was perfect; they could spend just a small amount of time
each day reading and still be able to finish the story in a short time; allowing them to even reread
the story on occasion. Due to the low income of the middle class there was not much money to
spend on items made purely for enjoyment. Because Sherlock and the detective genre had
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become familiar to them, many more people would buy one of Doyles stories over an unknown
author.
Scholars agree; the reason that Doyles Sherlock series became so popular was the effort
that it put into familiarizing the audience with the characters. Currently the detective genre is one
of if not the most popular genre used today in TV and novels. It is strange to think the genre was
so close to never being popular at all. If Doyle had an omniscient narrator or had never got the
idea to create short stories instead of novels, then the detective genre wouldnt be what it is today
and might never have existed.

Citations
Panek, Leroy. Beginnings. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press,
1987. Print.
Panek, Leroy. Doyle. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987.
Print.
Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Sign of the Four. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Kindle
eBook. Online.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
The Game Theorists Game Theory: Are Gamers Killing Video Games? Youtube. Web. Mar
30, 2014