John Curran - Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks

The process of production was, as we have seen, random and haphazard. And yet, this seeming randomness was transformed into an annual bestseller and, for many years, into more than one bestseller. For over 50 years she delivered the latest ‘Christie for Christmas’ to her agent; for 20 years she presented London’s West End with one box-office success after another; she kept magazine editors busy editing her latest offering. And all of them—novels, short stories and plays—flow with the fluid precision of the Changing of the Guard.

So although it is true that she had no particular method, no tried and true system that she brought with her down the long years of her career, we know this appearance of indiscriminate jotting and plotting is just that—an appearance. And eventually we come to the realisation that, in fact, this very randomness is her method; this is how she worked, how she created, how she wrote. She thrived mentally on chaos, it stimulated her more than neat order; rigidity stifled her creative process. And it explains how the Notebooks read from both ends, how they leap from one title to another on the same page, how different Notebooks repeat and develop the same ideas and why her handwriting can be impossible to read.

Notebook 15 and the plotting of Cat Among the Pigeons illustrate some of these points. She talks to herself on the page:

How should all this be approached?—in sequence? Or followed up backwards by Hercule Poirot—from disappearance…at school—a possibly trivial incident but which is connected with murder?—but murder of whom—and why?

She wonders and speculates and lists possibilities:

Who is killed?

Girl?

Games mistress?

Maid?

Foreign Mid East ?? who would know girl by sign?

Or a girl who?

Mrs. U sees someone out of window—could be New Mistress?

Domestic Staff?

Pupil?

Parent?

The Murder—

Could be A girl (resembles Julia/resembles Clare?

A Parent—sports Day

A Mistress

Someone shot or stalked at school Sports?

Princess Maynasita there—or—an actress as pupil or—an actress as games mistress

She reminds herself of work still to be done:

Tidy up—End of chapter

Chapter III—A good deal to be done—

Chapter IV—A good deal to be worked over—(possibly end chapter with ‘Adam the Gardener’—listing mistresses—(or next chapter)

Chapter V—Letters fuller

Notes on revision—a bit about Miss B

Prologue—Type extra bits

Chapter V—Some new letters

And for some light relief she breaks off to solve a word puzzle. In this well-known conundrum the test is to use all of the letters of the alphabet in one sentence. In her version she has an alternate answer although she is still missing the letter Z.

ADGJLMPSVYZ

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS over gladly

In Cards on the Table Mrs Oliver is asked if she has ever used the same plot twice.

‘The Lotus Murder,’ murmured Poirot, ‘The Clue of the Candle Wax.’

Mrs Oliver turned on him, her eyes beaming appreciation.

Two pages of random word puzzles, probably the rough work for a crossword.

So it is with Christie. She reused plot devices throughout her career; and she recycled short stories into novellas and novels—she often speculates in the Notebooks about the expansion or adaptation of an earlier title. The Notebooks demonstrate how, even if she discarded an idea for now, she left everything there to be looked at again at a later stage. And when she did that, as she wrote in her Autobiography, ‘What it’s all about I can’t remember now; but it often stimulates me.’ So she used the Notebooks as an aide-mémoire as well as a sounding board.

The first example dates from the mid-1950s and relates to the short stories ‘Third Floor Flat’ and ‘The Adventure of the Baghdad Chest’; it is surrounded by notes for ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ and Four-Fifty from Paddington. The second example, concerning ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’, is from early 1960 and the last one, concerning ‘The Shadow on the Glass’, probably from 1950:

Development of stories

3rd Floor Flat—murder committed earlier—return to get post and also footprints etc. accounted for—service lift idea? Wrong floor

Baghdad Chest or a screen?

Idea? A persuades B hide B

Chest or screen as Mrs B—having affair with C—C gives party—B and A drop in—B hides A—kills him—and goes out again

Extended version of Xmas Pudding—Points in it of importance A Ruby (belonging to Indian Prince—or a ruler just married?) in pudding

A book or a play from The Shadow on the Pane idea? (Mr Q)

One system of creation that Christie used during her most prolific period was the listing of a series of scenes, sketching what she wanted each to include and allocating to each individual scene a number or a letter; this neat idea, in the days before computers with a ‘cut and paste’ facility, may have been inspired by her play-writing experience. She would subsequently reorder those letters to suit the purposes of the plot. In keeping with her creative and chaotic process, this plan was not always followed and even when she began with it, she would sometimes abandon it later for a more linear approach (see Crooked House below). And sometimes the pattern in the finished book would not exactly follow the sequence she had originally mapped out, perhaps due to subsequent editing.

The following, from Notebook 32, is a perfect example of this method in practice. It is part of the plotting of Towards Zero (see also Chapter 10).

E. Thomas and Audrey what’s wrong? She can’t tell him. He stresses I know, my dear—I know—But you must begin to live again. Something about ‘died’ a death—(meaning Adrian—somebody like N[evile] ought to be dead) F. Mary and Audrey—suggestion of thwarted female—‘Servants even are nervous’ G. Coat buttons incident H. Moonlight beauty of Audrey

The following are examples of Christie’s reworked ideas, many of which are discussed elsewhere in this book. Some elaborations are obvious:

‘The Case of the Caretaker’/ Endless Night

‘The Mystery of the Plymouth Express’/ The Mystery of the Blue Train

‘The Market Basing Mystery’/‘Murder in the Mews’

‘The Submarine Plans’/‘The Incredible Theft’

‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’/‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’

‘Christmas Adventure’/‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’

‘The Greenshore Folly’ (unpublished)/ Dead Man’s Folly

In other cases she challenged herself when adapting and expanding by changing the killer:

The Secret of Chimneys/Chimneys

‘The Second Gong’/‘Dead Man’s Mirror’

‘Yellow Iris’/ Sparkling Cyanide

‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/ Dumb Witness (see Appendix)

Some stage versions differ from their source novels…

Appointment with Death presents a new villain with a compelling and daring solution.

The Secret of Chimneys introduces many variations on the original novel, including a new killer.

Ten Little Niggers unmasks the original killer within a very different finale.

Meanwhile, there are more subtle links between certain works:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Death on the Nile and Endless Night are all essentially the same plot.