Date:    Sun, 21 Jul 2002 14:13:15 -0700
From:    Willis Frick
Subject: Frick's Rules for Good Pastiches:

All this talk about pastiches made me think up my own rules.  So, with no
apology whatsoever,
I offer my highly opinionated rules for good  pastiches.

 1.   Write  short  stories,  not  a  book.  The longer a work becomes, the
harder it is
 to  maintain  another  writer' s style,  sense, language, characters, and
 situations.  The best pastiches I have read were short stories, some of the
 most execrable were endless books. Part of the literary agents brilliance
 is his ability to set a stage for a time, a place, and a situation in less
 than a paragraph.

 2.  No  famous people as characters! The character of Sherlock Holmes and
 Dr.  Watson  are  already  made and set. So is the overall situation. Apply
 your  creativity  to the plot and the rest of characters and do not recycle
 the person of Teddy Roosevelt to sell mufflers.

 3.   The end of civilization as we know it should NOT depend on the outcome
of  your  pastiche.  Not every case is simultaneously crucial to the future
existence of the Queen of England, the Pope, Argentina, and the Royal Navy.
You will recall the interesting matter of a red-haired pawnbroker.

 4.   Check  your facts! Don't assume that Tower Bridge was there in 1890,
that  trains  to  Scotland  leave from Victoria, or that a critical mass of
Uranium can be assembled from two pieces at walking speed to make an atomic
bomb.

 5.   Set  the  story  in  London or at least England! Yes, I know you have
lived  in Hicksville Ohio for 30 years, know the geography and people well,
and want to provide an explanation for the area's great mystery (who killed
old  man  McCarthy  in  '06).  Sherlock  Holmes  and  Dr.  Watson belong in
Victorian England.

 6.  Sherlock Holmes is not Rambo. Very seldom in the Canon is action "on
stage"  used  to  forward  the  plot or resolve the story. The fight with
Woodly  your  recall was off-stage. Even when action by Sherlock Holmes and
Dr.  Watson is vital to the plot it is done in a few sentences (Take a look
at the short scene in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs where Dr. Watson
is shot.).

 7.  The  characters,  behaviors, and expertise of Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
Watson  are set, with enough internal inconsistencies for a wide variety of
behaviors.  Yes, I know you are an expert on stamps from the Belgium Congo,
but don't make Sherlock Holmes a world leading philatelist. And, with
no apologies to a certain writer, don't marry anybody off!

 8.   Dialog  is  hard,  but  study the Canonical style and try. Long third
person  paragraphs,  the  comments  on an imaginary narrator, or words from
outer  space  are  generally absent from the Canon. While Victorians may of
been  more  formal  in  their speech, that is not an excuse for horrendous,
convoluted dialog.

 9.  Follow  the rules of detection and play fair with the reader. No long
lost identical twins or time machines.

10.  If  you  must  be  politically correct, then use Victorian politics.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are men of their time. While we might cringe
at  their  prejudices,  don' t bring them up to date -- they don't live in
Kansas City!

You  can probably find an exception to each of these rules somewhere in the
Canon, but not all 10 at once.

But,  you  ask,  why  doesn't Mr. Frick write pastiches if he knows all the
rules?  Well, I am ready to admit I am not much good at creative writing but
at the same time I enjoy good creative reading.

 Happy Writing!

Willis Frick, SYSOP
Sherlocktron, a Sherlock Holmes Website
sherlock1@cox.net
http://members.cox.net/sherlock1/Sherlocktron.html