Talk:Crime fiction/Archive 1

Archive 1

January 2003

Crime fiction is the generic term (and what it says on the shelves in bookshops). The caper novel, the psychological suspense novel and also detective fiction can be subsumed under this heading, with the whodunnit being a special form of detective fiction and the historical whodunnit a special case of whodunnits.

This, then, would mean something like:

CRIME FICTION

1. Detective fiction

1.1. The whodunnit
1.1.1. The Golden Age whodunnit
1.1.2. Later and contemporary contributions to the whodunnit
1.1.3. The historical whodunnit
1.1.4. Spoofs, parodies, etc.

1.2. The American hard-boiled school

2. The caper novel

3. The spy novel

4. The psychological suspense novel

The current page on crime fiction is completely inadequate. Any comments? Objections? >>>Suggestions<<< ?

KF 21:58 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Would all of this go on one page? It looks like a good arrangement to me, although I would try to add a bit of a timeline or chronology. What begat what, etc. - Tubby — Preceding undated comment added 22:12, 2 January 2003 (UTC)

No no no, not on one page. The page entitled Crime fiction would more or less serve as a disambiguation page leading off to the various -- already existing -- articles. What would be needed is a rather brief introduction, including the timeline/chronology you mentioned. KF 22:19 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Originally, until 2 January 2003, this was the entry on crime fiction:

Crime fiction involves criminality, but is not categorisable as detective fiction because the crimes are perpetrated by the main character(s) in full view of the reader. The caper subgenre is closely related. Some examples of crime or caper fiction are :

• the Modesty Blaise stories of Peter O'Donnell
• novels of John Boland such as 'The League of Gentlemen and The Golden Fleece
• the screenplay of The Thomas Crown Affair by Alan Trustman
• novel and screenplay of Ocean's Eleven by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell
• Sledgehammer by Walter Wager

Some of the names and titles above may be useful for future reference. KF 01:59 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

Note: as of 18 January 2003, something very like the above has found a home at caper novel -- Paul A — Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 31 March 2003 (UTC)

A little misleading I think. Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction, and the type of crime fiction you describe (crime committed in full view of the reader) is only one variety of the genre. 68.1.181.54 04:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

August 2003

Lee M states that "Sections of the following article need rewriting as they are too POV", but he does not tell us which sections. I've tried to figure out possible reasons for his surprising taciturnity in this matter.

1. He wants to test his fellow Wikipedians: Who can find the incriminating passages? What will they do once they have spotted a POV sentence? Will they agree on what is NPOV and what isn't?
2. He is planning to correct the POV passages himself and has just failed to mention it.
3. He just can't be bothered.

KF 01:40, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

August 2003 II

Is there any way to split this into multiple articles? It seems too long. - user:zanimum — Preceding undated comment added 00:10, 27 August 2003 (UTC)

It seems too long? Please reconsider your wish after you have read the article. There are cross-references throughout the text which would be completely pointless if they were in separate articles. --KF 19:39, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

December 2003

I am removing

The following introduction to crime fiction in English is targeted at the newcomer to this for many people delightful genre rather than at the specialist. It is blatantly incomplete, ignoring some of the most important figures in the evolution of the genre. However, rather than aiming at completeness, its intention is to gently guide the novice into the world of crime fiction by explaining the development of the various forms of crime writing in the course of the 20th century, by including relevant background information, and by referring to some representative examples.

Why is this needed? An encyclopedia is not a personal essay book IMO. Any novice should learn everything about crime fiction, just by coming to the relevant encyclopediac article. Yes, he will not get a "complete picture". Everything that was said, goes without saying. I felt this passage contributes to an already needlessly lengthy article.chance 09:30, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I am starting a major restructuring of the article, as suggested in Cleanup. I have already edited the first and second sections, and added relevant content elsewhere. (Eg. Content has been redistributed to Locked Room Mystery, Dr. Watson, The Hollow Man etc.) To my knowledge I have not DELETED CONTENT majorly, in a way that affects the flow of the article. Some feedback from users will be appreciated. Users are invited to join me in making this article (a good, detailed effort...albeit a bit lengthy) into something more readable and interesting. chance 11:19, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

The article has it stands is far too long and reads like an well written but unstructured essay. It needs to majorly refactored. It has very good material, but it is attempting to be everything in just one article. If I was doing it I would reduce the main article ruthlessly after moving most of the text to different articles. I would use this article to talk about what crime fiction is, and move the extensive material on the History of Crime Fiction and Crime film to independent articles. In fact I'll do so now so the material doesn't get lost during your needed rewrite ChrisG 14:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've moved the material to different articles and I think they stand on their on feet as articles. Obviously you may well want to move some or all of this material back into the main article to rewrite it. I moved rather than copied the material, so people could see how the article looked without that material. : ChrisG 14:43, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've also moved substantial specific material to detective fiction and whodunit where it seems to more specific and relevant. I hope people generally believe the refactoring I have done is appropriate. Out of the refactoring we've gained two new articles and substantially improved two others in terms of content and we have a simpler article on crime fiction, so I think we are well ahead. Obviously crime fiction has now been reduced to a shell of what it was, and some of the material I have moved may well be worth moving back here or recovering from the page history.  : ChrisG 16:07, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me of the changes in the crime fiction article. I'm perfectly aware that this is Wikipedia territory, so of course anyone is welcome to make any changes they consider an improvement. Don't expect me to approve of them: If I had intended the text differently, I would have written it differently.

I've seen it before: people either merging articles or splitting them up (for example the article I started a long time ago at Millennialism), seemingly at random. You know what, until you mentioned it I didn't even know that there was a "Cleanup" department (I couldn't find crime fiction listed there!). I understand there was one request (just one?!) that the article be split up -- and that is all it needs for some willing executioners to lend a helping hand? Are you aware of the fact that someone also added it to Wikipedia:Brilliant prose?

I do hope that there won't be some fool who deletes the older versions of the crime fiction article or who demands their deletion.

Once again, good luck to all of you. --KF 15:58, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

PS What on earth is a criminial novel? Do you really think what you're doing is an improvement? --KF — Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 19 December 2003 (UTC)

KF, As I've said above I do think the article is an improvement, or rather it can now evolve into a better article. I think your article was extremely well written, but was too long and unstructured. It also had the flaw that it often talked as if detective fiction and whodunit's equalled crime fiction. My poorly labelled reference to criminial novels was to reflect the fact that novels like the Godfather, which are told from the criminial perspective are also labelled under crime. Perhaps social novels would be better. Within the article there are references to the difficulty of defining where crime novels end. Please note I've moved your material wholesale to four different articles, because I didn't want Wikipedia to lose such quality material : ChrisG 16:29, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Actually, all I was trying to find out was if there's a word criminial. I'm serious. --KF 16:44, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Did I mention I was partly dyslexic :) Well thats my excuse anyway. : ChrisG 16:53, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Oh, I'm relieved. I thought I had missed out on some new literary term or whatever. KF 16:59, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maybe you were thinking of "crimenial" which is the bad guy's side-kick? Phil 17:34, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

January 2004

Crime fiction has not been edited for almost a fortnight now, so I gather the rush is over. Compared to the original long article (version of 16 December 2003), the new text "has now been reduced to a shell of what it was, and some of the material I have moved may well be worth moving back here or recovering from the page history" (ChrisG, 19 Dec 2003).

Well, the Encylopaedia Britannica -- at least an edition published some time in the 1980s -- had Macropaedia and Micropaedia volumes: A short entry in one part would point to a much longer and more comprehensive in-depth treatment of the same subject in the other part of the encyclopaedia. Such a long article, one that would cover all the various forms and aspects of crime writing, was my original intention when I wrote the Crime fiction text.

Chancemill and ChrisG, no doubt much younger than myself, are used to a much more exciting reading experience, elements of which are shorter chunks of text, a non-linear mode of reading and especially each reader's autonomous decision as to where they want to continue reading: whether they want to follow a link (to, say, the History of Crime Fiction) or not.

That's fine with me of course. The problem is that this text is not suited for that purpose. It is meant to be read from beginning to end, just like a book of non-fiction, where you have no right to criticize the author for writing an unintelligible and cryptic Chapter IX if you have skipped Chapters VII and VIII. Skimming Crime fiction today, it seems to me only the digressions have stayed in the article.

My point is that Wikipedia -- particularly because it is not a printed encyclopaedia -- should cater for articles of both the Micropaedia and the Macropaedia type: As far as I am concerned, there is no need to split up longer articles just for the sake of uniformity (unless it's easy, as in History of Socialism: Part 1 and Part 2). --KF 02:28, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The rush certainly seems to be over. At least from my side, it was not due to depreciation in the level of interest. In part, I felt (and still feel) the article looked better now. And, to be frank, I did not contribute content to the article. In other words, I sensed that the limits I set for myself while redoing the article, were reached.

Reverting the changes made during the last month would be a bit sad, because to my knowledge the article was not split for the sake of uniformity, but simply because it was very long - much longer than the recommeded limit for compatibility with various browsers. This problem currently has a single solution - the course that has been taken. If you have a better solution, please go ahead.chance 17:43, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

No no no, I won't change anything. But other people may want to, and probably will, sooner or later. For example, I can imagine a new arrival reading the initial comment on the discussion page of the newly created Crime film article and actually do something about the bias mentioned there. One of the fascinating aspects of Wikipedia as an ongoing project, despite attempts at pushing to 1.0, is that there will never be a finished product. All the best to you, KF 18:49, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

October 2004

Under "Crime Fiction and Mainstream Fiction", the article states re American Psycho: Even though in American Psycho the most heinous crimes are depicted in minute detail, the novel has never been labelled a "crime novel", maybe due to the fact that the police are conspicuously absent and Bateman is never tracked down and brought to justice.

Now, I know this is nitpicking, but doesn't this count as a minor spoiler? Granted, one of the novel's themes is how Bateman acts "above the law", but it is still a spoiler. Shouldn't there be a warning (granted this would be awkward), or perhaps this should be rephrased? -- neckro 04:18, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi neckro, I've only just seen your question. Please feel free to edit the page, remove or rephrase the above sentence or add a {{spoiler}} warning. However, as someone once (half-jokingly) said, "This is an encyclopaedia. Facts are revealed here." <KF> 12:02, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Mystery and crime fiction fanzines, and the catalogue of Los Angeles' Mysterious Bookshop, did refer to "American Psycho" as a crime novel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.231.178.184 (talk • contribs) 06:02, 21 March 2005 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 19:58, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

de:Krimi

I noticed the German wiki page Krimi links here, but this does not link to it. Should it? Шизомби 01:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

GA Failing

See that article? All 'original research. You have "Further Reading", but no references. Which makes this original research. Please see WP:CITE. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 14:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Ga! Being uncited doesn't make something original research. It makes something uncited. Being original research means it can't be cited, because the stuff was made up. Something can very easily be uncited and yet not constitute original research. This is strongly worth remembering. john k 23:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Relevance

The whole middle section about high and popular art doesn't really... say anything about crime fiction. --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 01:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger

These two articles seem to be about almost the same subject. -Catneven 10:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• Hell no. An encyclopaedia is supposed to be distinct and differentiated on its chosen topics; to merge them would lose a degree of the information involved. I'm studying Crime Fiction for year twelve extension english, and i have no doubt this page is used by thousands of other extension students every year, all eager to plagiarize information on Crime Fiction. Merging it with mystery fiction would make information on Crime Fiction less relevant, more general and considerably less objective. 144.139.183.8 03:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
• The problem is that the Mystery Fiction page is not very good, and most of what is on the Crime Fiction page applies to mysteries as well. Also, I'm a little curious as to whether there might be a British/American divide, or an American regionalism divide: I think of "mystery" as the generic word, and "crime fiction" as basically just true crime stuff. --Wintersweet 19:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
• This is a tough question. I think it would be reasonable to merge mystery and crime fiction as long as they were distinguished in the article. Speaking 100% personally in this paragraph, I distinguish crime fiction from mystery fiction by noting that mystery fiction must contain a mystery -- and I do NOT mean the "weird mystery" that's referenced on the mystery fiction page, but something that is a mystery to the reader. Crime fiction for me is fiction that's about crime but doesn't contain a mystery, such as the novels of Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark, in which the story is about crimes and criminals but there is no detective and no police presence, by and large. (And I suggest that the idea that "crime fiction" is equivalent to "true crime" is a tautology.) Detective fiction contains a detective and therefore a crime, but not necessarily a mystery -- such as the inverted mystery story, or a Columbo episode -- it is fiction about how a detective works and thinks. But I'm betting that this set of distinctions would (a) be original research and (b) not be capable of reference to a standard work by a third party. I'm going to look into some critical sources like Haycraft and Symons, who must have something to say about this. I also just deleted a suggestion that Penguin greenbacks are "cheap" paperbacks. They may be inexpensive, but they're not cheap. Accounting4Taste 17:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
• no. this article should not be merged with mystery. There is a definite line between the two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.29.161.195 (talk • contribs) 05:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• I am also a yr12 english extension student. Even though the articles may be similar on wikipedia, does not mean they are the same in terms of literary Genre . There is a significant difference between the two and that i call for a check on the resources cited in each article to see if they are, in fact, legitimate for use of reference to that specific genre. --58.107.158.58 12:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the merge tag. While Mystery (fiction) and Crime fiction share similarities, they are not quite the same topic. Mystery can lean more toward supernatural-type elements and Crime is more akin to detective work. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Since a number of you have argued that Mystery and Crime fiction are distinct, would it not be appropriate to make that distinction clear in the articles (both of which are strangely silent about the relationship)? -- Schewek (talk) 17:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Wait a minute. There is a separate article for Whodunit, but not for Murder mystery? That doesn't seem right. "Murder Mystery" is a sub-genre of "Mystery" which is a common category in most public libraries. My search on Wikipedia was redirected to this page. Either there should be a separate article for "Murder mystery" or this page should be renamed. The label should encompass more than just literature only. It can refer to works of theater, train rides, television and even party games. The popular Hasbro game, CLUE, is even described as a classic murder-mystery. --MusicTree3 (talk) 22:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Technically speaking, "crime fiction" could also imply acts of violence or other law-breaking activity besides murder. Another case for having a separate and more specific article for murder mystery. (MusicTree3 (talk) 23:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC))

Incidentally, there are currently over 100 articles on Wikipedia that link to "Murder mystery." The moniker is too popular to get rid of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MusicTree3 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Murder mustery

hi guys i ont really understand thei please can some one put it in note form or rephrase it. Thank you for the person who will do it for me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.217.249.86 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)