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
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
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
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
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
The following, from Notebook 32, is a perfect example of this method in practice. It is part of the plotting of
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’/
‘The Mystery of the Plymouth Express’/
