Subversive Lit on the Orient Express

Teachers tell us  we have to study the classics in order to understand literary forms.  For tragedy, we look at the works of Shakespeare and the Greeks; for comedy, we read Wilde and Shaw.  Fantasy readers get acquainted with Tolkein and SF fans get a background of Verne, Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke before moving on to the contemporary writers.   All of this sounds like a waste of time to the student who equates "classic" with "boring" and confuses "subversive literature" with subversive political groups.  The truth is that stories earn the "classic" distinction when they are so brilliant and memorable that they are enjoyed and understood by generations of people, and the purpose of subversive fiction is to persuade readers to rethink their assumptions.  Combine those two concepts and you'll find Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.  No "who-dun-it" has more twists in the tale.

A bit of background for this classic "closed door" mystery, for anyone who needs it.  The brilliant Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot is traveling from Istanbul to London on the fabulous Orient Express, a luxury passenger train service.  On the morning after the train is stalled by a snow drift, the passenger berthed next door to Poirot is found stabbed to death.   Poirot is asked by the train director he's traveling with to find the murderer before the local police arrive so the innocent passengers can complete their journey without further delay.    Poirot has to remove the few  legitimate clues from a stack of red herrings left behind to determine the improbable truth behind the murder.

Because the door of of the victim's berth's was locked from the inside and the berth's window is open, it looks like the perpetrator left the train after the crime.  The undisturbed snow around the train proves the murderer is still on board.   The passengers whose berths were in the same car as the victim are from various nations and a comparison of their statements shows almost all have alibis.  These factors would have the average reader making erroneous deductions or concluding the crime is "unsolvable". That conclusion (and every expectation) is incorrect.

When most people learn someone has been killed, they automatically sympathize with the deceased.  When they hear the victim died after enduring a dozen stab wounds, the sympathy factor increases.  Poirot subverts that assumption immediately when he identifies the murdered man as a kidnapper responsible for multiple deaths and the ruin of several lives.  The kidnapper escaped justice through legal technicalities and lived under an assumed name on money he extorted from parents.  (Much of Murder on the Orient Express was influenced by the kidnapping and death of Charles Lindbergh's child, including the suicide of the baby's nurse.)  

  

An ordinary reader would look at a train car full of suspects, from different nations and backgrounds, and see a car full of strangers, some of whom should be cleared as suspects.  Poirot upends this vision by seeing the same car full of people but never assumes this diverse group are all strangers.  Instead he asks himself the question "Where else would one find such a diverse collection of people?"  The answer to that question, and the identity of the victim drive Poirot to the solution and a decision on what to tell government authorities, as this assumption is subverted as well.

1rst UK edition

More than eighty years have passed since Poirot made his first steps onto the pages of Murder on the Orient Express.  Since then, the story's been printed in at least seven editions and been through an untold number of printings.  (Amazon offers it in 180 separate formats!) The story's been adapted into a radio program, a video game,  two theatrical movies, a TV film and there's another film adaptation in the works.  It's been parodied and referred to so often that people with no interest in mysteries or Agatha Christie recognize the title and know the story packs a wallop.  Those who have read it understand the appeal: Christie's mystery undercuts every expectation we have and the solution makes us glad we were wrong.   It's a classic mystery and tale of subversion.

The Structure of a Story

People who read often get overwhelmed when they start to think about writing.   A complete book is the result of such a long, massive effort that most would-be writers get discouraged and quit long before they do a lot of sustained writing.  I understand that.  I never knew how or why successful authors developed the story-telling tempo that could pull me so completely into a book until one of my English professors gave me the low-down on pitch points and pinch points.  These are the spots in the plot that pull a story along and by using these as plot structure (not unlike poles in a circus tent) a writer can drape the line of whatever narrative he or she is writing and get the story-flow right.  Let me explain what they are.

Pitch points are the points in the story where circumstances cause the main character to change his or her usual pattern of responses which alters his or her ultimate destiny.  Pitch points come (roughly) at the quarter point, half-way mark and three-quarter point of the story.  Pinch points are when the protagonist (or the audience) gets reminded about how difficult it will be for the hero to prevail.  Pinch points occur at about the 3/8 ths and 5/8ths of the story.  There's one more point I'll talk about in a minute but first I want to give you an image and an example of the story tent:

I'll admit I'm no artist but you can see the idea of where the points occur. Now let's compare this tent to the plot of a rather famous book I and one of my nephews both love, The Hobbit.  At twenty-five percent of the way into the story, Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves are about to face some nasty trolls.  Until the point, Bilbo has a passenger in his own adventure, swept along by dwarves and a wizard.  Here is the first time he acts.  Instead of crawling back to his companions with the warning "Trolls right in front of us, we should detour" the hobbit decides to live up to title of "burglar" he's been given and tries to pick a pocket.  His idea doesn't work out but he acts and that's important.  At the half-way point, the dwarves are captured by giant spiders in the middle of Mirkwood Forest and Bilbo uses his courage and wits to rescue his friends.   BIG step.  Now we're at the three-quarter point and where's our Mr. Baggins?  Gone down a long scary tunnel, to parlay with a dragon, all by his lonesome.  In each incident, he does something he never would have dreamed of doing when the story began.  Now let's talk pinch points, shall we?

Pinch points are when our hero is at his lowest.  The Hobbit's first pinch point is in the beginning of Chapter Five.  Bilbo's alone, in the dark, in a place he's never seen before and he doesn't know the way out.  Dwarves and wizard are all gone and there's no one to rescue him.  Remember, this is before Bilbo had enough courage to rescue his friends.  This is the point where he must rescue himself and he has no idea on how to do that.  It's a short little spot but it's bad enough to pinch.

The second spot is a bit more elusive but it's still there, with Bilbo astride a floating barrel on the river leading out of Mirkwood.  Anyone else would be thrilled to be away from the forest and free but here is where Bilbo gets his first sight of their ultimate destination, The Lonely Mountain, and it seems to be frowning at him.  All the previous adventures fall back into memory when Bilbo sees his "Big Bad" from a distance.  It's a reminder of how far he still has to go.

You might think that's all there is to story structure but I've saved a key point for last.   Take a look at the new story graph.

See that purple addition after the third pitch point?   That's the eighty percent mark and the point of no return.  At this spot, something happens that makes the rest of the story a race to the climax.  In the final Harry Potter book, it's when Voldemort realizes Harry's been deliberately destroying his Horcruxes.  In To Kill a Mockingbird, it's when Jem and Scout walk to the Halloween pageant by themselves and in The Hobbit, it's when Bilbo picks up the Arkenstone.  The Arkenstone is the heart of The Lonely Mountain's treasure and it's the only piece Thorin won't part with.  By taking it, Bilbo sets up a conflict that will harden Thorin's heart and help bring on the Battle of the Five Armies.  Once this happens, the rest is inevitable.

So how standardized is the formula?  It's talked about in writing classes and it's a good way to edit a story into shape.  I understand professional screenplays are actually calculated down to the page so pitch and pinch points can hit at the right places.  Pull out your favorite movie or book and calculate where the story is by looking at the percentages.  This story structure works.

So now you know the secret of story points: the pitch, the pinch and the one-of-no-return.  Is this cool or what?