Doyle uses many techniques to gain and maintain the readers interest. This is extremely important in a story because if the readers interest is not kept, they will get bored quickly and not bother reading on. That could lead to a disadvantage for Doyle, as not many more of his books would be sold.
One technique Doyle uses to get the readers interest is the use of realism. One way he shows realism is by making sure that his characters are not out of the ordinary or unreal. They are quite believable and if you were to know that they existed in real life then it would not come as too much of a shock. Holmes is not some kind of super genius as some people would say and he is not unreal when he solves cases. He is just exceedingly superior in his job and nobody that we know of can outsmart him.
Another way that Doyle creates realism in his books is by adding dates into them. In most of the short stories he adds a date to show when an event happened, for example when he wanted to show what the date was when Watson was reading his book Doyle included a date to show when it was. This date makes the story seem a lot more realistic as the date makes the event seem like it has actually happened.
The final technique I found that makes the story more realistic is the background of the characters in the story. With a believable background, the characters seem like they actually exist not just within the book. When Doyle explains about a characters background and puts sentences that show something like, a character used to work in a shop, it seems like that person exists.
When a character in Doyle’s stories have their background described or dates added somewhere in their life, it makes them more believable. All these techniques Doyle has used using realism helps gain and maintain the readers interest a lot when it comes to reading Sherlock Homes books, as some of it does seem a bit extraordinary at times.
A different method Doyle uses in every story is denouement. This is when the case Holmes solved, is explained near the closing stages of the story. This is excellent in a story because if the reader is curious regarding to something in the case Holmes solved, he should describe everything he did and this makes a reader pleased. When a reader finds something that they do not understand they will get annoyed and are not likely to read more stories. But if they are aware of everything that is going on they will enjoy it extra. You are more likely to get someone to read more stories if they understand what they are reading than if they do not.
In my opinion the most effective way in which Doyle gains and maintains the readers interest is by adding some suspense in the atmosphere. This is vital in Sherlock Holmes stories as some of the time you are expecting something to happen but you do not know what this something is yet. The most suspense in the short stories is in the few pages in which Holmes and Watson are just about to catch the villain. In one of Doyle’s short stories, “The Speckled Band”, the suspense starts building up a few pages from the end. Holmes and Watson are creeping around a house and this makes the reader tremendously nervous and makes them carry on reading. Doyle uses words like ‘suddenly’ and ‘unexpectedly’ to keep the suspense up and he manages to do this for a couple of pages. Eventually when Holmes and Watson capture the villain, Dr Grimesby Roylott, the atmosphere and suspense vanishes so that the reader can just quickly finish the story without being too scared. These last few pages make the reader carry on reading and when they finish the story they then want to read another one as they like it so much. That is why I think that adding suspense to a story makes it so much more appealing to the audience that they read on and on.
The concluding technique that I established from Conan Doyle’s stories is the use of describing words. Descriptive language is essential for any story that is designed to make the reader interested and read on. Doyle uses many describing words ranging from small simple ones to lengthy complex ones. These describing words can make a basic boring story into an imaginative and fascinating story. This is obviously what Doyle has done. Without the describing words that he has added in the stories, I think that they would all be boring and meaningless. In ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’, Doyle describes the Count Von Kramm as having a thick hanging lip and a long straight chin. This gives us a clear detailed description of his face and we can picture this man in our heads a lot more easily than if Doyle had just said that he was a man. This descriptive language will maintain a readers interest easily as like I said before, a reader is most likely to read on if they understand and have a good picture of what is going on in the story, descriptive language makes this true and therefore the reader will read on.
The characters in Doyle’s stories in my opinion are very stereotypical to Victorian London. The villains follow the accustomed stereotype as to being tall muscular and well built. This is virtually the same today. Most villains in today’s books and films are the same as the villains in the Sherlock Holmes stories. There is one major difference though; some of the villains in the Sherlock Holmes short stories become the victims as well. Take the story “A Scandal In Bohemia” for example, the villain, Irene Adler, steals a photo from the Count. She then blackmails the Count therefore becoming the villain, and that means that the count becomes the victim. But then the Count breaks into Irene Adler’s house making him the villain and Irene Adler becomes the victim. This is not usually the case in modern day films as the victim is just a victim and the villain stays the villain.
Watson and Holmes are the two main characters in Doyle’s stories with Holmes just edging ahead with the more important role of solving the investigations although Watson is the one who usually tells the story in his point of view. Even in stories today the person narrating the story is not the main character. Doyle writes his stories to make them both seem amazing but realistic. Even today people are still keen on Holmes with his wit and his unbelievable talent at solving his investigations.
Conan Doyle brings his characters to life by adding words into his stories to describe the actions and movement the characters make. Without these techniques Doyle uses to make his characters come to life his stories would be dull and boring. If the characters were not brought to life by Doyle then I do not think that the stories he wrote would still be popular today, they would just be old stories, which nobody reads anymore.
