Yes! I confess!
I did it – I finally got around to reading Agatha 
Christie. I know; one would think that all writers would have done so ages ago. But no! Not me. I fought it off using the excuse: If everybody's doing it, it's a fad and won't last. I have gone on to feel embarrassed in mixed company, not being able to participate in the conversation for lack of knowledge. Not until very recently did I have everything in place and an 'Agatha' in hand to see what all the hub-bub was about. I was going to prove to myself that she was a 'flash in the pan'. I figured I wouldn't get past the second chapter so it wouldn't take long and I could get on with life. So I cracked the cover of the skinniest second-hand copy I could find (“Death in the Clouds”) and started reading. By page three, it was too late – I was hooked.
Cleverness extraordinaire! Every twist, a body; every turn, a poison; every character, a suspect. The gun (smoking) and the knife (dripping) hold no candle to the ingenious use of Ms. Christie's weapons! Bees, seaweed, tea; all goes according to a dastardly plan.
During her life, I am now certain, those around her thanked G-d that she was a writer. “She must get it out somehow, dear.” With a mind as convoluted as Agatha’s, one must have feared for their life simply having dinner with her!
Everything was thought out carefully. Exactly like a killer trying to drum up the perfect murder. No doubt about it – Agatha was a plotter. Though I and my colleagues are primarily ‘pantsters’ (we write by the seat of our pants using a kind of stream of consciousness), it is impossible to finish a story without the plotting, organizing, arranging and substantiating. We all have to be a bit of both. Agatha may have been both but one wonders... she plotted murders so well it's almost as though she meant to do the crimes. I will go a bit further and add that if the author had motivation to do murder, the story might well write itself. Her biography states, by the way, that her husband left her for his secretary. That has proven, more than once, to be motivation for murder. So, plotter or pantster could read: 'Murderer or not?' So all you mystery writers out there; choose… but choose wisely.
And yet… she was the editing queen. She was prolific, though no clue was 
ever left dangling, no mystery unsolved - even if it took an epilogue to the epilogue; and all this without a computer! Absolutely, her notes are worthy of museum viewing! I find myself day-dreaming… Did she write in pencil or ink? Did she write on both sides of the page? What notations did she use to keep it all straight? Surely these would be of benefit today - at least for me. Every book of hers that I have read (closing in on the half dozen mark since this time last month), I had to go back and check the facts. I’m the reader zooming through it, of course, but you can’t tell me she didn’t have to keep going back to remember who was near the whiskey at the time the poison was added. That’s not all - she was not always happy killing just one character… she could do away with ten at a time, if she felt like it! Now there’s some editing to tackle!
Me, I hate editing. I am excited about the story when I write it but it gets boring to me after several readings because I already know what happens! I want to go on to the next story. Then Agatha whispers in my ear: “Double up your stories; layer them – put them in bed together.” Ooooh! Quite the educator, wouldn’t you say? It’s almost like she’s… not dead.
Unless, of course, she’s in the library with a candlestick…
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