Father Knox’s Decalogue

The Ten Rules of (Golden Age) Detective Fiction

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957) was a British clergyman, editor, a literary critic, a humourist and a detective story writer himself who nicely laid out, with a gentle wit, the “ten rules” that guided detective fiction in its so-called Golden Age. They appeared in the preface to Best Detective Stories of 1928-29, which Knox edited.

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

In the eighties, Josef Svoresky wrote a mystery entitled Sins for Father Knox, which set out to deliberately break all these rules. Though this isn’t a masterpiece of crime writing there are many that broke the rules which are.

Fiction Prompts

I’ve just found a source of some fiction prompts which was what I was looking for 🙂 Will start working through these to give me some ideas for short stories and flash fiction.

I will add more fiction prompts as I find them or think of them for anyone to use 🙂

  • Listening to a couple speaking in the street and one of them uses the mantra “Eat, Sleep, Slave, Repeat”
  • Following the pylons home through the mist
  • The moon looks big in the sky. A little too big.
  • A minor cut won’t stop bleeding.
  • Something is scratching the inside of your closet door.
  • Your life is on your phone, but you just dropped it into a pit of deadly vipers.
  • Your mouthwash is actually a magic potion.
  • You awaken to find yourself locked in a casket.
  • You trade lives with your cat for a day.
  • The new USB drive you bought came preloaded with a strange secret.
  • Every time you enter your house, you hear the faint sound of children laughing. You have no children, and none live on your street.
  • Your rich uncle give you the supernatural secret to his fortune.
  • You interact with a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead.
  • Your new running shoes have a special feature which allows you to run further and faster, but it comes with a unique price.
  • A strange new social movement was actually started by space aliens (or time travellers).
  • One of the books in the library glows.
  • A mummy’s curse falls over an entire town.
  • Your fingernails fall out, but are replaced by retractable claws.
  • An app store lets you download magic spells.
  • Those toy laser guns at the amusement park souvenir stand aren’t toys.
  • Your imagination runs wild – everything you imagine comes true.
  • Your parents reveal a dark family secret.
  • Unbeknownst to you, an alien has been visiting you in your sleep for years.
  • A favourite piece of jewellery is more than it seems.
  • Your favourite childhood storybook comes to life.
  • What in the world is that in your stocking?
  • Santa has a terrible secret that may ruin Christmas.
  • A newborn child can converse in perfect English.
  • The Mayans were right… sort of.
  • The airline didn’t lose your luggage — they changed it into something different.
  • A new app for your phone bends the laws of physics.
  • A patch of quicksand leads to another world.
  • The fireplace leads to a wonderland, but only when it is lit.
  • An alien society seizes control of your tablet computer.
  • A new app lets you copy your soul and download it into different things.
  • Your pen contains magic ink.
  • A tiny planet declares independence from the intergalactic empire.
  • The heat and humidity begin to melt people. Literally.
  • Days begin to run backwards.
  • Terrorists create an app that instantly kills anyone who downloads it.
  • The scent of a certain rose does strange things to people’s minds.
  • Space aliens built the pyramids.
  • Ancient Atlantis is discovered, and it is a thriving society.
  • A Twitter follower follows you in real life.
  • The Post Office demands more than just a mere stamp to deliver your letter.
  • If a top-secret government computer is shut down, the entire universe is shut down.
  • There’s intelligence in that stray dog’s eyes. Too much intelligence.
  • Your iPod plays a strange song you didn’t load onto it.
  • You turn on the shower and blood pours out of the faucet.
  • You awaken into the world of your favourite novel.
  • There’s a new app available that lets you control minds.
  • A tiny dragon, no bigger than a hummingbird, befriends you.
  • The newest gym craze is exploding exercise bikes: stop peddling and BOOM!
  • A new bottled water on the market doesn’t exactly contain water.
  • The light from a sun in a distant solar system has strange effects on a crew of astronauts.
  • A rabbit-eared television set can control time and space.
  • A radical environmental group starts assassinating smokers.
  • Is that Santa climbing down your chimney…or something else entirely?
  • Your favourite stuffed animal comes to life.
  • A tiny spacecraft crashes through your bedroom window.
  • Gnomes follow you home.
  • A buzzard circles above you.
  • Space aliens knock on your front door.
  • Your dog strikes up a conversation with you.
  • An Internet virus affects your computer in a strange way.
  • You hear a nearby train whistle. There are no railroad tracks anywhere close.
  • The court jester has a sinister gleam in his eyes.
  • You’re alone, but there are footsteps in the hall.
  • You find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
  • The local zoo displays a real unicorn.
  • There is a monster inside your mattress.
  • A dragon is spotted flying over a distant farm.
  • A shooting star just changed directions.
  • Your favourite video game is actually a training manual for death.

Trading Places

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sex for a day? What do you think life would be like?

Probably but not that I can actively remember, all I ever saw is the disadvantage that women live under and all the pressures and never really fancied that for myself.

Especially as an older male I seem to get away with looking as I want with very little social pressure.

Whereas my partner who is the same age still has a lot of social pressure to conform in looks and behaviour.

So right now I really wouldn’t want to swap for a day.