Style of Writing

Authors note: I was having a really hard time coming up with something to write but then I asked myself why Watson always told stories in the past tense and then I remembered my grandpa always telling me stories about when he was young and I realized that was what Arthur Conan Doyle was trying to do.-Ross Pelzel

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were one of the best selling stories in the 19th century.  People loved Holmes for his intellect and his ability but the reason people fell in love with the stories of Sherlock Holmes is for Arthur Conan Doyle's unique style of writing.

The introductions of Conan Doyle's stories are one of the most unique facets to his interesting style of writing.  These stories are always in the comic mode but the normalcy at the beginning is strange because of the fact that Watson never starts out from the same place that he found Holmes.  In The Scandal in Bohemia, Watson, is walking past Baker Street when he sees Holmes pacing about in front of the window.  However, in the Redheaded League, Watson comes into Baker Street and finds Holmes already talking to his client.  The variety that Conan Doyle uses in his introductions keeps his stories exciting from the very beginning.

The introduction styles used by Arthur Conan Doyle may start the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes out with interesting variety but what keeps the stories going is the way Conan Doyle portrays Watson telling the stories from a distant memory.  Watson telling stories in a past tense makes it more real in a way that readers could relate to because a present tense is not as realistic as someone telling a story in past tense.  That is why Conan Doyle wrote Watson telling a story from a past tense.

The past tense that Conan Doyle writes in is a way of allowing him to use older words because of the past tense he is writing in.  The spectacular wording that Conan Doyle uses is one of the most unique and iconic facets of his writing style.  Conan Doyle uses alliteration to express things that could otherwise be said with simple words like, "We had sprung to our feet in amazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told us of some sudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life". even though he could have said we could stared at the piece of wreckage.  Conan Doyle also uses wording that we would not use normally to keep the readers attention and to portray that they are in an older time period than the time the book was published.  The wording usually includes colorful and descriptive vocabulary such as, "Seldom have I seen so graceful a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face." Even though he could have just said she was pretty.  Conan Doyle makes his characters sound as if they were in the 17th century instead of the 19th century.  That is one of the many ways Conan Doyle writes his magical pieces.

The introductions that always seem to be different but the same, the majestic wording or the past tense these are reasons that people fell in love with Conan Doyle's art of literature and the fact that all these components lead me to believe that Arthur Conan Doyle  wrote The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to be a story that a grandpa is telling his grandchildren of a sleuth named Sherlock Holmes.