¡°Writers shouldn¡¯t be afraid of using their imagination,¡± Hugh Ashton says, before launching into a quote from Sherlock Holmes: ¡°When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.¡±
Ashton, a Japan-based author of new Holmes material and other novels, takes the sleuth¡¯s words very seriously. ¡°I find his character and working practices can be applied to the writer¡¯s trade,¡± he says. ¡°Indeed, as long as the plot has some plausibility, it¡¯s a good plot. There are some very strange things that happen in real life, after all,¡± he adds, explaining the message he takes from the words of Arthur Conan Doyle¡¯s best-known character.
But what relevance can the logic of a 19th-century detective have for aspiring writers hoping to get noticed in the 21st-century publishing industry? After all, the business has transformed in the last couple of decades from a print-and-paper beast that Holmes could have recognized to something altogether more complex and chaotic (think less ¡°Hound of the Baskervilles,¡± more the huge amorphous mass in ¡°Akira¡°).
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