Writing A Mystery-Thriller Series: Part 3

Mark David

Published in

Creating The Elements

6 min readNov 28, 2014

Prologue: Ice and Fire

An essay in five parts

Part 1: A Jigsaw Puzzle Without A Picture

Part 2: Drawing the pictures — connecting the dots

by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements

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Introduction

In this, the third part of an essay exploring my thoughts, ideas and processes used in growing a series, I’ll examine the overall thematic inspiration from a poem by the great US deceased poet Robert Frost.

This essay is part of a series — an open dialogue, as much to myself as anyone, a chance to take a bird’s eye view of the whole in writing a Mystery-Thriller series that has taken many years, while I still have a little time left to tweak the first release. It’s a chance to collate pieces of information, ideas about creation, putting them together here to tell what the first book is about. More importantly, I’ll examine why I wrote it and how it is a smaller part of a much, much larger project, being now the prologue to a series of no less than seven books called The Elements.

An Introduction to He Who Favors Fire

Beyond The Light Of Reason called ‘Fire’ is a crime-mystery thriller. It has taken 9 years to write and a series has grown out of it. This is therefore the first and in many ways the most intricate book to write: It has the most layers and has also been the hardest to write. It is also my first ever book project, so there has been a lot of learning pains along the way. Though the final version bears little resemblance to the various starting points along the way as agendas and causes have been peeled away, leaving just the core of events in time and those caught up in them. For me, there will never be another book like Fire. This is not a bragging right, just a statement of my relationship with the pains of birth.

‘I cannot tell things that cannot be understood.’
A man called Alvar Bok said, while sitting on a balcony in the middle of a dark night following a storm in the forest.
Ash sniffed the air, pouted and nodded. ‘Judgmental, aren’t you?’

So why Fire and Ice? Interpretation of title

Fire is not about murder, but starts with one. It is not really about a painting, but involves one that is at the center of the plot. What it is about is the nature of people, their ideas, secrets, desires and — the greed of chasing them. We can sum this up simply in terms of a formula:

Hate — connected with ideology (ice) and

Greed/desire in terms of ideology (fire)

Fire is thus interpreted twofold: As a force of destruction, when allied to ideology. Is a lesser force of destruction — as ideological, when compared to the greed inherent in ideology.

So to explain the ‘original’ title —’ He Who Favors Fire’, it is necessary to turn back in time to perhaps, the greatest poet of America, Robert Frost. Mr. Robert Frost was viewed from the window on this journey because I wanted to find something that fit ‘fire’ — the motif chosen at the outset. My original ideas worked with the cosmological idea of the elements and our part in a vastly greater whole — is what The Elements has always been about. At some point I made the decision that the first book was really a part of this, becoming Fire. So from the outset, this book has a central motif fire. But not literally, though it is a literal dramatic device.

Cut to the chase: The poem ‘Fire and Ice’ by Robert Frost was the inspiration for the entire series that grew out of Fire:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice

This poem carries with it some very deep and intriguing thematic ideas. It has been used to create a title. Since then, it has been thought about a lot, now to the extent that a poem lies at the very heart of The Elements series.

A commentary on the nature of being

Essentially, this poem is a commentary upon two of the darkest traits of humanity: the capacity to hate, and the capacity to be consumed by lust. Of the two, Frost attributes the greater of two evils to desire, saying:

From what I’ve tasted of desire / I hold with those

, that part of us yearning for something, a foremost position, he also places it in the of being something linked to the destruction of the world. Frost is providing humanity with a powerful statement: He is saying that above all else, even hatred, desire is that emtotion, that force in humanity that is most likely to lead to its own demise. — Analysis of ‘Fire and Ice’ Unknown

I can think of no other words that encapsulate such a thought in such an innocuous collection of words. It is a revelation in meaning and in the art of poetry — not something I have ever shown an interest in — to represent a clarity of perception about how we, as people, influence our own outcomes. In this instance, collectively: As people. So for Frost, desire as a force, represents the greatest problem the world of man is confronted with.

Is this just a poem? No. Think on these words by The Mahatma:

I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil — human greed. M . K. Gandhi

I side the view that the root of all evil is simply, the greed of humanity. And greed is based on what we want — our desires. Desires are manifold, not the least being ideological. The greed of having our belief raised higher than others, consuming others in the process, in an ever spiralling process of destruction.

Greed and desire

In light of the fact that Fire and Ice by Robert Frost was written in regards to the Great War, this statement is essentially attributing the cause of the war to human greed and lust blinded by the arrogance of ideology. In doing so, he provides a current and relatable warning against this behavior in the future. Following his statement upon fire and desire, Frost then attributes hatred with almost the same capacity to do harm as desire, saying “I think I know enough of hate / to say that for destruction ice … would suffice.”

While this lessens the relative importance of hatred in regards to the poem as a whole, it is still presented as having the ability to lead to the destruction of the world, if it were to happen for a second time: Providing a powerful warning against human fallacy based on unhindered desire. So overall, the intention and meaning behind the poem is a basic desire on Frost’s part to warn, in his own manner, against what he sees as the two greatest problems facing humanity.

So what has all this got to with a mystery thriller?

The use of the poem is the central, driving, ideological-motif — a thematic framework for the whole: He who Favors Fire is therefore about the passion, tragedy and consequence of misdirected ideology. The book interprets greed and desire in terms of ideology. Fire is thus interpreted twofold:

It is a force of destruction. Yes — but, it is a lesser force of destruction compared to the greed of ideology. This is developed in a thriller-noir context. More about that in part 4.

Coming up…

In the next installment, part 4in this mini-series, I’ll look at more specifically at more specific aspects of Place and Time concerning the prologue and the series it is the beginning.

by mystery-thriller author Mark David, imaginator of The Elements