Detective comedy 1: Setting up the shabby detective

About Standards
Detailed practice
Story - Narrative
Middle years and up
detective stories
comedy
humour
tropes
escalating description
hardboiled detective
falcons malteser
anthony horrowitz
first person narration
mystery
story beginnings
starting a story
exaggeration
summarising
point of view
pov
voice
judging
escalating detail
describing problems
punchlines
environmental details
project
Purpose
Examining detective story tropes, starting with describing the detective and their agency.
Description
This lesson begins an examination of the blending of detective and comedy genres in 'The Falcon's Malteser', focussing on setting up the 'down-on-their-luck' detective and tropes such as a first person narrative. What are the tropes of the 'hardboiled' detective story novel and how can this be manipulated to make it funny? We rewrite the passage looking at each of these details, and end with a checkpoint piece.
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