"Everything in a story should be credible"
About this Quote
Credibility is Stout's quiet demand that fiction stop begging for exemption from reality. Coming from a writer who built one of mystery's most architecturally sound franchises (Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin), the line reads less like a creative-writing platitude and more like a production note: if you want the reader to follow you into contrivance, you have to make the contrivance behave.
"Credible" doesn't mean "likely" or "literal". It means internally accountable. In detective fiction especially, the genre is a contract: the author hides the ball, but not under the table. Stout is defending a kind of fairness that still allows surprise. A genius detective, a baroque alibi, a conveniently timed phone call - any of these can work if they land inside a world with consistent motives, intelligible stakes, and human behavior that doesn't suddenly warp to rescue the plot.
The subtext is almost moral. Stout is pushing back against the cheap thrill of the implausible twist, the character who becomes stupid on cue, the villain who monologues because the chapter count demands it. His books often hinge on social observation - class, workplaces, petty pride - and credibility is the tool that lets those observations bite. When the machinery is believable, the reader doesn't feel manipulated; they feel implicated.
Context matters: Stout wrote through pulp's boom and the Golden Age puzzle craze, eras that rewarded cleverness but often flirted with artificiality. His sentence is a reminder that cleverness without credibility is just noise dressed as design.
"Credible" doesn't mean "likely" or "literal". It means internally accountable. In detective fiction especially, the genre is a contract: the author hides the ball, but not under the table. Stout is defending a kind of fairness that still allows surprise. A genius detective, a baroque alibi, a conveniently timed phone call - any of these can work if they land inside a world with consistent motives, intelligible stakes, and human behavior that doesn't suddenly warp to rescue the plot.
The subtext is almost moral. Stout is pushing back against the cheap thrill of the implausible twist, the character who becomes stupid on cue, the villain who monologues because the chapter count demands it. His books often hinge on social observation - class, workplaces, petty pride - and credibility is the tool that lets those observations bite. When the machinery is believable, the reader doesn't feel manipulated; they feel implicated.
Context matters: Stout wrote through pulp's boom and the Golden Age puzzle craze, eras that rewarded cleverness but often flirted with artificiality. His sentence is a reminder that cleverness without credibility is just noise dressed as design.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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