[taco]

The Da Vinci Code is the highest selling English language novel written in the last 50 years, if you exclude Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone. What makes The Da Vinci Code such a great sale? Accessibility? Controversy? Fast paced action? The dreamy heartthrob protagonists Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu?
It’s probably mostly the controversial conspiracy theory of the book that really got it so much attention, and as much as people like to slam it, there are a bunch of cool riddles and twists, and the pace of the book makes it a pretty great read.

So, I decided to try decipher the format of the book, and write my own detective thriller story.
That’s right, I’m going to crack the The Da Vinci Code code.
(Everything I have done is mired in caveats, premature rounding and general sloppiness, brace yourself)


I decided not to included flashback scenes in any of the stats I collected because they were annoying. This is why Saunière only has one appearance (the prologue).

I counted 18 real characters in the book. There are maybe 2 named characters who are not included on this list because they only had one appearance and were not significant in the plot. There were also various (mostly police and catholic clergy) unnamed characters who aren’t worth mentioning either.
For each character, I figured out how many chapters they appeared in and which character archetype best described the character based on this website.
Although Robert Langdon was a mentor to Sophie Neveu, and Sophie was a hero in her own right, I just chose one primary archetype per character to keep it simple.
I also counted 18 “scenes”, one being “travelling somewhere” and another being “other”: all the scenes that only existed for a single chapter and weren’t really important to the story.
Instead of counting actual chapters here, I split chapters that occurred in multiple scenes. 13 chapters occurred in 2 different locations, 1 chapter occurred across 3 locations. In 16 “chapters” there was a telephone conversation.



I categorised the locations into 8 types of location (including “travel” and “others”).
I also recorded events that occurred, grouped into 14 messy, unsatisfying categories:



AND SO, HERE’S MY FORMULA FOR A GREAT DETECTIVE THRILLER

Show ContentIt's pretty terrible but also I'm amazing never doubt my genius:

1) Generate locations:

Roll a 100-sided dice (fifteen times):
If you get 1-3: location is a STATION
If you get 4-23: location is a LAIR
If you get 24-43: location is a MAZE
If you get 44-45: location is a SAFE HAVEN
If you get 46-54: location is a SIGNPOST
If you get 55-64: location is a VAULT
If you get 65-93: “TRAVELLING”
If you get 94-100: “OTHERS”
Number your locations 1 to 15
Use the Wikipedia random article button to name your location if it isn’t Travelling or Other.

2) Generate characters (remember you can use as many unnamed characters as you like to fill in the story as needed later)

Roll a 100-sided dice:
If you get 1-22: character is ALLY
If you get 23-39: character is GUARDIAN
If you get 40-55: character is HERALD
If you get 56-77: character is HERO
If you get 78-83: character is MENTOR
If you get 84-100: character is SHAPESHIFTER
THEN Roll ANOTHER 100-sided dice:
If you get 1-22: character is FEMALE
If you get 23-100: character is MALE
Use the Wikipedia random article button to name your character

3) Chapter generation

Roll a 100-sided dice:
If you get 1: It’s a THREE SCENE CHAPTER
If you get 2-14: It’s a TWO SCENE CHAPTER
If you get 15-100: It’s a ONE SCENE CHAPTER
Now for EACH SCENE:
THEN Roll ANOTHER 100-sided dice
If you get 1-13: There’ll be a PHONE CALL in this scene
If you get 14-100: There will be NO PHONE CALL in this scene
Now roll a y-sided dice, where y is the number of locations you have generated. The number it returns will tell you which location to use in this scene.
To decide how many characters will be in this scene, roll a 100-sided dice:
If you get 1-18, there’ll be 1 character
If you get 19-56, there’ll be 2 characters
If you get 57-80, there’ll be 3 characters
If you get 81-97, there’ll be 4 characters
If you get 98-100, there’ll be 5 characters
For each character you have to include in this scene, roll a 100-sided dice:
If you get 1-21, choose one of your generated ALLY characters.
If you get 22-38, choose one of your generated GUARDIAN characters.
If you get 39-55, choose one of your generated HEARALD characters.
If you get 56-77, choose one of your generated HERO characters.
If you get 78-83, choose one of your generated MENTOR characters.
If you get 84-100, choose one of your generated SHAPESHIFTER characters.
Choose which character of that archetype category you will use by rolling and x-sided dice where x=the number of characters you have generated of that archetype category. If you have a 0-sided dice, do not throw that dice. Go back and reroll for a different archetype.
Finally! for the event that happens in this scene roll a 100-sided dice:
If you get 1-21: a TRAVELLING/EXPOSITION/FILLER EVENT will occur
If you get 22-35: a BETRAYAL/SECRET AGENDA REVEALED EVENT will occur
If you get 36-45: a CHASE EVENT will occur
If you get 46-54: a CHARACTER DEFEATED (killed, kidnapped, tricked etc etc) EVENT will occur
If you get 55-62: a CALL TO ACTION/QUEST EVENT will occur
If you get 63-68: a RIDDLE PRESENTED EVENT will occur
If you get 69-74: a RIDDLE SOLVED EVENT will occur
If you get 75-79: a PLANNING/PREPARATION EVENT will occur
If you get 80-86: a RESCUE/CHARACTER PROTECTED/HELP GIVEN EVENT will occur
If you get 87-90: an ESCAPE EVENT will occur
If you get 91-93: a QUEST FAILED/DELAYED EVENT will occur
If you get 94-96: a GAIN ENTRY EVENT will occur
If you get 97-99: an ITEM RECEIEVED/STOLEN EVENT will occur
If you get 100: a BUDDING ROMANCE EVENT will occur

Including the prologue and epilogue, the book has 107 chapters and a word count of 138,952. That’s 1298.617 words per chapter on average.
I recommend generating yourself 20 characters, 15 locations, and 100 chapters (about 1000 words each). 

This will give you a template for a best-selling detective-thriller novel. You’re welcome, I’ve given you all a fool-proof method to instant wealth and fame.

I'm going to write up a prototype bestseller detective thriller now, and post it here when it's complete. Ready your eyes to weep tears of joy about how great I am and how excellent this whole thing was

[NZs no.3]

I'm going to write up a prototype bestseller detective thriller now, and post it here when it's complete. Ready your eyes to weep tears of joy about how great I am and how excellent this whole thing was

Thanks for the formula, brb gonna write a shitty book and post it here.

Hey I never read Di Vincis code. Still worth it now? I only read Angels and Demons which was so goddam fantastic that I even wrote a paper on it at High School about how terrorist could use antimatter to bomb us all. I think Jargonion then even made a decent mockery of it and posted it up on a wiki site somewhere.

[taco]

Hey I never read Di Vincis code. Still worth it now? I only read Angels and Demons which was so goddam fantastic that I even ...

Yeah if Dan Brown perfected one thing it was a fast paced story. The Da Vinci Code is basically a single long chase scene punctuated by flashbacks and riddles and a conspiracy theory. The whole story takes place over less than two days.

So yeah a quick, good read.
Warm-up for a lapsed reader before leaping into something that's a bit chewier

[Oathy]

Quality content

[womblemuppet]

I never figured out if I just got numb to the whole formula (Dan Brown's, whether or not it's the same as this magnificent newborn), or if his writing slowly turned to shit. The Da Vinci Code was up to par, but then he spent ~5 years before defecating the lost symbol, and then he truly ran out of steam. was it me? or is there an inherent weakness to the code? A failsafe of diminishing returns, to protect against a monopoly in the fodder thriller industry?

[taco]

I never figured out if I just got numb to the whole formula (Dan Brown's, whether or not it's the same as this magnificent newborn), or if his writing slowly turned to shit. The Da Vinci Code was up to par, but then he spent ~5 years before defecating the lost symbol, and then he truly ran out of steam. was it me? or is there an inherent weakness to the code? A failsafe of diminishing returns, to protect against a monopoly in the fodder thriller industry?

I never read The Lost Symbol so can't comment on that, but I do feel like Dan uses boring characters that you can figure out pretty easy. What actually makes his stories interesting is probably the scene. Sort of like how Black Mirror is all about the scary technology and often uses (in the few episodes I have seen) boring stock characters.
He described the female protagonist Sophie Neveu's features as "soft" enough times to gross me out a bit. Who wants a "soft" woman?

I definitely don't think he could top The Da Vinci Code for scandal or conspiracy theory. He covered the Illuminati before it was a meme. By comparison Freemasons are kind of boring and he's late to the party. His other books are about encryption (Digital Fortress) and a life on mars hoax (Deception Point) which were less about secret old-timey conspiracy clubs and more about government-level modern conspiracy stuff.

He'd probably do better with a 9/11 truther-style conspiracy theme for his next book. Get in on some al-qaeda/IS, mercenaries, politicians and buzzwords like "military-industrial complex".



But yeah maybe he's running out of ways to write a fast paced treasure hunt without it seeming quite derivative of his earlier works?

[Jargonion]

Let's all go play the original Deus Ex.

[NZs no.3]

But yeah maybe he's running out of ways to write a fast paced treasure hunt without it seeming quite derivative of his earlier works?

Have you read Angels and Demons? The only one i can weigh in on. What do you think of that?

[taco]

Have you read Angels and Demons? The only one i can weigh in on. What do you think of that?

Haven't read it in ages, but skimming a pdf of it, I'm remembering how much CERN and antimatter was important in the story. It was a science verses religion scene and so you got all the fun Illuminati and Vatican stuff and high tech gadgets and whatever.

Langdon (the symbologist) in this book gets paired with Vittoria (the physics scientist raised in a catholic seminary but can also fight), making her a better sidekick in my opinion than Sophie Neveu (police cryptologist who turns out to be spoiler spoiler spoiler).

I think you should try his three other books that aren't The defecatedLost Symbol : Deception Point, Digital Fortress, The Da Vinci Code.
They all have a quick pace, fun topics, highly competent female sidekicks that are sometimes convincingly described as sexy.

You'll be able to find at least 3 copies of The Da Vinci Code in any place they sell second hand books, and probably his other novels too. Definitely check them out they're very very readable.

[NZs no.3]

I have Digital Fortress, and seen the others regularly enough everywhere. He has a new book out soon?