Editing Ian Fleming (section)

=== Style and technique ===
Fleming said of his work, "while thrillers may not be Literature with a capital L, it is possible to write what I can best describe as 'thrillers designed to be read as literature{{' "}}.{{sfn|Faulks|Fleming|2009|p=320}} He named [[Raymond Chandler]], [[Dashiell Hammett]], [[Eric Ambler]] and [[Graham Greene]] as influences.{{sfn|Bennett|Woollacott|2003|p=13}} William Cook in the ''[[New Statesman]]'' considered James Bond to be "the culmination of an important but much-maligned tradition in English literature. As a boy, Fleming devoured the [[Bulldog Drummond]] tales of Lieutenant Colonel [[H. C. McNeile]] (aka "Sapper") and the [[Richard Hannay]] stories of John Buchan. His genius was to repackage these antiquated adventures to fit the fashion of postwar Britain&nbsp;... In Bond, he created a Bulldog Drummond for the jet age."<ref name="Cook (2004)" /> [[Umberto Eco]] considered [[Mickey Spillane]] to have been another major influence.{{sfn|Eco|2003|p=34}}

In May 1963 Fleming wrote a piece for ''Books and Bookmen'' magazine in which he described his approach to writing Bond books: "I write for about three hours in the morning&nbsp;... and I do another hour's work between six and seven in the evening. I never correct anything and I never go back to see what I have written&nbsp;... By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day."{{sfn|Faulks|Fleming|2009|p=320}} Benson identified what he described as the "Fleming Sweep", the use of "hooks" at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=85}} The hooks combine with what [[Anthony Burgess]] calls "a heightened journalistic style"{{sfn|Burgess|1984|p=74}} to produce "a speed of narrative, which hustles the reader past each danger point of mockery".{{sfn|Faulks|Fleming|2009|p=318}}

Umberto Eco analysed Fleming's works from a [[Structuralism|structuralist]] point of view,{{sfn|Lindner|2009|p=3}} and identified a series of oppositions within the storylines that provide structure and narrative, including:
{{div col}}
* Bond—M
* Bond—Villain
* Villain—Woman
* Woman—Bond
* Free World—Soviet Union
* Great Britain—non-Anglo-Saxon countries
* Duty—Sacrifice
* Cupidity—Ideals
* Love—Death
* Chance—Planning
* Luxury—Discomfort
* Excess—Moderation
* Perversion—Innocence
* Loyalty—Dishonour{{sfn|Eco|2003|p=36}}
{{div col end}}

Eco also noted that the Bond villains tend to come from Central Europe or from Slavic or Mediterranean countries and have a mixed heritage and "complex and obscure origins".{{sfn|Eco|2003|p=40}} Eco found that the villains were generally asexual or homosexual, inventive, organisationally astute, and wealthy.{{sfn|Eco|2003|p=40}} Black observed the same point: "Fleming did not use class enemies for his villains instead relying on physical distortion or ethnic identity&nbsp;... Furthermore, in Britain foreign villains used foreign servants and employees&nbsp;... This racism reflected not only a pronounced theme of interwar adventure writing, such as the novels of Buchan, but also wider literary culture."{{sfn|Black|2005|p=19}} Writer [[Louise Welsh]] found that the novel ''Live and Let Die'' "taps into the paranoia that some sectors of white society were feeling" as the [[civil rights movement]]s challenged prejudice and inequality.{{sfn|Fleming|Welsh|2006|p=v}}

Fleming used well-known brand names and everyday details to support a sense of realism.{{sfn|Faulks|Fleming|2009|p=320}} Kingsley Amis called this "the Fleming effect",{{sfn|Amis|1966|p=112}} describing it as "the imaginative use of information, whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond's world&nbsp;... [is] bolted down to some sort of reality, or at least counter-balanced."{{sfn|Amis|1966|pp=111–112}}