In From Russia, with Love Fleming experimented with an unusual narrative structure that saw Bond's entry into the story delayed until chapter eleven.[46][e] For Dr. No he returned to the conventional form with which he felt comfortable—that of the thriller writers of the early 20th century.[20][f][g] As a result, the story's villain is closer to the intellectual "gentleman crook" of the golden age of detective fiction,[20] and the novel's focus is on action at the expense of character development and depth of plot.[47]
Benson describes the "Fleming Sweep" as taking the reader from one chapter to another using "hooks" at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader onto the next.[49] He feels that the "Fleming Sweep briskly propels the plot" of Dr. No through chapters that are longer than in previous Bond novels;[50] Black also likes Dr. No's pacing, despite considering it inconsistent in places.[51] Winder believes that the novel's plotting is chaotic, although he still feels the book "can be read over and over again with immense pleasure".[52]
Dr. No was very cardboardy and need not have been ... The trouble is that it is much more fun to think up fantastic situations and mix Bond up in them.
Ian Fleming[53]
Fleming used known brand names and everyday details to produce a sense of realism,[7][54] which the writer Kingsley Amis calls "the Fleming effect".[55] Amis describes "the imaginative use of information, whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond's world ... [is] bolted down to some sort of reality, or at least counter-balanced."[56] The journalist and writer Matthew Parker sees the novel as "the most fantastical, gothic and melodramatic; and at times frankly, even knowingly, over the top",[53] while Black considers the fantastic element of Doctor No's underground lair to be a "weak" and "bizarre" part of the story.[51] When the writer Raymond Chandler reviewed the novel, he thought "that the long sensational business which is the heart of the book not only borders on fantasy. It plunges in with both feet. Ian Fleming's impetuous imagination has no rules."[57] Writing in 1963, Fleming acknowledged his plots were "fantastical while often being based in truth. They go wildly beyond the probable but not, I think, beyond the possible".[58]
