Fleming later 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'."[5] He used well-known brand names and everyday details to produce a sense of realism,[5][65] which Amis called "the Fleming effect".[66][h] Amis describes it as "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".[68] The literary critic Meir Sternberg observes that Fleming went to great lengths to research the background of various items used in the novels to give readers an impression of the lifestyle or background of the characters.[69] Fleming would occasionally overreach with his descriptions, according to Palmer, who considers the description in the novel of "Pinaud Elixir, that prince among shampoos" as evidence of this.[70]
Within the text Benson identifies 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.[71] In On Her Majesty's Secret Service the sweep "moves with confidence and readability" to build the tension. Where the sweep is broken, it is at the visit to the College of Arms and at with the meeting at M's house; in both these parts, journalistic background provides necessary detail to enable the plot to proceed.[18] The hooks combine with what the novelist Anthony Burgess calls "a heightened journalistic style";[72] this, says Fleming, produces "a speed of narrative, which hustles the reader past each danger point of mockery".[73]
The literary analyst LeRoy L. Panek sees On Her Majesty's Secret Service as a fable; he considers Fleming also saw this, and subverted some aspects of the convention within the novel, such as when Bond thinks that "It would be amusing to reverse the old fable—first to rescue the girl, then to slay the monster".[74][75] Panek sees aspects of fables in many of the Bond novels, often associated with the villains—Fleming describes Le Chiffre as an ogre, Mr Big as a giant, Drax and Kleb (Moonraker) as a dragon and a toad, respectively—and notes that "Fleming puts damsels in distress in all the books".[76]
