Crime fiction

Writers theories and ideas about the conventions of Crime fiction

Ronald Knox: A Detective Story Decalogue (1928)
is as follows:
Ronald Knox was a mystery writer in the early part of the 20th century who
belonged to the Detection Club, a society peopled by such legendary mystery
writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterson, and E. C. Bentley.
Among his novels: The Viaduct Murder, Double Cross Purposes, Still Dead.
Knox was also a Catholic priest, which is perhaps why he was tempted to write a
10 Commandments of detective fiction. If you write such stories, thou shalt
obey these laws

One
The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but
must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

Two
All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

Three
Not more than one secret or passage is allowed.

Four
No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need
a long scientific explanation at the end.

Five
No Chinaman* must figure in the story.
*or other mysterious alien

Six
No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an
unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

Seven
The detective must not commit the crime.

Eight
The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for

the inspection of the reader.

Nine
The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts
which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly,
below that of the average reader.

Ten
Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly
prepared for them.

Much Crime fiction is characterised by formula or recipe writing. As a genre it

has a fairly predictable script:
1. The Body The cadaver. A death has occurred; most people, conventional law
and order officials accept it as unsuspicious. However the world is out of joint
There are suspicious circumstances and Society is threatened.
2. The characters: Prototypes, stereotypes and other clichd or stock
characters.
a) the detective - hero - saviour. Like us he is mortal like us shares our human
failures, a loner, hard and fast living but s/he has the call to right wrongs, to
save the world from imminent disaster. His/her personality, deeds, methods
bring witness to his secular creed of religious doctrine.
The male sleuth whose love life is a disaster zone. It's as if those who mix it
professionally with low-lifes can never have normal private lives and, in the age
of the unorthodox heroine, more and more female protagonists share this
lonesome territory.
They are apostles of gadgetry; of recent innovations of Science and Technology
used for good. The reader is infused by identifying with the hero into believing
they are saving the world from evil forces. Herein lies the seductive power of
the whodunit.
Michael Duffy argues that what distinguishes the gumshoe is the rebel quality
of superiority in courage, insight and moral perception. The hero sees things to
which all those around him are blind. Superiors often remove heroic
investigators from big cases - being up against the bad guys and the people you
work for is a well-known convention of crime and espionage stories.
b) the foil - often a conventional police officer who represents the blindness of
society.

c) The villain - a threat of all of society.

3. Mystery stories are bloodstained fairy tales; Paradise Lost, Paradise sought
for, and Paradise Regained.
4. They allow us the readers to play vicariously the role of the saviour.
At the end we are assured that order has been restored, justice has been
accomplished and that we are safe from harm.
What is it about crime stories?
Even the authors who write them cant agree, with some declaring its the
satisfaction of confronting evil and others declaring its the vicarious thrill of
participating in it.
Either way, crime novels are popular. No matter what bookstore you enter, youll
find a crime section. With so many novels written in the crime genre, it can feel
like an easy one to write in but as with anything else, it only looks easy when its
done well.
Luckily those who do it well have shared their thoughts on what makes a good
crime novel so Ive been able to collect some of the best advice on crime writing
and dissect why its true (and why it isnt in some cases).
So where do we start?
Start with a murder
Its received wisdom that the best crime novels are those where theres a
murder in the first chapter. Its in the nature of the writer to regard this as a
challenge and veer in the other direction but on this occasion, its good advice.
All narratives detail the complete story of one conceptual item. That item can
be a person, an event, a relationship, a place, a belief, etc. In crime fiction, the
conceptual item is the investigation of a crime. Characters may be the best part
of your story but they dont define the narrative and so starting the story with
them makes everything before the crime feel tacked on: the reader
instinctively believes that anything before the crime isnt the real story.
Place the body near the beginning of your bookpreferably on the first page,
perhaps the first sentence.
Louise Penny

Even if that wasnt true, starting with the crime still lets you start with drama
and intrigue. Moreover, its the drama and intrigue the reader is expecting. Even
if your first chapter is a fascinating character study there will be, through no
fault of your own, a sense of disappointment or impatience from your reader if
they expected the famous first-chapter crime.
Thats not to say the crime has to begin the story chronologically but it should
be the first event a reader encounters. Feel free to skip backwards when you
start your second chapter. Having assured your reader that the game is afoot
acknowledging the boundaries of the narrative and feeding their desire for
instant gratification youre safe to continue in whatever way you want without
losing their attention.
Be character driven
The crime is the hook but your characters are the meat of the story. It can be
tempting to make your hero and villain servants to the action but the chase is
only interesting if the characters are.
I think that a crime novel like any story succeeds or fails on the basis of
character.
Michael Connelly
Your crimes will be exciting because of the stakes and those are defined by the
characters. The master plan may hurt some characters, but whether we care
about that is the difference between your plot being clever and merely
technically impressive.
Compelling characters chasing each other around a city will be more interesting
than dull characters enacting the most fiendishly brilliant plan ever conceived.
Of course your crime doesnt have to occur in the city. In fact theres a school
of thought that says it shouldnt.
Location, Location, Location
It can be convincingly argued that the more mundane the setting, the more
shocking your crime will be. Some crimes are expected, they fit our
understanding of the world, and this expectation saps the natural outrage and
shock you may want from your reader.
The more Eden-like [the setting], the greater the contradiction of murder. The
country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood better than a slum.

The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for
a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing
room carpet.
W.H. Auden
This is only partly true, in fact you could almost call it a gimmick. This view on
setting is an example of dissonance, a reaction that occurs when a key aspect of
a situation is the opposite of what you expected, and it can come from nearly
anything in a story: the hero, the villain, the victim, the weapon.
Dissonance makes a crime feel more wrong. It can heighten the readers
reaction to a crime, making it seem more evil or more complex. Its the same
device thats at play when horror movies present their scariest ghosts as
children. We dont think of children as threatening, but when were forced to it
heightens the threat. Likewise we dont think of certain places as dangerous,
but when were forced to, it heightens the sense of danger.
Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying!
If, tomorrow, I tell the press that a [gangster] will get shot nobody panics,
because its all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will
die, well then everyone loses their minds!
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises
This device is most useful for people who are writing to titillate. For those
trying to say something about society, crime itself or the human condition, the
crime can happen anywhere. In fact the location should be chosen to suit the
mood of the story; there are few locations which dont come with their own preexisting atmosphere.
Dont depend on twists
Twists and turns can help grip your reader but they arent always essential. If a
brilliant twist occurs to you then thats great, use it, but dont contort the story
to provide an out of the blue shock the reader doesnt need; crime writing is
about plunging interesting characters into a game of life and death.
A good crime writer needs a few tricks, of course, but character is everything.
Mark Billingham

Pulling the rug out from under your reader can be great but too many authors
sacrifice the believability of their narrative because they think its a must. Ian
McEwans novel Sweet Tooth is a gripping read, spoiled for some readers by
what could be viewed as an unnecessary final twist which has little effect on the
storys conclusion.
Research
Authors arent (usually) criminals, so writing a realistic account of crime and
detection is going to require a bit of research. Thankfully theres a big
difference between knowing what youre talking about and researching enough
to fake it.
Your story should feel realistic to the layman but you dont need to worry about
upsetting experts. No level of detail will satisfy the truly in-the-know, but
criminal procedure shows are so popular that the average reader is more clued
up than you might think.
As a general rule, the more important something is to your story, the more
thoroughly you should research it. If DNA comes back inconclusive, then you
dont have to know much about how it works, but if planted DNA is part of your
villains master plan, then youre going to have to elaborate.
Tom Clancy writes for a readership who have a more than average appreciation
for the facts behind criminal activity. In Clear and Present Danger he adds
realism by avoiding popular, under-researched representations of computer
hacking and instead having a protagonist require hours to guess the correct
password to a file using the victims personal information.
The usual suspects
Whatever your readers want from their crime fiction theyre unlikely to get it
without well-written, compelling characters. It can be tempting to get swept up
in the crime itself but remember your plot needs to be absorbing as well as
clever.
The reader needs to care what happens before they can truly enjoy how it
happens. Unnecessary twists will hurt that and lead you into clich. Although
crime fiction can be a highly formulaic (the chase has a definite pattern to it)
its down to you to make that formula as fresh as possible.

Crime fiction rewards skilled writers extensively. Whether youre writing a

harrowing gangland story or a cheeky heist, readers will be ready and eager to
jump headfirst into the narrative. In crime fiction, perhaps more than any other
genre, you simply need to give readers an excuse to immerse themselves.
Thoughts on the Red Herring
Red Herrings
By Stephen D. Rogers
A red herring is something that appears to be a clue but in fact is not. Just as
smoked herrings were used to lead fox hounds on a merry chase, red herrings
give mystery readers false trails to follow.
Some of the more common varieties of red herrings follow. Depending on the
length and style of your story, you can mix and match them to your heart's
content.
Characters
One way to introduce characters as red herrings it to give them all motives. In
many classic puzzle mysteries, nearly every person encountered benefitted in
some way from the crime.
Another way is to provide characters with means and opportunity. If a person
seems capable of committing a crime but no motive, two possibilities are
created. Either the person has a motive yet uncovered or the person is working
in concert with someone brimming with motive.
Readers have become so accustomed to these approaches that they sometimes
assume any character in the story is a suspect because why else would the
character appear? This leads to the person-least-likely syndrome and other
assumptions that you can use to your advantage.
Setting
The first thing many people think of when setting is discussed is place and
there are two ways that place can create red herrings.
Characters may refer to places in passing or as part of an alibi. What's the
significance to the place? What might an investigator learn by visiting the site?
The reader will wonder.
The investigator may actually visit the site. When that happens, you get to
choose which opportunities for further investigation will be red herrings.
A general description of place may also generate avenues for misdirection. Make
the reader question the significance of the crime being committed in an urban
(or suburban or rural or wild or waterfront) area. Which people would be most
comfortable acting in the environment you've chosen?

Setting does mean more than place and you can use the other aspects of setting
to influence how your reader responds.
Is the time of day the event occurred significant? Someone is shot exactly at
noon. Was is coincidence or something more?
Is the day of the week significant? A bank robbed on a Tuesday raises
questions when the drawers would normally have been light but this week was an
exception. Who had inside information?
Is the time of year significant? Serial crimes that occur during the first week
of school vacations may be committed by someone who works in education or has
children who couldn't travel while school was in session.
Is the weather significant? Does a particular character appear more likely to be
involved if the crime occurs on a hot day versus a rainy day versus a day when
the area is blanketed in three feet of snow?
Make every detail you include work on multiple levels.
Objects
There are two categories of objects that you can add to your descriptions:
objects that appear and objects that don't appear.
What does your investigator see at the crime scene? It is not uncommon for
writers to catalogue the evidence. You get to decide which items are present
for verisimilitude, which items are present as genuine leads, and which items are
present as red herrings.
The same question can be asked wherever the investigation takes your main
character.
What doesn't your investigator see? A more subtle clue is not what appears at
the scene but what might be expected to but doesn't. Who could have easily
removed the item and had the motivation to do so?
Whatever the category of object, there are shades of obliqueness. Compare the
following three objects which might be left at an arson site: an axe, a bag which
could be used to transport an axe, and a whetstone suitable for sharpening an
axe. How about traces of an oil commonly used by woodcutters?
An effective way to trick readers is to introduce objects with more than one
explanation. Does a pile of cigarette butts mean a long wait or a short dump of
an ashtray? Peanuts are not out of place in the victim's apartment unless it is
later revealed the character was allergic. Do the peanuts implicate the killer or
introduce the existence of an unknown visitor?
The greater the number of ways a reader can interpret a specific item, the
likelier the chance that your reader will make a wrong assumption.
Cautions

Nothing should be placed in the story simply to mislead the reader. If you're
going to leave a scalpel under the couch to falsely implicate the surgeon, you
need to have an explanation for why the scalpel was found in that location.
Too many red herrings can frustrate the reader, especially if every clue seems
to point at a different character. When matching wits with a reader, you need
to remember that readers come to the genre for an entertaining game.
Non-puzzle mysteries also use red herrings. There will be fewer and their
purpose will be slightly different. Instead of making the reader incorrectly
guess what happened, they make the reader incorrectly guess what is going to
happen.
There is a difference between misleading the investigator and misleading the
reader. Readers watch Sherlock Holmes follow logical (and apparently logical)
trails. Readers are riveted by investigators who don't know something the
reader does, especially if the knowledge could lead to a crisis situation.
If you send the investigator down the wrong trail and have set things up so that
the reader is likely to follow, don't belittle the investigator for the mistake
because you're insulting your reader as well.
Study classic puzzle mysteries by writers such as Agatha Christie. Examine the
way she drops clues (and red herrings) throughout the story.
How were you, as a reader, misled?
Suggested template
The Classic 12-Chapter Mystery Formula
Act I
Introduction of the crime (mystery) and the sleuth
Chapter 1
A. Disclose the crime and mystery to be solved. The crime must capture the
imagination. It should have been committed in an extraordinary way and either
the victim the perpetuator, or both, should be unusual. Give the reader enough
information about the victim to make them truly care that the perpetrator is
found out and that justice is served.
B. Early in the story, clues should be revealed which suggest both physical and
psychological aspects of the initial crime. Those clues should point to suspects
and motive which will carry the sleuth to the end of Act I. Some clues should
point the sleuth in the right direction, others may not be obvious or be
recognized as actual clues unto later in the story.
C. Introduce the sleuth who will solve the crime early, and have him or her do or
say something very clever or unexpected which will establish that person as

unique. Create this character with care. His or her personality should be
interesting enough to sustain the interest of the reader to the very last page.
(or through an entire series of books). It is not necessary to disclose all aspects
of the sleuths personality at the onset. Let the description unfold gradually to
sustain interest. Do reveal enough background to let the reader understand the
world in which the protagonist functions. (Small town sheriff, Scotland Yard
detective, Pinkerton agent in the old West, country squire, investigative
reporter in New York City, etc.)
D. Ground the reader in the time and place where the crime occurs. It is often
useful to include some sort of symbol, an object or a person, in the opening
scene which serves as a metaphor for what occurs in the story. The
reappearance of this symbol at the conclusion of the story will create a certain
organic unity.
E. Begin with a dramatic event. Some writers offer a prologue, describing the
execution of the crime in detail, as it occurs, possible from the point of view of
the victim or perpetrators. The same information could also be revealed by a
character, through dialogue. Sufficient details should be furnished to allow the
reader to experience the event as though he or she were actually there.
Another good opening would be to put the sleuth in a dire situation and allow
detail of the crime to unfold in due course.
Chapter 2
A. Set the sleuth on the path toward solving the mystery. Offer plausible
suspects, all of whom appear to have had motive, means and opportunity to
commit the crime. Select the most likely suspects, and have the sleuth question
them. One of these suspects will turn out to be the actual perpetrator.
B. At the approximate mid-point of Act 1, something should occur which makes
it clear to the reader that the crime is more complicated than originally
thought. Hints may be given to allow the reader to actually see possibilities not
yet known to the sleuth.
Chapter 3
A. The sub-plot should be introduced. The plot will continue to maintain the
progress of the story, but the sub-plot will carry the theme, which is a universal
concept to which the reader can identify. Sub-plots tend to originate either in a
crisis in the sleuths private life, or in the necessity of the sleuth to face a
dilemma involving a matter of character, such as courage or honesty.
B. The ultimate resolution of the sub-plot with demonstrate change or growth
on the part of the protagonist, and will climatic on a personal or professional
level. That climax may coincide with, or occur as prelude to the climax of the
main plot. The sub-plot may be a vehicle for a romantic interest or a
confrontation with personal demons of the sleuth. The author can manipulate
the pace of the novel by moving back and forth between the plot and sub-plot.

Act II
Direct the investigation toward a conclusion which later proves to be erroneous.
Chapter 4
A. Reveal facts about suspects, through interrogations and the discovery of
clues.
B. Flight, or disappearance of one or more suspect.
C. Develop a sense of urgency. Raise the stakes or make it evident that if the
mystery is not solved soon, there will be terrible consequences.
Chapter 5
A. The investigation should broaden to put suspicion on other characters.
B. Information gathered through interviews or the discovery of physical
evidence, should point toward the solution, although the relevance may not yet
be apparent.
Chapter 6
A. The sleuths background is revealed as the sub-plot is developed. Tell the
reader what drives the protagonist, what haunts or is missing in his or her life.
B. Make it clear that the sleuth has a personal stake in the outcome, either
because of threat to his or her life, or the possibility of revelation of matters
deeply disturbing to the protagonist on an emotional level.
Act III
Change of focus and scope of the investigation. This is the pivotal point in the
story where it become evident that the sleuth was on the wrong track.
Something unexpected occurs, such as the appearance of a second body, the
death of a major suspect, or discovery of evidence which clears the most likely
suspect. The story must take a new direction.
Chapter 7
A. Reveal hidden motives. Formerly secret relationships come to light, such as
business arrangements, romantic involvements, scores to be settled or
previously veiled kinships.
B. Develop and expose meanings of matters hinted at in Act I., to slowly clarify
the significance of earlier clues.
Chapter 8
A. The sleuth reveals the results of the investigation. The reader, as well as the
protagonist and other characters, are given an opportunity to review what is
known and assess the possibilities.
B. The solution of the crime appears to be impossible. Attempts to solve the
crime have stymied the sleuth. Misinterpretation of clues or mistaken

conclusions have lead him or her in the wrong direction, and logic must be
applied to force a new way of grasping an understanding of the uncertainties.
Chapter 9
A. Have the sleuth review the case to determine where he or she went wrong.
B. Reveal the chain of events which provoked the crime.
C. The crucial evidence is something overlooked in Act I, which appeared to have
been of little consequence at the time it was first disclosed. That evidence
takes on new meaning with information disclosed in Act III.
D. The sleuth (and perhaps the reader, if a keen observer) becomes aware of
the error which remains undisclosed to the other characters.
Act IV
Solution
Chapter 10
A. The sleuth weighs the evidence and information gleaned from the other
characters.
B. Based on what only he or she now knows, the sleuth must seek positive proof
to back up the yet undisclosed conclusion.
Chapter 11
A. Resolution of the sub-plot
B. The protagonist, having been tested by his or her private ordeal, is
strengthened for the final action leading to the actual solution of the mystery.
Chapter 12
A. The Climax - a dramatic confrontation between the sleuth and the
perpetrator in which the sleuth prevails. The more impossible the odds have
been, the more rewarding the climax will be.
B. Resolution - Revelation of clues and the deductive process which lead to the
solution. Establish that the case has been solved and justice has been served to
the satisfaction of all involved (except, the villain).