How to Write a Crime Fiction Novel
Dr Charlotte Barnes, Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Worcester, who lectures in Creative Writing, English Literature, and Media and Film Studies, is a specialist in true crime and published crime fiction novelist. She shares her tips for writing the perfect crime.
There seems to be something innate in our nature that draws us to stories about crime. Whether it’s the hunt for a killer or the solving of a decades-old mystery, it’s an endless fascination, but particularly in fiction.
From the popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, then the so-called Golden Age of Crime Fiction in the 1930s, right up until today, crime fiction has always attracted a devoted readership. And it covers so many facets - the traditional whodunnit, psychological thrillers, police procedurals, the list is endless.
But are there some values they all intrinsically share? How do you compete with what’s already on the shelves? And do you need a compelling legendary detective to make it a page turner?
Narrator and perspective
Dr Barnes said one thing to know from the start is your narrator and from whose perspective you will tell your story.
“I think you need to decide your narrative vantage point - whether you’re telling it from the person investigating the crime or the perpetrator, or some innocent bystander who gets swept up in it, because I think that drastically changes the tone of a novel,” she said.
“Is it going to be told in first person or third person? And then you need to decide on the tone of voice to tell that perspective.
“For example American Psycho [by Bret Easton Ellis] is narrated by Patrick Bateman, the murderer. The voice of that perpetrator is very stylized in a way that the story wouldn't need to be necessarily if it was being told from one of the people that eventually catch him.”
Strong character
Also essential in the planning stages is establishing a strong central character and getting to know them, Dr Barnes said, and she spends considerable time developing them.
“I will put their name in the centre of a page and I will just scribble until that page is full, like a brainstorming process,” she said.
“Sometimes I will ask my characters difficult questions to try and gauge how they might react in certain situations or what their views are on certain things. I think that's a good way of getting a sense of who they are.” As your character might develop during the course of writing the novel, she said you can always add to the brainstorm down the line.
Motive
Alongside characters, you need a good motive for the crime they commit.
“Motive is essential,” said Dr Barnes. “Because if you want to actually explore human psychology you need something causal. I don't really subscribe to ‘she did this because she's evil’.
“The criminal’s motive is also an important driving force. I think, if you are actually writing crime that shows something about human psychology, you have to know what your motive is because it's the only way that readers will understand, maybe even justify, what's happened in the story.”
A puzzle to solve
Though it depends on the type of crime novel you’re writing, Dr Barnes said people love a puzzle and for her that is the secret of the genre’s popularity and therefore an important ingredient in the novel.
“I think generally a lot of crime writers try and uphold that, sometimes in very sneaky ways, admittedly,” she said. “And it might be that it's something that you don't notice until you actually know who's done the crime. But we love that interactive element and that armchair detective practice that kind of draws us into a narrative that needs to be solved somehow.”
A Twist – or two
From Agatha Christie’s jaw-dropping twist in Murder on the Orient Express or more recently Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, your plot is going to need at least one twist, according to Dr Barnes.
“I think in every book, there at least needs to be one moment where you almost don't understand what's happened, a twist that prevents it from being entirely guessable,” she said.
Though, nowadays, the more audacious the better, she advised.
“It's always been a space that's been very innovative, but I think that the influx of new female voices in the last two decades probably had something to do with how crime fiction has shifted,” she said. “Now it feels as though the ante has been upped, in so far as every book needs to have the big twist.”
Dr Barnes added: “I think a novel that pulls the rug out from readers to the extent that Gone Girl did was so instrumental. It brought new readers to the genre, who, having had a very high bar set, now just expect it.”
However, she doesn’t believe there are rules on where those twists fall. She pointed out that in Gone Girl the major twist happens half-way through while other writers have given away their twist in the prologue.
Don’t be afraid to take big leaps
Is it a danger to make your narrator, the murderer, an appealing character?
Dr Barnes doesn’t think so. “I think we're past that point with crime and true crime,” she said. “If you look at characters like Dexter [the character from the TV series Dexter] and Hannibal [Lecter, the character from Thomas Harris’ novel The Silence of the Lambs], they're designed to be that way. We are meant to feel charmed by them, not least because that's what psychopaths do.”
She said that aspiring crime writers should not be afraid to explore the darker side of human nature and psychology.
“The psychology of killers, making killers alluring, subverting safe spaces like the home - this is the point of crime fiction,” she said. “We're seeing the monster from a safe distance, effectively, because we get an insight into crime, detective work, how people behave, sometimes how people think. And then we get to close the book and go back to our normal lives. I do think it gives us a view into things that we just otherwise wouldn't be exposed to.”
Embrace moral grey areas
Dr Barnes also believes there should be room for moral complexity in modern crime fiction – not just good and bad characters or even good and bad actions.
“I like putting people in moral grey spaces, which I think is another thing that crime writing is good for,” she said. “Those moral grey spaces that makes a reader go, well, what would I do?
“For me they're quite good bedfellows - moral grey spaces and human psychology. It makes us re-evaluate what's right and wrong.”
You don’t need a Hercule Poirot!
Think of the classic crime novel and famous detectives like Hercule Poirot probably comes to mind, but nowadays that is not a pre-requisite of the genre. According to Dr Barnes, crime fiction has moved on due to the influx of new, particularly female, writers and there is now less of a formula.
“I think people love it when it's there, but I don't think a detective figure is a central facet of crime writing anymore,” said Dr Barnes. “The majority of my novels don't have one and are largely written from the perspective of the person or people doing something wrong.
“That's a lot more common than it used to be. I think books like Girl on the Train [by Paula Hawkins] and Gone Girl prompted this shift whereby people became more attracted to these untrustworthy, slightly transgressive, usually female narrators.”
Even when there is a detective figure, they are usually more nuanced, she said.
“In traditional crime narratives the police or detectives are kind of above reproach, but I think that even contemporary police procedural novels are trying to do clever things with their characters that perhaps we wouldn't have seen in the times of Sherlock Holmes,” she added.
It doesn’t have to be murder!
Beyond the detective, a puzzle and a famous twist, the vast majority of crime fiction has one feature that re-appears again and again – murder! Most of us would struggle to come up with a novel in the genre where a death, intentionally or perhaps otherwise, has not occurred. Indeed, a quick scan of famous works reveals it is frequently used in the book’s title, and, if not used, more often than not words like death, body or postmortem come up!
But, dispelling that assumption, Dr Barnes pointed out that there are other crimes to be explored – fraud, embezzlement, blackmail - and urged writers not to be blinkered about their choice of crime. “You need a crime, but it doesn’t have to be murder,” she said.
You don’t need to know the ending!
Though some writers might want to sketch out their whole plot, twist and all, Dr Barnes does not feel this is necessary, which might be surprising given that the resolution of the crime is often so key to the plot!
She said that she might only know 50,000 words into a novel how it’s going to end - and that she knows other crime writers who take the same approach. She said things may develop that you do not expect from your characters which may even change the outcome of the novel. And you can add in clues into your second and third draft if necessary to fit the ending you’ve chosen, she said.
Get inspired by other crime writers
So where do crime writers get their ideas from? You might think they would be scouring court reports and cases in the news.
But not so for Dr Barnes. Though she researches crimes for her academic work, she does not believe she takes much inspiration from real-life cases. She acknowledged that other writers may have a different approach.
However, Dr Barnes’ tip for where to get inspiration is simple - read as much crime fiction as you can, and a whole range of books within that field. Though she also warns against writing your own crime novel at the same time as reading someone else’s as that might prove confusing.
In conclusion, ultimately some of the rules for writing crime fiction clearly overlap with other genres. But clearly there are also key elements that an author needs to get right for it to succeed in this competitive field. A puzzle to solve, a did-not-see-that-coming twist, a compelling character and a storyline that poses the reader some interesting moral questions all appear key to creating the next big hit to sit alongside the classics of the genre on our nation’s bookshelves.