Let's Talk About Crime (In Your Story, Of Course)

I'd like to start this week's post off with something of a lore drop. While I've been a professional writer for going on the past 12 years of my life, my degree is actually in criminal justice. For those who are wondering why, my logic was that I wanted to write crime thrillers, and if I was going to do that I should have at least some idea of how the criminal justice system worked... and since I had to get a degree in something, I might as well double dip my research, right?

While I have released some unusual noir mysteries in the form of my hardboiled cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats, most of my work has been outside the realm of straight crime stories since I graduated. However, I have dusted off my degree for more than a few editorial critiques, and this week I wanted to talk about crime in our stories.

Because a lot of the time people get this very wrong.

Seriously guys... it pays to do your research here.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Corpus Delecti (Body of The Crime)

All right, let's begin at the beginning here. If you are going to write a story where a crime constitutes an important part of your plot, regardless of whether it's a private detective story, a cop drama, or just a novel about an average Joe getting in over his head, you first need to know and understand what crimes are being committed. You don't need to be able to cite case law, but it is a good idea to look up what constitutes a crime in the place where your story is being set, and what the circumstances are when it comes to your plot.

And make sure that you understand a protagonist isn't immune to prosecution... that will break people's suspension of disbelief.

Malice aforethought you say? Interesting...

Just as an example, if your protagonist comes home to find his wife cheating on him with another man, and that man grabs a knife off the bedside table before charging at the protagonist, then your lead could absolutely pull a gun off his hip and shoot the guy dead while making some kind of claim for self-defense. This will still be an extremely messy situation, and there may be legal pressures put on him, but meeting deadly force with deadly force (particularly if the state has castle doctrine, where a resident has no duty to retreat from their own home) means you could portray this as a situation where he has no legal consequences for this act once all the facts come out and the police wrap up their investigation.

However, say that when he came home and caught his wife with her lover, said lover didn't try to escalate anything. He put his hands up, said he didn't want any trouble, he had no idea she was married, he'll just go. Your protagonist doesn't have that legal cover in this situation, and gunning the guy down would likely be manslaughter at best. But if it turns out he knew his wife was cheating on him, and he came home unexpectedly to catch them? That could be read as murder, because it required planning, which could be read as malice aforethought (typically a major element of a murder charge).

This is the main way a lot of folks end up messing up crime in their stories; they don't actually know the name of a crime, or what the parameters are that define that crime. And you could argue that some of that will be up to lawyers and courts in the story, as average folks might not much care about the difference between manslaughter and murder, or understand the differences between degrees of a felony when it comes to theft, dealing controlled substances, arson, etc. You, as the author, should have a working idea of what defines these crimes, though, because characters who should know need to sound authoritative on the subject.

Because if your protagonist is just a regular schmuck who gets caught up in a criminal conspiracy, no, they don't necessarily know what's happening. But if they're a lawyer, a cop (current or former), or even a gangster, they should have some idea if what they're doing/getting involved with is illegal, and exactly how illegal it happens to be.

What's The Point?

Understanding the crimes in your story is the first part of the battle... the next part, though, is that you have to actually fit those crimes into your story in a way that makes sense. After all, people don't just go around committing serious felonies just for the hell of it. So you need to understand why they're doing something before you just throw crimes into your book to escalate things and add drama.

Oh yes, those are crime boxes. Full of crime, they are!

Let's take a situation that happens in a lot of thrillers... someone witnessed a cop kill someone. Their life wasn't in danger, there was no mistaken intent, the officer just executed someone. Maybe the cop then tossed the body in the woods and tried to hide it, or maybe they called in a report, planting evidence on the corpse that would support a fabricated story, but there's a witness that saw them just gun somebody down in cold blood. Now, the question you have to answer as the author, is why? Why did that cop kill this person?

There's a slew of reasons to that question! Off the top of my head you might find:

- The cop is a serial killer, hiding behind their badge to protect themselves.

- It was personal, and the victim wronged the cop in the past.

- It was business. The cop is on the take, and did this on behalf of his criminal bosses.

- It was business. The cop extorts people, and he's sending a message to others.

- The cop had a vendetta. He knows (or thinks) the suspect was guilty of a crime he couldn't prove.

These are just a sample of motivations, but the point here is that the crime by itself is just one side of the coin... the other part is how that crime fits into your narrative. The crime is an element, but you need to use it to cast shadows on the rest of your plot to create the proper atmosphere for the rest of your story.

For instance, if the cop is a serial killer, does this become a game of cat and mouse as the witness tries to get people to believe them, while the cop is trying to silence them... perhaps permanently? If the cop was acting as an enforcer for a syndicate, is his action merely a stepping stone in the investigation, breaking open a wider case of corruption where the protagonist takes on the mob? If it's personal, is the witness someone who knows the cop? Is this a secret they now share, and it begins to poison their relationship as the killer gets more and more nervous, while the witness begins to worry his friend will kill him to keep the secret?

The specifics of the crime haven't changed... but the dramatic element it represents is different in each story suggestion. And while it might be true that just starting with a crime is a good way to begin storyboarding your book, it's rarely a good enough place to just begin your first draft... especially if what you're writing is a mystery. And for that reason, I would suggest folks take this blog entry, and combine it with the advice I gave in When Writing A Mystery, Start At The Middle of The Onion.

Putting these two things together really helps you figure out just what is happening in your plot. And once you know that, all you have left to do is to figure out how your protagonist interacts with these events, and watch the dominos start to fall!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

"Why Don't They Call The Cops?" A Question You Always Need to Answer

We've all had those moments when we're reading a book or watching a movie where we ask ourselves, "Why are you doing this? Why aren't you calling the cops?" Whether it's a teenage avenger going out to save a kidnapped family member, or someone who has a stalker in a strange mask outside their house, there's always that knee-jerk reaction where we ask why aren't they going to the authorities for help?

If you ascribe to the Hitchcock school of storytelling, the answer is simple. That's boring.

Seriously, screw the police.

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Alfred Knows Storytelling

For all his flaws, Hitchcock knew how to tell a story that compelled people. And when it comes to this particular aspect his opinion was as plain as it was simple. When you're telling a story, you want to follow these characters. You don't have them immediately solve a plot by going to the police because that can suck the suspense out of the story. It's a mundane solution, and it's not interesting.

However, we still need to provide some kind of out for our readers' suspension of disbelief. This is why you should either have an explanation as to why your characters don't contact the police, or that the presence of the police doesn't actually solve the plot, or fix the problem of the story.

Corrupt? Incompetent? Not worth the time? All sorts of reasons.

The most obvious solution to this problem is that there is either no law enforcement presence in the story's setting, or they're impossible to contact. The former is common in fantasy and historical stories where the very concept of modern policing doesn't exist. The latter is more common among horror stories that focus on isolation (there's no cell signal up at the cabin, and there's monsters outside), but it also shows up quite a lot in Westerns (where you could ride for help, but it will be two days before the sheriff can make it back here... if he comes at all).

If you're telling a story in a setting that has "call the cops" as an option, though, it's important to still provide some kind of reason for why your protagonists don't do that.

For instance, is your protagonist a wanted criminal? Or have they committed a major crime that, if it's discovered, they'll still go to prison for even if the police save them from the giant mutant alligator? Does your protagonist believe that the cops will just mess things up, and create more problems than they'll solve? Or do they believe that the individuals they're up against are untouchable, and that the cops won't go after them? In some cases it might even be that if you called 911 and told them what's actually happening (there's an alien sport hunter in my back yard and he's trying to take my head as a trophy) they'll write you off as a nut case and ignore your calls.

There's a lot of potential reasons. You just need to give your audience one of them.

Police as Complication

There is another option to consider, however, and that's turning the police into a story complication instead of a plot solution. A strategy most commonly used in thrillers, calling the cops in this circumstance is not a guaranteed path to safety. In fact, it might make things worse.

As an example, say that someone who is under threat from the mob calls the police. The police, naturally, offer to protect this person... or do they? Maybe the gangsters arrange to have a cop on their payroll take up guard duty so their boys can get into the house and try to kill the protagonist. Or perhaps the cop tries to do the job himself, completely shattering our protagonist's ability to trust the police at all. This, conveniently, makes it impossible for the reader to trust the police going forward, as well. Maybe the protagonist is being stalked by a serial killer, but a detective eager to close the case and get a promotion starts trying to twist the evidence to say that it's the story lead that is the killer, so now they have to contend with the actual killer, as well as being dogged by the police everywhere they go.

What? Is buying an ax illegal just because someone is killing people with one?

If you can't think of a reason for your protagonist not to contact the police when your story starts, this is a good way to show it's not a guaranteed solution to the issue. Cops who are corrupt, inexperienced, outmanned, or who simply aren't inclined to believe what's happening will just pass the baton right back to your protagonist to actually deal with the situation as it's unfolding.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!