: Re: How to extrapolate a spectacular crime from everyday ones I'm reading daily crime stories in newspapers, just to have an idea to write a detective story. But the crimes I read about aren't

@Heady158

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A crime written in the newspaper is largely boring. Someone stole something, killed someone, the more interesting parts of the crime are hardly written in public papers.

If you want to write good crime story, make it irregular, give it something new.

How is the body found?

In one of Kathy Reichs books she's part of a team investigating on an airplane crash. During their work, Tempe Brennan (the main actor) figures out, that there were more bones on the crash site, than there were people on the plane.
In another book (yes, I read a lot Temperance Brennan books) she's part of a crew investigating an old grave in a graveyard. A nun should be blessed, and Tempe was to verify, it was the correct corpse. It was not, of course. But who was it then.

What are the circumstances of the crime?

Crimes consist of at least two persons. A victim and a criminal. They have social connections. Where are they from? What do they do for a living? Hobbies? Are they related? Were they colleagues? If so, were they working on something spectecular? Did their kids join the same school and the victims childs bullied the criminals child, so the criminal took revenge?
One of my detectives (if I ever finish a story) is about to investigate a murder with a semi religious background. Descripe in your story the religion, if it's more than the regular sunday morning prayer.

How was the crime performed?

A single bullet to the head will work for a TV show, but it'll get boring after a while. There are a billion ways to kill a person. Make it a serial killer.
Or make it a nearly impossible theft, if you're not into killing person.

Now, to the detective. He's not the average suit and tie type.
Give him quirks. I love Tim Roth in "Lie to me". He's a magnificent character.
Take a look at Hercule Poirot. Or Tempe Brennan and her partner Andy Ryan (if i remember correctly).
He doesn't need to have superpowers. He just has to be a not so very normal type.

So, take a look at other crime authors. Read some of them, figure out, why the victim is not just a dead body, the criminal not just a mad man with a gun.

A good crime story comes to life with the things that are not written in the newspaper.

BR

Alex

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