With the crime fiction genre encompassing
such a wide range, the reader and writer alike will have preferred sub-genres.
There are cosy crimes, police procedurals, high concept crime action thrillers,
everyman novels and a whole raft of other sub-genres and even sub-sub-genres.
Yet they all have the same basic elements.
- The detective / investigator / normal person who must solve a
crime is the cleverest person in the story
- A crime (well obviously)
- A criminal (well duh!)
- A mystery (even more obvious)
- Consequences if the crime isn’t solved / bomb isn’t disabled
etc
- A sense of justice for the reader
- Red herrings or misinformation
- Plausibility
Now let’s take a look at each element in
more detail.
The
Detective
The lead detective / private investigators
range from genteel ladies like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple to hard drinking losers
such as Hammett’s Sam Spade. These characters all have their flaws - Sherlock
Holmes was a junkie - yet they are dogged in their pursuit of the answer if not
necessarily a conviction. For these characters solving the puzzle is
everything.
Characters in higher concept crime
thrillers such as James Bond, Charlie Fox or Joe Hunter usually have to use
their physical skills as well as their mental ones in order to thwart the plot
of the bad guy(s)
There are also characters such as Lee
Child’s nomadic Jack Reacher who combine Sherlockian deduction with physical
ability.
Throw in the everyman characters from Dick
Francis, Linwood Barclay or Simon Kernick and you have a massively powerful
character that the reader can instantly connect with
Each of these characters draws the reader
into their world while becoming their hero along the ride. Sure they ain’t
perfect but each person tries to do the right thing. This quality alone makes
us the reader champion these paper bound sheriffs even if we don’t fully like
them.
The
Crime
Cosy crimes can be tales of missing
necklaces etc where the strongest word on the page is “damn”. Yet there are
many novels (including the one I’m currently writing) where the crime is
something heinous like rape, kidnapping or murder. High concept thrillers
usually focus on some kind of world domination be it financial or through
military might.
The crime must always be so sufficiently horrific
that it compels the reader to want a sense of justice for the criminal. We
readers don’t care if somebody wealthy has their pocket picked and loses £20.
We want them to be held at gunpoint by a masked intruder who threatens their
beloved with torture / murder or rape if the victim doesn’t open the safe /
hand over the code / whatever.
A stolen necklace only matters if it a
priceless heirloom – cheap costume jewellery bought last week has us reaching
for a different book within seconds.
Crimes which invade the homes or lives of
normal people work very well as do the crimes which sadly populate news media.
Choosing the right victim for the crime is
as important as selecting the crime.
The
Criminal
The criminal can often be the crime
writer’s best friend. Create a good one and you are laughing. Moriarty and
Sherlock Holmes often locked horns and who can forget the exchanges between
Bond and Goldfinger or Bloefeld?
The criminal has to be a nasty character
without ever descending into the dark territory of clichedom. Human touches are
a must although the criminal may have to be inhuman at times. One of the best
baddies I have ever read celebrated his birthday with a solo game of Russian
roulette and called his dog his “associate”.
What the author must be wary of though is
the criminal being a better character than the lead. Before you snort coffee,
wine or beer over your computer screen at this last comment, I recommend you
recall the way that Goldfinger got the best line in any Bond book or film and how
Alan Rickman dominated scenes in Die Hard and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. What
about Hannibal Lector? He too overshadowed the detectives chasing him in
Manhunter and prying him for clues in Silence of the Lambs.
The
Mystery
Mysteries can be forensic heavy police
procedurals or a lone wolf operating on instinct and fitting together pieces
like a jigsaw. Whichever form they take the reader has to be given the clues as
well as the detective. We read mysteries because on some level we too enjoy the
puzzles. We want to solve the case with or preferably before the detective, but only a page or two before them. Solving
the crime on page sixty-two of a five hundred page novel means reading four
hundred plus pages for the vindication of being right.
On a personal level I enjoy the battle of
wits between author and reader from both sides of the fence. I love playing
detective and I also love devising ways to fool my readers.
Getting the balance right is one of the
trickiest parts of crime writing. Too easy and you run the risk of alienating
readers. Too hard and baffled readers will shy away from your next release.
The
Consequences
Obviously there must be consequences to
drive any story forward. The bomb in the school must be defused. The serial
killer must be stopped or the ransom must be paid. For cosy crimes the antique
wedding ring must be recovered by Saturday or the wedding cannot go ahead.
What the consequences do more than any
other element is add pace and urgency. The reader knows the deadline as well and
so they root for the hero to beat the deadline. Serial killer novels usually
shorten the time periods between kills to further increase the tension.
A
Sense of Justice for the Reader
Whatever else happens in a crime or mystery
novel there must be some justice meted out to the perpetrator of the heinous
deeds. Some characters such as Bond or Hunter will take matters into their own
hands and kill the bad guy whereas more traditional detectives will arrest the
criminal or call for the police to make the arrest.
If an arrest is made then the reader has to
know that the arrest will end up with prison for the criminal. There must be no
worry in the minds of the reader that there isn’t enough evidence for a
conviction to stick.
Red
Herrings or Misinformation
One of the most important elements in any
crime novels is the trail of red herrings and false leads. No detective novel
is complete without there being a dead end or two and guessing which leads are
real is all part of the game between reader and writer. Some however do not
work as well as others, take the guy who is arrested in the first third of the
novel, there’s no way he can be the killer as the book is nowhere near complete
and there must be more to the story. The best author I’ve ever read in terms of
twists and red herrings is Jeffery Deaver. His books are fantastically tangled
plot wise and he always bests me.
Plausibility
A
crime novel must be plausible. The plot should make good sense and even if
fantastical it should be believable. Readers are quite prepared to suspend
their disbelief but only to a point. Cross that point by having a machine gun
toting Grandma or the hero fighting lions with his bare hands, readers will be
lost quicker than you can say “this is rubbish”.
The bumbling Clouseau style detective has
no place in serious crime fiction. The lead investigator has to be the
cleverest person in the book lest plausibility flies out the window.
About the Author
Graham Smith is married with a young son. A time served joiner he has built bridges, houses, dug drains and slated roofs to make ends meet. For the last eleven years he has been manager of a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland.
An avid fan of crime fiction since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of eight, he has also been a regular reviewer and interviewer for the well respected review site Crimesquad.com for over three years.
He has three collections of short stories available as Kindle downloads and has featured in anthologies such as True Brit Grit and Action: Pulse Pounding Tales as well as appearing on several popular ezines.
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