Writing About Crime and Police, Part 1
© Roxianne Moore
After reading a couple of mysteries in which the forensic details didn't quite jibe, I thought I'd take a look at a couple of books I'd read last year, The Complete Writer's Crime Reference and Teach Yourself Writing Crime & Suspense Fiction. For good measure, I'll also review The Law Enforcement Handbook, which was written for law enforcement officers by a Canadian police chief.
The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book
If you're new to writing mysteries or crime fiction, The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book by Martin Roth is a good place to start your research. Published by Writer's Digest Books, it's written specifically for fiction authors. It starts off by addressing common mistakes made by writers, mistakes that savvy readers are sure to pick up. For instance:
- Don't confuse bullets with cartridges. The bullet is the projectile at the end of the cartridge or casing. Both bullets and cartridges are valuable clues needed to identify of the weapon.
- If you write about a real city, find out the color of its patrol cars.
- Don't have your investigator put weapons or similar pieces of evidence into plastic bags - plastic sweats, and any prints on the article cold be damaged. In most instances paper bags are used to collect physical evidence.
From there, Roth goes on to briefly discuss various categories of crime, from white-collar crimes to confidence games, theft, arson, and drugs. Beginning the chapter with motive, he makes some good points: "People do not commit crimes without a motive, even those who bear no grudge and do not commit a crime out of passion, or for personal game. Committing a crime for the sheer thrill is itself a motive." His advice: give your criminals a strong background, which gives a clue to motive and provides police something to turn up in their investigations.
He then goes into greater detail on some of the more common types of crime used in fiction, including sale of drugs, arson, murder, confidence games, and sex offenses. Perhaps the most valuable section of this, and every chapter, is "Where to Go From Here", a good selection of references.
Chapter two provides good insight into organized crime and the minds of criminals. Here, you'll also find a brief discussion of common weapons and related terminology.
A large portion of the book is devoted to cops and investigations. These seem to go into more detail, and lists of crime scene evidence and sources to investigate could be valuable tools for brainstorming.
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