Choosing the Right Crime

I'm Back! Christmas has been Merry, New Year was Happy and the flu was something I coulda done without. Anyway normal service has been resumed and I won't bore you with my opinions on the best and worst of 2012. Instead I'm gonna talk about crime instead. 

As a crime writer one of the biggest and often hardest decisions to make is quite simply choosing the crime. We need a crime which has consequences in the near future if the criminals are not caught. Serial killers claiming another victim, kidnappers killing after the ransom goes unpaid, terrorist bombs going off or even a stolen wedding ring not being returned to the bride / groom in time for the wedding.

The police or detective solving the crime must have a deadline to increase tension. The greater the consequences then the greater the tension and drama created. 

Serial killers have been done so often there is little new ground to break unless you have a massively innovative idea. (If this idea involves vampires, ghosts or any other supernatural being then sadly it’s not innovative anymore.) 

Of course there are terrorist plots, but they can mean a whole different style of novel than the author intended writing. Historical finds or time slip novels are great too but they more than any other style need the author to show a massive amount of information to the reader without slowing the pace down. 

Kidnapping is a crime with its own built in timeline and consequences which is great, but again kidnapping has been done so often that there are few new angles to explore. Murder is fine for a whodunit, but if there is only one murder then there are no consequences to worry about and pace is replaced by a drilled down police procedural. 

High concept robbery is always good for a police procedural with the whodunit element thrown in. If plans for further robberies are found then you also have a plot driver as consequences have been introduced. Although I’d prefer the detective to “have” to solve this kind crime to save his job / get paid so he can pay his mortgage and prevent his wife from leaving as I care more about characters than corporations. 

Intercepting drugs shipments / human trafficking rings and so on are always fertile ground for writers as they have built in consequences and deadlines. Sex crimes tend to fall into the same bracket as serial killers, as they also have repeat offenders who escalate their spree and they generally kill their victims to cover their tracks.

Missing jewellery and lost pets are not on my reading or writing radar so I will pass no comment other than “get that fucking cat off my radar.”

So folks, what crimes do you choose to read and write?

Finishing a Trilogy

This week I am delighted to invite Sheila Quigley to my blog. At my request she has talked about some of the issues in writing the last book in a trilogy.

I was on to chapter 4 of Stand By Me, the 6th Seahills novel, when suddenly a group of characters I had never met before invaded my head and just would not go away. Smiler would have fitted in well with the Seahills lot, but there are enough of his age group hanging around the Seahills so I shrugged and got on with Stand By Me. But the very next day Mike Yorke and his Aunt May were standing side by side with Smiler demanding their story be told, no way was I ever going to shake them off.

So I opened a new page and Thorn In My Side was born. In a short time round about 3 months it was done, the rewrite took another month or so and it was finished. Ok I'd left it on a cliff hanger so best start right where I left off, again it took just under half a year to produce Nowhere Man. Then came the hardest part of the trilogy. The Final Countdown out this week in hardback. This took twice the time that the other two books had, a lot of that was because of illness, but I think that some of it was down to the fact that I didn't want to let Smiler, Aunt May, Mike Yorke, Shelly, Danny and the rest of them go.

But it had to be wrapped up there were a lot of strands to tie up, a lot of the people fighting the familes had not met each other and to bring closure they had to meet.

And so It's finished, the last book in a trilogy is certainly the hardest to write, but i'm told by those who have read it that the ending is v good and holds a final surprise.

I have had a lot of e mails from around the world, begging me, threatening me not to let any more bad things happen to Smiler, Im sure the threats weren't real, well I hope they weren't!

So is that the end of it for Smiler and the others?

Never say never.

 

I've read all three books in the trilogy and I loved them all. Like all trilogy's they must be read in order to make sense. I would liken them to Pringles as one you start you just can't stop.

 

Grab yourself copies and enjoy three cracking books featuring unforgettable characters. The Final Countdown hits the shelves this Thursday the 13th

 

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