Marc's A-Z of Crime Fiction

BACKGROUND

As we read through our novels, engrossed in our TV shows or films.
The writers keep us gripped with not only the crimes as they unfold but also the love lifes, relationships, family problems that come with our beloved detectives.
We need to know what has happened to our characters in the past, this makes them seem more real to us, we can relate to them more if they have suffered heartaches, marriage break ups or even the occassional drink problem. Also the backgrounds of the characters make us understand more why they react the way they do.
In Crime Fiction, characters history may fuel the plotline, other characters, dialogue, location so this is critical to a crime writer to know their characters back to front, top to bottom. Whenever I start a new book I create a character profile.
Questions I ask myself about a character:
Basic Statistics
Name:
Age:
Nationality:
Hometown:
Current Residence:
Occupation:
Talents/Skills:
Siblings (describe relationship):
Spouse (describe relationship):
Children (describe relationship):
Grandparents (describe relationship):
Grandchildren (describe relationship):
Significant Others (describe relationship):
Relationship skills:
Physical Characteristics:
Height:
Weight:
Race:
Eye Color:
Hair Color:
Glasses or contact lenses?
Skin color:
Shape of Face:
Distinguishing features:
How does he/she dress?
Mannerisms:
Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.)
Health:
Hobbies:
Favorite Sayings:
Speech patterns:
Disabilities:
Style (Elegant, shabby etc.):
Greatest flaw:
Best quality:
Intellectual/Mental/Personality Attributes and Attitudes
Educational Background:
Intelligence Level:
Any Mental Illnesses?
Learning Experiences:
Character's short-term goals in life:
Character's long-term goals in life:
How does Character see himself/herself?
How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others?
How self-confident is the character?
Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?
What would most embarass this character?


Emotional Characteristics
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Introvert or Extrovert?
How does the character deal with anger?
With sadness?
With conflict?
With change?
With loss?
What does the character want out of life?
What would the character like to change in his/her life?
What motivates this character?
What frightens this character?
What makes this character happy?
Is the character judgmental of others?
Is the character generous or stingy?
Is the character generally polite or rude?

BILLINGHAM, MARK - http://www.markbillingham.com/
Author from Birmingham so had to include him!! Mark Billingham is a genius of tension, suspense, crime thriller novels in my opinion. BEST THING ABOUT MARK BILLINGHAM IS: HE IS A COMIC ASWELL!

My first book from him was Sleepyhead, all those years ago...I brought this in a 3 for 2 deal, I needed another book for the deal and thought WHY NOT?? And what a fantastic choice it was!

Now Tom Thorne is coming to our TV screens, GET IN THERE.
I loved the Rebus series, Taggart and I think that DI Tom Thorne as a book character is right up the same street so if he portrayed as in the book and lives up the REBUS/TAGGART TV series, we will have a cracker on our hands.



BLOOD

When I think of blood in Crime Fiction, two ideas come to mind: 1st - Blood analysing (type, splatter etc) and 2nd- lots spilt at crime scenes. I am going to cover both!

1st - When a crime scene examiner goes to a scene in the present day, they collect a sample then off it goes to DNA. What a fantastic finding but in previous years to this, the blood evidence was from the Blood Type and this was used to trace victims or suspects. A/B/O/AB and +/-.



Blood pattern analysis:

This used for a number of things at a crime scene:

• Movement and direction of persons or objects while they were shedding blood.
• Position of persons or objects during bloodshed.
• Movement of persons or weapons after bloodshed.
• Weapon used to create a specific pattern.
• The direction a stain was traveling when it was deposited.
• The area of origin of an impact pattern.
• The minimum number of impacts during an incident.
• The sequence of events.

2nd -Crime writing and Horror novels were very closely linked at one point in the context of their narrative. When a crime writer thought about their ideas, the idea was to be better than the last one. In the case of crime, this meant how many people could be killed and how can you disguist the reader the most by having the most bloody scene possible.
Blood as in gore, no not really anymore. Crime Writing used to be all about how much blood, murderers evil tactics of death and good old gore.
Nowadays, crime writing has come to be more about suspense and being a page turner.