The Ghost of Writing Yet to Come

I have to share this wonderful post from James Scott Bell. He's the Sunday contributor over at the Kill Zone, and I found this post too wonderful to keep to myself.

Also check out the previous day's post by Joe Hartlaub for a nice chuckle regarding  The Day After the Day the World Ended.

-Sonja

Writing a Great Contract Murder

Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide, has a ton of great information for mystery writers. I just wrapped up a section on gang murders (chapter 5) and am moving on. However, I'm skipping chapter 6. It's all about the mob, and to write a convincing mob story, you'll need a lot more information than I can give in a couple of blog posts. Plus, mob stories bug me almost as much as gang stories. If you're interested in what the authors have to say about mob murders, buy the book. I'm moving on to contract killers.

Contract killers are unique, in that they are the most emotionally removed from their crime. They're professionals for hire, and emotions have no part in that particular field. I've read a story or two that contained a hit-man who wasn't a sociopath (and therefore capable of feeling compassion for someone other than himself), but those types of stories are rare and hard to pull off. To write a great contract killer, you really need a sociopath. Anyone else is going to mess it up and get caught. (Maybe you could use that to your advantage in a story.)

The motivation for contract killers is greed--they want the cash. Or guns, drugs, cars, women, whatever payment happens to appeal to them. Maybe they kill for the promise of a favor in return at some later date. Feel free to get creative in this and catch the reader's attention.

Contract killers come in both genders, of any age bracket, and of multiple skill sets (from novice to experienced). They don't wound, torture, or stalk their victims. Their mission is to kill, and do it fast. The less time they spend on it, the less chance they leave behind evidence that will lead police back to them. Many have military, law enforcement, or covert operations backgrounds, but not necessarily. They know their weapons, their abilities, and their limitation. They can blend into an area--standing out means getting caught. Getting caught means not being able to spend the contract fee, so hired killers don't take huge risks.

Finding a contract killer isn't hard, but it involves exposure that only desperate people are willing to take. Most contract killers hang out in places with others of like philosophy (read criminals): bars, pool halls, and other colorful places. To find a killer, have your character hang out in places like this and pass the word around to the hookers, burglars, bartenders, and ex-cons. Eventually, that message will reach someone willing to do the job. However, spreading the message like that can lead to the wrong person hearing (law enforcement, the target, fill in the blank) so it's a huge risk. Some convicted felons work as informants for the police and will report that someone's nosing around for a hired killer.

I've read of non-criminal characters asking family and friends if they'd be willing to kill someone for cash, but that's taking a bigger risk than wandering through a biker bar. If your protagonist is a bit on the foolish side, this could work. I read another book where a contract killer was found through a want ad in a gun magazine. I guess that could work, too, if you make it believable (i.e. vague wording of the ad) and you've set up the story so your character actually knows which magazine to look in for that type of service. 

One final risk in hiring someone to kill for pay is that the killer must be trusted to keep quiet after the deed is done. If your protagonist hires a killer, and the killer is caught, he'll most likely sing to the police about who hired him in order to get a reduced sentence. With all these risks involved in hiring someone to kill, it seems to me much easier to find another option. But that wouldn't make for an exciting book, would it?

More on this topic in my next post.

-Sonja

I Don't Get Gang Murders

My last three posts were about gang murders. The info was taken from Chapter Five of Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide. I should finish it up, but I just can't get enthused about this topic. I think I've figured out why I don't care for this chapter: gang murders make no sense to me. Let me explain.

We get it when a woman pops her cheating husband before he can file the divorce papers. We can see why the greedy businessman polishes off his partner to keep all the profits for himself. We understand when a brother knocks off a brother after years of bullying. Love, greed, and revenge make sense as motive. We don't think we would ever be capable of doing something so crass or heinous as kill someone for our good pleasure--and most of us never will--but we can certainly understand it.

But I don't understand gangs. They are a group of hoodlums banding together for violent and profit-making purposes, and bring No Good Thing to society. To me, they're an armed mob of sociopaths. How can anyone with a conscience understand the actions of a sociopath, much less an entire group of them? Sometimes gang members kill for love, greed, and revenge, but sometimes they kill just for the thrill, or even worse, on accident (innocent bystanders). And that's the part I don't get.

The world would be a better place if there were no gangs (you could also end that sentence with a bunch of other stuff, but for this post, I'll stick to gangs). And yet, our police force is not equipped to take care of the problem. I ask myself, where are these kids' parents? But it can't be the fault of the parents, either. Sometimes great parents end up with horrible kids. Sometimes horrible parents end up with great kids. The problem is bigger than parents and police.

So what's the solution to this horrid problem? I don't know. The Justice-Seeker part of me wants punishments I probably shouldn't post in a public blog. The Compassionate side of me wants to see all these kids redeemed and put to a useful purpose in society. The Realist knows there probably isn't an answer. Until society no longer demands the goods provided by gangs (drugs, prostitutes, guns, etc), there will always be someone willing to supply the vice. Yet even if those things were to disappear, I have a feeling gangs would find another way of funding their way of life.

As for fiction, gangs and gang-members can be terrifying antagonists because sociopaths are unpredictable and incomprehensible. There's nothing better than a bad guy who consistently surprises the reader with new depths of cruelty and evil. I just don't like that stuff intruding on real life. If you've got a word of encouragement for me, or an idea on how to get rid of gangs in real life, please share! Your comments are always welcome.

Next time, I'm moving on to the next chapter, just in case you're wondering.

-Sonja

How Gangs are Organized

I'm in Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide, and chapter five it deals with gang murders. Today I want to discuss the organization of gangs so you can create a believable gang for your work of fiction. 

The authors say that "street gangs are formed to give the members a sense of belonging. As they expand... their ideology shifts from a sense of brotherhood to a focus on obtaining power, control, and money." You've probably seen this on TV a time or two. On one street, you have a small group of boys (and girls) from  a minority race. Could be a couple of Hispanic kids in a predominately Italian neighborhood. Could be a group of black kids in a predominately Asian neighborhood. Mix and match to suit your purposes. (Side note: I am in no way a racist person, but it's a fact of life that most of the time, gang members are of the same race. Not always, but most of the time.) Anyway, this small group of kids bands together to protect each other from the threats, perceived or otherwise, they face in their neighborhood. They turn to criminal enterprise to fund their "protection" and attract more members. Soon they've expanded from their home street to city blocks. Their criminal enterprises turn from petty theft and burglary to drug-dealing, prostitution, money laundering, and gun sales. They've grown so big, the original members don't know everyone in the organization anymore.

And like any organization, there has to be, well, organization. Someone has to be in charge. There's a chain of command and defined roles for member. The guys at the top are more insulated from the crimes that occur in the lower levels because, should anyone get caught, the higher-ups can't go to prison. They need to run the organization. They also get a bigger percent of the profits. Smaller guns, smaller wads of cash, and prison sentences are for the lower guys who don't have as much influence and power as the guys at the top.

The role and position of women in gangs is an entirely different topic for another time. Suffice to say, gangs are rarely ever "equal opportunity/equal pay" entities. Every gang member faces an initiation, and females are usually required to perform sexual acts on any of the male members who request it. Children are targeted for gang membership because they're less likely to be suspected by police, children work for much lower pay than adults, and if caught, children rarely face jail time. Women and children are all extremely low on the org chart.

Corvasce/Paglino say, "Recruiters in street gangs look for adolescents with minimal social and academic skills, knowing these will be the easiest to attract to membership. Most street gang members are high school dropouts." Sometimes, membership is achieved through intimidation. Sometimes kids are born into gangs--their entire family belongs. On the org chart, recruiters are necessary, so they're closer to the top than the bottom.

That wraps up everything the authors said about gang organization. My next post is all about gang kills: motivation and method.

-Sonja

What Gang-Bangers Do

I'm in chapter five of Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide, and it deals with gang murders. Today's discussion details what gang members do. In other words, what fills a gang-banger's day?

In my opinion, gangs are all about profit and power. They want to sell their merchandise (earn a living), hang onto their territory (defend their home), and avoid prison (refuse to take responsibility for their actions. Oops, sorry, that's all personal commentary). Humor aside, gang members take their membership seriously, and find it offensive when other gangs try to encroach on "owned" territory. They seek revenge on rival gangs through the disrespect or damage of that rival's possessions, property, or members. 

Corvasce and Paglino worded this bit nicely, so I'll copy it word for word:

"One way gangs mark their turfs is by "tagging" buildings, dumpsters, mailboxes and so forth within their turfs. These tags look like meaningless graffiti, but to other gangs, they are "no trespassing" signs or street "newspapers": that keep members informed. One way rival gangs show disrespect for each other is by writing over, or x-ing out, another gang's tags or entering its turf. And each gang has its own set of colors or type of clothing that show membership, so rival gangs can show their disrespect by wearing other gang's colors and clothing. This is why you sometimes hear of innocent youths getting killed because of the clothes they were wearing; the killers were members of a gang that wore the same type of clothes as a uniform, and they believed the non-gang member was showing them disrespect."

Gangs depend on their turf to earn their living (sell drugs and prostitutes), so encroachment on their turf is a serious business. Violence erupts quickly, and because drug-selling brings large profits, gangs can afford to arm all their members with lots of big guns.

I realize this is a simplified version of what's involved in a gang-bangers day, but that's all you need to create a believable gang member. They spend their days earning their living (selling drugs, guns, contraband, sex, whatever) and defending their homes (keeping their turf free of other gangs and police presence). And as gang-bangers are human (insert favorite sarcastic remark about sociopaths), they may spend their free time searching for love and companionship, fulfilling basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter, and seeking entertainment. Of course, their idea of love, needs, and entertainment may be vastly different from what you and I would ever consider... but you can fill it in and create a great antagonist for your novel.

More on gangs next time--we're not finished yet.

-Sonja

Writing Gang Murders

I'm ready to jump back into Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide after nearly two weeks off for holidays and sickness. Chapter five deals with gang murders, and while the prospect of writing about gangs does little for me, you (my three loyal readers) might gain something from this topic, so I won't skip it. 

The authors begin with a quick overview of gang beginnings in the 1920s, then move on to statistics. I found this part interesting. In 1996, large cities (New York, Chicago, etc) focused 73% of their work force on gang-related crimes. As a girl from a small town that grew into a mid-sized city, that percentage floors me. Then the book says that in smaller communities, 45 to 55 percent of police work is related to gang crime. "Firearms are involved in 83 percent of the current workload, and a good portion of this is due to firearm availability to gangs and juveniles."

Bottom line: if your book is set in a moderate-to-large city, odds are the bulk of the crimes your hero will investigate are related to gangs in some fashion. When organizing your street gang, keep in mind that there are three groups: gang members (usually referred to as gang-bangers), gang associates, and non-gang members. 

Gang violence used to be contained to gangs only. Gang A would assault or kill members of Gang B to gain control of turf. They still do that, but now the violence has spread. Victims can be anybody: rival gang members, brother gang members, customers (drugs/prostitutes), innocent bystanders--basically anyone within range of a gang member. That's scary enough in the real word, but as an author, you can use that to boost the terror. Just because your upper-income yuppie works in the "safe" part of the city doesn't mean gang violence won't find him.

I'm two pages into chapter 5, and I'm out of room in this blog post. I'll continue the discussion next time.

-Sonja

The Art of Ransacking

Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide, has a plethora of information necessary for writing a great murder mystery. I'm in chapter four, dealing with drug-related homicides. I didn't cover everything in the chapter, but there's one more bit of information I'd like to cover before moving on to chapter five, gang murders. The authors include a tidbit about ransacking.

Ransacking is when a criminal searches a residence for valuables: cash, jewelry, high-end electronics, and basically anything that can be pawned for a decent amount of money. The motive is greed: they need cash for drugs, rent, bling, or whatever else criminals feel the need to purchase. Ransacking is used in two different situations: an actual robbery, and when a killer wants the scene to look like a robbery has taken place. Regardless of the reason your criminal has ransacked a house, there are two different methods for ransacking, and you, as the writer, need to know which one your character will use. 

The first method of ransacking is to empty every drawer, look under every piece of furniture, and generally create chaos in the residence--make a total and absolute mess. This method is used by juveniles and inexperienced criminals. This type of search is noisy and time-consuming, and let's face it, not very efficient. Most home-owners don't store their jewelry in the medicine cabinet, so why would a thief look there? If you have a teen-age thief who is high on drugs, he's not going to think like a seasoned thief, or even a logical thief, and look only in those places where valuables would normally be stashed. Most likely he's going to tear the house apart in a frenzy, as he's terrified of getting caught, he's desperate for cash, and his judgment has been impaired from the drugs.

However, if you've got a seasoned criminal who wants to make the scene look like a juvenile tossed the joint, then it would make perfect sense for the house to be a complete mess once he's finished. Keep in mind that this criminal will do it quietly and quickly, as he doesn't want to get caught while he's staging his masterpiece. You could have fun with this one, if he's trying to frame a neighborhood hoodlum for it, or if he's using it as a forensic counter-measure to make the police look in a different direction. Keep in mind, the longer a thief is inside the house, the more likely he is to leave some sort of evidence behind: fingerprints, footprints, hair, bodily fluids (how many thieves sneeze when they rifle through an old shoe box?), trace from clothing, etc.

The second method of ransacking is to be methodical and logical, looking only in places where home-owners are likely to store valuables: dresser tops and drawers (jewelry, cash), desk drawers (cash, bank books, credit cards), entertainment centers (electronics), and garages (power tools). The experienced criminal will try to leave everything as neat as possible so the home-owners won't notice the theft for awhile. The thief wants a hefty cushion of time to elapse between the robbery and police arrival. The chances are much greater, that way, for any evidence left behind to become contaminated or even eliminated. For example, the thief is careful to wear gloves but leaves a strand of hair at the scene. If the theft isn't noticed for a day, there's a chance a family member could pick up that hair on clothing or shoes and transport it outside. It's not a great chance, but it's something.

If you're planning a good ransacking for your novel, make it believable by using the proper motivations and methods--and don't forget to drop some clues for the detectives so the guilty party has a harder time with a clean get-away.

-Sonja

Homicides Among Casual Drug Users

I'm exploring Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide, chapter 4, dealing with drug-related homicides. Today's discussion covers casual drug users. I'll follow the same format of scenario, motive, and methods the authors use in the book.

Scenario:

Casual drug users, as opposed to junkies, tend to be from the middle-class, usually older teens and young adults. They use "recreationally" for fun and generally are not addicted (obtaining and using drugs is not their chief goal in life). Murders among these people usually occur at parties where all the guests are under the influence of narcotics, and typically are not premeditated. Today's drugs of choice are heroin and meth, but you can choose any drug you like for your murder mystery. Meth keeps the user awake and active for twenty-four hours, so they can "party" for longer periods of time. Heroine is highly addictive. Marijuana relaxes the user, and therefore a party full of these users will look much different than a party of meth users. 

Regardless of which drug you plunk into your murder scene, they all can cause irritability, impaired judgment, and violent behavior. Which is perfect for a murder mystery!

Motive:

Motives involving casual drug users vary with the drug they've taken. Meth causes irritability and violence, and something as simple as an argument over which music to play on the stereo can lead to homicide. If you've chosen heroin for your fictional party, the stakes go much higher. Here are some common motives for heroin-inspired murders (copied out of the book):

• Cover up a theft done to get money to buy the drug
• Stop an informant from going to the police
• Stop someone from informing a teenager's parents about the drug use

"Since these drug users are from middle-class and upper-class families," the authors say, "the motive for murder is usually not profit oriented." However, as the author of your story, you can make it all about profit if you want. Or about love. Or revenge. Or Cheetos dust spilled on an expensive sofa. Just keep in mind that most homicides among casual drug users aren't premeditated--they're usually spur-of-the-moment, drug-induced rages against whoever happens to be there. 

Methods:

Usually, casual drug users don't show up at the neighborhood party with murder on their minds (in other words, they didn't arrive with a gun in their pocket). It's much more common for partiers to get high, their inhibitions are lowered and their judgment becomes impaired, then they argue with someone. This leads to fighting, most often hand-to-hand, which will continue until others break up the fight or someone ends up dead. If the attacker is in his own home, he might retreat to find a weapon, then return to shoot his opponent (or stab, or bludgeon, or garrote...). If the attacker isn't at home and finds himself losing the fight, he may drive away, find a weapon, then return to finish off his opponent. You can play with these variations, but they typically involve some sort of cooling off period, where the combatants are separated for a span of time, then come back together when one or both are armed. 

It's also believable that, once the combatants are armed, someone else steps in to separate them and gets killed in the process. Or someone on the sidelines threatens to call the police and ends up dead. Or one of the combatants has horrible aim and someone other than the intended victim dies. Again, the variations are plentiful. Choose one that works with your scene and your characters. As I said in the previous post, choosing unique and fresh methods and motives will engage the reader more fully, so don't settle for the typical factors, even if the scene is a short or minor one. 

-Sonja

Dead Drug Dealers

I'm knee-deep in this fascinating overview of Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino's book, Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide. I'm in chapter 4, dealing with drug-related homicides. Today's discussion is about drug dealers. I'll follow the same format of scenario, motive, and methods the authors use in the book.

Scenario:

The inner-city drug dealer is usually male, and he views dealing as a business: he needs to turn a profit to make it worthwhile. He doesn't dip into his product, as that won't make him any cash. In fact, becoming a user will bring his business to an end quickly, so he tends to avoid the stuff. He lives in an inner-city neighborhood, often the one where he was born. He belongs to the predominant ethnic group of the area and is known by the other people who live in the area. 

Because of his business success, he can afford nice clothing and an expensive vehicle (or two). The people who live there respect him for his wealth and success. Because of his wealth, he has power in that neighborhood, so he's also feared. He attracts people to him, especially children and teens, who want to work for him and achieve some measure of his success and wealth. The dealer offers these people a sense of place, of belonging, of power. He pays them more money than they could ever make at McDonalds. Since they're minors, if they're caught by the authorities, they don't face heavy prison sentences. And since they are loyal to him (along with a healthy dose of fear), they won't betray him to the police. 

Motive:

When his business is threatened, the drug dealer will protect his turf. Maybe someone else wants to move into his territory. Maybe someone wants to steal his money or his product. Maybe one of his underlings thinks he can do a better job of running the turf than the dealer. All these scenarios can lead to homicide.

Methods:

There are plenty of ways to kill a drug dealer--you've seen them on TV or read them in books. Hire someone to do it. Walk up and shoot him in the back. Do a drive-by from the safety of a vehicle. Since the goal is to kill the dealer, robbery typically isn't involved, but you can toss that into your murder mystery if it suits the scene and the character who's committing the homicide. If the killer is a junkie looking for a score, it makes perfect sense that the dead dealer's pockets will have been searched and emptied. 

Keep in mind that the killer's main goal is to kill his target, followed closely by getting away without being shot at or stabbed by someone loyal to the dealer. 

Make it fresh:

These scenarios listed above have done portrayed so many times in TV and books they can become cliche. Readers have seen it, heard it, and are bored with it. Try injecting your scene with the unexpected to jolt the reader out of the skimming phase. Maybe instead of a greed motive, explore something further removed from normal. What if your killer truly loves the dealer and believes that killing him is the only way to save him? Or the killer is female and loves the second-in-command, who gets to take over the operation once the dealer is dead? Maybe your drug dealer is female--it's rare, but it can be done in a realistic manner if you're careful. The gender change, alone, can snap a reader to attention. Or maybe you choose a method that differs significantly from those typically portrayed. Knives and guns are the usual murder weapons. What about an interesting weapon of opportunity? Lead pipes are kind of overdone, but what about loose bricks, rocks, rum bottles, or a well-placed kick while wearing steel-toed combat boots? Use your imagination and your scene descriptions to come up with something unique, and you'll make your reader happy.

Comments? Questions? The next post deals with the casual drug user (as opposed to the junkie I covered two posts ago). 

-Sonja

Covering Up A Bank Robbery

Chapter three of the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino is about financial murders. I'm not covering everything in the chapter, so if you're interested in getting all of it, buy the book. Today I'm skipping ahead to covering up a bank robbery. Following the authors outline, I'll discuss the scenario, motives, methods, and the capture.

Scenario: Bank robbers sometimes get their grand idea in a brilliant brainstorm and act immediately by walking into any old bank and robbing it. This is called a crime of opportunity. Most of these guys are caught because they didn't plan ahead: gloves, mask, weapon, bag for holding money. They rarely net more than five thousand dollars for their hard work, and if they get a chance to spend it before they're caught, that's all the benefit they get. The best bank robbers (if there is such a thing) plan ahead. Sometimes they even include a partner or two or six. Even with the best-laid plans, people can end up dead: bank guard, police officer who responds, witnesses (anyone caught looking at the robbery or anyone acting hysterically are at risk), or even the partners.

Motives: The motive for killing during the commission of a bank robbery is pretty simple: they don't want to get caught, and/or they want the cash (greed).  

Methods: An experienced bank robber plans the perfect robbery. He expects certain things will during the robbery (customers will be frightened, tellers will try to hit panic buttons, guards will go for their guns). It's when something out of the ordinary occurs that things can go horribly wrong. An off-duty police officer is a customer. A security guard has an over-developed sense of justice. The robber does drugs/alcohol before going into the bank and his body reacts strangely. All these factors, plus the robber's fear of getting caught, lead to a higher chance of someone being killed. (Side note: the authors bring up a humorous situation in which the robbers got the money, but dropped it and fled when something went wrong. Adding a touch of humor to your fiction is great because it catches the reader off guard, and therefore it's memorable.)

Investigation/Capture: Corvasce says, "A common misconception about bank robberies is that the FBI is always called in because the money is guaranteed by government insurance. In actuality, the only time the FBI assists in an investigation is when either a weapon is used or a threat of using a weapon is made." For this reason, many robberies are investigated by local authorities. Robberies usually aren't too difficult to solve because of the number of witnesses involved. Armed guards and security cameras provide accurate descriptions of the robber--and once they have a description and identify the perp, they usually find all the proof they need: bags of cash. 

Here's another little tidbit: A large number of robbers are caught while they're still inside the bank or just exiting the bank. You can use this believably in your fiction if you need the action to end quickly. If it's your main plot, then you'll definitely want your robber/murderer on the run. 

Keep in mind it's the little details that will lead to his ultimate capture: witnesses, forensic evidence, family member/friend turning him in, etc.

-Sonja

Covering Up A Bank Robbery

Chapter three of the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino is about financial murders. I'm not covering everything in the chapter, so if you're interested in getting all of it, buy the book. Today I'm skipping ahead to covering up a bank robbery. Following the authors outline, I'll discuss the scenario, motives, methods, and the capture.

Scenario: Bank robbers sometimes get their grand idea in a brilliant brainstorm and act immediately by walking into any old bank and robbing it. This is called a crime of opportunity. Most of these guys are caught because they didn't plan ahead: gloves, mask, weapon, bag for holding money. They rarely net more than five thousand dollars for their hard work, and if they get a chance to spend it before they're caught, that's all the benefit they get. The best bank robbers (if there is such a thing) plan ahead. Sometimes they even include a partner or two or six. Even with the best-laid plans, people can end up dead: bank guard, police officer who responds, witnesses (anyone caught looking at the robbery or anyone acting hysterically are at risk), or even the partners.

Motives: The motive for killing during the commission of a bank robbery is pretty simple: they don't want to get caught, and/or they want the cash (greed).  

Methods: An experienced bank robber plans the perfect robbery. He expects certain things will during the robbery (customers will be frightened, tellers will try to hit panic buttons, guards will go for their guns). It's when something out of the ordinary occurs that things can go horribly wrong. An off-duty police officer is a customer. A security guard has an over-developed sense of justice. The robber does drugs/alcohol before going into the bank and his body reacts strangely. All these factors, plus the robber's fear of getting caught, lead to a higher chance of someone being killed. (Side note: the authors bring up a humorous situation in which the robbers got the money, but dropped it and fled when something went wrong. Adding a touch of humor to your fiction is great because it catches the reader off guard, and therefore it's memorable.)

Investigation/Capture: Corvasce says, "A common misconception about bank robberies is that the FBI is always called in because the money is guaranteed by government insurance. In actuality, the only time the FBI assists in an investigation is when either a weapon is used or a threat of using a weapon is made." For this reason, many robberies are investigated by local authorities. Robberies usually aren't too difficult to solve because of the number of witnesses involved. Armed guards and security cameras provide accurate descriptions of the robber--and once they have a description and identify the perp, they usually find all the proof they need: bags of cash. 

Here's another little tidbit: A large number of robbers are caught while they're still inside the bank or just exiting the bank. You can use this believably in your fiction if you need the action to end quickly. If it's your main plot, then you'll definitely want your robber/murderer on the run. 

Keep in mind it's the little details that will lead to his ultimate capture: witnesses, forensic evidence, family member/friend turning him in, etc.

-Sonja

Bumping off the Business Partner

Welcome back to this series on solving homicides. Chapter three of the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino, is all about financial murders. Today is all about bumping off the business partner. I love how the authors take care of this chapter: they offer a believable scenario, showcase the motives and methods, then cover the investigation and capture.

Scenario: Two men share equal rights in a company that manufactures gaskets for oil filters. I'll call them Bob and Doug. The business is in the black, but neither partner can have that lavish lifestyle they desire. The senior partner, Bob, in the midst of a midlife crisis, finds himself a pretty young woman who enjoys spending his dough, and the wife becomes suspicious. Bob is in a quandary: he wants to keep the lover, but he doesn't want his wife to find out because she'll divorce him and take him for everything he has. If that happens, the lover leaves and he's got no one and no cash. What's a man to do?

Motive: Panic, fear, and greed, the trifecta of all great murder plots. Bob could choose to dump the lover and remain faithful to his wife. Instead, he decides to kill Doug so Bob can have all the cash to himself. (Never mind the fact that, if his wife finds out about the affair, all the new cash will be gone, too. Men in the midst of midlife crisis who decide that killing someone is the best option are rarely thinking logically.) Bonus: Doug also has a life insurance policy that pays out to Bob in case of death. (Again, wife will get it in the divorce and/or if Bob goes to prison.) 

Method: Bob, in a bold and brilliant move, decides that Doug's death must look like suicide. To make it believable, this homicide has to fool seasoned homicide detectives, forensic specialist, and medical examiners--all of whom have seen this before. The best scenario would be if detectives on the scene label it a suicide, therefore skipping the forensics and ME's. 

Bob cooks up a plan to make all the employees at the factory think Doug is going through some serious personal problems. Bob changes business meetings to different times and locations without telling Doug, so Doug misses these meetings and it's noted by the employees. Bob also makes it look like Doug is buying unnecessary equipment for the company, wasting precious profits. Eventually, the employees will come to believe that there's something wrong with Doug. Bob may even suggest, in front of witnesses, that Doug find some professional help for his issues. Poor Doug is clueless.

Every year about the same time, Doug heads to the office on a Sunday to prepare for the annual inventory. His family and friends expect it of him, and no one else is at the factory during this time, so Bob grabs the opportunity. He purchases an illegal weapon and heads to the office to do some "work." He finds Doug at his desk, pulls out the gun, and shoots Doug in the head at close range. There are no signs of forced entry, no signs of struggle, and poor Doug is dead of a head wound that is a typical suicide method of adult males. Bob thinks he's gotten away with murder.

Investigation and Capture: Bob's not as smart as he thinks he is. Doug's fingerprints aren't on the weapon or on any of the unfired bullets inside the gun. That, alone, points to murder, since Doug's not wearing gloves. Because of this small detail, homicide detectives will immediately look at those closest to Doug: his wife and his business partner. It won't be long before Bob's fitted for his prison garb.

Such a simple thing, huh? In almost every crime, it's the little details that lead to the perpetrator's capture. Keep this in mind when planning your fictional perp's capture. Things like a witness, video surveillance, or trace physical evidence can all have a huge impact even by themselves. When combined with other "little" details, they can lead to capture and conviction.

Any questions? Comments? I love hearing from you:)

-Sonja

Bumping off the Business Partner

Welcome back to this series on solving homicides. Chapter three of the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino, is all about financial murders. Today is all about bumping off the business partner. I love how the authors take care of this chapter: they offer a believable scenario, showcase the motives and methods, then cover the investigation and capture.

Scenario: Two men share equal rights in a company that manufactures gaskets for oil filters. I'll call them Bob and Doug. The business is in the black, but neither partner can have that lavish lifestyle they desire. The senior partner, Bob, in the midst of a midlife crisis, finds himself a pretty young woman who enjoys spending his dough, and the wife becomes suspicious. Bob is in a quandary: he wants to keep the lover, but he doesn't want his wife to find out because she'll divorce him and take him for everything he has. If that happens, the lover leaves and he's got no one and no cash. What's a man to do?

Motive: Panic, fear, and greed, the trifecta of all great murder plots. Bob could choose to dump the lover and remain faithful to his wife. Instead, he decides to kill Doug so Bob can have all the cash to himself. (Never mind the fact that, if his wife finds out about the affair, all the new cash will be gone, too. Men in the midst of midlife crisis who decide that killing someone is the best option are rarely thinking logically.) Bonus: Doug also has a life insurance policy that pays out to Bob in case of death. (Again, wife will get it in the divorce and/or if Bob goes to prison.) 

Method: Bob, in a bold and brilliant move, decides that Doug's death must look like suicide. To make it believable, this homicide has to fool seasoned homicide detectives, forensic specialist, and medical examiners--all of whom have seen this before. The best scenario would be if detectives on the scene label it a suicide, therefore skipping the forensics and ME's. 

Bob cooks up a plan to make all the employees at the factory think Doug is going through some serious personal problems. Bob changes business meetings to different times and locations without telling Doug, so Doug misses these meetings and it's noted by the employees. Bob also makes it look like Doug is buying unnecessary equipment for the company, wasting precious profits. Eventually, the employees will come to believe that there's something wrong with Doug. Bob may even suggest, in front of witnesses, that Doug find some professional help for his issues. Poor Doug is clueless.

Every year about the same time, Doug heads to the office on a Sunday to prepare for the annual inventory. His family and friends expect it of him, and no one else is at the factory during this time, so Bob grabs the opportunity. He purchases an illegal weapon and heads to the office to do some "work." He finds Doug at his desk, pulls out the gun, and shoots Doug in the head at close range. There are no signs of forced entry, no signs of struggle, and poor Doug is dead of a head wound that is a typical suicide method of adult males. Bob thinks he's gotten away with murder.

Investigation and Capture: Bob's not as smart as he thinks he is. Doug's fingerprints aren't on the weapon or on any of the unfired bullets inside the gun. That, alone, points to murder, since Doug's not wearing gloves. Because of this small detail, homicide detectives will immediately look at those closest to Doug: his wife and his business partner. It won't be long before Bob's fitted for his prison garb.

Such a simple thing, huh? In almost every crime, it's the little details that lead to the perpetrator's capture. Keep this in mind when planning your fictional perp's capture. Things like a witness, video surveillance, or trace physical evidence can all have a huge impact even by themselves. When combined with other "little" details, they can lead to capture and conviction.

Any questions? Comments? I love hearing from you:)

-Sonja

Murder for Financial Gain

When planning a murder mystery, one of the most important aspects is motivation. In today's post, based on the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino, the motivation is financial gain. This isn't the same as an organized crime murder, but rather an individual killing for personal financial gain.

There are several motivations within the realm of business for your bad guy. I'll call them sub-motivations. They include:

1. Greed: killing off the business partner means 100% of the profits are up for grabs.

2. Competition: get rid of the competition, and the job/money is secure.

3. Cover-up: antagonist stole from the company, but somebody knows about it. They can't squeal if they're dead.

4. Frame-up: antagonist stole from the company, but frames the partner and kills him. Now no one's investigating the theft, and killer gets the dough.

Each of these makes a believable motivation for killing someone within the business realm. There are other scenarios that involve financial gain that aren't set in the business world. The authors bring up a situation in which burglars are surprised by returning homeowners. The burglar kills the homeowners in an effort to get away. Sometimes this happens because the burglars are inexperienced (maybe teenagers?) and are afraid of getting caught. If they're burglaring in their own neighborhood, they may be afraid of being recognized. Yet another scenario of killing for financial gain is covering up a criminal past. If a co-worker finds out, the ex-criminal may kill to keep the secret and the job. 

These are all great motivators for committing murder. Over the next several posts, I want to dig deeper into each of these and discuss how law enforcement personnel go about solving these types of crimes. Stay tuned! There's great stuff coming up.

-Sonja

The Waiting Game

Check out this blog post from Writer Unboxed by Allison Winn Scotch about the dreaded Waiting Game. I'm in a similar position right now, waiting on a agent to read my manuscript and decide if she wants to represent me. I took Allison's advice - I'm starting a new project. That way, if Agent likes my book, I've got a second one on the way that she can work on selling. If Agent doesn't like my book, I'm in the midst of a project and won't have time to grieve over missing that first opportunity.

How about you? What do you do during the Waiting Game? Crying, coffee, and chocolates are a given, but what else?

-Sonja

Two Firearms Errors to Avoid

To write a great murder mystery, you have to know all the components of solving the crime. I'm basing this series of posts on the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino. I'm in chapter 2, which covers the weapons of murder.

This chapter only covers three areas: firearms, knives, and unusual weapons. There's a ton of great information on guns, and while I'm tempted to lay it all out for you, I'm going to point you in other directions, instead. There's not enough information in the book to make you an expert in firearms, so you'll have to do more research. There are great videos at the library on how to fire a gun, and of course there are loads of books on guns and how they work, what the parts are called, and all the great stuff you need to know. The Internet also contains a wealth of information. In addition to book and video knowledge, if you're going to use a gun in your book, you really ought to know how it feels to fire one. Find a firing range and shell out some cash to get a personal feel for guns. Revolvers, semi-automatics, shot-guns, and rifles all feel different when you pull the trigger, and the more you know, the more realistic your book will be. (If you don't know the difference between a revolver and a semi-automatic, PLEASE do the research or pick a different murder weapon. The fastest way to lose readers is to make mistakes about this stuff.)

Now that I've pushed you in a different direction for your information, there were two special tips that were brought up in the book that I feel should be mentioned. First, the writers state that the most common mistake they've seen authors make is using the word "clip" to describe the holder that contains bullets in an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. There is no such thing as a clip in automatics or semi-automatics. It's called a magazine. Don't rely on CSI to teach you the proper terms, or you'll make errors that could cost you readers.

The second tip I wanted to share from the book is about spent shell casings. A shell casing is the outside of a bullet. Before a bullet is fired, the shell casing contains an explosive charger, a primer, and the bullet (or shot, if you're using a shotgun). The casing can be made of brass alloys, or in the case of shotguns, plastic or heavy cardboard. Here's the tip: with most semiautomatic weapons, spent shell casings are ejected to the right of the shooter. Keep this in mind when the detective finds the brass: the location of the brass means the shooter was two to three feet to the left of the shells. Again, having an error about this type of stuff will turn readers away. I can't stress enough how important it is that you thoroughly know your gun stuff before you begin writing. Please note that the tip said "most" semiautomatic weapons eject to the right. If you chose a gun that ejects to the left, you'd better know about it and make it right in the book.

That's it for guns and other murder weapons. We're moving on to the next chapter in the next post.

-Sonja

Killing Outside the Box

I'm doing a series based on Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino in an effort to pass along pertinent information needed to write a believable murder mystery. I'm in chapter 2, which covers murder weapons. Today's topic is unusual weapons.

I brought up a statistic several posts ago that said 71% of all murder weapons are firearms or knives (the division is 50% firearms, 21% knives). If my math is right, that leaves 29% of all murders using something other than a firearm or knife. Hmmm, what could we use to kill off our unwanted character?

Corvasce and Paglino suggest that common household items (weapons of opportunity) make up some of that extra 29%. You've got two characters arguing, one of them goes a bit crazy and grabs the nearest weapon: a fireplace poker, a baseball bat, a floor lamp, a small TV, a frying pan, a cinder block, or a two-by-four. 

The thing to remember is that each of these items don't really need to be described to the reader, as the reader already knows what they are, BUT each one leaves trace evidence at the scene to be collected by crime fighters. Then they can trace it back to the murder weapon, which might contain evidence of the murderer (DNA, fingerprints, hair, trace evidence, etc). Cases where a weapon of opportunity was used are usually not premeditated, meaning they weren't planned before-hand. Because of that, the cover-up will be sloppy or even non-existent, and many times the weapon will be left at the scene of the crime. That's good news for your crime fighter hero. 

The authors bring up an interesting case: a kitchen knife was brought to the scene by the murderer. He killed his victim, rinsed off the knife, and slipped it into a knife block on the kitchen counter thinking he'd throw off the detectives. The detectives found the knife, found trace amounts of DNA on it, and therefore determined it was the murder weapon. They then discovered that it didn't belong to the set on the kitchen counter and was therefore brought to the scene by the killer. Once they had their suspect in custody, they matched the knife to a set in his own kitchen. This contradicted his statement that he'd grabbed a knife from the vic's kitchen in self-defense. He'd stupidly kept his knife set, thinking the murder weapon would never be traced back to him. Therein lies the beauty of criminals: they think they're so smart, but they always make mistakes. It's those mistakes that get them caught, so come up with some clever ones for your book and your reader will be pleased.

That concludes the chapter on murder weapons. They didn't delve into poisons, drugs, or kills involving body parts (strangulation, drowning, judo kick to the head), but we can delve into those at a later date, if pertinent.

-Sonja

The Joy of Knives

If you're writing a murder mystery, you'd better know something about your murder weapon, or your book won't be believable. I'm knee-deep in a series based on the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino. I'm in chapter 2, which covers the weapons of murder. My last post covered firearms (kind of). Today's is all about knives.

The most common knife used to commit homicide is the standard kitchen knife. It's handy, it's easy to use, and everybody has one. Don't be swayed by the glamor of a switchblade--a simple steak knife will do the job admirably.

Just like firearms, it's important to know the names/terms of the parts of a knife because there's more to a knife than the blade and the handle. For instance, the place where the handle meets the blade is called the hilt. "If a person is stabbed with the hilt pressing up against the skin, there is a distinct discoloration of the skin, proving that the person who did the attacking was not simply defending himself but purposely pushing the knife blade in as far as it could go in an attempt to kill someone." Also, it's highly probable that the person wielding the knife will accidentally cut himself, so he could leave blood/DNA on the knife. Even if he washes the knife, liquids like blood tend to run into the hilt and get caught under the handle. We've seen this on CSI, where the crime tech takes the knife apart and swabs for DNA. It happens in real life, too.

Double-edged knifes have a blade on two sides, so it's double-deadly, but are usually only used by professionals or contract murderers. Your average housewife doesn't have access to this one, so if you give her one, make sure it's believable. And again, the wielder might end up cutting himself, so the whole blood/DNA thing is also in effect for this knife.

A ninja knife has a small curved blade, about three or four inches long. It's held in a closed fist, with the blade protruding between a couple of fingers. Punching a victim with this knife in hand will leave nasty wounds. Again, this knife isn't readily available to housewives, but if you've got gang members or rebellious teens or wanna-be ninja's, this could be a great knife for your story.

The book doesn't go into other bladed objects, like scissors, ice picks, metal combs, pitchforks, or fireplace pokers, but you can use your imagination to come up with some believable scenarios involving these pokey items. In my next post, I'll cover some other unusual weapons the authors decided to include in their book.

-Sonja

Controversial Murder Statistics

To write a great murder mystery, you have to know how to solve a murder. This series is based on Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino, and we're only a month or so into it, so there's plenty of time to catch up if you're just joining me. Today I want to share with you some statistics about murder in the USA that might surprise you. Knowing these statistics can help you write a realistic murder mystery. These numbers come from a special report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics--US Department of Justice, written by John M. Dawson. I'll copy them straight out of the book for you, followed up by my own commentary.

1. More than half of all murder victims in large cities are young black males--who are killed by other young black males. The vast majority of the murderers, and even a large percentage of their victims, have had previous trouble with the law.

I'll admit, this statistic sounds extremely racist, but it's true. To figure out WHY it's true, you'd have to dig into a bunch of other background materials, like socio-economic status, drug involvement (or lack thereof), gang affiliation, single- or two-parent households, education levels, and a host of other factors that would be too hard to dig into in this post. The easiest part of this statistic to agree with is the fact that most murderers and victims have had previous trouble with the law. Not all, but most. Keep that in mind when you're creating a victim for your story.

2. While 48 percent of the general population is between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, 75 percent of the murder victims and 91 percent of defendants are in that age range.

I think it's pretty clear: children and the elderly are in the minority, when it comes to being a victim or a perpetrator, but they're still in the numbers. Want to create a bad guy who's a seven-year-old female? Go for it - just remember that she's going to be an oddity, which will definitely make it harder for the hero to catch her. 

3. Seventy-five percent of murder victims and 90 percent of defendants are male.

I love to play with this one, making my perpetrator female. Females kill for entirely different reasons than males, and if you mess that part up, your story won't be believable. And while having a female victim is totally believable, having a male victim is so much more fun to write, especially if the killer is female. Figuring out WHY she kills and HOW she kills is almost as much fun as figuring out how the hero will catch her.

4. In large urban counties, circumstances involving illegal drugs account for 18 percent of the defendants and 16 percent of the victims.

That means there's a one-in-five chance your bad guy is involved in drugs, either dealing or abusing. As Chief Tom Casady of Lincoln Nebraska often says: if you don't want to be the victim of a violent crime, don't do drugs.

5. In large urban counties, handguns are used in 50 percent of the murders; knives are used in 21 percent of the murders.

Yep, we've seen this on CSI all the time. But feel free to shake things up. Females like poisons (they're a lot less messy than guns or knives. I mean, come on. Who's going to clean up all that blood?) so do some research on poisonous plants that grow in your area (check out some of my previous blog posts if you're interested). Or how about a drug overdose? Or a garrote? Or a candlestick? Be inventive. Readers love to discover new or interesting ways to polish off unwanted characters.

6. While 52 percent of the general population is female, only one in ten murder defendants and just over two in ten murder victims is female.

It caught my eye that this statistic includes murder defendants, not perpetrators. Does that mean female killers don't always get caught and go to trial? Just a thought... What I really love about this statistic is that female perps are rare, so they're much more fun to use in a story. Most detectives automatically think "male perp" when viewing a murder scene, especially if the murder was messy (gun, knife, blow torch). Writers can really have a ton of fun with this one.

7. A third of the female victims, but only one in ten male victims, are killed by their spouses or romantic partners.

This is the main reason detectives ALWAYS look at the husband/boyfriend first. Again, writer's can really play with this statistic and use it for some fun twists. Why not frame the hubby/boyfriend, since that's who the police will look at first? Or go ahead and make the killer the hubby/boyfriend, but he thinks he's so blooming brilliant, he's committed the perfect crime. Of course, the perfect crime doesn't exist, so he'll always make mistakes, and it's those mistakes that lead the detective right to the perp.

8. Six of every ten arrests for murder result in a murder conviction.

This stat bugs me, unfortunately. Only 60% of the bad guys go to prison for their actions? I sincerely hope this isn't a reflection of a poor job on the detective's end, rather more a problem of attorneys and loopholes in the law that disallows evidence. This could be a great twist in your story if the lead detective has an over-inflated desire for justice, and the perp walks on a technicality. What happens then? The story doesn't have to be over when the trial is over...

9. More than 99 percent of defendants in capital offense cases--those with a murder charge that could result in a death penalty--are convicted of some charge.

I like the odds on this one, but I'm not sure I understand it completely. It's the "are convicted of some charge" that throws me. Is it saying that "murder one" isn't necessary the charge that sticks? Either way, the statistic is clear--most murderers are caught and go to trial. 

Any thoughts? Comments? Disagreements or rants regarding the numbers? I'd love to hear them.

-Sonja

Removing a Body

Wow, I really dropped the ball this week on posting. A thousand pardons to my three loyal readers. Let me pick up where I left off, and that's the steps your crime fighter will go through at the crime scene. Today's step is the last one, removing the body. I'm taking my info from Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino. It's part of the Howdunit series by Writer's Digest, and it's worth having on your resource shelf.

By the time your detective gets to this step in the investigation process, the coroner or medical examiner has arrived. Research this carefully! There's either a coroner or a medical examiner, but not both, and if the town you set your story in is small enough, there might not be either. Anyway, back to the point. The coroner (or ME) will examine several key issues:

• the temperature of the room (or air, if it's outdoors)
• the humidity of the room (or air)
• the weather in the area (not applicable if the body's indoors)

These items are vital for establishing an accurate time of death. So many factors go into this, and sometimes it's downright impossible to be completely accurate, but the closer the better. Then the body is taken to the morgue (again, research this to make sure your town has a morgue. Sometimes bodies have to be transported to the nearest morgue, which could be quite a distance away). An autopsy will usually reveal the cause of death and hopefully offer some additional clues to the killer's identity. 

Determining cause of death is a whole different can of worms, and there's an entire book in the Howdunit Series devoted to that subject: Cause of Death by Dr. Keith Wilson. (I own that one, too - awesome book).

That wraps up the steps involved at the initial crime scene. There's a whole lot left to cover, but I'm wondering if this subject is applicable to my faithful viewers. If you're finding useful information in this series, leave me a comment that says you like it. If you're bored out of your mind and wish I'd move on to something else, please say so. This blog is meant to be relevant and helpful, not boring and useless, and I aim to please. Thanks!

-Sonja

Gathering Homicide Evidence

If you're writing a murder mystery, you need to know how your investigator will go about solving the crime. I've already covered steps one through four. Today's post is on step five, the gathering of evidence. I'm taking this information from the Whodunit book called Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino.

A bunch of this you already know from watching CSI or other cop shows. Detectives are looking for any detail that might help them solve the crime, including footprints, clothing fibers, strands of hair, blood samples, paint chips, substances transferred from the perps clothing to the scene, etc. Sometimes the detective can analyze the evidence himself (like footprints or tire impressions). Other evidence needs to be analyzed in a forensics lab.

Whether you're using an officer, a detective, or a crime tech in your book, they need to wear gloves and paper booties over their shoes so they don't contaminate the scene by adding their own footprints and fingerprints. Any evidence gathered is placed in paper bags, plastic bags, Ziplock bags, plastic bottles, jars,  anything that can be sealed and documented with the name of the person who collected it, where they collected it from, and the date it's collected. It's transported to the police station, where another officer signs for it and puts it into the evidence locker or sends it off to the crime lab. This is called the chain of evidence, and anyone who handles the evidence has to sign that he/she has done so. It's used to ensure the reliability of evidence if it's ever used in a trial.

On CSI, every piece of evidence they collect is useful in solving the crime. That's not the case in real-life situations, and you shouldn't make it the case in your book. In an enclosed crime scene, like a house or apartment, evidence will be collected that has nothing to do with the crime, but it has to be analyzed anyway. Dirt just inside the front door might be transfer from a perp, or could be what the dog tracked in earlier. Fingerprints on the window lock could be the perps, or could be the bedroom's resident who likes to sleep with the window open every night. Cigarette butts in an ash tray could belong to a stupid criminal, or could be Grandpa Joe's from his visit yesterday. 

If the crime scene is outdoors, evidence gathering gets exponentially more difficult. Is that soda can just a piece of garbage from a passing litterbug, or did the perp toss it there? Was that spot of dog doodie transferred from the perps shoes, or the vics shoes, or from the shoes of a witness? Did that bit of bloody gauze come from the killer or from the paramedic who tried to save the victim's life? 

The hard part for the writer is knowing how much useless stuff to toss into the book. Too little, and it's unbelievable. Too much, and you bore the reader. I brought up something two paragraphs before that should also be dealt with here. Most murderers think they are too smart to get caught. They've covered every base, gotten rid of every bit of evidence, lined up the perfect alibi... but in reality, criminals are fairly stupid people. And they make mistakes. It's usually these mistakes that lead to their arrest, so make use of that in your book. That cigarette in the ash tray? The killer saw a tray full of cigarettes, figured the police wouldn't check them all, so he lit up to relax after all that hard work of killing his cousin's wife, snuffed it out in the ashtray, and takes off thinking he's in the clear. You can have quite a bit of fun with this, so use your imagination to come up with some ways your killer could accidentally implicate himself after he's supposedly sanitized the scene.

My next post is removal of the body. You won't want to miss that.

-Sonja

Fingerprints at a Homicide Scene

If you're writing a murder mystery, you need to know how your investigator will go about solving the crime. I've already covered steps one through three. Today's post is on step four, the search for latent prints. I'm taking this information from the Whodunit book called Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino.

I brought this up in the last post, but not all cities have crime scene techs like on CSI. Many cities and towns use their own detectives to search for clues, then send stuff to the Crime Lab if it's necessary. All detectives and patrol officers and can hunt for physical evidence, but only qualified officers and detectives should dust for fingerprints. Unqualified personnel could seriously damage useful prints, making them useless, or worse, inadmissible in court. Make sure you do your research for the city your book is set in--some police departments use only specially trained officers or detectives called Evidence Specialists. Small towns sometimes send one of their officers into a few training programs and get them certified to dust for prints. Really small towns might just call the State Police and ask them to take on the investigation.

There are three main target areas for obtaining prints at a crime scene:

• weapons: guns (handle, trigger, shell casings, bullets still chambered), knives (handle, blade, inside the handle where the blade attaches), lead pipes, lamp bases, candlesticks, etc.
• points of entry or exit to the house/room, like doors and windows. Not just the door knob, but also the wood casing  and the areas around the knobs/latches where a criminal might touch to avoid the knob thinking he's so clever
• flat, hard surfaces like tabletops, drinking glasses, the mirror on the medicine cabinet (if it's likely the perp touched it)

There are several different types of fingerprint powders:

• black, for use on light colored objects
• white, for use on dark colored objects
• silver, for use on mirrors

Fingerprints don't adhere well to porous materials, despite the fact that CSI techs are capable of pulling prints off pretty much anything, so don't get too creative in this part of your story. For detailed instructions about how to lift a print, read page 7 of the book or watch CSI--they get it right with the dusting and lifting off hard surfaces. And while fingerprints are an essential part to any real-life investigation, try hard to not let your crime resolution rely solely on fingerprints. It's thoroughly believable, but it's a bit overdone anymore. Same thing with DNA. It's more interesting for the reader to rely on several clues, combining technical evidence with interviews and your protagonist's expertise. 

Anything I forgot? Comments?

-Sonja

Photographing Crime Scenes

If you're writing a murder mystery, you need to know how your investigator will go about solving the crime. Steps one and two are securing the scene and finding witnesses. Today's discussion is step three, photographing the crime scene. I'm taking this information from the Whodunit book called Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino.

When detectives arrive at a crime scene, their first job is to photograph everything. You've seen this on CSI, where the visually appealing crime tech puts the little ruler down by the blood spatter and snap a shot, then move on to the bloody footprint, then snaps their co-working making a silly face after cracking an inappropriate joke. Not only are these photos helpful for jogging the detectives memory later, but they can also be used as evidence if the murderer ever goes to trial.

Unlike CSI, in real-life most towns and cities don't have crime scene techs. Big cities sometimes have them, though, so make sure you research your city's procedures thoroughly before writing your story. In smaller places, the detectives are usually the ones who do the photographing, and they're usually monitored by their supervisor (a detective sergeant or a detective lieutenant), mainly to make sure no mistakes are made. Here are the usual photos taken:

1. Shots from the four corners of the room, for perspective

2. Long-distance shots that encompass the entire scene and beyond, if possible

3. Medium-distance shots, adding further definition to specific areas of the long-distance shots

4. Close-up shots of the body and any evidence found at the scene

5. Shots of any relevant details, selected by the detectives

Many times, if there are spectators, detectives will photograph the crowd. Sometimes a murderer will re-visit the scene of the crime to gloat, or remember the pleasure of the kill, or taunt the police, or even insert themselves into the investigation. Sometimes the crowd contains eyewitnesses that disappear before being interviewed, and having their photo in the file might lead detectives to the missing witness. Sometimes members of the media hide in the crowd. Knowing who's in the crowd can sometimes lead to a new clue, so it's important to not skip this step in your novel.

We've all seen this on CSI, where the crime tech sees something on the floor, they pick it up with the tweezers (so the camera can get a great close-up of the tech's pretty face slightly blurred out just behind the useful but minuscule bit of whatever), then they seal it in a baggie, stare at it some more to make sure the reader knows it's a significant clue, then the scene jumps to the lab where they are running a complicated test on it with expensive machines that have beeps and lights and cool whirring noises. What did they forget? To photograph the bit of stuff before they picked it up. Every piece of evidence must be photographed in its original position before being moved, or there could be problems later. Of course, small town detectives won't be doing their own evidence analysis, either. That'll be sent to a State Crime Lab, where it'll take anywhere from five days to three weeks for results. But that's a topic best left for a different post.

Photographing the scene sounds like such a simple step, but if your detective skips it, that could lead to some major problems later. Which might not be a bad thing, in fiction. Good stuff can come from major problems. Play around with the idea and see what you come up with.

-Sonja

Finding Homicide Eyewitnesses

If you're writing a murder mystery, you need to know how your investigator will go about solving the crime. I covered the first step in my last post, securing the scene. The second step is finding eyewitnesses. I'm taking this information from the Whodunit book called Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino.

Eyewitness testimony is rarely completely accurate, but it's still an important part of any homicide investigation. Once the crime scene is preserved and a supervisor shows up to take over, patrol officers are often sent out to canvas the surrounding area looking for witnesses. They do not conduct the interviews, though. They merely find people who saw or heard something, record their name, address, and phone number, then ask them to speak with the homicide detectives when they arrive at the scene.

It's tempting for patrol officers to listen to the eyewitness, and it's even more tempting for eyewitnesses to spill their beans to the first uniform they see, but it's important that homicide detectives hear the eyewitness account before anyone else does. Homicide detectives are trained in questioning witnesses, whereas patrol officers are usually not so trained. Without intending to, patrol officers might ask leading questions that changes the eyewitnesses testimony. Most witnesses want to be helpful. If they heard a gunshot, but have no idea which direction it came from, they might embellish their story with a direction if the officer inadvertently admits he just came from a crime scene two blocks to the south. So it's best to leave the questions to detectives. The job of the patrol officer is to find the witnesses, and find as many as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Keep in mind that, although witnesses generally want to be helpful, they can also be completely wrong in what they report. All people interpret what they see and hear, and sometimes those interpretations are inaccurate. For instance, you have a scene in which a young couple are interacting with each other on a street. The male is yelling, the female is looking at the ground. A female witness who has been in an abusive relationship in the past might interpret that scene completely different than a older male witness who was raised in a home with a domineering father who ruled the roost with a leather belt for misdeeds and words of praise for affirmation. There will also be a difference in the testimony of someone who heard the altercation vs. someone who saw it from afar. Someone who merely saw it might assume the male was angry with the female and she was scared of the male. But someone who overheard could report that the male screamed "My boss fired me--does that seem fair?" and the female responded, "No, it's so not fair, and you should sue him for discrimination." Suddenly, the specifics of the conversation completely change the meaning of the altercation for the investigator.

Unfortunately, witnesses also tend to lie. They wish to be helpful so they make up something that seems believable. Or they are ashamed of their inaction or non-intervention, so they lie about what they saw or heard. Or they want to be praised as an excellent witness, so they embellish what they saw/heard. Or they are guilty of involvement and don't want to be punished, so they lie. Homicide detectives are trained to find lies by comparing eyewitness accounts and gathered evidence. Many detectives also have a knack for "sensing" lies--they are excellent at reading body language, or they have keen insights in human psychology, or they simply remember everything that every other witness has said and notice discrepancies immediately. This is one of the best parts of writing a mystery, in my opinion--giving your detective those "super powers" to pick the truth from the lies and apply them to the case. A great mystery writer will study up on these things and know what type of body language a witness will use when telling a bold-faced lie, or telling a half-truth, or telling the honest-to-God entire truth.

Lastly, eyewitness testimony can sometimes be completely useless for solving a crime. Memories are fickle things, and in moments of high stress/tension, the human mind can whig out, so to speak. One witness remembers a black man with a gun. Another remembers a dark-skinned Caucasian with a knife. Yet another remembers a Hispanic with a screwdriver. All are wrong, as the perp was actually a tall Asian woman dressed in gender-neutral clothing carrying a water pistol. This happens in real life, so feel free to use it in your fiction. It's the job of the detective to weed out the useless information from the useful, and it's fun for the reader to identify the useless witnesses, the liars, and the real deals. 

Are you finding this study useful so far? Leave a comment and let me know what you're thinking.

-Sonja

Secure The Murder Scene

If you're writing a murder mystery, you need to know how your investigator will go about solving the crime. The first step is to secure the scene. I'm taking this information from the Whodunit book called Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino.

The first officer at a crime scene is supposed to preserve the integrity of the scene until a supervisor arrives. To throw a wrench into your protagonist's investigation, you could place a rookie officer on the scene and he doesn't secure it immediately or completely. Or you could use a corrupt officer. Or you could be nice and get the job done properly, which basically means keeping everyone out. Nothing should be moved, not even the body. Sometimes well-intentioned witnesses can mess with this, like when they roll a body over to check for a pulse, or gather the body in their arms during an intense moment of grief, or try to perform CPR on someone who's too far gone to resuscitate. These are believable scenarios, as they happen in real life. If they happen before the first responding officer arrives, there's nothing he can do about that, and the investigator's job just got harder.

The first officer on the scene should keep bystanders as far away from the scene as possible so they don't inadvertently (or purposefully) contaminate any evidence left at the scene. This is especially tough if the crime occurs outdoors, where weather, wildlife, and heavy foot traffic could have already messed with the scene before the officer arrived. Again, complications like this make it tougher for the investigator to solve the crime, which in real life is horrible but in fiction is fantastic. There are, of course, limitations to what one officer can do. If it's raining, he might think it's a great idea to erect a tarp over the crime scene, but in reality, he could contaminate the scene with his efforts by wiping out footprints or scattering his own DNA over the body. Plus, while he's trying to erect a tent, people could slip by him to corrupt the scene. So keep these limits in mind when you write the scene. Most of the time, a first-responder is alone or with a partner, and there's only so much one or two people can do. Their one and only objective is to preserve the scene.

Once a supervisor arrives (usually a sergeant or a lieutenant), the responsibility of crime scene integrity is shifted to them. That first officer can then stay on to help preserve the scene (especially if it's a messy outdoor scene), or can be utilized in a canvas of the neighborhood searching for witnesses, or he can be sent back on shift. It all depends on the supervisor's directives. 

Here are the main duties involved in preserving crime scene integrity:

1. Surround the area with police tape

2. Control any crowd

3. Keep the media and family members away so they don't accidentally or purposefully destroy or remove evidence

That last one seems a bit cruel, keeping family members away from their dead loved one, but it's crucial to the investigation. Remember, most homicides are committed by someone who knew the victim. If a grieving family member breaks through the police tape and cries all over the body, now their DNA is on the body. If the crier was actually the murderer, the investigator can't use any DNA evidence found on the body as proof of murder.

When writing a murder mystery, it's always fun to mess with the investigation and make it hard for the protagonist to actually solve the crime, but if you mess up too much of it, the reveal at the end won't be believable. Play fair with the reader and let them see all the clues necessary for solving the crime. After all, that's the part I find the most fun in reading mysteries: seeing if I can figure out who did it before it's revealed at the end. 

Come back next time for step two on the procedure's list.

-Sonja

The First Forty-Eight Hours

I've begun a series based on the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino. In my last post, I offered the definitions of five types of murder. Today I want to focus on the first 48 hours. 

All homicide investigations follow a fairly basic procedure, and I'll discuss those procedures in my next posts. First, I want to discuss the timeline for an investigation. Most solved homicides get that way within the first forty-eight hours. After that, it becomes exponentially harder to solve--not impossible, just difficult. There are several reasons (copied directly out of the book):

1. Eyewitnesses who have not stepped forward probably will not appear. And their memories of the event, of course, become less clear.

2. New clues at the scene of the crime probably will not surface after the initial investigation and analysis have been completed.

3. If the murderer has left a trail of clues or if the police know where the killer is hiding, an arrest has been made or is imminent.

Because the first forty-eight hours are so critical, most detectives work around the clock to gather evidence, follow up leads, and conduct interviews. Keep that in mind for your book--no clocking out at five o'clock during that first forty-eight. Also keep in mind that new information is much harder to find after the first two days, so if  you're going to dole out clues at a more leisurely pace, make sure it's believable. For instance, ballistics reports take longer than the two-day window, so if solving the crime depends on a ballistics report, that would be believable. Check with the crime lab in the area your book takes place and ask how long the wait is for standard tests like ballistics, DNA, trace evidence, and things of that nature. You'd be surprised at the amount of time it takes for these. It's not instantaneous like it is on the TV show CSI. 

Lastly, most homicides are committed by someone who knew the victim. Because of this, investigators focus most of their attention on the victim's immediate family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Investigators are looking for means (they had the physical strength to do it and had access to the murder weapon), motive (a reason for killing the victim, even if it was accidental like the victim being caught in a drive-by shooting), and opportunity (they were with the victim at the time of the homicide - no alibi). Those rare instances where the killer did not know the victim are difficult to solve because the suspect list isn't as limited as friends/family/co-workers.

In my next post, I'll begin discussing the six steps investigators use to solve a homicide.

-Sonja

The Accidental History of the @ Symbol

Here's a fun little read. Thanks to Steve Laube for sharing it with us on his blog today.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Accidental-History-of-the-at-Symbol-165593146.html

Murder One: A Writer's Guide to Homicide

I had so much fun with the last Whodunit Series, I thought I'd jump into another one. This one is geared specifically for murder mystery writers, but I imagine there will be some information upcoming that's useful in other genres. I'm basing my next umpteen blog posts on the book Murder one: A Writer's Guide to Homicide by Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R.Paglino. Of course, I can't give away all the great stuff from the book. If you need to know it all, please purchase the book. It's worth the investment.

The book begins with a definition of murder. More specifically, it offers the definition of five different types of murder. Here they are, copied word for word (their quotes are from the New Jersey State Law Code of Criminal Justice):

1. Criminal Homicide: A person is guilty of criminal homicide "if he purposely, knowingly, recklessly...causes the death of another human being. Criminal homicide is murder, manslaughter, or death by auto."

2. Death by Auto or Vessel: "[occurs when death] is caused by driving a vehicle or vessel recklessly."

3. Manslaughter: "[occurs when the] actor recklessly causes death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life."

4. Murder: "[occurs when the ] actor purposely [or knowingly] causes death or serious bodily injury resulting in death."

5. Self-Defense: "[is] the use of force upon or toward another...when the actor reasonably believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion."

These are helpful terms for a mystery writer to know and use properly. Used incorrectly, astute readers will wonder how the author made such a simple mistake. And once you know which term applies to what has happened in your novel, then you can formulate an investigation properly. I'll dig deeper into the investigation in my next post, so stay tuned.

-Sonja

Three Ways to Know Your Query is in the Right Hands by guest blogger Melody Steiner

So you’ve received a form rejection letter. Maybe even a dozen of them. You’re feeling disillusioned, ready to put away the quill, and yet there’s a part of you that wants to know what you did wrong. Why the rejection? And why didn’t anyone take the time to send feedback?

My final post in this series deals with ensuring that you’re sending your query to someone who cares. In my experience, most people don’t. It’s nothing personal. It’s business. Think of it like this: you want to sell a pie to a donut shop. It’s probably not going to happen. Donut shops want donuts, pie shops want pies. And don’t submit a pecan pie to an all-fruit pie shop, either. They don’t want nut pies. No matter how prettily you decorate it, they won’t buy it.

So how do you make sure you’re submitting your pie, er, query, to someone who wants it?

1. Check the online submission guides for the publishing house or agent you’re submitting to. Follow those guidelines to a tee. I made a mistake a few weeks ago, when I submitted a short story query for a manuscript with a word count of over 5,000 to a magazine that only accepted submissions of up to 4,000 words. I received an immediate rejection because of the word count. Oops. So see? It happens. We learn. We move past it.
2. Meet the editor/agent in person. You are a thousand times more likely to get feedback, a positive response, or even an acceptance if you attend a writer’s conference, pitch to an agent or editor, and get the green light directly from them to send your query. Like any job, the personal touch really does make a difference.
3. Use resources such as The Writer’s Market or Publisher’s Weekly to study up on the market. Read articles related to your genre that talk about tropes, clichés, or what not to write about. Submit to a magazine that actually takes your genre, and avoid submitting a query on a topic everybody else is writing on, and you’ll better your chances of success.  

I hope you’ve found this series informative, enlightening, or at the very least, mildly entertaining. Best of luck in your publishing endeavors!

-Melody

Melody Steiner works at an academic library as a circulation technician. In 2006, she graduated from a small private college in Ohio with a Bachelors of Arts in English. After she met and married her husband, they relocated to Seattle, WA. In March, 2011, she graduated from the University of Washington with a Master in Library and Information Science, aspiring to becoming a full-time librarian. Her hobbies include reading the latest YA series (recent favorites include Patrick Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go and Paoli Bacigalupi’s Shipbreaker), camping, and enjoying long walks with her best friend. Last November, they had their first little peanut—a rambunctious baby girl. In addition to adult science fiction, she writes fantasy and YA novels. She is represented by Nicole Resciniti of The Seymour Agency. You can find her at http://twitter.com/melody_steiner.

How to Eat a Stinging Nettle

Finding something to eat in the wilderness can be a taxing problem if you don't know what you're doing. Same goes for your hero. Whether you're writing fantasy, a historical, or a modern-day story set in the woods, your hero needs to know what he can eat and what to avoid. Today's plant is the stinging nettle. Like the cattails, the nettle is extremely versatile, so let's dig into it.

 (photo courtesy of freephotos.net)

Your protagonist should use caution when harvesting this plant or wear gloves. It has stinging hairs on its leaves and stem (hence the name) that act like little hypodermic needles, injecting toxins into whatever brushes up against it. The reaction is a nasty rash. I encountered many of these growing up, and while the rash hurts for a couple of days, it's not dangerous to your health unless you're allergic that that particular toxin. Therein lies a nice subplot, I think... 

Once the plant flowers, don't eat them. The leaves develop gritty particles that can lead to internal plumbing problems. So harvest should take place in early spring. Boiling the leaves for 10 minutes clears the toxins from the leaves and they can be eaten like any other green leafy vegetable. I'm thinking smothered in butter and salt, but that's just me. I'm told they taste like a mix between spinach and cucumber. They are full of vitamins and protein, and could save a character's life after a hard, lean winter. Dried leaves can be used to make tea or as seasoning for stews, rice, or cheese. The leaves will also make a nice cordial or beer for those after-dinner moments of relaxation. The nice thing about this plant is that they are numerous--your hero shouldn't have any trouble finding massive patches of this wonderful plant.

Once the nettles are no longer edible, they have other uses. The stock is fibrous, and soaking the plant will looses those fibers. Pull them apart, weave them together, and your character has rope for fishnets, snares, tent-line, clothes line, etc. 

The nettle also has medicinal uses. (Again, I am not a physician, so don't try these on yourself just on my word. Research it--a lot--if you feel the need to self-medicate). Nettle can help relieve the pain of sore muscles, arthritis, and rheumatism. Shampooing with nettle can help get rid of dandruff. Male protagonists might drink a nettle root extract to help with prostate problems. Allergy sufferers might give nettle a try, as it offers some relief from hay fever. Some say nettles may lower blood sugar and blood pressure, but that one might be a rumor. I read it off the internet.

Stinging nettles might not sound like a treat to those of us accustomed to the Safeway produce department, but any character living off the land will rejoice when this plant pops up each spring. 

-Sonja