Writing Series - Why Crime Fiction?

As an author I wanted to do a series of blogs letting you know a bit more about my writing journey. This series will run alongside 'The Story Behind My Stories' podcast - which gives you the detail of the experiences in my books. It will also run alongside the writing of my 3rd book 'Aloha Goodbye' with some resources and information on my writing process.

Why Crime Fiction?

Why do I write Crime Fiction? If you have ever read books from different genres, as I am sure you have, the writing style, paragraph and sentence format, pace, language, tense, character perspective, characters and a multitude of other nuances create the 'writing' of the genre.

We all generally gravitate to an author or genre we like to read, don't we?

I believe that is because we get into 'the rhythm of the writer' or the style of the genre.

Just before I went to Thailand and embarked on my first novel I was given a piece of advice about writing. It was what I needed because I didn't have a clue what to write a novel about - I knew the setting, Thailand, but not the genre or what the story would be - see next week's post in this series for more on why Thailand!

The advice was “Write what you read”. The theory being, I believe, that almost by osmosis you absorb the key writing skills to write in the genre you read which then makes that side easier. It's a small part of writing a novel but it helps.

Throughout my childhood everything was horses but as I'd grown up crime fiction is what I enjoyed reading. Not just reading it but watching movies, TV series and documentaries. All categories within the crime fiction genre - psychological thrillers, action thrillers, murder mysteries, whodunits, gritty detective series, all the CSI, Criminal Minds, police dramas, legal dramas and everything in-between.

Writing Series - Topic 1

You pick up all sorts of techniques, language, terms and emotions that you can then build into your writing which allows you to connect with your readers in a way they recognise and feel comfortable with as you, as an author, become the novels or writer they connect with. In the same way your characters are recognisable in their roles within the genre and your readers get invested in them and want to know what is going to happen in their lives going forward.

So that is why I write Crime Fiction and my series gives my readers the opportunity to share DI Matthew Goodwin's life and adventures.

Have a great week,

Helen x