8 Tips for Writing Modern Day Detective Fiction
Despite rumors to the contrary, detective fiction is alive and well. In a world that often seems out of control, people seek order wherever it may be available. Procedural stories—no matter if they feature amateur sleuths, police officers, or private investigators—offer a way to find that order, a sense of completeness often missing from daily life.
(The Art of Baking a Cozy Mystery.)
Here are four tips to help make your modern-day detective stories stand out and four more to help cover some of the basics.
1) Don’t fear tech.
We may not like it, but the reality is that modern life revolves around a smart phone. So if you’re writing a story set in the current day, your protagonist is going to have one, unless you set them up as a luddite. Readers expect to see something of themselves in fictional characters and the first thing most of us do when confronted with a question we can’t answer is to reach for our phones. That doesn’t mean your main character gets all the answers from a screen, however. But they should get some. Those answers of course need to lead to interaction with other characters, because real drama comes from people, not search engines or encrypted laptops.
2) Update your plot.
All the stories have already been told; everyone knows that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take what’s been done before and put a fresh spin on it. Society has changed radically since Raymond Chandler’s time, but the human condition has not. Greed, lust, revenge. All the base flaws are still with us. Put those weaknesses in a modern setting. Cyber bulling, climate change, gender ideology, the list goes on. Think of the opportunities provided by the internet alone.
3) Craft uniquely flawed characters.
Brainstorm an irresistibly flawed protagonist, someone readers can connect with, feel empathy for. Make sure your main character does not come across as superhuman, however. Sure, they can be driven, but they also need to feel and react like real people. Find something unique to impart to your protagonist, whether it’s a physical condition, a compelling personal history, a distinctive background, or an emotional tic. In other words, resist the cliches. For example: Do we really need another a scotch-drinking, jazz-loving PI, who’s burned out after too many years as a cop? Similarly, repeat that process with the villain. Finally, consider what if anything connects the protagonist and the antagonist? They don’t have to be long-lost brothers or have been enemies when your main character was on the force, but maybe they each possess a similar flaw, one that they recognize in the other and seek to exploit.
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4) Avoid the tropes.
While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about cliches’ lesser-known cousin, tropes. Unless you’ve got some great way to turn the conventions of the genre on their head, try not to write the scenes we’ve all read a thousand times before. Avoid things like the dame with legs up to her neck walking into the hardboiled detective’s office or the cop who’s three days from retirement and catches a case that threatens to be his or her undoing. You are unique. Your life experiences are different from every other person on the planet, even if just a little. Find something unique to say in your fiction.
5) Know the ending of your story.
And preferably the middle too. Most writers have a great opening in them, a few stellar chapters that set up the plot. But often the story bogs down after the first 50 pages or so. Fortunately, there’s a fix for that. Spend some time before you start writing figuring out your story, especially the ending but also who your suspects might be or what the twist is, if you have one. The outline versus don’t outline argument is alive and well and not going to be settled here. But when it comes to writing detective fiction—no matter if the story is set in the 1950s or the current day—at a minimum it’s important to know who committed the crime early in the process. And that means some form of an outline, even if it’s a very short one.
6) Make your detective detect.
Your protagonist should not be passive. They need to try to solve the crime. That means they need to search for clues and interview subjects. In other words, they should not have the answers handed to them. A few years ago, there was a great limited series on TV about a police officer in a small town who investigates a murder that rocked her tight-knit community. The show was a huge success, but the main character rarely went through the motions of working the crime. Instead, she visited various friends and family members, and while talking about the case someone would invariably say something like, “Hey, did you know that _____ is back in town?” Those conversations formed the bulk of her inquiries. Because of the quality of the talent and the compelling characters, the show worked beautifully. But it was not a good example of a procedural story. So make your investigator investigate.
7) Come up with a great crime.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a murder, a bank robbery, or a purloined cat, the crime needs to be memorable, unique, and—here’s the important part—unsolvable. (Need some ideas? See point No. 1 about tech.) Your detective must face a case that is impossible to crack. A hopeless situation, one that is, pardon the metaphysical detour, beyond redemption. That’s how heroes become heroic. By doing the impossible.
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8) Shun gimmicks.
When you set up your unsolvable case, don’t resort to gimmicks to achieve justice. Readers will feel cheated if you resolve your story using coincidence, deus ex machina, or the dreaded “it was all a dream.” This means more work for the writer, especially on the front side (See No. 5 about outlines), but by putting in the effort you’ll earn the readers’ respect and have them begging for a sequel.