A crime writer is someone with a special interest in crime reporting. Crime writers have the ability to write for various different media and their work is extremely variable in scope. A crime writer who covers true crime could be interested in true crime novels, television shows, or journalism. A journalist might specialize in one type of media or work in a variety, but all crime writers have their own interests, likes, and dislikes.
There are many different kinds of crime fiction writers out there, and their interests tend to vary widely. Some crime writers write in the detective genre, while others prefer true crime stories set in environments that mirror the modern day. The same can be said for sci-fi and alternate history fiction. There are also a few areas of specialization within the genre of crime fiction, such as alternative law enforcement, real time police drama, and whodunit novels.
Most crime novels start out as real life events, even if they are based in the future. They begin by providing a small amount of information about what is taking place in the beginning, the main characters, and a minimal amount of detail about the intricate details of the crime. As the story progresses, more details are revealed. Crime novels can also take place in the future, perhaps ten or twenty years down the road. They can deal with different time periods (the 80’s come to mind) and have a much different cast of characters. As the name implies, a term crime writer would write about crime that occurs within a short period of time (a trial, for instance, happening in September of 2021).
Another specialty area of crime fiction is short stories. These novels can cover a wide range of topics, from the serious to the funny, from the tragic to the absurd. Short stories are usually written in installments, each featuring a different slice of the crime puzzle. The number of installments depends on how long a crime writer wants his or her stories to run, but in most cases, these novels are only around forty pages long.
One can classify crime writer novels into different categories. Some of these are Western, which feature criminals from various regions of the West; Thriller, which centers on sensational stories of crime; Mystery, which revolves around something that is still unexplained; Science Fiction, which takes the idea of aliens invading the planet and using it to create a plot; Fantasy, which features magical feats that are too unbelievable for the normal world to understand; and Period Pieces, which is the tale of a puzzle or series of puzzles that a writer conceives and designs. These are only a few examples, and there are many more genres that crime novelists can explore. This means that there are more possibilities for the type of crime novel than most people give it credit for.
So if you want to start out writing a crime novel, make sure you do some reading about crime fiction first. Read novels like On the Street, by Stephen King and others like it to get an idea about the different sub-genres of crime fiction and how they are written. You can also look at famous crime fiction novels to get an idea of the plots of popular books. Once you have an idea of what type of story you want to write, the next step will be choosing your main character and building up the rest of the cast and crew of your crime fiction novel.
