Originality is something that we all strive for as writers, and particularly in a popular, competitive genre like crime fiction, it’s important for writers to develop their own style that sets them apart from the rest. With this in mind, here are some tips for writing original crime fiction, and feel free to add your own or share your thoughts in the comments.
- Use an unusual point of view. There’s no rule that says your novel has to be written from the point of view of anyone in particular. It can also be worth playing around with POV in the draft stages of your novel to work out where the interest lies in the story; you don’t have to use it all in the finished novel, but it can help to highlight where your main sources of originality can be found.
- Develop your writing voice. This is something that counts for all books, not just crime fiction writing. The way you write is one of the main sources of originality: sometimes it’s not about writing a story that’s completely new, it’s about telling it in a new way.
- Think about the small things. It’s often said that there are only a limited number of stories in the world and, if you think about crime fiction, there are a number of familiarities in the genre. Someone usually dies. Someone usually investigates the death. Obstacles happen. These things are in the nature of the genre, so originality is often in the smaller details of the specific book you’re writing.
- Make character integral to the planning process. If all you’re worried about is the sequence of events that make up your plot, it’s unlikely that the end result will be particularly original. However, if your starting point is your characters and how they react to things, you’ll have a much better chance of coming up with something unique and interesting, because no author crime author will have the same characters as you do.
- Don’t be afraid of mad concepts. If you’ve got an idea for a crime novel that sounds mad and outlandish, well, it might be. It might work. It might not, but it’s certainly worth giving it time and seeing where you can go with it.
- Pay attention to location. Many of the best, most original crime novels have a very definite sense of place: think of the popularity of Scandinavian fiction with its very distinctive landscapes, or the version of Glasgow depicted in William McIlvanney’s crime novels.
- Think how you can use technology. The great thing about the modern world is that originality isn’t just about the novel itself, it’s also about everything else that goes with the novel – how you publish it and promote it, and how you build on work you’ve done before. Social media, book trailers, other promotions and self-publishing can all be used to do things in a different way.