How to write crime fiction - Sue Grafton

Sep 21, 2015

Tips from Sue Grafton

1. She keeps a journal which has all the ideas and rantings for the book.
2. After a 5-mile walk and breakfast, shower, email, facebook.  Keeps a journal for each novel - about writing of the book to herself. e.g. in W,  660 double spread pages for the book.  1268 single-spaced page journal.


Every sentence is edited before the end of the chapter so that she does not need to do it. She writes every sentence over and over till it is right. If tone or pace is off, goes back to do again. No rough draft as she has fixed it in early chapter. Very slow process. Takes a year to write a novel. Incapable of doing rough draft or work in team. Write everyday. Gives meaning to her life. Now 75 years at X.

Folly to assign meaning to every chance event or synchronicity - odd things happen. Use it as a launching pad ie. lead with it.

e.g. in W,  dead unscrupulous private investigate and dead homeless man.   

3. Mystery noval (Crime fiction) is 3 categories
amateur sleuth, the police procedure, the private eye (Raymond Chandler, Dashell Hammett, Marsha McDonnell).

4. Essentials in writing a mystery novel
 How to structure a story
 How to write a dialogue
 How to get into and out of a scene
 How to do action.
Use enough details to bring a scene to life.
Reader v writer contest.  Reader figures out what happens. Write - magic. Why do we kill each other. What makes people cross the line?  No gore.

Focus on writing, not be distracted. volunteer work etc.
Quit worrying about doing I right. Writing is like play..
Shadow is intuition. unconscious. a bad person. Ego is the good person.

Everybody is in confessional mode nowadays.

Keeps an elaborate chart of what  she's done andwhere  she's been.  

5. Do not repeat stories in a series.
6. Function dictates form.
7. Multiple points of views must be balanced with POV of protagonist.

8. Create suspense. Readers more interested in who will win or get away with the crime, not who does it.

9. Too many characters will not work.  e.g. 14 characters in a TV series.
10. Too many storylines will  not work.   Use one.
  e.g. elderly abuse. 
11. Connect two storylines  e.g. elderly abuse and child abuse (paedophiles).  Same phenomenon as both are predators.

12.  Shadow side and Ego side.
Our impulse dictates life for the layman.

13. Better to do page count. 2pages a day. Page count in 20 minutes is good.