Crime: it’s a part of our everyday lives. But the crimes we commit—speeding, minor tax avoidance, shoplifting, sodomy, depending on the jurisdiction in which we reside—don’t always make for the best reading. A crime story needs kidnapping, grand larceny, murder. These most likely aren’t part of our daily lives, at least in my case not intentionally.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a degenerate criminal to write about it with a great degree of verisimilitude. There are tons of new crimes committed every day to inspire you. In fact, this was one of the reasons I decided to open D&E offices in a bad part of town. I felt that it would inspire me and some of our other writers to take that excitement and put it into our work. The other reason was I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money. Actually, I put up a sign at the door to our abandoned lobby that just said “Free Crack” to invite in the criminal element. (Though, aside from one sweet man with short-term memory loss, the crackheads grew wise and moved elsewhere once they realized it was an empty promise.)

Now, you don’t have to do anything that extreme. Some of you may be thinking, however, that every possible crime story has already been done: the butler did it, the rich guy did it, the victim did it to themselves, everybody did it, the narrator did it, nobody did it and the victim is actually okay, God did it. And I should point out that if you care about spoilers, you shouldn’t have viewed that last section. 

Well, for starters, it’s important to remember that current events are filled with people committing a litany of very interesting and brazen crimes. And you also need to remember, as we develop new technologies, who knows what new types of crime we’ll discover? Today, Elon Musk’s Neuralink is simply committing the mundane crime of lobotomizing spider monkeys; tomorrow, those neural implants could be used to secretly implant the memory of having listened to Elon Musk’s terrible jokes into unsuspecting victims.

But none of that matters and to be honest most of the article up until this point has been pointless because the crime in your narrative isn’t what’s going to make your story stand out. In this article, I’ll use some of the crimes I’ve committed that have already passed the statute of limitations to explore what readers actually want. We’ll unknowingly break endangered species trafficking laws on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

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Number 1 – Standout With Your Setting

Ankh-Morpork. Gotham. New Orleans: All fictional cities synonymous with crime. Sometimes a reader just wants to spend time exploring an interesting world more than anything. Even if your story is a simple rich girl fakes her death to get away from incestuous pedophile father tale, a unique setting can make all of the difference.

D&E Publishing Offices were that setting when it first opened its doors in 2015. Aside from the aforementioned crack den in our lobby, we were also operating without a business license. (Though, in fairness, the internet was not what it was today back then, so it was harder to look up how to apply for such things.) The lack of business license also meant I didn’t do background checks on any of my employees, and while I can’t say for sure, I’d guess Doug “Killer Eyes” Henderson probably didn’t get his name from his modelling career. Anyway, this made for a very entertaining workplace, if nothing else.

Number 2 – Standout with Your Criminal

Anybody who watches this channel knows that my second wife’s new husband is the greatest villain in my life. Unfortunately, despite thousands of hours spent following him, the only crime he’s committed are the aforementioned anti-sodomy laws, and I couldn’t convince Italian authorities to prosecute and extradite him, no doubt hampered by the language barrier.

Anyway, he wouldn’t make for a memorable criminal. I, on the other hand, would, at least according to many of my former employees and students. In fact, it was impressive how many drafts and manuscripts of my associates were about students and employees committing the crime of murdering an overbearing teacher or boss. While I never exactly felt in mortal danger, I did start making all my coffee at home and getting my assistant to start my car. Anyway, the interesting thing about these stories is the criminals actually become the heroes. Making the criminal the sympathetic protagonist is a great way to standout. Which brings me to my next point…

Number 3 – Standout with Your Message

Nowadays, people want their art to say something, even the more formulaic crime fiction. Gone Girl teaches us that women will freak out over a minor infraction like cheating on her, even when the girl we do it with is crazy hot and it would be stupid not to. And The Thursday Murder Club taught us that old people can still serve a purpose.

Depending on your intended audience, your message could be that racism is embedded in the institutions and structures of our society and manifests even in the absence of personal prejudice, or it could be that black people are the real racists. My decision to have D&E Publishing sell copies of Hitman, a technical manual for how to kill someone and a book deemed by federal appellate courts to have no first amendment protections, was a real-life example of a crime with a message. If we ever actually sell a copy, we’ll see what the Supreme Court has to say.

Number 4 – Standout with Your Detective

Early 20th century mystery writer Ronald Knox had 10 commandments for writing crime novels. One of his rules was that “No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.” (Though, his fifth commandment was that “No Chinamen should figure in the story.” Not… not exactly sure what to make of that.) Anyway, he is right when he says that we want to see the struggles of the detective. Real detective work is messy, and there are a million false leads to go to nowhere. Solving a crime is not a straightforward linear narrative. The fact that I’m a free man should indicate that not everything gets wrapped up in a neat bow.