Common Mistakes Crime Writers Make (And How to Avoid Them)

The crime fiction genre continues to captivate readers worldwide with its blend of suspense, psychological insight, and the eternal battle between justice and lawlessness. However, even experienced crime writers can fall into predictable traps that diminish the impact of their narratives. This comprehensive guide examines the most common mistakes crime writers make and provides practical strategies for avoiding these pitfalls. Whether you’re crafting your first crime manuscript or refining your tenth thriller, understanding these common errors will help elevate your writing from conventional to compelling.

Procedural Inaccuracies That Undermine Credibility

In an era when readers have unprecedented access to information about law enforcement procedures and forensic techniques, technical inaccuracies can instantly detract from an otherwise engaging crime narrative.

Misrepresenting Police Procedures

One of the most prevalent issues in crime fiction is the misrepresentation of how law enforcement operates. These procedural errors can range from minor inconsistencies to fundamental misunderstandings of police work.

Common police procedural mistakes include:

Detectives Working in Isolation: Modern investigations involve teams of specialists rather than lone-wolf detectives who handle everything from evidence collection to interrogation.
Jurisdictional Confusion: Many crime novels ignore the complex jurisdictional boundaries between local police, county sheriff departments, state police, and federal agencies.
Improper Chain of Custody: Evidence handling follows strict protocols that many writers simplify or ignore, creating plot holes for knowledgeable readers.
Unrealistic Case Assignment: Detectives rarely assign cases based on personal connections or coincidental links to the victim, yet this remains a common fictional trope.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Develop relationships with current or former law enforcement professionals who can review your work for accuracy.
Attend citizen police academies offered by many departments specifically to educate the public.
Read actual police procedural manuals and department guidelines, many of which are publicly available.
Study real case files and investigation reports to understand authentic documentation and procedure.
Acknowledge them through character dialogue or internal reflection when creating necessary fictional departures from the procedure.

Forensic Science Fallacies

Television crime dramas have created widespread misconceptions about forensic capabilities, leading many writers to perpetuate these “CSI effect” fallacies in their work.

Problematic forensic representations include:

Instantaneous Results: Forensic testing often takes days, weeks, or even months—not the minutes depicted in fiction.
DNA Overreliance: While powerful, DNA evidence isn’t available in every case and can be contaminated, degraded, or absent.
Ballistics Oversimplification: Firearms identification is far more complex and sometimes less conclusive than typically portrayed.
Perfect Fingerprint Recovery: Many surfaces don’t retain usable fingerprints; those recovered are often partial or smudged rather than perfect whorls.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Consult with actual forensic specialists in different disciplines rather than relying on entertainment media.
Acknowledge the limitations and uncertainties in forensic science through your characters’ dialogue and analysis.
Incorporate realistic timelines for testing and results reporting.
Study actual case reports and expert testimony to understand how findings are presented and their limitations.
Consider subscribing to forensic journals or attending criminology conferences to deepen your understanding.

Legal System Misrepresentations

The courtroom often serves as the dramatic culmination of crime narratives, yet many writers fundamentally misrepresent how legal proceedings function.

Frequent legal system errors include:

Dramatic Courtroom Revelations: Due to discovery requirements, surprise witnesses and last-minute evidence are typically excluded from real proceedings.
Misunderstanding Basic Procedures: Many writers confuse preliminary hearings, arraignments, motions, and trials or compress these distinct proceedings unrealistically.
Prosecutor/Defense Relationships: The adversarial nature of these roles is often exaggerated, while the ethical obligations of prosecutors are frequently overlooked.
Unrealistic Trial Timelines: The lengthy process from arraignment to trial is commonly compressed to maintain narrative momentum.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Observe actual court proceedings, which are generally open to the public.
Consult with legal professionals, particularly those practicing criminal law.
Review trial transcripts from similar cases to understand authentic courtroom language and procedure.
Research-specific jurisdictional rules, as procedures, vary significantly between locations.
Consider building tension within realistic constraints rather than resorting to dramatic but inaccurate courtroom moments.

Character Development Shortcomings

Beyond procedural accuracy, crime fiction relies on believable, complex characters to drive narratives forward. Character-related mistakes can undermine otherwise strong plots.

One-Dimensional Detectives and Investigators

The detective or investigator typically serves as the reader’s guide through the criminal landscape, yet many writers rely on worn stereotypes rather than creating multidimensional characters.

Common detective character problems include:

The Perfect Investigator: Protagonists who never make mistakes, always intuit correctly, and lack meaningful flaws become predictable and unrealistic.
Trauma Without Consequences: Many fictional detectives experience significant trauma yet continue functioning without realistic psychological impact.
Alcoholism as Character Development: Substance abuse has become a lazy shorthand for creating “troubled” detectives without exploring deeper characterization.
Inexplicable Intuitive Leaps: Detectives who solve cases through unexplained hunches rather than demonstrable investigative processes undermine credibility.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Develop comprehensive backstories for your investigators, even if most details never appear explicitly in your manuscript.
Create meaningful personal conflicts that parallel professional challenges.
Research actual psychological responses to trauma and violence if portraying investigators working in traumatic cases.
Ensure your detective’s investigation methods are understandable and consistent with their established character traits.
Allow your protagonists to make mistakes, face consequences, and grow throughout the narrative.

Unconvincing Criminal Psychology

Creating believable antagonists presents perhaps the greatest character challenge in crime fiction. Poorly developed criminals often undermine otherwise strong narratives.

Problematic criminal portrayals include:

Motiveless Malignity: Antagonists who commit crimes without comprehensible motivation fail to engage readers.
Evil for Evil’s Sake: One-dimensional villains without complexity or humanity rarely create sustained tension.
Psychological Disorder Stereotypes: Many writers rely on inaccurate portrayals of mental health conditions rather than researching authentic criminal psychology.
Inconsistent Behavior: Criminals whose methods and patterns change without explanation create plot holes rather than suspense.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Research actual criminal psychology through academic sources rather than fictional portrayals.
Develop complete psychological profiles for your antagonists, including motivations, justifications, and emotional states.
Consider consulting with forensic psychologists who evaluate actual offenders.
Study case histories of similar crimes to understand authentic patterns and behaviors.
Create distinct voices and perspectives for your antagonists that reflect their worldviews and justifications.

Victims as Plot Devices

Perhaps the most ethically problematic tendency in crime fiction is the reduction of victims to mere plot catalysts without humanity or dignity.

Common victim portrayal problems include:

Interchangeable Victims: Characters whose deaths serve merely to advance plots without distinct personalities or histories.
Gratuitous Victimization: Explicit violence that serves no narrative purpose beyond shock value.
Demographic Stereotyping: Over-representation of certain groups as victims without considering the implications.
Lack of Community Impact: Failing to represent how crimes affect communities and secondary characters beyond the immediate investigation.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Develop victim characters as fully as other principals, even if their appearance in the narrative is brief.
Consider narrating portions from the victim’s perspectives, either before or after the crime.
Explore the ripple effects of violence through family members, communities, and investigators.
Critically examine your choices regarding who becomes victimized in your narratives and why.
Research victimology to understand the authentic psychological and social impacts of crime.

Plot and Structure Weaknesses

Even with accurate procedures and well-developed characters, crime narratives can fall flat through structural and plotting missteps.

Pacing Imbalances

Crime fiction demands careful control of narrative momentum, yet many writers struggle to maintain consistent engagement throughout their manuscripts.

Common pacing problems include:

Front-Loading Information: Overwhelming readers with technical details and character backgrounds before establishing narrative momentum.
Sagging Middle Syndrome: Loss of tension between the initial crime and the final resolution.
Rush to Resolution: Accelerating pacing too dramatically in closing chapters, creating a sense of artificial convenience.
Uneven Chapter Length: Inconsistent chapter structure disrupts the reading experience’s rhythm.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Map your narrative tension on a chapter-by-chapter basis, identifying and resolving flat spots.
Create multiple tension threads operating simultaneously at different tempos.
Establish clear milestone events that propel the narrative forward at regular intervals.
Vary scene length and intensity intentionally rather than arbitrarily.
Consider implementing subplot climaxes during main plot valleys to maintain engagement.

Predictable Twists and Revelations

The crime genre relies heavily on surprise and revelation, yet many writers employ twists so experienced readers can anticipate chapters in advance.

Predictability issues often include:

The Obvious Suspect: When the pool of potential perpetrators is too limited, readers quickly identify the guilty party.
The Red Herring Parade: Conversely, introducing too many obvious suspects signals to readers that none are likely guilty.
The Convenient Confession: Relying on spontaneous admissions of guilt rather than investigative resolution.
The Unmotivated Betrayal: Revelations that contradict established character motivations without sufficient foreshadowing.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Create multiple viable suspects with genuine motives, means, and opportunities.
Develop red herrings with a substantial narrative purpose beyond mere misdirection.
Plant subtle clues that appear insignificant until contextualized by later revelations.
Test your manuscript with genre-savvy beta readers to identify predictable elements.
Focus on why and how questions rather than merely who, adding complexity to your mystery elements.

Logic Gaps and Convenient Coincidences

Nothing thoroughly undermines a crime narrative than solutions that rely on implausible coincidences or ignore established story logic.

Common logical issues include:

The Miraculous Discovery: Critical evidence that appears precisely when needed without plausible investigative methodology.
Character Amnesia: Characters who inexplicably fail to share critical information until the plot requires it.
Geographical Impossibilities: Failing to account for realistic travel times and distances within your narrative timeline.
Technology Magic: Relying on technological capabilities that exceed realistic capabilities, particularly in contemporary settings.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Create detailed timelines and geography maps for your narrative world.
Establish clear rules regarding technology, evidence, and methodology early and adhere to them consistently.
Justify any coincidences through established character habits, procedures, or psychological patterns.
Review your manuscript specifically for information flow, ensuring characters share knowledge when they realistically would.
Ensure any exceptional circumstances feel earned through narrative development rather than convenient for plot resolution.

Market Awareness Failures

Beyond craft issues, many crime writers struggle to position their work effectively within the evolving marketplace.

Misunderstanding Subgenre Conventions

The crime fiction category encompasses numerous distinct subgenres, each with specific reader expectations that authors ignore at their peril.

Subgenre positioning mistakes include:

Cozy Crime Tonal Violations: Introducing graphic violence or explicit content into a subgenre that demands lighter treatment.
Procedural Inconsistency: Alternating police procedural and amateur detective approaches without coherent framing.
Thriller/Mystery Confusion: Failing to distinguish between mystery (withheld information) and thriller (anticipation of consequences) structures.
Historical Anachronisms: Imposing contemporary sensibilities, technologies, or procedures in historical settings.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Read widely within your target subgenre, identifying common conventions and expectations.
Research publisher and agent guidelines regarding specific subgenre definitions and parameters.
Identify comparable titles that align with your narrative approach, studying their structures and techniques.
Consider how your work both satisfies and innovates within established subgenre patterns.
Test your manuscript with readers familiar with your specific subgenre for feedback on convention alignment.

Neglecting Diverse Perspectives

Contemporary crime fiction increasingly demands authentic representation across different identities, yet many writers perpetuate limited or stereotypical portrayals.

Representation issues include:

Homogeneous Character Pools: Casts that fail to reflect the diverse reality of contemporary societies.
Cultural Appropriation: Depicting communities or experiences without adequate research or sensitivity.
Stereotypical Portrayals: Relying on clichéd characterizations rather than developed, individualized representations.
Savior Narratives: Positioning characters from privileged backgrounds as rescuers of marginalized communities.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Research authentic experiences through primary sources, including memoirs, interviews, and community engagement.
Employ sensitivity readers when writing beyond your direct experience.
Develop complex, multidimensional characters from various backgrounds who exist for narrative purposes beyond representing diversity.
Consider how systems and institutions affect characters differently based on their identities and backgrounds.
Approach representation as an opportunity for narrative richness rather than meeting perceived quotas.

Ignoring Reader Evolution

The crime fiction audience continues to grow more sophisticated in understanding genre conventions and actual criminal justice systems.

Reader expectation issues include:

Outdated Technologies: Failing to incorporate contemporary investigative technologies or procedures.
Social Context Blindness: Ignoring how social movements have changed public understanding of criminal justice.
Formula Overreliance: Adhering too rigidly to conventional structures without innovation.
Audience Knowledge Underestimation: Assuming readers lack specialized knowledge that has become widely accessible.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Stay informed about evolving technologies and methodologies in investigative fields.
Engage with contemporary discussions about criminal justice reform and its implications.
Read critically acclaimed contemporary crime fiction to understand evolving standards.
Consider how your narrative addresses or acknowledges systemic issues within criminal justice.
Develop approaches that both satisfy traditional genre appetites while offering fresh perspectives.

Craft and Technique Shortcomings

Even experienced writers can struggle with fundamental craft issues that particularly impact crime narratives.

Dialogue Deficiencies

Dialogue serves crucial functions in crime fiction, yet many manuscripts suffer from a conversation that feels artificial or expositional.

Common dialogue problems include:

Exposition Dumping: Characters explaining things they would realistically already know to each other.
Uniform Voice: Different characters speak with identical patterns, vocabulary, and sentence structures.
On-the-Nose Exchanges: Conversations that lack subtext, with characters directly stating their thoughts and feelings.
Dialect Overuse: Phonetic representations of accents that become distracting or potentially offensive.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Read each character’s dialogue in isolation to ensure distinctive voice patterns.
Incorporate subtext by having characters pursue conversational goals beyond the literal topic.
Use dialogue to create tension rather than merely exchange information.
Convey dialect and speech patterns through syntax and word choice rather than phonetic spelling.
Test dialogue by reading aloud, identifying passages that feel unnatural or expositional.

Point of View Inconsistencies

Crime narratives often employ complex perspective structures, creating opportunities for viewpoint errors that confuse readers.

Viewpoint problems include:

Head-Hopping: Shifting between character perspectives within scenes without clear transitions.
Convenient Omissions: Withholding information from readers that viewpoint characters would naturally perceive.
Inconsistent Limitations: Establishing a limited perspective but occasionally violating those constraints.
Perspective Choices Without Purpose: Employing multiple viewpoints without clear narrative justification.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Establish clear rules for your manuscript’s point-of-view approach and maintain consistency.
Consider how each viewpoint character’s personality and background would shape their perceptions.
When employing multiple perspectives, ensure each viewpoint serves distinct narrative purposes.
Review perspective transitions for clarity and purpose, eliminating any that don’t advance the narrative.
If withholding information from readers, ensure this occurs through character limitation rather than authorial manipulation.

Revision Resistance

Perhaps the most fundamental mistake crime writers make is in the revision process—either inadequate Editing or resistance to substantive changes.

Revision issues include:

Premature Submission: Sending manuscripts to agents or publishers before completing editing thorough revision.
Feedback Defensiveness: Rejecting critique rather than considering potential improvements.
Cosmetic Editing Only: Focusing exclusively on line-level issues while ignoring structural problems.
Research Retrofitting: Attempting to force research into an auditioning draft rather than allowing findings to shape the narrative organically.

How to avoid these mistakes:

Establish a structured revision process from major structural issues to line-level refinements.
Develop relationships with constructive critique partners familiar with crime fiction conventions.
Create distance before revision by setting completed drafts aside before beginning the editing process.
Consider how each scene serves multiple functions—plot advancement, character development, and theme exploration.
Recognize that substantive revision often transforms good manuscripts into exceptional ones.

Conclusion

The path to compelling crime fiction requires navigating numerous pitfalls, from procedural inaccuracies to character development shortcomings. By recognizing these common mistakes, writers can develop strategies to avoid them, creating narratives that satisfy genre expectations while offering fresh perspectives. Remember that even the most celebrated crime authors continue refining their craft with each new project. The most successful writers approach these challenges not as obstacles but as opportunities to elevate their work from conventional to exceptional, crafting crime fiction that resonates with authenticity, psychological depth, and narrative tension.

About Phillip Strang: A Master of Investigative Storytelling

With thirty-five novels spanning multiple genres, Phillip Strang demonstrates the power of thorough research in creating compelling narratives.

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