Criminal fiction: ten cliches to avoid

Website design By BotEap.comCrime fiction is big business right now, but there are certain situations that have been so exaggerated that they have become genre clichés and everyone knows what to expect next. Here are ten cliches you should try to avoid and thoughts on how to subvert the cliches if you decide to use them.

Website design By BotEap.comPolice and Doctors

Website design By BotEap.comYou can find this perennial favorite in both crime and historical fiction. You’ll see it on ER, NYPD Blue, and on cross-genre shows like The X-Files. The doctor says “Okay, but just for a minute” or “It’s a tap and go. The next few hours will be crucial” or “It could be minutes, it could be days … you never know with coma cases “Cops generally don’t say anything. They just stand and chew on the landscape in frustration.

Website design By BotEap.comMulder and Scully spend a lot of their time hanging around hospitals, but you don’t realize it because patients are not your ordinary criminals or witnesses.

Website design By BotEap.comAnd that’s the way to fix this problem. Give it a new twist and add some tension. Perhaps the patient is related to the policeman or the doctor. Or maybe the doctor is an amateur detective and knows more than the police? But watch out for the “Dick Van Dyke” syndrome … which takes you into a whole new area of ​​cliché.

Website design By BotEap.comThe new partner

Website design By BotEap.comIn this scenario, a veteran cop has to find a new partner after the death of the previous one. The newbie is eager as mustard and eager to please, or is exhausted by personal problems. He’s probably best known in modern times from the Lethal Weapon movies. The writers tried to add some tension to the beginning of the series by having Mel Gibson as a borderline suicide case, and that gave the first film an edge; but it was lost in later installments. By the time the fourth movie came around, they had fallen so deeply into a movie buddy relationship that the entire drama was lost in favor of light comedy.

Website design By BotEap.comYou need to do serious subversion if you want to use this situation. People have tried having a dog as a companion in K9, and having their mother as a companion in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and have strangers as friends in the great Arnie’s Red Heat.

Website design By BotEap.comOutside of strictly police procedure, we’ve also had the robot sidekick in Robocop, the ghost sidekick in Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), the alien sidekick in Alien Nation, the wizard sidekick in Jonathan Creek, the ex-military sidekick in Sherlock Holmes and Poirot. . The list goes on and on.

Website design By BotEap.comRegardless of how you do it, filling in the blanks is easy in this scenario. What you need is something new. What if they give the policeman a politician who does a period of meeting with the people? Or, on a completely bland but it could be fun level, how about the schizophrenic cop who is your own friend?

Website design By BotEap.comThe rookie in the morgue

Website design By BotEap.comOnce it was only the province of young students in Quincy, it now appears on television in the CSI or Crossing Jordan franchise and in print in the Kay Scarpetta books. There are generally two ways to proceed with this one. Either the young policeman runs off, his hand over his mouth, or he stands still, frozen and distant, while the autopsy progresses.

Website design By BotEap.comInspector Morse tried to subvert this by making the veteran the most apprehensive, but what if the rookie was the pathologist?

Website design By BotEap.comWhatever you do, try not to give the pathologist a chance to be cocky and condescending while explaining large parts of the plot. In the UK, this is exaggerated in Silent Witness and Waking the Dead, and it’s just a lazy way to move the story forward.

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Website design By BotEap.comIn movies and TV shows, this happens to every lead, and Clint Eastwood must be tired of it. In the series Dirty Harry he was rarely out of his boss’s office.

Website design By BotEap.comIt usually ends up with the lieutenant and the cop growling at each other, so what if one of them is completely calm and relaxed? Or what if one of them is deaf?

Website design By BotEap.comAnd if you must write this scene, don’t use phrases like “I’ll have your badge for that” or “I won’t cover you this time.”

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Website design By BotEap.comThis was a favorite at NYPD Blue and it was guaranteed to get right on Sipowitz’s nose. Once you have presented the elegant suit, the elegant hairdo and the briefcase, this guy will inevitably say, “My client has no further comment” or “He had no right to speak to him without me being there.” Everyone knows the rest.

Website design By BotEap.comOnce again, something serious is needed to put a new spin on this situation. Could your lawyer be a former cop who knows all the moves, or a relative or lover of one of the policemen? How about a lawyer who defends himself? Or a counterculture lawyer covered in tattoos and piercings?

Website design By BotEap.comWhatever you do, try to come up with some creative invective. Slimeball, sleazeball, reptile, and shyster have been abused.

Website design By BotEap.comCar chase

Website design By BotEap.comBullit and The French Connection set the standard, and Gone in 60 Seconds brought it into the 21st century, but this situation has become almost tiresome. There are a limited number of old ladies to avoid, so many road signs to hit, and so many police cars to throw away before the public tires.

Website design By BotEap.comOver the years, Bond movies have spent almost every possible permutations, so you’ll have a hard time finding something new. It would be better to add tension in another way.

Website design By BotEap.comIn an attempt to look cool, the chase element has sometimes been removed entirely in favor of the race against time, as in Speed ​​or Die Hard With a Vengeance. To be successful, you will need a good reason for the journey to take place, a disastrous outcome if you are unsuccessful, and a few good near misses along the way.

Website design By BotEap.comBut beware. Too much carnage and your readers will start thinking about The Blues Brothers. And please don’t let your protagonist drive the wrong way down a one-way street … it’s been done too often.

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Website design By BotEap.comRaymond Chandler’s advice to crime writers still stands. “If your plot is weakening, bring in a man with a gun.” However, you must be careful. Too many people still transfer scenes from old cowboy movies almost literally to modern police scenes.

Website design By BotEap.comProbably the best recent shootout was on Michael Mann’s Heat. You cared who lived or who died, and there was excitement and tension. Therein lies the trick. Make your readers have an opinion, not only about your hero, but also about the other characters. By the end of LA Confidential, we knew everyone involved in the climax, and it was more satisfying to see who lived or died. Lining up one-dimensional people like cannon fodder might work in a popcorn movie on Saturday night, but we should aim higher than that.

Website design By BotEap.comShootouts work well on film, but they can be a drag on printing. Some writers tend to slow things down, especially to take a closer look at injuries. Unless you’re careful, it can read like a medical textbook.

Website design By BotEap.comAnd please don’t have heads “exploding like ripe watermelons.”

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Website design By BotEap.comThis was used on Chips in all episodes, giving them an excuse to show a motorcycle speeding from a parking lot with loose gravel flying.

Website design By BotEap.comHe’s also a favorite in most of the aforementioned buddy movies, and especially Starsky and Hutch. They will be in a cafe, reflecting on the criticism they have had from their boss, when a call comes in. The radio plays, giving them a chance to put a flashing light on the roof of their car and head into a car chase, closely followed by a shooting. Do you see how it is possible to turn one cliche into another? Very soon you would have a complete plot, but would someone buy it?

Website design By BotEap.comOne way to change this scene could be to have an alternative means for the police to get the message. Could you make them listen to something on TV? Or how about on a cell phone or laptop … there are multiple opportunities for mistakes, misunderstandings, or criminal actions there, and they haven’t been exaggerated … yet.

Website design By BotEap.comGood cop / bad cop

Website design By BotEap.comThe interview between the good cop and the bad cop became a cliche almost as soon as the crime fiction began. A good example, almost seventy years old, can be seen in The Maltese Falcon. By now, everyone knows the moves and your readers will be bored long before the interview is over. Unless you are self-referential and ironic, like in LA Confidential, you will never make it.

Website design By BotEap.comCracker tried to completely subvert the interview situation by having it conducted by a psychiatrist who played the two policemen in one. In The Rock, Sean Connery as a prisoner told Nicholas Cage what questions he should ask. You will need to find something equally innovative if you want it to work.

Website design By BotEap.comHow about having two good cops? Or two bad cops? Or maybe there is a new computer system designed by psychologists to ask the right questions in the right order? How would your cops and your prisoner handle that?

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Website design By BotEap.comWhy do all fictional cops have relationship problems? This scene always goes the same way. The wife says, “You never see children again.” The policeman does not say anything, because his mobile phone interrupts. You know the rest.

Website design By BotEap.comCracker is again a good example, as he went through this scene in almost every episode. Pacino played a variation with his girlfriend on Heat.

Website design By BotEap.comNot only does Cracker have a failed marriage, but he’s also a gambler and a drinker. In recent years, people have been giving cops more and more trouble to overcome, culminating in Paraplegic Investigator Denzel Washington at The Bone Collector. I wouldn’t even try to get over that.

Website design By BotEap.comWhy not be original? Make your police a healthy, stable and happily married man. Now there is a challenge.

Website design By BotEap.comConclution

Website design By BotEap.comThe next time you read or watch a police drama, take a look at how many of the above are still in use. They can all occur in any story, and they often do … just shuffle the paragraphs, add a murder or two, and you have an instant plot.

Website design By BotEap.comBut unless you can subvert some of the cliches, don’t expect anyone to believe you.