Realism in Fictional Murder

Last week I talked about Skeletons and the month before I talked about Body Decomposition. Next month the plan is to discuss blood spatter but today, I just want to touch on why I'm doing this series.

Crime fiction – with the exception of paranormal and science fiction – is written as a parallel to reality. How the audience sees these situations is a direct result of how the writer presents reality - I know that may seem obvious but stick with me here. It's the job of the writer to depict their reality in a way that their readers can connect to and the way that's done in Crime Fiction - and any fiction involving death - is to be accurate but creative. Your readers are not stupid and some part of your audience is going to know the specifics while the other part is expecting to be informed properly. Entertaining but educational. That's what I think crime fiction should be. Making the audience forget that it's just fiction.

That is accomplished by knowing the basics - at least. That was the inspiration for creating this series. Over the last several years I've found myself fascinated with death - one day I will try to explain it to you - and I've always wondered what the point was of writing a piece of fiction based in this reality that wasn't realistic. Death and crime in general is everywhere and there has never been a time when writers could get away with not doing their research but now, more than ever, writers have to be on top of forensics if that's what they're going to write.

But also this series is just for the deathly curious; the people who just find forensics interesting. I invite people to correct me - I am not a professional or an expert on this subject by any means. This is just me in my morbid curiosity writing down and sharing the things I find dark and interesting. You are all welcome to join the macabre club and send me suggestions, pointers, ideas; anything that you'd like to see me tackle?